Mis.

Don't ever take your blessings for granted!  Offering Sylvia to come to do the laundry is the least that I can do.  There has been some issue with the laundry arrangement at her apartment and her chronic pain is not getting her in any better situation.  I wonder what will I do if I were in her situation when both my health and financial situation are compromised.  Always count my blessings!

Another question I have in mind is how hard it is to have unity in the family.  I turned on whatsapp this morning and found two relatives actually left the group besides one who was removed a few week ago.  I kept thinking about uncle 7 and now uncle 8 for trying to pull the family together.   Why is it so hard to love and forgive your own family members?  Why?  Holding grudge is terrible especially with the loved ones.  I pray and hope that someday the family issue will be resolved.

Feb 24-28

It's been a great week.  Being visited by my visiting teachers, and went visit the sisters in my route.  Jady had a few half days.  I felt the need to visit Miriam on Friday and it's definitely inspired coz she just rented out her shop to another person and she also needs to move out from her apartment by the end of March.  I seriously don't know how much this friend has to struggle, but for sure that I am ready to help!

This is one of the incident that why we need to adhere to the promptings and act on it.  If I have not response to the promptings to visit her that afternoon I would have lost all her contact! One of my favorite talk from the President Hinckley was on "Forget Yourself and Serve"!  He said, "By and large, I have come to see that if we complain about life, it is because we are thinking only of ourselves.  For many years there was a sign on the wall of a shoe repair shop I patronized.  It read, "I complained because I had no shoes until I saw a man who had no feet."  The most effective medicine for the sickness of self-pity is to lose ourselves in the service of others."  

I am just grateful for his insightful message because serving others do bring us joy, gratitude, and an understanding heart.  It brings us comfort and peace to fix our own problematic lives.  I am a total believer of his words and teachings!!!  

Jady had half days from Wed to Friday, and we went to badminton as a family on Friday.  Had a date with her eating corndog and shamrock shake!  It was a great evening! 

Dad called this morning and was concerned about mom's medical report.  He got the reports from the Dr. but haven't had a chance to talk to the Dr yet.  The Dr. supposed to meet with them last Friday but had an emergency surgery.  So, dad has been waiting for him to call back.  The medical terms were really difficult to understand and I have a difficult time understanding the interpretation of their findings.  So, I sent it to Yo for help; but based on what I read... mom's lung looks find and the problem seemed to be in her right kidney and suggestions was made for more testing.  Since dad will have surgery on his eyelid, he worried that mom might left without help in case she has an emergency surgery.  I doubt it will happen on those dates since public hospital is not that efficient. I am fasting today and tomorrow for mom's health and dad's surgery.  It makes me sad that I am not there to help but I am glad that I get to go home and see her this summer. I am starting to think that we should prepare to go home and take care of our elderly parents.  

Today, we took the kids to the Philly temple site.... the experience took me to another confirmation that the Lord is mindful about his children.  As we got there, we saw two members from NJ, the elders missionary and an investigator standing outside the trailer waiting.  Johnny and I had no idea that we supposed to schedule the appointment ahead of time if we need to go inside the trailer for information about the temple.  Luckily since the elders already had the appointment, we just went and joined them.  

Sister Carr is the missionary there with her husband (Brother Carr is the project manager there so he is not currently serving as a missionary but act almost like one there)!  They talked to us about the temple site and shared with us a video made by the church on temple.  The video is about the purpose of the temple, why it is important to us, and what we do in there.  As I was watching it, I felt very strong that I needed to share this with my dad.  I thought to myself that it will be great if they have it in Chinese and I even thought if they don't have it in Chinese, I would be more than thrill to translate it for them.  

https://www.lds.org/church/temples/why-mormons-build-temples?lang=eng

So after the movie, I asked Brother Carr if there is a Chinese version. And his lights just went on..... because a few months ago, there was a Chinese investigator who got baptized and her missionaries wanted to show this temple video to her; so Brother Carr asked a few friends who know Chinese to do the translation and caption!  Brother and Sister Carr even gave me the scripts of the video.  I came home and I noticed that the Chinese church website doesn't have this video in caption yet and I am so ready to share it this great video with all my fellow Chinese members in who can read and speak Chinese!!    

Note

Oh man, how could I even miss this note from Jady.  No wonder she asked me who's my valentine last night.  And I thought I need to be honest and told her that her dad is....  Thank goodness that I saw her frown and asked her why.  Her response was, "Because you are my valentine!"

Lessons learned - sometimes honesty hurt and I could be more creative and said everyone in the family is my valentine.  Be smart mom!

Last Sat., Evan went to compete with the youth from the stake who plays ping pong.  He won the title of Valley Forge Stake ping pong champion and got a $25 Wawa gift!  Way to go, son!

One thing I feel good about this week is that Jeannie is finally getting better with her companion.  She's been on my mind every since I found out she will be having the same companion from the MTC.  Thank Lord that they are getting used to each other now.    

Mom has been discharged from the hospital yesterday and she is feeling great!  The only concern that we have now is the medical scanning today. There is a spot on her lung and the Dr. would like to take a look at it.  The result will be sent to the Dr. for evaluation when mom goes back for the check up in five weeks.  I need to pray really hard this time.

ps. Everyone in the family is finally feeling better!  I am still a little tired may be from the cough. Thanks to the many days of winter storm and that we got additional rest.

Oh mom....

Took Jady to the Dr. on Monday and found out that she has strep, so the Dr. put her on antibiotics right away.  The medication didn't kick in until two days after.  She was able to stay home but her brother wasn't so fortunate.  Evan was too worry about catching up the missing homework so he went to school on Tues despite of his sickness.  Thank goodness, there came the snow again! It's actually a blessing to my family since we so needed the rest because by wed, I was down also with a nasty fever and sore throat.  Then, Johnny became sick!  We didn't really celebrated Valentine's day since I had to play piano for a church wedding and couldn't go out to dinner or lunch because of the snow storm! Yikes!  Got that beautiful flowers from Johnny though. :)

What's been bothering me was mom's situation.  The Dr. suspected that she had bird flu so he put her in the isolated until two days ago, but thankfully it was later diagnosed as pneumonia.  She sounded much better yesterday as I talked to her but her fever came back last night.  And worst of all, she couldn't keep anything down.  How the body fight often depending on the mental power of that person and how nourished the body is; and in mom's case... she is lacking both!  I wish I am in HK to cheer her up. May be I will have the kids send her a video clip tomorrow.  I keep praying for her recovery.  I'd thought about sending church members to the hospital to give her a blessing but dad is already a little annoyed about me telling him what to do and I don't know how he would take my suggestion.  What should I do???  Lord, please bless my mom!!!!

The Week of Feb 3, 2014

It's absolutely an interesting week!  The branch on the tree in the backyard was down and landed on our power line on Tues because of the snow storm.  The whole neighborhood and many members had lost power including our family.  Our power was out since Tues and we didn't get it back until Friday night.  It was all good at first since we had the generator on, but then it quit working after two days with two use!  Man, that generator was brand new when we got it two years ago and we only used it for that two days... Here it goes $700!

In the midst of it... Jady started having sore throat, and then fever on Friday and Sat.  Then, Evan... and me!  We somehow managed to invite other families who didn't have power yet over for dinner one night and made dinner for another family and the missionaries for another.  I would rather be the one to serve than receive the service.

Grateful for My Kids...

Look what I found on my laptop....  A note from Evan teaching me how to hoke up my laptop to the printer.  He was such a life saver this past Sunday as I was rushing to make a copy to bring it to church and wasn't able to get the stupid printer to work.  He was really patient with me.  And I just love him being so thoughtful and sweet to leave me a note for future reference.  Darn it... Can't upload the picture from the iPad.

We've got another 7-8 in of snow today and so the school is closed.  It's been quite a relaxing day with the kids playing outside, cleaning up the snow off the trampoline and part of the roof and the driveway.  Johnny decided to reward them with a treat from Wawx in addition to the money.  We went out as our FHE activity.  As we drove home, Miss Jady kept her telling us her idea of watching the "Bible" story and finish off with the King cake.  Even tried to explain to her that the trip to get a treat is our FHE and Johnny told her we will not have king cake since we got the treat already.  We thought it was pretty simple to understand as she said OK, but then she continued and said, "ok... then we can drink the smoothie and watch the Bible video!"   We laughed our heads off.

And her eyes were wild open tonight as I told her there will be a two hour delay tomorrow morning.  Here is her exciting words, "Yeah, I can get my beauty sleep, and I don't need to set my alarm clock, and I can sleep in!"   Apparently, setting the alarm clock is quite a chore.  :)

Jeannie is doing great on her mission.  She went bowling today and she complains about her arms are sore!  Hahaha....  And I know she secretly love the postcard I made for her!  I love you, sweetheart!

Marriage and Family

2/3/2014

Mom has been sick and I kind of feel bad that I wasn't around to help.  Something has been really bugging me... Dad is having a tough time dealing with mom's criticism.  I can understand why since mom is a perfectionist and nothing is good enough in her mind.  I pray that dad's emotion will not be affected by her.  It's a challenge to live and see someone 24/7 without any argument.  Another issue with mom is that she openly voice her opinion on how wasteful I was to go home establish Evan's HK residency.  I can tell that she was mad on the phone but I need to do what I need to.  It saddens me that my mom can be so not understanding.