This weekend, Savannah, Rhea, and I had a wonderful time at
a Young Women's sleepover and trip to an orphanage. We met and slept over at Sister Tanner's
house where we played games, ate tacos, watched a Christmas movie, had a secret
sister gift exchange, a hot chocolate bar, and photo booth. 
One of the games we played was a yellow sticker game. Everybody was given a bunch of stickers to put on other people without them seeing you. The person with the least amount of stickers, won. 
Wall paper on the wall for a backdrop, and some props I ordered from Taobao.
Hot Chocolate bar
Secret Sister Gift exchange
A Christmas Movie - 8-Bit Christmas
The girls laughed and laughed and had a
wonderful time mingling with these other young women that are so full of energy
and love. They stayed (so I stayed) up until 2am playing and talking. We love the Christmas season,
and this weekend added to the spirit of friendship and Christmas. Before getting ready for bed, Rhea gave a sweet devotional on being a
friend like the Savior and using the weekend as an opportunity to be a friend
to each other and to the kids at the orphanage that we were going to the next
day; to forget ourselves and focus on other people and serving them. A wonderful thought to end our first evening
together before the next day at the orphanage.
After going to bed at 2am from all the fun together Friday night, we woke up at 7am and headed out to the orphanage at 8am, arriving by 10am.
The orphanage was 1.5 hours away. Sister Tanner used to work with the man that
runs the orphanage now. 
Memo is his
name, and he used to be a teacher at the same international school that Amy
works at, but he left that job to run the orphanage and he loves it. An inspiring man to hear of what he left and his
goals for the kids at the orphanage.
Baseball is the focus because the man that started the orphanage was a
2008 Olympian in Baseball. So they work
and play baseball for hours a day, hoping that these kids can get scholarships
in baseball for college. These good
people, leaving what could be lives of success and money, are trying to give
these kids opportunities to have a better future than what they came from. Many kids were found in cages in their
mountain villages, some girls were trafficked, and abused, and many kids have
just been neglected. So forty percent of
the kids were actual orphans without parents and sixty percent had parents or
caretakers, but there wasn't much caring going on.
The children met us at our bus,
and the YW girls got out of the bus and quickly woke up with the cold wind and
weather, and began talking a little bit with the girls. In English, they could say hello, how are
you, how old are you, and other little simple phrases. Throughout the day, our girls communicated in
little Mandarin phrases and the children said what they could speak, however
much of the communication was non-verbal.
They played tag, hand games, and other games by communicating with
actions. We broke the kids into three
groups and had sugar cookie decorating, Christmas bingo in English to help
teach them some English vocabulary, and Christmas song singing and coloring
wooden ornaments. 
I was in charge of the sugar cookie decorating room so I didn't get to make it into the other rooms. The kids were adorable with the cookie decorating and sharing it with the YW! Here they had an opportunity to eat cookies they've never had before, but instead, they were quick to give them away decorated all cute to our girls. The younger boys were not surprisingly piling on the frosting and sprinkles compared to the girls, and President Tanner and I enjoyed seeing the contrast. 😉
After the morning activities, we had lunch and got to see their lunch time routine. The kids come in to the cafeteria and get a tray and silverware, stand in line, and take turns going to get their food from the cooks. After they get their food, they were to sit down at a row of tables and wait to the tables were full before those kids stand up and thank the cooks for their food. We saw that repeated with each row of tables and then were allowed to get food served on our trays too. All of the YW waited and stood to thank the cooks in Mandarin, as best as we could 😉, to imitate the children. The children actually applauded us after we did it. Memo said that there were the first foreign guests that have ever done that before! I was surprised at how good the food was—a chicken leg, rice, a few different types of cooked vegetables, and a half an apple. The kids eat all of their food because of the energy they expend on baseball and running around all day.
The children had an hour of rest time before they got to help us decorate a Christmas tree. They got to put up decorative balls and other glitter covered things, along with the wooden ornaments they colored. The funny part for us was when the kids, on their own, started throwing ornaments and decorations to the top of the tree because they couldn't reach it. And hilariously, a lot of them stuck and stayed somehow! So they kept doing it. Of course they would throw things and make other ornaments fall, so eventually we got a ladder and were able to make the decorations stay put. We played Christmas music while we decorated, and the kids and our girls had fun interacting and playing around the tree. Savannah and Grace were so cute lifting the kids up to put ornaments on the tree. So much love between the two groups of kids.
It was hard to say goodbye to the kids. We had so much fun and connected with them in such a short period of time that nobody wanted it to end. There were hugs and even tears. Savannah got a teenage girl's wechat contact so they could stay in touch. After loading back in the bus, Memo gave sincere words of gratitude and invited us to come back. And of course as we pulled away, the girls started planning when we could go back. If it wasn't so far away and cost so much to rent the bus, we could go back more frequently. But we'll have to see what we can do to return! 
O'Malley and Sister Taylor made a Hamilton calendar with important dates and birthdays of all the Young Women
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