Beijing 9-18-11

Yesterday we went to our district conference. Elder Sam Wong is the area authority who attended along with our district presidencies. President Dyer is our District president. He showed a picture of his favorite scripture story. It is a picture of Christ from Mark 2: 1-12 where a man sick of the palsy is let down through the roof. President Dyer likened it unto us. We are all charged with bringing our friends to Christ. When there were difficulties, the friends went to extraordinary lengths, even taking up the roof tiles and lowering their friend with ropes. They were not discouraged, they persevered. We cannot physically bring our friends to Christ like these men did, but we can help them find Him in their prayers. Elder Wong added to the story, noting that the men had to be perfectly unified as they let the man down with ropes. If one of them were too slow or too fast, the man would fall. He likened that to the Relief Society, the priesthood, and the missionaries all being unified.

 
Our district includes several cities around Shanghai. There were a 46 BYU students from Nanjing who sang two songs for us. Suzhou, Hongzhou, and Shanghai are also included. There is even a virtual branch for those in remote areas where there are no organized meetings. What a blessing technology is! When we were in Beijing, I found out that there are parallel meetings for Chinese nationals in Beijing. They can’t attend with the expats. They are not allowed to talk to each other about the church, but there are Chinese members who can attend meetings run only by other Chinese citizens. The members I talked with said they thought the same might be true for Shanghai, but they must meet in a different building from us. In Beijing they use the same facility. I forgot to ask at church, but I will try to find out.

 
We had a lovely time in Beijing last week. We flew instead of taking the train. We stayed at a five star hotel for only $100 per night. It was the International Hotel. It is in the financial center, which had no business since the weekend was a holiday. That is probably why we got such a good rate for a lovely hotel. The other hotels in the tourist district were all more expensive for dumpy hotels. We were just a five minute walk from the metro station. We took the metro all over. We went first to the forbidden city. It is a large complex of beautiful buildings. We also went to the great wall at Mutianyu, which is a mountainous region. We climbed up to the wall, and could see it snaking over the mountain peaks. It was a lovely place. We went to the summer palace, which is where the emperor’s family could go when they got bored with the forbidden city. It is a large garden with a lake and many houses. The last empress spent all the money earmarked for modernizing the navy and the military on building new fancy houses and a marble boat (stationary) That is why she was the LAST empress! As soon as she died, the military was overthrown by the next leader. I can’t remember his name. When he tried to make himself an emperor, the people threw him out. Mao eventually took over.

 
We saw the temple of heaven complex last before we flew home. There are actually lots of temples in China, just not the right kinds! That reminds me, we need to buy tickets to Hong Kong for our temple trip on November 4-5th. Hong Kong is 771 miles from Shanghai. It’s kind of an expensive trip! I wonder if there are overnight trains like there are to Beijing. They are sleeper trains. You sleep in them overnight and arrive in the morning to Beijing. I’ll see if we can get them. They are in some ways preferable to flying because they are cheaper, and you arrive earlier in the morning.

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