lo and behold

I've been spending much much more time outdoors lately, and discovered yesterday that I have quite a smattering of freckles. who knew? well...apparently everyone else but me. huh.

last night I was the leader of a group get-together. huzzah, was it ever fun! I'd made cookies on monday to take to va yee, chris mears, john bartley, and quentin. but I didn't finish until very late. so yesterday jarom and I set out in search of va yee's apartment, which proved somewhat difficult. but we did it. and even met his grandfather, who speaks no english. it was slightly amusing when va yee told him my name, which in hmong -- if you change the inflection a bit -- means "america." anyway, the three of us went on a short walk (after the official pass-off of "welcome-home cookies," as jarom proclaimed them), and I invited vaj to come with us to see the other folks. he readily agreed; I think he was glad of being back with "the group," and remembered, as it were. I'm very happy that I managed to get ahold of him on friday, when he'd just come back, I bet that was nice for him. moving on. we drove out to green valley to chris's house, but his mother said, "he's at work still, and I think he was going over to john bartley's afterwards." aha, we replied, that's our next stop. so we headed to john's house, where he and margaret sat and chatted with us, offered us gummi bears, and I called quentin. he was still at home, expecting a call from kimberlee, so I said I would come by with a few surprises. (cookies, and visitors.) there were 5 of us by that point, and we all piled into my car and john navigated us to the atens'. john got ahold of chris and gave him directions to quentin's, so he could come there instead of the bartleys'; we met luciano, who, if he decides to come to byu, might be able to replace alex; and everyone ('cept margaret and I) told LOTS of mission stories. it was good times. chris finally came, and so all the welcome-home cookies were successfully delivered.

I'm leaving for utah in a week and a half. I do have someplace to live when I get there, now, but nothing is packed. still. I have a large fedex box that will be great for small-ish items when I decide to tape it together. yeah.