It's Been a While

My trip to China thus far has been very intense, I go to bed exhausted almost every night. It has been a very nice chance for me though. I have benefited from the change of scenery and the chance I have had to ponder. I made up a list of moments that I have really loved here since last Monday, I'll share some of them with y'all, hope you enjoy.

Monday we all had a fun game of soccer on the cement outside our hotel for FHE. Playing with a bunch of engineers made me look pretty good I think.

Tuesday the torch was passing through Nanjing, so we got out of class early and tried for a second time to see it. We were unsuccessful again, but it was really cool to feel of the energy of all the people that came out to see it (hundreds of thousands on a pretty short path). A few of us went out to lunch afterwards at a delicious restaurant, during our meal a big rainstorm started and turned the town dark. Our group decided to brave the storm, and we walked back to school in the pouring rain. It was great except for the overflowing sewers that we tried to avoid. Once we finally got home I took a long hot shower and tried to wash my clothes as well. I don't know if my blue slip-ons are going to survive. Lucky for me I just bought some nice new shoes for less than three dollars.

Wednesday we went and visited the Olympic stadium in Nanjing, we were able to peak through the windows of one of the buildings and watch some very talented divers practice diving. Later that night I went home teaching with one the branch members to a family in the ward. It took us about forty-five minutes to get to their house, and they were his closest appointment (the farthest being over five hours away).

Thursday we boarded a sleeper train and headed towards Luoyang. The train ride was a lot of fun, we were able to explore pretty far on the train and made it back to our trains with a minor coating of our lungs with second hand smoke. The only gross things I can think of about China is their spitting problem (they will spit indoors) and their smoking problem (they will smoke anywhere).

Friday we arrived in Luoyang and boarded our tour bus, we didn't get to check in to the hotel til 9:00 that night, so everyone was greasy. We went to the first Buddhist temple in China, it was pretty, but I've seen enough Buddhist temples to last me the next 120 years. Next we went to a special temple called the Shaolin Temple, it was a special Kung-Fu training temple, so they had a real fun show there. While there we had an hour and a half to spare, so we climbed the nearest mountain, we made it back to the bus late, panting, and sweaty, but it was really fun. Later that night we went to the Longmen Grottos which have some ancient Buddha carvings in them, I really enjoyed it because it was right next to a beautiful river. Before our bus left we were able to dance with a big group that was doing outdoor jazzercising.

Saturday we rode a train for five hours to Xi 'an, which is one of the many ancient capitals of China. We played a couple fun games on the way there, including the question game and the game where you make up a story with everyone only adding three words each. Once we arrived in Xi 'an we were picked up by another tour bus that took us to the Xi 'an city wall, which is about fourteen kilometers around, they had a bike rental place there so you could ride your bike on the wall. A few of us tried to ride our bikes all the way around in fifty minutes, which turned out to be a bad idea. We got back to the bus late, panting, and sweating. My legs still hurt today from riding the bikes. Later that night we went to a real fun dinner theater where we ate Chinese dumplings and watched dances from the era of the Tang Dynasty. The translations here are usually funny, but it was especially funny when they announced that these dances were usually reserved for the Emperer and his concubines, but tonight we were going to be the Emperer and concubines.

Today we had another really inspiring Church. A member of the branch presidency talked about the earthquake, and related it preparedness. He reminded us that we have been told over and over to have food storage, to be financially prepared, and to be spiritually prepared. I have a feeling that we have some really interesting times ahead of us.

Tomorrow I will have been home from my mission for two years.