Day 3

Our next venture in Xi’an was to find the LDS branch there because it was Sunday! It was kind of a weird experience for me because it was actually General Conference going on at home and I didn’t have access to watching it while everyone else was for once. The night before I was getting in bed and had my Ensign from April’s session of conference and was reading one of the talks when I realized that the first session of Saturday morning was going on right then because of the time difference…and I was in Xi’an in our hostel no where near the prophets and apostles speaking…but I also thought it was really cool that I was in fact reading talks from the apostles and that was good enough for me at that moment. Anyways, after we enjoyed French toast again for breakfast that morning we got with Megan’s group which made it so there were 19 of us and got in 5 separate taxis hoping we would all end up at the same place after we showed them the address. Luckily, each time we did so that day it did work because without cell phones there really isn’t anything you can do about it to figure out where the rest of your group is. We met one of the branch members outside the university where they hold church and headed to the classroom. It was a good thing we were there that Sunday because if not they would have only had 5 people there since everyone was out of town touring or visiting other cities just like we were. It was a really cool experience to get to have church with them. The two older women in the branch had such strong testimonies of the gospel and knew without a doubt that they were in China for a reason even though they can’t talk about the church with any of their citizens. We just had testimony meeting and Sunday school and then we went out to lunch at…once again, a place that wasn’t Chinese food. Amanda, one of the ladies in the branch, told us she would take us to this restaurant because it had Mexican and lots of western entrees so we were really excited about it and it was for good reason. I got a chicken quesadilla with chips and salsa and a banana milkshake and it was delicious. We all enjoyed our lunches and then we caught some more taxis to head to the orphanage Amanda owns. The babies there are not adoptable yet because of physical impairments such as cleft pallets, heart problems, exposed bladders, malnutrition, or other things. Once Amanda finds the doctor that can do the surgery for free or for a small price they are able to get the operation taken care of and then eventually the babies are finally adoptable. She has about 40 or so babies there that she takes care of with some American volunteers that are living with her and then probably about 5 or so Chinese nannies that are hired to work there. The babies are so adorable and we just couldn’t get enough of them. The first one I held was Carmen and she was just the sweetest little thing. We had a lot of fun together and she was intrigued by every little thing I would do for her. One of the little baby girls name’s was Libby and a couple of my friends named her Monster Baby because she is soo big!! She is such a little chunker but that is how we’d rather them be than have them be malnourished! We played together for a while on the floor with a ball until she started getting fussy so I walked around with her for a little to calm her down and she fell asleep. I had to sit down to support her weight because she was so big. Haha, she was so adorable. I couldn’t talk while she slept because she would start to wake up every time I did but I didn’t mind just sitting there holding her. I could have gone and put her in her crib but I didn’t want to. I’m sure with the amount of nannies they have the kids get enough attention when they need it but I’m pretty sure they don’t ever get held while they sleep so I couldn’t resist. I think we were there close to three hours, no one wanted to leave but we eventually had to because some prospective parents were visiting and it was getting a little crowded since our group alone filled the room. It was so fun to see those kids though and spend some time with them that they don’t usually get. That night we went to Muslim Street again and bought a couple souvenirs. I didn’t buy much at Muslim Street because of the train ride and just having my backpack to store stuff I didn’t want to buy things that could get stolen. But I did find some cute, small things I had to get. One being a watch because the last one I got accidentally got tossed on the floor because it was on my bed. This happened a few weeks ago and the glass was starting to fall apart, the watch still worked, but I was nervous about the glass breaking somewhere I wouldn’t want it to like in my skin so I got a new one. I bargained the lady down to a pretty reasonable price and then went on my way. Shantel, Caleb, Emily P, Gen, and I went to McDonalds for some cheap ice cream cones and then I realized my watch wasn’t working. So we went back to Muslim Street which was right around the corner and the guy put a new battery in it. I figured that would work so we went on our way. Well, come to find out in the morning it was still only 3 A.M. according to my watch so we had to go back again and fight the lady for a new watch with a new battery and got some of my money back. They weren’t very happy about it but they were honestly just trying to rip me off with the first one. But after we got the battery fixed the night before we went to a couple more stores and then decided we were done for the night. We decided that if we went out the back instead of heading to the entrance of Muslim Street that we’d actually get to our hostel much quicker and it would lead us right there. So we went that way and after about ten minutes of walking down this road we realized we had no idea where we were and were actually in the ghetto of China. All the people were staring at us like we were very out of place. I mean, stares are a normal accurance here in China for us Americans but these people definitely didn’t see Americans going down that street very often. It wasn’t creepy whatsoever since we did have a boy with us but we didn’t know where we were that was for sure. I finally voiced my opinion in that we should probably just turn around and back track but someone else thought it’d be a good idea to go down a new road instead because it probably led out to the main road. Yes, it did lead out to a main road, we weren’t in the slums anymore, but still…nothing was lookin familiar. Haha, after about 2 hours we were totally on the opposite end of the city we were supposed to be on. We didn’t want to get in a taxi because there were 5 of us so that would split us up and who knows if they’d take us to two different locations and we didn’t know which buses went where so we didn’t want to get on any of them either. Luckily, as we were nearing midnight we finally got into two taxis, told one to follow the other, and told the first to head straight down the road to the opposite end of the city which is exactly where our hostel was at. After a long voyage of hysteric laughs and irritability at the same time we made it to our hostel in one piece. After staying up for about another hour at the two hostels we crashed and awaited the next day!