Say goodbye to your briefcase! WYNN

Dear Family:
It is Wednesday evening here and school is over for the week. What a busy week. Mother and I gave all of our classes a Halloween party. Well, mother gave them some apple juice and a donut, and my classes had an all out party. My classes had hot chocolate, apple juice and donuts. My party lasted much of the allotted time. Mothers lasted during the break. My classes much preferred the all out party, and so did I, because that saved me preparing so much more teaching stuff. They deserve a break. I dressed up like a witch. I had a witches hat, a cape and a mask. I left the class room, went to the restroom, put my costume on, went back to the class and knocked on the door. When a person came to the door, I yelled, "trick or treat." They all screamed and laughed. I gave each of them a mask. They had a great time. They used their cell phones to take photos all during the class periods. I am tired and I am glad it is over, but was much fun. they had never had a Halloween anything before, they loved it.

Tonight I went to the market to get a few supplies. What a zoo. There is nothing at the market in English. I was looking for some salt and pepper. None in sight. I looked everywhere. I asked several people if they spoke English. No one did. I walked up and down the aisles saying, "Anyone speak English?" No replies. I know they must have salt and pepper. Finally I see a man and a lady dressed very well. They are a cut above the rest of the shoppers. Surely they speak English. I asked them. She said "a little." I asked her where the salt and pepper was. She took me to it. It really was salt and pepper. Boy what an ordeal. I was looking for salt and pepper for over an hour. I bought a few other things to make some hamburger vegetable soup also. Tomorrow evening my smallest class is coming over to our apartment to learn how to make hamburger vegetable soup. Also mashed potatoes and gravy. Should be fun. They are great kids.

Last Tuesday I worked on the branch tithing report. One person made a donation, so we had to do a report. The way the reports are here in China, you must made a lot of entrys. It took two of us over two hours to finish the report. Then we had to go to the bank. I rode on the back of Brother Powells motor cycle. Another mistake. I know angels have to ride with us or we would have crashed several times. Quite frankly, I don't even understand why angels would ride with us. We go down the one way street twice going the wrong direction. There are four lanes of traffice coming at us. We are driving in the second and third lanes, dodging traffic. They are all coming right at us. On the way to the bank, we are driving near a very narrow sidewalk. Lots of students are walking along side of us. As we are riding along side of the walking traffic, the rear view mirror on his motor cycle catches some guys brief case, and we start taking off with his briefcase. He has no choice but to run because his brief case has a shoulder strap which is across his shoulders. Bro. Powell keeps on going and they guy is running along side of the bike. Finally the brief case comes loose from the rear view mirror and the guy comes to a quick halt. We keep on going. I didn't turn around to see what happened to the guy. When we came back he was gone though, so I guess he either walked off, or was taken by ambulance to the hospital. By now, I'm thinking this isn't all that safe, and I never agreed to this motor cycle stuff when I was called to be the ward clerks. This could get dangerous! Around here, nobody gets shot, they just get run over or knocked down.

Last Saturday, our B P called me and asked me if I wanted to go to the Muslum market. I said sure. (another mistake) He said meet me in the lobbby at 10:00 A. M. OK. I meet him. He says we are going to ride bikes. I think, this isn't good. I think that I will have to ride behind him on his bicycle. He says, you can ride Brother Powells bicycle. I say OK. We're off. I can't believe it. We start going down the one way street again, the wrong way. This time I am on a bicycle, and I am out numbered and out weighed. He waves in and out of traffic, the wrong way. So do I. Everyone is honking at me and I am waving at them. I try to stop and find the bike has little or no brakes. I have to come to a screeching hault by dragging me shoes on the pavement. I don't hit the guy, but dang close. I tell the B P that I have no brakes. He say's, "no problem" No I am worried. Now I go much slower and he is going faster. Finally I lose him. I keep going and think maybe I will see him some where. A few blocks down the road he is stopped waiting for me. We go to the Muslum market. (such as it is) It is a back yard of some guys house that sells beef out of his back window. There are several people lined up to buy his beef. You can get what you want. He has a picture of a cow on the outside wall, and you point to the part of the cow you want to buy. I say, "I want 6 pounds of hamburger" He speaks a little English. He asks me if I want any fat in the hamburger.. This guy is serious. I watch him cut every sliver of fat off of the beef for the last guy. I tell him I want just a little fat. He gives me just a little fat. Maybe one or two percent. He wraps it into one pound packages and hands it to me. There is still a little blood dripping from the bag. I put the bag in my basket on the bike, and the blood from the hamburger dripps on the street all the way home. On the way home, the B P wants to take me sight seeing to places I have never been. We go for about an hour. The meat still dripping blood. Finially I say, "well I best be gettin home, Paula will be wonderin where I am. He says OK, just one more stop. After one more stop, we head home. The hamburger still seems to be OK. I put it in the freezer and hope it is OK.

We do not have a kitchen in our apartment. We do have a small refrigerator and a microwave and a hot plate. No sink to wash the dishes. We do the dishes in the bathroom sink. Not grear, but not bad. You get use to it. Most of the teachers have it much worse than we do. I'm not complaining. We have in door plumbing, hot water most of the time. (you can't drink it though)

When Mom and I go to school in the morning, it is much faster to go the back way. The problem is, the back way is behing the faculity housing restaurant and they wash their table clothes behind the building where we walk, and hang them up on wire clothes lines that we have to walk through. We manouver our way through the wet table clothes, but I have yet to knock one off onto the groung. One big problem is that these Chinese people are short and their clothes line wires are only about 5 feet or so off the groung. I can tell you, a guy could kill himself walking through there at night if you are not oh-so-careful. Decapitation would not be unheard of here for a tall guy. The back way looks like a poor neighborhood in Mexico. It is otherwise safe though. (I think)

We finally get an English television station. It is called National Geographic. We are getting very smart about animals and how they live and we are darn grateful to have that channel. At least we have a channel.