Thursday, May 24, 2012

Keeping in Touch

A few weeks before I left Beijing, I had the feeling that I should email my former investigators/recent converts that I knew were living in China to see what was happening with them.  I emailed a whole bunch of them.  Two of them emailed me back right away, 李小平 and George Wang.

I taught 李小平 for nearly 9 months on my mission.  He would come to church most of the time, but he was mostly interested in learning English, not in really finding a set of beliefs.  However, we had a good relationship.  He emailed me back right away and said he was working in Beijing at a hospital and wanted to see me, so we set up a time and I met him at his hospital on a holiday and we had lunch and went to an antiques market.  We had a great conversation; he's been in Beijing for nearly a year doing research while his wife and daughter are in Changsha.  He works 6, sometimes 7 days a week and long hours and rarely gets out, and it doesn't seem like he has many friends; he was really glad to see me.  He insisted on paying for lunch.  He also asked where the church was in Beijing and sounded serious about going again.  I'm still not sure if he's allowed to attend, but I will find out and let him know.  Just before I left Beijing, he gave me a piece of framed embroidered silk art.

George and his wife Karena were baptized in my last area, Hamilton, Ontario.  They are from Wuhan.  As I emailed George, he was Skyping with my friend Weston Packard, another elder from my mission who baptized Karena just before we opened the Chinese area and taught and baptized George.  It turns out Weston was coming to China for a week!  So a week before the marathon, Weston stayed at my apartment in Beijing for a few nights and we went touring - the wall, the Forbidden City, Jingshan park, hutongs, food, the summer palace, etc etc.  It was a blast.  I had been too busy/not interested enough to do anything touristy for the 2-3 months before that, so it was a perfect incentive to get out and see things.  After that, Weston flew to Wuhan and George gave him the royal treatment there, taking him all around, feeding him, and introducing him to his family and friends.  Weston doesn't speak Chinese, so it was all very funny.  Weston came back on Thursday and left Friday morning, just as Seth and Ben were getting in for the marathon.  I need to go see George in Wuhan one of these weekends; either the 1st or the 8th of June.  But really, there are no coincidences.  Just as I felt like emailing contacts from my mission, George was Skyping with Weston, and I had no idea Weston was even coming to Beijing two weeks after that.  Little miracles.

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