Letter #40

Some of our cute students. This is Angie and she made the scarf that I am wearing.

This is Sophia.

Joselyn, Sterling, and Kane. They pulled off an April's Food Day joke on me.

The boys in one of Ross' classes.

Letter #40 (June 21, 2009 – June 26, 2009) LAST LETTER FROM CHINA
Sunday, June 21, 2009 – Father’s Day - Mom –The father’s enjoyed their ties that the primary boys made for them. The Jessops left yesterday to visit Tibet before returning home for the summer. They gave Elva about 2 lbs of ground pork. So I prepared a Father’s Day dinner using that pork with potatoes, carrots and onion. Then we had some French bread in the freezer. We invited the Ortons, Helena and Mark. In one yummy dinner, we cleared out the freezer and a good part of the fresh vegetables. Today, I sorted through the Primary stuff and delivered it all to Elva. Another thing that I can check off my list of things to do before Saturday!!
Monday, June 22, 2009 – Dad – Our day off so we took an early (7:10am) walk. On our way we couldn’t help but laugh at a man who had swept up a pile of trash and dirt with a homemade broom and then had a square mouth shovel throwing the pile of trash and dirt over a 7 foot brick wall to get rid of it. We couldn’t help wondering what was on the other side? At 11:30am we met Parkson to take him to lunch at our favorite noodle restaurant – belt noodles. They are 3 feet in length and about 3 inches wide – yum, yum! Parkson tried to convince us that since he was born in the year of the Ox that we should give him a gift. We told him that that was not our tradition and therefore would not do it. I washed our water bottle receipt in the clothes washer today. It came out all right fortunately since we need it to get our 50 yuan ($7) deposit. Cheap huh? I went and got my last massage from a blind person today. It was wonderful especially the cost - $5.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009 – Mom – It is getting quite emotional in our classes when they say good bye. Both of my classes wanted to take lots of photos today after the final group finished their final exam. It was actually quite fun. Dad finished his classes and came up to my classes, so my students are taking as many pictures of him as they are of me. Mr. Ma and Mr. Li (our department assistant dean and the department head) invited us to have a lunch. They took us to a very good restaurant and we ate lots of Chinese food. They toasted us and told us thank you for teaching in their department. They also gave us some gifts – a journal with Xi’an International Studies University stamped on the cover, a picture book of the university and a book to learn to speak Mandarin Chinese. Mr. Ma told us that our students have been in his office asking why we would not be back to teach next year. We rode the “bucket of bolts” home, took a nap, and then completed the grades for our Tuesday classes.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009 – Dad – Still more oral English testing and grading going on all day. We did move some items over to the Orton’s today. A little each day until Friday should empty the apartment. Hot!
Thursday, June 25, 2009 – Mom – We are enduring to the end in listening to our students do their “performance” for the final oral exam. We let them choose from five topics. So the topics are getting just a little boring. BUT, the students are not. They are such good and sincere people. Some are so sad that we will not be returning and have a shocked look when I tell them we are going to America in 2 days!! We moved a lot of things to the Orton’s apartment today. We are almost living out of a suitcase – tomorrow, we will be. Helena came over to say that she was talking with Vincent and mentioned that we would be going to America on Saturday. He said he wanted to take us to dinner. We are always happy for a dinner out with someone who can tell us what we are eating. He picked us and Helena up and then we drove for quite a distance in rush hour traffic to the “most popular Hot Pot restaurant in Xi’an.” I think it must be true because it was packed and busy the who time we were there and it was very delicious. There is a hot plate in the middle of the table that they put some kind of soup in. When it boils, then you add whatever meat or vegetable you would like until it cooks (just minutes) and then you eat it after you have dipped it into a sauce. We enjoyed it very much and of course, ate too much. Vincent brought a friend named Jenny who was a very cute girl and spoke very good English. It was a very enjoyable evening. Vincent is the man from Taiwan that we met when we flew to Hong Kong last January.
Friday, June 26, 2009 – Dad – This is the day we have been looking for. Tomorrow we begin our journey home. We finished testing today and then had to stay to record grades for our Friday classes and hand them in to the assistant dean. A taxi home to begin packing our suitcases and then moving everything out to the neighbors for storage for the next BYU couple. The Orton’s had us to dinner and then we strolled in the heat in the evening to see, smell and feel the last sites of China. We leave at 8:30am for the airport then our flight is at 11:30am. It will take us an hour to drive to the airport. Here we come!