I just got back from guangzhou. dude I totally want to go to china. It was a really interesting experience. We visited Samuel Lamb's house church. His house church is 3000 big. Its probably the biggest house church in china I think. they have 4 weekly services of like 750 each or something like that. It was raining so hard when we went to the church. So we were walking to the church with umbrellas and stuff (I now own two.) Then we get to this place where the water is totally flooded. We can't continue unless we go through the water, so we go through. We walked to the house church through a flood! The water was higher than my knees! Dude it was awesome. At the church, Samuel Lamb spoke in cantonese but it was translated into mandarin. I could pretty much understand what he was talking about! I was so happy that my mandarin at least isn't so bad! Dude in Guangzhou, although everyone still speaks cantonese, everyone speaks mandarin also! Its so cool. I felt so much more free than in HK. A lot of people speak english here though, so its okay . Hardly any people speak english in Guangzhou. I so want to learn to read Chinese. During the sermon, I wished I could read his notes. I am learning a few words. I can now read "my" as in buy. I can read "my" as in sell. I know the word for "jia" as in "jia chien" as in price. I learned how to write some cantonese words too that I don't think you use in mandarin. I learned to write "mm" as in "no" or "not." I learned to write "hai" as in "yes" or "is." I totally want to learn to be fluent in mandarin and read and write chinese well. I want to come back to china. Guangzhou was definitely more poor than in HK. Some areas of Guangzhou are nice, but if you walk just a little ways, you usually come across some shanty shack looking places. A lot of people lived in like shanty shack type places in HK. After the flood subsided coming back from Samuel Lamb's church, we a few dead rats. We went to a restaurant that had live frogs, cockroaches, bees, snakes and other weird stuff to eat. We didn't eat that stuff of course, but ya know. Samuel Lamb had been imprisoned twice. He rejoiced in persecution because every time he was released from prison, his church grew from it. It was totally interesting.

We also went to a TSPM church the next day. It was in cantonese so I couldn't understand hardly any of it. I only knew that the lady who was preaching was preaching on the woman at the well from john chapter 4. I thought it was really boring so... hahah.. probably because i couldn't understand any of it. I ran out of film so I didn't take any pictures in Guangzhou! How sad. There were a lot of things I wanted to take pictures of but I couldn't. Guangzhou is an interesting place. Dude, I totally want to come back to China now. The only thing I would miss is people. Its hard to move to a new place and make deep relationships. If I had a wife to take along, I think I'd be able to deal with the dirtiness and everything. hahah. I don't know. People are probably still asleep on Sunday morning back at home. A lot of people are at the church retreat. I wonder how that is going. Write me and tell me! I'll be home in 2 weeks. My missions trip is over half over. I miss jamba!