While we are here in China our Sunday's are very different than they used to be. Church is held through teleconference originating in Beijing. All of the members in the big cities meet together somewhere to dial in and listen. We are not the only members here in Wuhan, so we try to meet together with everyone else on Sunday. Luckily one of the other LDS couples are also here at our school and live in the same building that we do. We love that we live so close to the Skaggs, they are so fun to have around. There is another couple who lives about half an hour away who we have only met the wife once. There is also a super cute family that lives all the way across the city named the Flannery's. They have a 3 year old boy and a 2 year old girl and they are seriously some of the cutest children i have ever seen! They make the 2 hour trip across town worth it. Well, church starts at 10:00 a.m. so we have to get down to the bus stop and hop on a bus by 8:00. We ride the 583 bus until the very end of the line which takes around an hour and a half and then because the bus route ends they kick us off and we have to catch a taxi. Once we find a cab that doesn't already have passengers (which is harder that it seems) we take a 10-12 rmb bus ride to the Flannery's apartment. By the end of 2 hours sitting in buses and taxi's it is hard to sit for church, but like I said their kids make it worth it. They are so cute and energetic and entertaining. I don't understand what they are saying to me because they are speaking Chinese but it doesn't even matter. We have lots of fun playing with them, teasing them, and just watching them bounce around and make messes. After church we all eat lunch together and then catch another taxi and bus back home.
Well this last Sunday it was really really cold. We (The Skaggs and ourselves) were all bundled up for the bus ride. This time we got to the Flannery's in less than 2 hours, which was really nice. However, on the way home something went terribly wrong. Our taxi driver seemed to have a hard time getting us to the bus stop. He took a very long roundabout way that ended up costing us more than normal. We were lucky enough to get on a heated bus for the ride home, but we ended up being stuck on the bus for 3 hours! After 3 hours a heated bus smashed full of people gets really really hot. We started to get sweaty and had to peel off some layers. The last hour of the bus ride we only drove about 2 miles. When we were just about 2 miles or 7 stops from home our bus broke down and they herded everyone off. There was another bus waiting to pick us up, but it already had it's own load of passengers and there was no room for us. The traffic was also pretty backed up so we all decided to just walk home, even though it was raining. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be walking in the rain while I was still sick, but we didn't get home until after 4:30. 8:00 a.m to 4:30 p.m. is a long time to devote to church and traveling to and from church. I guess at least we got an interesting experience and story out of it.
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