This weekend, the YW invited the YM to have a movie night to kick off Chinese New Year.  The kids all have a break from school, and Bri and I have four days off of work.  Our kids have three weeks off of school, so it was a fun way to start the break  Unfortunately, we've had to postpone combined activities with River Garden kids, but it was fun nevertheless.  We watched Jungle Cruise and had snacks and banana splits.  Funny enough though, we had to teach the kids what a banana split was and how to make it.  Being out of the States, these kids haven't been exposed to what they are!

Lauren, Lizzie, and Savannah - the 10th graders

Avalon in 7th grade and Rhea and Edie in 8th grade.

Nathan 9th, Joseph 8th, Adam 7th, Thomas 11th, and Aaron 8th

We feel lucky to have so many youth for our kids to hang out with here in Beijing.  Our kids aren't the only members of the church at CISB now since the Willfords moved in, and lucky enough, they're in the same grades as our girls.  Thomas still doesn't have anyone in the city from the branch his age, and there's only one YM in River Garden his age.  So, not ideal for T, but he has opportunities to serve in YM and to be a mentor for the younger boys.  We can count our blessings here despite it not being a perfect situation.  It's a lot better than other posts around the world where there are very few youth.  And despite our inability to meet in person for church on Sundays right now (since August), we're grateful we have Zoom where we can see the faces of other members and hear and feel strengthened by their testimonies!

Rhea and I attended a Tibetan jewelry making session with Zanta, a Tibetan woman.  Catherine, in our building set it up, and I was so excited to attend.  I bought some jewelry from Zanta in November to send give our moms for Christmas presents.  I love her unique jewelry, and I was excited to learn more about Tibet.  Because we're diplomats, this will be as close to Tibet as we'll get. ;)

Zanta talked about Tibet while showing pictures.  It was fascinating to learn about her village, their income coming from selling milk and cream, how they make jewelry from coral, etc.

She's really a sweet lady.

She called the bracelet a "Great Wall Bracelet."  It took us some one on one time with Zanta to finally get it, but it was fun, and it turned out to be pretty.

Some antiques from Tibet - I think this one a little Kerosene lamp.

This one has two hooks on the end to hold up 2 buckets to help a woman milk a cow.

I enjoyed having a morning with Rhea, learning from Zanta and associating with other embassy women!

We had an awesome combined YW/YM activity!  The Young Women were in charge of planning this month's activity, and with it being winter and the city tightening down with Covid cases, we decided to do something indoors, with some fast outdoor time.  We used the Curd's beautiful house and yard for the venue.  We started off with Mayah introducing the youth theme for this year with the song "Trust in the Lord." 

Then we split into groups, got a bag of random props for each group, and created a skit using every member of the group, all the props, and using the words "trust" and "lean" from this year's theme.  We had about 20 minutes to work out the skit before we performed them.  

Even we leaders came up with a skit. :)Kjirsten is leaving Beijing soon!  We're so sad to be saying goodbye to her smile, energy, love, and testimony.  Young Womens won't be the same without her!

We went outside to perform the skits, in the cold, but we had campfire, hot chocolate to drink, and s'mores to eat after the skits.We even had Joana and her sister Lizzie (less active) because Savvy reached out to invite them, and she followed up to make sure they had all the information and instructions to get to the activity.

The kids were so creative!  The skits were clever, funny, and actually had a plot!

After the skits, the kids hung out playing more games and doing karaoke.  The Curds have an awesome karaoke machine with words projected up on the t.v. We sang some pop songs as well as songs from the new Disney movie Encanto that all the kids love.  We had such a fun time!What a fun night!  It was an awesome activity to have with all the youth together since we knew they were probably going to pause them with the current Covid situation.  Within days after the activity, when the schools went online, Pres. Platt and the branch council decided to pause the combined activities because we have to limit the interaction between the downtown and Shunyi areas and the potential issues.  Hopefully it won't be for long!    

Winter in Beijing in cold, especially on the windy days!  But once in a while, we'll get a little light snow that makes things a little prettier and worth the cold.  It's not Utah, but it's pretty.  This is definitely not snow you can eat though.  Most of the time, the snow comes when we've had bad pollution and the snow helps to make the sky blue again.  A few benefits to having the snow!

On the tennis court of our apartment complex, this worker was shoveling snow into a large cardboard box, set it on a cart, and pushed it to the side of the court.  He did this over and over.  We thought maybe it was because he didn't want to use a shovel on the court.