My Home Away From Home

Being with my roommate Josh feels like I’m back in the mission training again (and I love it!). He has taken some Chinese classes at BYU-Idaho, so his Chinese is pretty similar to my trainees coming out of the MTC. He doesn’t understand much yet, and constantly turns to me for translation, but we have a lot of fun together. (I remember how excited he was that first morning I took him to by food out on the street.) You have no idea how great it feels to be back in Asia. I was worried that I had forgotten a lot during that year I was home from my mission, but being out on the streets again makes it feel like it was just yesterday.

Few things get me back into my missionary mode more than bargaining at markets. I forgot how much I missed bargaining with Chinese salesmen! We went to the silk market today, and there was one particular dragon tie that I liked but the lady wanted ¥285 for it. That is ridiculously high! The lady obviously thought I was just some ignorant tourist she could rip off. After haggling with her for 5-10 minutes, I set my final price (which she refused), so I walked away. It didn’t take long before she was calling for me to come back. I bought that tie for only ¥35. (Less than six dollars U.S.)