Baby Chaps

At long last, I have captured the phenomenon known by some as "Baby Chaps" on camera. This one is for you Marisa. Well, in China, they apparently don't enjoy changing dippers very much, either that or they are just too expensive. Well, for whatever the reason, they have found an alternative to putting dippers on their children. This is a perfect example of what I have dubbed "Baby Chaps", for reasons that aught to be rather obvious. Now, granted, it isn't every baby that dons "Baby Chaps", but you sure see it often enough. Especially when your house is just down the street from the Children's Hospital. My first experience with these "Baby Chaps" was on the subway. There was some cute baby boy sitting on his mom's lap. Upon second glance, I noticed that he was flashing the whole train, via a proper use of his baby chaps. Some of these chaps are just a pair of baby pants that have the seam ripped out from the back all the way to the front. Others are a little more intense, such as the ones you see here. So there you have it, the famous "Baby Chaps". Marisa, I hope you enjoy. :-)

Huang Shan

They say that there are 5 beautiful mountains in China that after you see them, you have no need of ever seeing another mountain.  They also say that after you see Huang Shan, you no

 longer need to see the other 4 beautiful mountains.  In English, we say, "A picture's worth a thousand words."  But there is no way for a picture to actually capture the experience of being up on top of Huang Shan and seeing the beauty for yourself.  But since not everyone gets that kind of a chance, I'll just post some of my pictures that I took.  We also went to this place called HongCun, which is about a 7oo year old city.  It was pretty cool too.

Chinese Girls, America Boys

Well, last night was Zhong Qiu Jie, or Mid-Autum Festival. The way you celebrate Zhong Qiu Jie is you eat yuebing, or moon cakes and go out and look at the moon, which is full and very beautiful. So that's what we did. The hotel that we go to curch in (yes, we have church in the basement of a hotel, it's a really nice one too) got everyone some yuebing. It's always kind of a surprise what kind of a yuebing you are going to get. Some are ok, some are outright gross (I had one that the insided looked kind of like green playdough, and it kind of tasted the same way too...) but as far as I know, there aren't any yuebing that are just really good. But it's part of the traditon, so you eat them anyway. Well, there is this really old Buddhist temple a littl futher south of where we live, still in Nanjing city called Fuzi Miao. So we figured, it's a pretty cool place, big tourist attraction, there has to be something going on there. So we piled into 4 or 5 taxies and took off down there after we had our quick weekly Sunday devotional. Well, there were TONS of peopl! I had forgotten my camera because it was piled under all of my laundry (that's a story for another time), otherwise I would have taken some pictures of how many people there were. But we didn't really do much but look arround and walk arround. It was still really intertaining though. But I think that most of the people there found us as interesting, or more interesting even than the things we went there to see. You see, as a white person in China (especically one who speaks Chinese) you are a celebrety. You always look like Brad Pitt, or Tom Cruse, or who ever the popular actor/actress (for the ladies) is who is within 20 years or so of your age. Well, the guys were all rather enjoying all the attention that they were getting. It was really funny to see groups of people looking at us and taking pictures of us, attempting to not let us see. They failed misserably at hidding it, but it was great. Then one of the guys would ask if they wanted to take a picture with them and before you knew what was going on, you had a whole crowd of Chinese college students (some times High School students) arround you, flashing the peace sign, taking a picture. Some of the girls were thinking that the guys were letting it go to their heads a bit too much. I just thought it was funny. I tended to stick to the kids a little bit more than the people our age. Little Asian babies are just so stinking cute! Them and their baby-chaps....also a story for another time, after I get a picture. hehehe... Anyway, so today, we were walking down the road and these two 12 and 13 year old girls came up to Greg and started talking with him. It was all fine and dandy until they tried to give him this little plush olympic doll and asking if they could make friends with him. Hahaha! It was so funny! Anyway, I'm about out of time now.

Just a few more things before Igo... We have a blog for all of us students her in Nanjing to post stories and pictures. You should check it out. There is a link on the side of the page. And to see some of my pix, click here. It's on facebook. Enjoy! More updates later!

I'm in CHINA!

Well, I've been here in China for just over a week. And I LOVE IT! It was quite the experience getting here though. Nothing major happened though. Just long layovers. But after talking to some of the others who are here with me, I have nothing to complain about! I have taken a few pictures, but not very many. And besides, I'm not at my own home right now, I'm at a friends house using her computer and internet. It's probably going to be next Tuesday, at the earlest, that we actually get internet at our place. Well, I'm not sure how fast word travels, but the apartment that I've goten here is with 6 other guys. It's quite intertaining. It's rather big actually. 3 rooms, but only 1 bathroom. But for just about $430 a person for 4 months total rent, you can't complain too loud, right!? Classes are going to be kind of intense, being in the advanced class and only having class Monday-Thursday, but I am for sure going to learn a whole lot! I really hope that my Chinese improves a lot over the next 4 months. It has been an exprience getting used to simplified Chinese. I got myself this really cool electronic dictionary. It's pretty much a little palm computer who's main function is a dictionary/translator. It was about $130 USD, but when I can eat, and be full none the less, for $4-5 a day, I felt like I can afford it. Anyway. I don't have a whole lot of time, so I'll have to save some stories for next time I get a chance to post something. I'll try to get some pictures next time too. I'm just having a blast. I'll update you all later!

Last Day of Work

Well, it finally feels like I'm going to leave! Today was my last day of work at Murfins. I really have enjoyed working there this summer. It wasn't ever too hard of work, and the people were lots of fun. Towards the end of the day, they called me to the back room. When I got there, they had a nice big chocolate cake that said "Good Luck Keith" on it. And they had a card that they had had everyone sign. It was really nice. It sure made me feel good. Everyone was saying that they are going to miss me. Then a little while later, the girls that I work with the most gave me a card from them as well. They wrote down their addresses and gave me a few dollars for me to send them a postcard from China. I do have a lot of good friends there, but I can't WAIT to actually get to China! And I'll be back in 4 months and I'll say hi to them then. But I'm down to the last few days before I leave. The ONLY thing I'm not looking forward to is the 40 hours of travel (including layovers) that I have to endure, ALONE, before I can actually get there. Oh well, it will be well worth it in the end! *just keep telling yourself that...

Sorry to Dissapoint

Well, I promise that when I get to Nanjing that I will post more often than just once a month. I know that so many of you attempting to stalk me and have been highly disappointed with how hard I have been making it by not posting anything on my blog regularly for you. :-) Well, one of the biggest reasons/excuses that I have for not posting anything lately is because I have had Vincent (曾威榮) here visiting me for the past 2 weeks 多. It has been really fun. Unfortunately, I haven't really had a whole lot going on to keep him busy or entertained. And I have been working about 40 hours/week while he's here too. Oh well, we did get to go up to Independence and Liberty to see the Church historical sites there. It was really cool. We got to watch the Joseph Smith movie, it was pretty much amazing. Other than that I haven't really been up to much. Just counting down the days until I leave... 14 is the magic number for today. Unfortunately I just found out that my flight from Kansas City to Los Angeles was changed to an earlier time. So instead of having a 1 hour lay-over in LAX, I have a 12 hour lay-over! Lucky me! I think I might just shoot myself... I intend on keeping my phone active until I actually leave so I will probably call many of you faithful stalkers of mine while sitting in LA and implore you to entertain me. :-) No, seriously though, I will probably end up spending quite a bit of time on the phone while I'm sitting in the airport.

Well, perhaps I will find something else to post about before the end of the month. There is a dance this Friday. I'm planning on going up to St. Louis with some friends on Saturday to go to the temple since I won't have an opportunity to go again until December when I go to the temple in Taibei. The there is a baptism on Saturday afternoon, which will be fun too. Anyway, I think I'm going to go hang out with some of my cool friends, because, well, they are cool. Do I need any better reason? I think not. Thank you. Good bye.

So I'm lame... What of it?

Yes yes, I realize it has been a few weeks since I got back from EFY and haven't so much as posted a picture on here. And I have been helping the Sister Missionaries with a WAY awesome investigator from China, and I haven't updated anything about him on here. So I'm lame, what are you going to do about it?!

OK, at least I'm trying. Sadly, I'm better at blogging now than writing in my journal. This is a highly depressing thing for me considering there was one year in High School that I didn't miss a single day of writing in my journal for over 360 days! Ya, I'm kind of proud of that, but I have digressed quite a bit since then in the journal department.

Enough of my random rants. EFY was basically amazing. WAY better as a counselor than as a participant. I had tons of fun, and learned a lot. I heard things in classes that I needed to hear to help me change things I needed to change. It helped give me a boost to do better with reading my scriptures and having meaningful prayers every day. Awesome speakers. Great dances. Amazing kids. Here is a picture of them. :-)
So there is this Chinese investigator that the Sister Missionaries have been teaching for a few weeks, by the name of Wei. He was a referral from some Elders in their District, I believe. Well, they had been trying to find a time where I could help them with a lesson (my mind kept wanting to say 陪 their 課... Old habits die hard, huh?). We finally did find a time to meet with him and his room mate, Kidd. Kidd did most of the talking, which was fine, but I really wanted to get to know Wei and figure out why, exactly, it was that the Sisters thought he was just so amazing. Well, later, we did get to talk to him alone. He is AWESOME! We taught him about the Plan of Salvation and the importance of Faith, Repentance, Baptism, the Holy Ghost and Enduring to the End. (those were more brief that the rest of the Plan of Salvation) But we invited him to be baptized on August 23rd, and he accepted! Of course, we had to explain that after you are baptized and have the Gift of the Holy Ghost, it is much easier to learn the Gospel, and it comes faster. Also we told him that we would help him prepare for his goal. It was such a great experience to be there and set a baptismal goal! In just under two weeks, I will have been home from my mission for 2 years... That's just crazy. It was just so much fun for me to be a little nostalgic of my Missionary times, and also look forward to what the Lord has in store for me in the future...

This past week has just been crazy, what with work, FHE, Chinese investigators, English Class, a rodeo, a dance and preparing for both of them, and then getting FHE ready for this week, I have been slightly busy. Which, I guess, is better than being bored to tears. So the rodeo and dance. Ya, the were pretty much amazing. Krystal Guison does clowning every once in a while. The two Willard Wards had a combined Pioneer Day celebration out by Grandpa Adam's house. So her dad, who is either the Activities Committee Chairman, or just on the committee (which one, I'm not sure), asked her to be a Rodeo Clown. She figured it would be much more fun to have someone to play off of and what not, so she asked me if I wanted to be a clown. I figured, "Well, so long as she can make me look like a clown, I think I do a pretty good job of acting like a clown!" So I agreed. And, MAN it was a blast! The best part is after spending all of our energy being clowns, we got to go to a dance and spend all of that energy again! YAY! The dance was fun, but not nearly as fun as the ones at EFY, or the ones that we had here just after I got home from my mission. But all in all, it was a pretty much amazing evening. This is what I looked like as a clown, and another picture of Krystal and I together...

Pretty much, it was awesome. Sunday was GREAT though! I got to take a 2 hour nap right after having a wonderful Sunday lunch at the Guison's house. And they know how to eat good! Mmmm... Well, Vincent gets here tomorrow night, so we will see if I'm have time to post anything for the next 2 weeks or so, but I will try. And if not, in 2 weeks, I'm sure that there will be another huge post like this one covering everything in as little detail as I can possibly handle!