What were you grateful for this week?
Meeting lots of new people from all around the world. 

What was the most difficult or challenging part of this week?
The father has been out of town (unexpectedly and suspiciously) so we’ve been pretty busy. 

Tell us about a “wow” moment you had this week.
I’ve been taking [my host family’s son] to school as well as [my host family’s other son]. 

Tell us about your week! 
Can I just say something?

CAN????I????JUST????SAY????SOMETHING????

One of my greatest joys in life is meeting new friends around the world, and finding something in common that binds you together despite vast cultural differences. This week was full of that.

Thursday and Friday went by quickly, packed with lots of time with the kids. The host Dad has been out of town on business, and the Grandma left for a few days to her hometown of Ningbo, so it’s been especially busy around here.

Saturday morning I left very early (too early, it turns out) to the Hangzhou Zoo. I had invited a few people to join but the only one that ended up getting time off Saturday morning was Jasmin, a German Au Pair. We met up at the gate (about an hour after I’d gotten there (my fault)) and beheld the marvels of wildlife, the likes of elephants, giraffes, zebras, various monkeys and chimpanzees, highly-trained flipping seals, lions, tigers, bears (DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT SAYING IT), and of course, pandas. The zoo hosts two young male pandas and they were super active when we got there. Like, super. They ate a boat-load of bamboo in ten minutes flat and then had an hour long wrestling match much to everyone’s amusement. We met a vet student there who spoke really good English from living in upstate New York. She’s studying pandas for the next couple of weeks here before she heads back to college, so we had a good chat and exchanged WeChat info. Afterwards we got some amazing beef and rice at a little restaurant outside the zoo. The manager translated the menu for us the best he could which was very helpful with our limited Chinese. I went back home, and everyone was still at Oscar’s computer class, so I went out to eat at a nearby BaiJaiWang: my new go-to restaurant, because you literally just have to pick up plates of food and pay. User friendly for freshly-unpacked foreigners.

Sunday morning I played with the kids for a couple of hours and then went to Church by taxi. The family messaged me that they would be out for a while on the other side of town so I got to stay for the 3-hour-block again. I love how small and intimate the branch is; it helps the lessons and talks become a lot more personal. Afterwards the Woods invited all of the young single adults over for lunch at their place. They are the ones who live next door to me. They have 4 adorable, smart, energetic kids which kept things lively. They had a piano at the house so I showed the kids some Beatles songs. Han, a Chinese member from Nanjing overheard it and we discovered our similarly undying love for the Beatles, and various other bands we both liked. We had a very energetic discussion about music, along with Jimi (another YSA from New York) giving lots of K-Pop recommendations which I have already happily digested. Ester, a YSA from Ghana, is the real-life incarnation of Shuri from Black Panther. The whole time she was sarcastically interrogating Eves (a YSA from the Congo), telling him he didn’t look like he was from the Congo, and that he was making up facts about the Congo to try and maintain a secret alias. Her sense of humor is on point; I was dying of laughter.

I walked across the street back home and helped [my host family’s son] with a little extra homework. Then I took [my host family’s other son] to guitar lessons. During a small break, I went in and talked with his Russian guitar teacher, Vova. We jammed a little bit on the guitars and he generously offered me to come by whenever I wanted to play his instruments. He has a drummer friend as well that we’ll probably jam with this weekend. I’m stoked.

Monday I took one of the boys to school in the morning. He’ll be sleeping at the school until Friday for a weeklong education camp thing. It’s been quiet around here without him. When I got back, I took a walk down by the river and listened to music. For those who know me well, you’ll know I become very enveloped when I listen to music, and very unaware of my surroundings. About an hour into my walk, I started down this street and noticed two unusually beautiful people, a boy and a girl, waving at me and pointing me in the direction of a bar. I was really confused. Are they trying to kidnap me? With a rather unpleasant look on my face I walked past them and waved them away. Another guy, tattooed and holding a cigarette in one hand comes even closer to me and waves at me even harder towards the bar. What are these people trying to do? It’s broad daylight. Why would they be trying to coax me into this bar so aggressively? Was business really that bad? I continued to walk by, slightly annoyed that they were disrupting my new K-Pop playlist listening experience. As I made it about 10 feet more, I saw what looked like a ladder on the ground in front of me. Wait a minute. That’s a camera dolly… and that’s a camera rig riding it. And there’s a boom mic… I looked to my side and saw about 30 people huddled under a tent with various costumes and equipment in hand… uh oh.
 

I WALKED RIGHT INTO THE MIDDLE OF A FILM SET. WHILE THEY WERE FILMING. THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE WERE THE LEADING MAN AND LADY. THE OTHER DUDE WAS THE DIRECTOR.

I ran for the other side of the dolly, making sure I was out of the shot. One of the PA’s came up to me and explained what was going on, and I apologized profusely. He was kind enough to talk to me for a little bit and explained it was a TV show they were filming for, although I have no idea how to spell or write the name of it. So. Pretty wild stuff.

I picked up [my host family’s son] early from school and we played for about 3 hours before he started homework. A little after that I took the metro down to the Moore’s house. Brother Moore is the Elder Quorum President and he invited me and Jacob (my brother-in-law’s brother) to their house for family home evening. We talked about a lot of great topics including mission stories and having a positive, success-driven mindset. We played a game of charades with the kids, and got to see Jacob’s famous “fish out of water” impersonation. After some additional conversation, we played a few games of Nerds and called it a night.

The next morning, after I dropped [my host family’s son] off, I joined a group of parents from the school to go hiking by a lake 30 minutes south of the main city. What a quality group of women. They were from France, Italy, Brazil, Korea, and a few state side, making for some great conversation along the 10k hike through the mountains. There was a beautiful pagoda at the end and we got some great pictures.

Taking care of kids everyday is exhausting and rewarding, and I’m sure I’ve got every parent reading this cracking up now. I’m glad I’ve been getting a better taste of what’s in store for me when I raise my future kids. There’s a lot at stake for them, and we’re not the perfect role models we hope we would be. I take comfort, however, in looking at my childhood. I was a crazy, disobedient, rude kid at times. But through the years, and with the help of my parents, siblings, and friends, I grew into a better person. It really does take a village. And I’m glad to be part of [my host family’s sons’] village at this time in their life. They’ve got a lot of growing to do, and every hand that can help, no matter how seemingly small, is significant.