Day 74 - English Corner Sunday

Day 74 

Today dawned with the rain gone and a clear blue sky after all the rain yesterday.  It was a little cold, but then, it is November.  We did a video chat with Caleb, Bethany and Aleeyah.  She was so cute today, doing all her tricks and “Aleeyah things” for us. There was also a little heat coming from the radiators in our rooms!  All the heat for the campuses comes from one central building on our campus.  (There are seven campuses spread throughout Jinan city and when I say spread, I mean spread.  They are miles apart.)  I guess we get the heat first…

The walk to the bus stop to get to Church was rather brisk with chilly air, but we made good time and got to the Hanlin Hotel in time.  We had a Branch Conference today with President Weaver and his counselors speaking.  Nancy Pace gave a great Sunday School lesson also.  The potluck afterward was super yummy with WAY too much food again.

At 2 p.m., we had a Branch Leadership Meeting.  David and I both had to be in on it with our callings as the Group Leaders.  They were talking about adding another line to our online meeting so that the Branch could serve more members better.  It really doesn’t affect our group much because we don’t have any youth to try and serve.  Then there was the Branch Leadership meeting afterward. 

We stopped in the Little Wood on campus when we got back because we had told the group of young college students that we met last week that we would come to their “English Corner” today if they met us there at 4 p.m.  We were about 10 minutes late because of our meetings and the smiles that lit up their faces when we came were enough to brighten anybody’s day!  One boy ran to meet us and later gave David a big hug.  We sat at the tables in the woods, had them introduce themselves to us and then after we introduced ourselves, they asked us questions.  We were there for a little over an hour and of course, as the sun goes down, it gets chillier.  Had we been in a warm place, we probably would have been there a lot longer. 

The students of English Corner.  The young man in the middle with the blue shirt was the one who gave David the hug because he was so happy that we had come.  Of course, they had to have their pictures taken with us one by one.  Bright young people!

They asked about some things that they had read and wanted to know if they were true.  One question was about how much people moved.  Another was about people changing jobs.  At one point, one of the girls said to David, “Your wife has such love for you.  You can tell it when she looks at you when you speak.”   We told them a little about our courtship and how we got along in our marriage.  If we can leave them with some of these impressions of happily married people and people who try to live good lives and do good things for others, I think we will have done something good here in China.  We also told them how important we felt it was for them to see the world and for student exchanges with the colleges, because to get to know each other was probably the most important way to promote peace in the world.  It was a nice way to end the day, especially with a little hot cocoa to warm us up when we got home.  

As we were sitting there talking with the students, a group of girls came up to us and asked if we believed in God.  We said we did and they were so excited and said that they were Christians.  Because of the restrictions that we have on not being able to do more than admit we are Christians or say what Church we are a part of, we had to say that was good and then we had to turn back to the group.  I wish that I could have stood and given them a warm hug and thanked them for telling us, but we couldn’t. After a while they left the group, but I felt bad.  We have to be so careful because we were warned that there might be people, and yes, even students that would be trying to trick us into saying more than we did and that could put the program in jeopardy and even send us home.

After that, one of the boys asked why we believed in God.  I just said that because of experiences that I have had in my life, I believed in God.  Then we told them about the restrictions we had and moved on to another subject.