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Ni Hao, 

Brooke made a short singapore video from last week:  

The girls loved the wide open space of the airport...lots of tumbling going on while Todd and Brigham sat in the free massage chairs.  Back to our home, feels good.  Smells bad.  Like a chemical moth ball smell. Bu hao.  Flight was good, landed at 8:05PM and they let us on the 8:30PM ferry.  Made for a quick ride home.  We all SMASHED into one taxi with our suitcases and the taxi driver didn't say a word so we gave him a(n) (uncommon in China)  tip.  Letter from Ally before we got on the airplane, nothing from Chase. 

Went to the bank to pay rent, it's always a hassle. I can't even explain it properly, but I wasn't too happy with "topper sunflower" worker girl today.  They get points for online transactions so she wanted me to pay rent on her ipad, only that needed a password that was being sent to Todd with a time limit while he was in meetings.  I kept saying "I just want to pay at the counter like I have for the past 13 months."  By the time she finally let me go to the counter, Todd had a bunch of texts saying that our rent was paid like 6 times.  So hard to figure that stuff out when you don't speak Mandarin! 

Online school is still not working properly.  Waiting for a grocery delivery and hopefully we will get our trampoline tonight.  Chase emailed, he had transfers and he has a new companion from the Philippines, who has three months left.  Same area, Eight Mile Plains and his other two roommates are the same.  His buddy, Elder Tribe went to be the Chinese Training Leader.  

"Gutter oil" continues to be a problem here. Front page of the paper.  Some company from Taiwan sold gobs of it(243 TONS) to 430 companies and there's really no way to track it to snack shops and night markets.  Maxim pineapple cakes were recalled, 85C, a noodle company and some moon cakes and "Other unnamed retailers".  Gutter oil is recycled  from waste oils collected from cookers, fryers and grease traps, recycled grease from leather processing plants for oils used in animal feeds.  YUM! Let's eat in. 

Happy Birthday Todd Parks! 

First day of seminary today. Good to be back.  This year we have nine students, all great teens who are fun to be around, respectful and smart. Pres. Ho came and green smoothies by Bro. Taylor also made an appearance. 

I was helping Brynn with school and told Sophie to get going.  I turned around a few minutes later and she was typing the web address with her toes.  She had three letters punched in, that girl.  We had Becky, our Mandarin tutor come today.  She teaches Brigham, Brynn and Sophie for an hour and then works with Brooke and me.  Brooke does well, but it's over my head.  Brigham is also taking Mandarin through the high school.  

Todd pulled his achilles a bit so his running is on hold. He hops the fence at the neighborhood pool for now.      

We couldn't find a way to get a trampoline to our house so Brigham and the girls carried the frame all the way across the neighborhood and up our steep hill in the heat and humidity,  in four trips.  The were dripping with sweat.   The little girls are selling tickets to their trampoline show. The original poster said "Come to Sophie's amazing Tramp Show" but we fixed that and made it more proper.  For 15 RMB (just under $3) you can get a "free" ticket.  It includes an art piece, the show and a snack.  

Friday: having the hardest time staying awake and it's just 9 am. I'm the only one on the shuttle bus to Walmart this morning so I just told the driver to take me back. Didn't want to make him wait for only me. I came home and made a large grocery order and they will deliver to my door. That works great for me today.Tried to stay awake for Mandarin class.  It hurts my aging brain.   As a family we went to Simply Life for dinner.  Brynn ordered the hamburger. When Sophie took a bite she bit down on something hard and showed us, something that looked like a cow tongue. It was an inch long by 3/4 inch thick,grayish color and gross.  I took the burger to the worker who quickly took it to the chef. They were going to make another but we said "no thanks". I still don't get how my kids can order a burger in China.  I just shake my head.  Todd thinks it was a pig knuckle. 

Saturday: Todd, Brooke and Brigham had an activity with church to go rafting.

Brigham: We ended up not going cause there was a big group coming and they were a bit late, So instead we went to a secret waterfall/pool. It was pretty cool. After that we went and had some really good food made by a Philipino guy. It was awesome. 

Brooke: Today started at 7:30 with a crammed Chinese van ride to a river rafting place 2 hours away. Things didn't work out with rafting, so we drove a little further to a place that looked like it had nothing but rocks. The Sanfords had explored this little area before, and knew that there was a hidden waterfall within the rocks, that can't be seen from the road. I loved how secluded it was because we were the only ones there; no long lines or crowded pools with that touristy feel to it… haha it was great. After we swam around for a little while and risked our lives climbing back out, we had some way good lunch while it poured outside. Right as we were finishing up our meal, it quit raining! so that was good timing! We made it home a few hours later and played a little volleyball before district conference. Super fun day!

Meanwhile, the girls and I hunted down some cookies at Subway.  I said I wanted 24 and the guy said "no". He said that will take all of our cookies.  The girl worker said they had enough and finally gave them to me.  They were for the Single Adult dinner after district conference today.  The last time we bought a bunch of cookies and sat down outside. A couple went in and then came out and said, "who goes in to subway and says 'give me all your cookies?'" Oops.

Brynn: I liked shopping with Mom and Soph.  I'm SUPER excited to go get Ally!! It was cool when we got back because Shannon and Chico (Ernesto) were there. We played X-box and made waffles. Next, we went to the church to get baby-sat while the parents and youth were at the adult meeting. Sophie and I could've stayed home by ourselves but we wanted to play with the babies. They were so cute! We watched Rio and a bit of Planes. I liked having Holly and Brother Jacobs stay the night.

Great meeting at the District Conference tonight. Todd spoke on Hastening the Work through Family History  and President Cox gave a great talk. I was telling him earlier that day that I was inviting a lot but keep getting rejected and that I need to work on my skills.  He replied, "listen to my talk tonight".  In the talk he said to keep trying, that we will be blessed for trying and that our sins would be forgiven as we share what we know to be true.   The closing song was "Called to Serve" and I couldn't sing it... I was missing Ally and Chase so much. It was great to see our friends from Dongguan and Guangzhou.  Terry Jacobs and Holly Dagg stayed with us overnight to be here for meetings tomorrow.  Milani sent a little note too: Hello Milani! Hope you and Carina are loving school.  

Sunday: Today's church meetings were at a hotel conference room today. The group of young girls that are here to teach English came today also. (ATTN BRIAN & TARA BUTLER,  one of the girls was from your ward…TAYLOR DAVIS (GADBURY?)).    Afterwards we had out-of-towners from Hong Kong, Warrs, Matt, Kimberly, Holly, Spencer, Ernesto and Youses for lunch...our house was a busy hubbub for a few hours, which we love.  Chicken tacos, veggie tacos, watermelon, chips/salsa, toppings, lemon yogurt cake and brownies.  The guests left and a  storm rolled in, thunder and lightening and all. 

We live in a great place surrounded by wonderful people.  We have lots of work to do, I'm learning that I missed out on a lot of opportunities to serve back at home.  Chalking that up to "life lessons learned in China".  My list is long.

Hope you all have a great week.  We leave to get Ally ONE week from tomorrow.  I can't believe it is happening! We won't see her until Thursday the 25th.  Makes me miss Chase all at the same time.  

Have a great week, we think of you often and miss home too much if we think about it too long.  Come visit! 

Love from China, 

Taylor Family

ASHLEY HO, thanks for the pictures from the waterfall!