Our group of English Teacher
Our group of English teachers getting off the airplane.So I'm officially home from living in China for four months. I feel like there's no way I can even begin to describe what it was like, but I'll try.
My city was the city of lights, seriously, it sold everything to do with lighting. Every store was devoted to chandeliers, and lamps. You could find chandelier crystals on the ground sometimes, which was always fun for us. My apartment was tiny, had no carpet, only squatters for toilets, our beds were wooden boards, I lived out of my suitcases the entire time, and I was in a tiny room with two other roommates. I lived with 6 other girls and we did everything together. I loved that experience though because its like unto living with a companion. You get to practice divine love, kindness, humility, and all those things! Our group seriously was the BEST on getting along. We had FHE every Monday, and we really did come together as a family at the end of it.
The food was basically rice, fruits, and veggies! I honestly learned to love it so much, but I do miss cheese, and butter :) I did eat everything with chopsticks, so that was way fun. I did learn that I seriously love dried sweet potato's :) Now I just need to see where I can find them!
The kids....how I love the kids! At the beginning of the semester we got to actually name the kids who've never received English names. So I named Parker, David, Steve, Ben, Ivy, and Kate. I cannot begin to describe how amazingly cute they were. We had about 48 in our class, and I taught 2 other classes, so by the end you love every single kid for a different reason. I did have favorites, (not totally a saint) and interestingly enough they were all boys. I loved David, Parker, Steve, Ben, Anthony, Josh, William, Benny, and Eddy the most. I had a "home" group of kids that I was kind of put in charge of and their names were Taylor, Ivy, Locy, Kiki, Linda, Matthew, Zach, and Steve. I loved them so, they were always a little harder for the other girls, but they really loved me, and did well for me! :)
Well I can't believe that I'm living back here in America again! To have carpet, a mattress, toilets, FOOD, cell phone, car (don't' walk everywhere), clothes, straight hair (had it curly the whole time), clouds (Utah's sky's are BEAUTIFUL), temples, churches, and so much more.
I have to say that I miss China's humility and friendliness. They are such a kind culture. They were always smiling, and saying hi. They are also very quick to stop whatever they are doing to help you out. I also lived near a village of sorts, and would walk down there often....so I saw third world type stuff everyday. They are still so happy, and so friendly even in the most humble of circumstances. Americans really do live in excess, we're always just collecting more and more "things". I hope that I'll always retain in remembrance the amazing humility, kindness, that I felt there.
We seriously are so blessed as Americans as well that we can worship a religion as we chose. There was an ILP group with a boy in it, so we were able to travel (3 hour bus rides to and from) to their school to have sacrament meeting. We did that about 5-7 Sundays while we were in China. I will hopefully never again take for granted going to sacrament meeting, especially when it only takes you 5 minutes to get there!
All I can say is I learned to love in China, I loved
the people, I loved the kids, I loved the girls I work with, I love CHINA!
