District Conference

On Sunday we had District Conference. Our district spans all of China. There are branches in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou (our branch!) and a few other cities. We couldn't all meet together in one place, so the conference was held through a conference call. A lady from our branch gave a talk. Instead of standing at the front of the room at the microphone, she went into the branch president's office and spoke into his telephone. It was quite a different experience from Stake Conference back in Utah! It was cool to know that there are members of the church throughout China. We are blessed that we are even allowed to gather together for church each Sunday.

Chinese Hospital

The other day I went to a Chinese hospital to visit a member from the branch. I am so grateful for hospitals back in the states! The hallways were filled with patients in stretchers. I guess either there weren't enough rooms to put these people in, or they couldn't afford to be in an actual room. There were six elevators, and everyone used them....doctors, nurses, patients, and visitors. When an elevator would arrive, everyone would try to be the first to push themselves on...they'd even butt in front of a doctor pushing a patient on a stretcher. If you try to be polite by letting patients on first, then you'll never get on an elevator. While I was riding one elevator, a woman got upset because she wanted to squish onto our elevator, but there wasn't any room. Instead of waiting for the next one, she yelled at a mother to make her son, who was sitting in a wheelchair, push himself closer to the wall so she and her family could squish themselves on. It was ridiculous. The nurses and doctors seemed very nice, but the hospital experience was very crazy. I feel lucky I didn't catch someone's disease while I was there! Oh, and for all you grown men here in China...stop picking and flicking your boogers! It's disgusting!!
~Sam

Chinese Street BBQ

We went to a Chinese BBQ last night. Lance ordered the food by going over to the "fridge" the BBQ guy had and picking out the skewers of meat and vegetables that he wanted. I thought most of it tasted good but..... I ate a chicken heart!! Lance didn't tell me what it was until after I asked him why it was crunchy.

Korean BBQ

Last night Lance surprised me! After the show, instead of wearing his swimming suit and smelling like bird poo and rotting fish water, he showed up at the door wearing clean clothes and smelling great! He took me to the Korean BBQ restaurant down the street from where we live. The restaurant was sweet. We got there right before it closed. When we ordered our food, the waiter kept trying to tell us something in Chinese, but we had no idea what he was saying. Immediately after we ordered, the waitresses brought in all different kinds of random dishes: salads, fish, sushi, kimchi, vegetables.... Then they brought us a platter of raw meat. Yep, RAW. I was pretty confused...but I guess it turns out that the chef had gone home early or something, so the restaurant just gave us all these random left over side dishes... So we ate what was on the table, and then took our platter of raw meat home and cooked it ourselves. It was pretty funny.

say what??

While Lance was performing tonight, I decided to go for a run. As I went running by the hotel, one of the security guards started yelling something at me. I have no idea if he was commending me for running, making fun of me, or telling me to get the heck out of there......I guess I'll never know.

Sunflower Seeds

Lance is "working" right now....he's dressed as a pirate and posing for pictures at the different amusement parks....so what do I do when Lance is gone?? I eat sunflower seeds! I have eaten so many that my mouth feels funny now, but I still like them. Thanks dad for sending me all the bags of sunflower seeds! And thank you to my new mom for sending us lots of different packets of seasoning! We are having lots of fun cooking and eating our homemade meals.

Okay! So for anyone reading this that doesn't know...China blocks facebook and blogspot. I found a way to access blogspot...that's why we can write this blog! But I can't post pictures.... the only reason we have some pictures on it now is because we were able to upload some while we were in Korea a few weeks ago... in case anyone was wondering...

Shanghai

On our way back from Korea to Guangzhou, we had a 7 hour layover in Shanghai. We didn't know anything about the city or where to go, but we wanted to go do something so we got on a train and hoped for the best. We got off somewhere in the middle of the city...in the pouring rain! But rain doesn't stop us! We decided to sprint to the Super Brand Mall across the street. While we were running across the pedestrian bridge, my backpack came open! A bunch of my stuff fell out onto the wet walkway! I managed to get most of the stuff back into my bag, and Lance eventually realized I was no longer right behind him, and came looking for me. We ran into the mall looking like drowned rats.

The mall was pretty sweet. It was huge and had "harry potter" staircases. We spent time in a book store, Best Buy, eating pasta, eating icecream, and taking pictures of funny asians. When the rain cleared up, we went back outside and got pictures of a cool looking red tower.

I wish we could've had more time in Shanghai. There are so many things to do and see there. The city had a slightly different feel from Guangzhou...where we were in Shanghai it felt cleaner and the people seemed more orderly.

When we got back to the airport we learned that our flight would be delayed. The airlines gave everyone soda pop, water, and cookies. Lance and I camped out on the floor and watched people walk by. We were sooo tired. Our flight eventually arrived and we flew to Guangzhou. We didn't get back to the circus until 3 am...but that's okay because we had a blast...and we are bums! So we get to sleep in because when you're a bum, it's not like you have to be anywhere the next day.