May 28th

When I was out walking on Sunday I came across a Buddhist temple that was really impressive. So today, we decided to go to it as a family. We got breakfast on the way – more steamed buns! The temple was really cool. The buildings had so many intricate carvings and statues and things like that. When we first got there I realized that I had taken my parents and older sisters to that temple when they came to visit at the end of my mission. While we were there a lot of the older people were talking to us about how beautiful our children are and how amazing we are to have six of them. They then invited us to a special prayer ceremony that they were going to do. It was pretty neat. They sang and danced and I was really glad that the children got to see some of the different ways people worship in different religions. We were there at the temple for a couple hours and then we went back to our apartment.

I had my presentation at one of the universities in the afternoon. It was a really neat university. It was a very tropical and huge campus. I imagined it would be fun to be a student or professor there. My presentation went well and it was fun to talk with the students and faculty there.

Afterward, one of the faculty members (the only foreigner – he is from Greece and actually teaches his psychology courses in English there) and a few of the clinical psychology graduate students took us out to eat at a nice restaurant. Since they were driving me there straight from the university, Rebecca had to find it by herself. She was nervous to walk it with all of the children, but she amazingly navigated the Chinese streets all on her own and even got there before I did. The dinner was really delicious. The faculty member ordered way more food than we could possible eat, including lots of fried noodles, dumplings, beef and chicken dishes, pork belly, mushrooms, tofu, and a few vegetable dishes. The children didn’t like the food as much, but they did a good job trying lots of things and being polite. Agnes especially filled up on a huge plate of noodles. It was really late by the time we finished and walked back and everyone quickly fell asleep.

Eating our morning steamed buns.


The front gate of the first temple.




These lions had stone balls that were carved inside the mouths so they were impossible to get out.
















I think most of the children have now successfully used these types of toilets.




The prayer ceremony that they invited us to attend.


These ponds all had lots of large colorful koi in them.






Dancing in the park.


Some rice fields on the edge of town.


Banana trees.



This is the social science building at Dong Hua University. It was an amazing campus. Very large and very tropical.


A few of the attendees after the presentation. They always like to take pictures with their presenters.