RICH MISSION MEMORIES: SISTER REBECCA RICHARDSON MISSION JOURNAL -- End Of April through July 8th

Somewhere at the End of April, I went on an airplane from XNA to Dallas. Then went on another plane from Dallas to Minneapolis. Never in my life have I gone through an airport by myself and flew alone. It was a good adulting experience for me and I enjoyed it. Tip from me: always follow the signs and you will know where to go. Want to know an easier way to find the baggage claim you are looking for: Follow the people that went on the same flight as you. What helped me get through the airport by myself was the companionship of the holy ghost, God, and my parents being by my side supporting me along the way. If it wasn’t for those three, I would feel alone and nobody would be by my side. Yuxin picked me up and drove to Eau Claire, Wisconsin. I stayed with her until July 8th. During my stay with her, we did some fun things together. At the same time, I was finishing up my last semester of the BYU-Pathways Program. The four best memories I had with her were dying each other’s hair, cutting my hair, teaching me how to cook some Chinese food, doing our nails with her fancy special nail polishes and her cool looking little machine, where you can stick one hand in and the special lights inside the machine dry our nails. For dying the hair part, you see I have never dyed a person’s hair nor dyed my hair, but I went for it anyway; I want to try something new. The color she dyed my hair was dark red auburn and the color turned out fine. We both did the same dye hair color. Afterward, it looked like a murder scene in the bathroom. I was even brave enough to try a duck neck and pig ear. Both of them tasted strange or interesting. The neighborhood she lived in was gorgeous. One time I came back from walking around the neighborhood and I was just standing by the pond. Out of the blue, I saw something moving in the pond and it was an otter. I just couldn’t believe it!! I got so excited!! I also saw a bunch of tadpoles in the water alongside the pond. It was so amazing to see that many tadpoles!! Since living there, she and I have grown a great friendship. We get along really well. I love being around her, learning Chinese from her, and teaching her English. I have enjoyed getting to serve her by being there, so she wouldn’t be lonely and help her out by putting together/moving furniture around. It was sad when the day came of me leaving her. When I was getting close to leaving her, she would always say, I am going to miss you and what I'm going to do without you. I said back to her, I am going to miss you tons. Almost forgot to mention, I brought back a whole bunch of different kinds of cheese home for the family to try, that Yuxin and I bought from the Weavers Store in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. I had the cheeses in a package and it was super heavy. The good part, is it got to the XNA airport safe.

On the way to Eau Claire, Wisconsin

The pretty view right outside my window

Two Beautiful Pigeons

Look at all those Tadpoles

A otter in the pond. I have never seen a otter in a pond. I always thought they where only in the ocean. So it surprised me!! Then I figured out later, there are different types of otter. One is a sea otter, which lives out in the sea and I don't know the type of this otter is called.

Another park we went to

Hoffman Hills

Found a tiny frog along the way

Yogurts I got at the Weavers store. I loved the Maple Vanilla a lot!!

This is a Amish store

Cooking Black Pepper Chicken for lunch

This is a type of street food, which I do not know the name to. Basically it has egg, tomatoes, and sauce on this type of flatbread or something.

Tomatoes and Egg which was my favorite dish there

Eggplant and rice, which is another dished I loved

Tried Pig Ear for the first time. This one was rubbery/chewy. It had a very interesting texture for sure.

Yuxin and I made this cheesecake. It has crushed up oreos on the bottom to count as a crust, whipping cream, cream cheese, and powered sugar mixed together to make that middle part and crushed up strawberries on top. The taste was absolutely amazing!!