From Carolyn's Letters Home
Sunday, November 9, 2014
Dearest Children, Grandchildren and Family,
How I love and miss you all!
It is always fun to follow your YouTube posts and emails. I still can hardly believe that we have
almost instant communication across the world!
I guess, coming from a past with no computers, cell phones, microwaves
or even calculators, that I have seen a lot of changes in my lifetime.
I often wonder what your lives will bring. We have been talking about “What it means to
be Human” in my classes. So far, the
only two things that everyone seems to be able to agree upon are that humans
cook their food and that they wear clothes because they feel the need to wear
clothes to cover themselves. Will your
futures include human-like robots who talk to you? I don’t know, but it has been an interesting
discussion with students who are much smarter than their teacher. The only thing that I can claim is that I am
a better English speaker, in most cases, than they are…which I guess qualifies
me for the job? J They say that the teacher learns more than
the student. This is definitely true in
my case. I love my students and am
grateful to be in China.
This past Monday evening, Richard and I had 2 medical
students from South Africa to our home for dinner. Lulu is from a village outside of Cape Town
and Katia is from Cape Verde. They are
both beautiful and smart. Lulu is the
only member of the church on our campus, besides us. She is a junior. It is difficult for her and I am grateful for
her desire to stay strong and one day return to her home as a physician to her
people. Katia is my English student and
is an amazing young woman. We hope they
will come to visit us and feel at home in our apartment.
On Tuesday, our Jinan group met at Pizza Hut and had a
delicious American meal. Afterwards,
some of them came to our apartment. Most
of them had to go home because of early classes, but Bryan and Omar, two
returned missionaries from BYU Idaho who are teaching at a Woman’s University
not far from our campus, stayed and the 4 of us played Farkle. Thanks to Mark and Linda and Melody for
showing us how to play. Of course, the
boys had played it before, so we had a great evening. The carmel corn from the street vendor down
the lane was also delicious.
It has been cold this week in Jinan, so we have had to wear
our warm clothing. The heat in our
apartment should be turned on November 15th. We are fortunate that we have several space
heaters. We loaned 2 of them to the boys
because they were freezing in their apartment.
It feels good to be able to help.
Friday night our new friend, Liz Bowler from St. George,
Utah came to spend 2 nights with us. We
met her on the Silk Road trip in October.
She teaches 1st grade in Teda, a city close to Tianjin. Amazingly, she spent the past three years
teaching 3rd grade at Valley Academy in Hurricane, Utah! What a small world. Liz spent an hour on a subway, then two hours
on a bullet train and arrived at 9:30 pm.
While we were waiting for her, we met a wonderful young man at the train
station. He is an Engineering Student at
another university in Jinan and his English was very good. His home is 40 minutes west of Shanghai where
he grew up on a farm. Just before Liz
arrived, he told me that he didn’t have an English name and was wondering if I
could recommend one to him. I told him
that I had a son named Michael and he loved the name. So, Mike, you have a wonderful young Chinese
student who is named after you! We
exchanged cell phone numbers and will be keeping in touch.
We so enjoyed our visit with Liz. The boys met us at 10 am and we all went to
Baotu Springs where Richard gave us all a great tour. The springs are ancient and constantly
bubbling. The 3 temples are more modern, but the design and statues are exact
replicas taken from ancient Chinese scrolls.
I think that I have written about these before. I will try to send pictures. I had some on my smart phone from the US, but
sadly, I lost my phone.
After touring the park, we took an hour long boat ride that
connects four springs and a beautiful lake called Daming Lake. China is beautiful! I am excited to see as much as we can this
year.
For late lunch, we ate an American hamburger at a new
“American” restaurant, then came back to our apartment and watched the movie
“2012”. It was a memorable day with
these young teachers.
Church is always a highlight of our week. How grateful we are to know that no matter
where we are in the world, we will have “family”.
Our Relief Society newsletter came out yesterday and I found
out that one of the counselors in our branch is Brother Knox, Inger Durkin’s
dad. Her mom Peggy wrote an article
about her grandson Gabe. I have taught
Gabe and his brother Christian and his sister Alana Murdock. I knew their grandparents were here, but I
didn’t realize that they were in our Virtual Branch. All roads must lead to Hurricane! J
Hope all of you are having a happy life and enjoying your
families. Life is short and the time
with the little ones goes so quickly. We
are very proud of all of you and grateful to be part of such an amazing family.
Love,
Mom, Grandma, Carolyn, Grandma Carolyn and Richard, Grandpa,
Dad, Grandpa Richard
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