Today is Thanksgiving Day, 2013.  We had our 6 elders over and enjoyed a nice dinner and visit.  We were able to find a small 9 lb. turkey, which cost quite a bit of money, and then added some chicken pieces to it.  We made our Moroni marinated turkey and the elders just loved it.  I was in charge of the turkey and Linda did the two homemade pumpkin pies, which turned out to be the highlight of the dinner.  We had candied carrots, rolls, a relish tray, and one can of cranberry sauce, which we found in Singapore.  The mashed potatoes turned out great and we had a lovely dinner together.
After we all ate and stuffed ourselves, we sat down to watch a cartoon video of Joseph and the Amazing Coat of Colors, which would not show on our computer, so we watched "The Best Two Years" instead.  It was a fun Thanksgiving, but we sure missed our kids and grandkids.

 We were asked by Jared, our grandson, to send some pictures of the 3 Chinese students that we teach every Tuesday and Friday.  This is Yan Hao.  He is a little spitfire.  He is 5 years old and much smarter than me.  He loves to read and will chose a book over any game we get out.  I went through all my phonics lessons with him and he knew just about everything.  It is funny to listen to the Chinese people, young and old, say the "th" sound.  They just can't do it.  For the work "three" they say "tree".  Even the adults in our branch say the same sound incorrectly.  The other sound that Yan Hao can't say is the "v" sound.  He says a "w" sound instead.
He is really a very cute little boy and his mother attends with him almost every time. 

 This is Fang Ning and she works with Linda to read and gain better comprehension.  We don't seem to get along very well and it's better for mother to work with her.  If I worked with her, I would be swatting her little bottom end.  She is the drama queen and very bossy.  She is very intelligent and lets everyone know it.  I really can't be around her.  We set up a deal with her that if she treats us kindly and acts appropriately at our apartment, then she can play a game with us and her brother.  If she is not behaving, then she can watch us but cannot participate.  It just kills her and, even though I shouldn't enjoy it as much as I do, it's fun to see her frustrated.  After a few times missing the games, she caught on and is doing well now.

 This is Fang Yee.  He is 13 years old and really into "Wolverine" and action packed movies.  He is a delightful kid and I really enjoy working with him.  He is very respectful and fun to be around.  Fang Yee really struggles with understanding his English and comprehending what he reads.  We spend a lot of time in books and doing difficult English lessons from his school books.  Here, in Malaysia, a student takes a very long test every 6 months.  It includes numerous subjects and a student must pass with a score of 40 or above.  Below 40 and you failed the class.  Last time we studied together in June, he got a 47.  He just made it and his father was not happy.  We haven't got the results yet from the exam he just competed, but we were both more aware of what to study and he felt really good about it.

 When we are finished with all our homework, we usually play a game of "scrabble".  We found this old, old set at a stationary store and asked if we could buy it.  They sold it to me for 3 RM ($1.00).  We have played this game more times than anything.  Fang Yee loves it and the game teaches him many good skills in spelling and comprehension.  Beside that, he is very competitive and loves to win.  His sister, on the other hand, loves to cheat while she picks up plastic letter pieces and puts them back in the pile because she didn't like that one.  All she needs is one good swat, but I restrain myself and Linda keeps me in control.  We also bought a "Jenga" game and put all the phonics rules on each piece.  They love that game also.

 Here is a random picture of one of our very familiar friends, the local "cockroaches".  These guys run everywhere and they are literally huge.  This one is the size of my entire finger and his antenna are longer than that.  They are super fast and get into everything.  We had one in our laundry room, but it couldn't take the extreme heat and died.  This one was in the corner of the bathroom in the Masai Branch church.  No way was I going to sit down while he was in the corner. 

Here is a larger picture of the cockroach.  It is a bit fuzzy; the picture, not the cockroach.  The other picture to the right is a real classic.
Our sweet kids sent us a Christmas package for home.  We were so excited to open it and see what was inside.

We found all sorts of wonderful wrapped presents, packages of soup mixes and some hair color bottles for me (yeah!), calendar gifts for our Malay and Chinese leaders, etc.  As I opened the box, I began taking things out and some of the packages and boxes were sticky.  A few of the calendars, some sheets, all the candy canes and lots of other things in the box had some gooey sticky stuff all over them.  We kept searching and found a lovely gift, for Linda, of a box of Cherry Cordial (chocolate covered cherries in that delicious red syrup sauce all around them.  She just loves those every Christmas and instead of the delicious red syrup sauce around each cherry covered in chocolate, the red syrup sauce broke out of each candy and was through the entire package.  It was on almost everything and became this sticky mess.  We were just ready to eat the left over cherries, when we opened one more present that said, "Open me now".  It was a package of Hickory Farms cheese except this one was already nibbled on by a mouse somewhere between America and our apartment.
We figure the little critter was in one of the post office stations here in Malaysia and got into the package and went right for the cheese.  After that, we didn't dare eat the opened box of cherry chocolates for fear the little guy also ate some of that.  Bummer!  After cleaning and washing almost everything up, we salvaged all the gifts and calendars and wonderful things the kids sent us and put them under our 2 foot tree.  We are now going out to get a set of lights to put on this massive thing and hope the lights don't knock it over.  We are so grateful to our sweet family for their thoughtfulness and love for us.  One package, for me, was torn open, so I know I'm getting a blue shirt, but everything else we wiped off and set aside until December 25th.  Can't wait.