Well the Past few days have been crazy busy! On Sunday we had made our decision to move into the smaller apartment. It was all set we would both sign the papers and move in on Monday at 2pm. After class I get a call from Tim telling me that when he called the agent with the larger apartment to tell her we were going with the other one she made an offer. Apparently the land lord is desperate to get someone in that apartment so he offered it to us for 12200nt a month including internet and guard fee. A tempting offer since we would be paying 10900nt for a much smaller apartment. So we had some thinking to do, we went to Starbucks and Split a Caramel Macchiato and went over the pluses and minuses of both then we said a prayer. We realized that the up keep of the other apartment would take a lot more work, that it might make it tempting to buy more things since it was so big, and it was still cheaper for the other one. And most importantly I remembered our lesson from the Watchtower the day before let your yes mean yes. We had already told the agent we wanted the apartment and everything was scheduled. Even if we weren't in a contract yet we didn't have to be we had said yes we needed to make it mean yes. After making our decision we felt good.
So 2pm came and with the help of Tim and Jamie we walked all of our suitcases over about a block to the new apartment. Signed the paper work and payed the deposit and first months rent. After they left we made a couple scooter trips to the store to get everything we would need to survive. It is amazing how many things you have to have (it also seems like a lot more when you have to carry them on a scooter) and yet how many other things you really don't need. When we got home we couldn't figure out how to unlock our door and after about 5 min of trying Hannah went down and got the guard to help us (Again nothing makes you question your intelligence more than being in another country).
Once we got inside Hannah started scrubbing the bathroom. The rest of the apartment is new and clean but the bathroom was a different story and kinda gross. It had lots of mold. After a lot of cleaning, laundry and unpacking we looked at the clock to realize it was 1:30 AM and we had a test in the morning! So after practicing about 6 characters we fell asleep.
Mold!
After a short nights sleep we headed to school and took our test. It involved listening and circling the correct pinyin with tones, listening and writing pinyin with tones, and the back side was all characters. two parts both questions in characters that you had to read and then write your answer in characters. then another part where there were pictures of 4 different people with there names and nationality and you had to fill in the blanks of the sentences again all in characters. I got a 92 and Hannah Got a 100.
After our elective classes, we went to Moss burger with 3 other witnesses and enjoyed some association with them. They left for class while Hannah and I finished eating. Right after they left Hannah was trying to figure out where to throw away the recylcing and a girl at the next table said in English where to throw it. Hannah had noticed earlier she was watching all of us talk and was smiling. She spoke English well, she turned out to be from Malaysia. We ended up talking for about an hour and got to witness to her and her Taiwanese friend. She was really friendly and out going. Several times she told us to visit her in her home country. We exchanged contact info so that we can talk again.
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| Hannah's burger with rice for a bun |
Then after another trip to the store we went home for more organizing and to meet the guy to hook up our internet. He arrived at 3:30 and didn't leave until 6pm. When he left he said that the problem was with our router. So we have wired internet but no wireless for our tablets or phones. After playing with it I really don't think it is the router especially since it is new. It seems that every device connected has to be activated by them like at a hotel where they have you put in your room number before you can browse the internet. It has been kinda frustrating and at the same time kind of nice to have a computer problem that I can work on. We are going to call today and see if they can authenticate our router for us. until then for our tablets we have to position them just right to connect to an open wireless signal.
Today after Class we went to the store again and got a little storage thing for our kitchen area (also lots of fun to carry on a scooter). It is pretty nice and it was only 179nt so like $6.16USD. We also got Hannah some more blankets so she can sleep better.
Once home I started working on getting our wireless router to work again. After about 2 hours on and off the phone they said they would send a tech out on Thursday or Friday. Ugh... oh well not a big deal.
well that is about it for now.
Love Phil and Hannah
This sister sat next to Hannah and helped us every once and a while if we didn't catch the scripture. They talked for about 15 min after the assembly, and only in Chinese. The sister was really encouraging. She kept saying how much she appreciated foreigners working so hard to preach in Chinese. That it built her up, and helped her continue in her preaching work. They exchanged information so we can visit her in her congregation.
This Brother and Sister sat in front of us. After the assembly I talked to him for a long time, he got the truth in Wisconsin when he was attending school. He was so nice and spoke English very well.
