China!

 David and I spent 10 days in China this month.  We really appreciate my parents and David's sister, Jessica, who took care of the kids while we were there.

We went to visit David's parents, who are teaching English at Tianjin University.

 One of our bags didn't arrive at the Beijing airport, so we got to go shopping for church clothes in a gigantic marketplace in Tianjin.  

(Imagine 30 Walmarts crammed together, except much dirtier and smellier.)  Some of the mannequins were quite interesting.

 David's parents live in an apartment at Tianjin University.  

We walked around campus quite a bit.  This is the "student parking lot."

 One of the highlights of our visit was teaching David's parents' English classes one day. 

 These are all doctoral students.  

We spent much of the time telling them about ourselves and answering their questions.  They were especially interested in our family life; how we keep our marriage strong and manage our time and money with SOOO many kids.  Having four kids is unfathomable to them, since the Chinese are only allowed one child.

 We visited a beautiful water garden and zoo in Tianjin. 

The mandatory retirement age in China is 55 for women and 60 for men.  Everywhere we went, there were groups of retired people dancing, exercising, singing, and playing games together.  

At the water garden we stopped to listen to a choir sing several songs.  We were so touched by their beautiful music.  

Afterwards, for some reason, they wanted me to sing "Red River Valley" for them.  I only know the first verse, but they had me sing it for them about 10 times.

 The zoo was amazing.  It is not as clean and modern as American zoos, but we definitely got a closer look at the animals.  The camels did not like David, and kept trying to spit at him.

 We spent a day at the Great Wall of China.  It was kind of surreal to be there. 

 It really should be called "The Great Staircase of China."  

We took it pretty slow to accommodate my 7-month pregnant body.

 We spent a day-and-a-half in Beijing before flying home.  Lots of people!!!  

Here we are trying to get on the subway.

This is a small part of Tiananmen Square.  You can't really tell from the picture, but there were tens of thousands of people waiting in line to see the tomb of Mao Tse Dong.  You can only see a small part of the line here.  

No, we did not wait in line.  None of us wanted to wait two hours to see the embalmed body of the man responsible for the Cultural Revolution.

Our last stop before flying home was the Forbidden City.  Outside the city wall we found the tree where David O. McKay dedicated China to the preaching of the gospel in 1921.  We read his dedicatory prayer under this tree.  

The whole time we were in China, I kept having a feeling of how much God loves the Chinese people and that His hand is in that land, setting things in motion to allow them to receive the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Many of them are anxiously waiting for it.