Covid-19, Conference, and China?

I forget to post for a few months and now there's a global pandemic. I kid, but being forced to stay home is probably just what the blog needed. Not that I go to a lot of places anyway. I'm very much a homebody. But now that everything is closed saved for essentials, I feel like I'm bouncing off the walls.

Thank goodness for the General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Even with all the necessary restrictions on gathering in large groups, the leaders were able to still speak messages of peace and hope into all our hearts, in addition to the overarching theme of the 200th anniversary of the First Vision and the continuing Restoration of Christ's Gospel.

The highlight of the conference for me was President Nelson announcing eight new temples to be built. Note my reactions to the last two in particular.

• Bahía Blanca, Argentina (cool)
• Tallahassee, Florida (I remember going through the Orlando open house and now my birth state will have three temples. Nice!)
• Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo (Another one for the DRC. Hurray!)
• Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (That's two for Pennsylvania after the one in Philadelphia)
• Benin City, Nigeria (Ain't no stopping the Church's growth in Africa)
• Syracuse, Utah (Ain't no stopping the overall growth of the State of Utah)
• Dubai, United Arab Emirates (*very loud gasp*)
• Shanghai, the People's Republic of China (*tears of joy*)

To understand my last reaction, you have to understand that I am a huge Sinophile (Sinophile being the fancy term for "lover of Chinese things and people"). I've been that way since I first learned I was a dragon according to the Chinese Zodiac from Chinese restaurant placemats. It's bloomed and grown over the years, even as I realized that, like white European history, Chinese history is full of a lot of bad ideas (footbinding and Maoism come immediately to mind) and bad eggs (half the main players of the Three Kingdoms period and Chairman Mao come to mind). But there were far more good and ordinary people who are rejoicing on the other side of the veil for the opportunity to finally receive temple blessings. And my heart rejoices with them.

I don't know how old I was when I learned that the PRC doesn't allow proselytizing within its borders, but I do know that I was really sad that they didn't. The Hong Kong temple was a big step in softening the hearts of Chinese leaders. May the Shanghai temple do the same.