Monday, October 29, 2012

She's on her way!

We were hoping to hear from Carly around 2:00 this afternoon as her flight was at 4:50 pm to LAX.  So, of course, I had my phone by my side.  Turned out she had to wait until she landed in LAX (currently has a four hour layover) and she was finally able to call us around 7:30 tonight.  It was so good to hear her voice - I got a lump in my throat for just a moment, then the excitement took over.

Somehow, she is traveling with a male companion; well, make that a travel leader.  Whatever, leave it to Carly to work that one out to her benefit.  The first thing they did was go to Cafe Rio for lunch and said goodbye to MTC food!  She is so excited she can't stand it.  It is going to be a 15 1/2 hour flight and will arrive at 7:00 a.m. on WEDNESDAY!  She thinks she can call again when she lands in Sydney to let us know she arrived safely.  She said they have full day planned once they land so no rest for the weary.

In the meantime, here are a couple of Carly stories:

She was studying silently with her group - each deeply engrossed in various scriptures.  She was reading about Judas Iscariot and his betrayal of Christ.  As she was pondering the story, she had a question she just couldn't answer on her own.  The idea of being in a group is to pose a question to everyone to help each other find the answers.  Her question?  Who is Judas Priest if this guy she was reading about was Judas Iscariot?  Well, this stumped one of the sister companions, not having ever heard the name Judas Priest.  By now, an Elder overheard the conversation and said incredulously, "Judas Priest?  Judas Priest...  is a hard rock BAND from the 80's!"  Soon the entire group was laughing so hard they couldn't even speak.  To add to her confusion, they reminded her that many people use the phrase "Judas Priest" as an alternative to cursing.   It took Carly about 5 minutes just to get this story out because she kept giggling with embarrassment.

She just recently became aware that the word "wen" in Chinese (pronounced like "won" in English) has four meanings, depending upon the tone.  She was CERTAIN the way she was pronouncing it was for the meaning "ask".  As it turns out, she was actually sometimes pronouncing it as "smell" and "kiss".  So when she finished up a talk in Chinese, she would always say, "If you have any questions, please 'smell' me," (or "kiss me", depending on how she mispronounced it).  The fourth meaning is "warm" but she doesn't think she used that one.  Because she was so certain of how she was saying it, she was very emphatic and focused as she pronounced it.  That's my girl!

And the learning curve continues!

More soon -
Love, Lori

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