harry....potter?

thursday we had our second chinese lesson with tina. tina is a our native coordinator now that lucy went back home. we LOVE LOVE LOVE tina. she's even tinier than lucy and is the cutest girl ever. she's 24 and she used to be a teacher in xiaolan (shaow-lawn) (the town next to us). she does the funniest thing that is just hillarious. so she's taught us that chinese people also communicate through sounds and face expressions. lol. we've learned this from just being around her. if theres something that surprises her or is kind of shocking she'll do this noise kind of like an awhhhhhh? and with her eyes as big as can be. lol. i wish i could record it and have it so you can hear it. its funny. but she does it to everything.
so she is teaching us mandarin now every thursday and she is a very good teacher. lol. but i think we make her tired. and i think we're coming along pretty well but we still get pronounciations wrong and say a lot of bad words that make tina embarrassed. for example callie had a spot of dirt on her coat and she asked tina how to say this is dirty. and apparently you're supposed to like point to the spot and casually say it but i pointed at callie and said it a little strong, and apparently when you do that you call them a prostitute. and instead of saying dad (baba) callie said sh**. haha. tina wouldnt even tell us what she said. whenever we say something bad we have to force tina to tell us, but she gets embarassed for us so she wrote it on the white board. she's cute
and as for new news (you know compared to the old news i give you.) there is a new teacher that works for bond. bond being the english teaching company that we work for. but anyways new teacher, he's 24 and from ENGLAND!! his name is harry and when tina told us that callie goes, "potter?.." haha. it was funny. and then we found out his name is Harry Waters. lol. i love that it rhymes with potter. anyways. he's way tall, like 6'4'' and we've figured out that he is probably the most arrogant person we've ever met. ha. but he has an accent so its okay. haha. no but seriously he's fun to be around and he seems like a cool guy, just some of the things he says, oh man. lets just say he needs to take some classes in humility along with his mandarin classes. but its way cool that he's here now and he's way fun. and dom, an australian teacher who's worked for bond for forever is back from his vacation. he's older, probably mid-thirties a bit on the stout side but way fun and so so funny. so we have a cool little group at the bond office.
okay and then friday night tina invited us over to her apartment. she actually lives with gary, his wife bella, and nina (another employee at bond). and i've actually been a tad under the weather the week and lost my voice (which didnt help when my job is speaking english all day). so tina said she knew this good pear drink she could make me and then she would cook us dinner!! we were so excited. we want her to teach us how to cook but she thinks she's not a good cook at all. so the pear drink was pretty much hot melted rock candy. haha. with a pear slice in it. it was really good, just really really sugary. but dinner. oh my gosh. SO SO good. we are going to force tina how to cook. because it was amazing. and harry came over that night too for dinner. it was fun.
then tonite (saturday) dom started this english corner thing on saturdays. its where chinese people learning english can come and practice their english. so we go so we can talk people and they can use us for practice. it was way fun. i talked to two girls lori and fionna. who were so cute.
it was way way awkward but went well enough. we're going to try and go every saturday if we can. its just such a good opportunity for us to make some friends! and dom is so happy when we come. him and harry seem to run it now. so we all get to hang out, its just way fun. i'll try and get a picture of them so you can have a face to put with the stories. :)

next friday we head to guangzhou for district conference for church so we're pretty stoked about that. we have meetings on saturday and sunday but we're going friday after we get done teaching so we can explore guangzhou because i spose its a pretty neat place. and we (as in the four of us here in guzhen) volunteered to sing in church? dont ask how that happened but i'm just glad we all have pretty decent voices. so wish us luck!