Ammon

The best thing about being in China is all the amazing tender souls I get to have in my life. I would've never known these people existed thousands of miles away! These people would've never been in my life and I would've gone my merry way through life without knowing them and how they could have impacted me. It makes me grateful for all the people I've come across in my life and the simple gifts they have given me just by being them.

One of these people in China is Ammon. I can't remember how much I've said about Ammon before, but his heart is a heart of gold. Maddy and I joint teach him in our 6th grade class. We recognized pretty early on that he had some sort of developmental and social issue. Some of the other boys would make fun of him. Which made us sad because he was always so happy to see us and participate in our lessons!

When we were giving our students English names at the beginning of the semester (which was really fun, I felt like I was naming a million of my own babies! One of my kids chose the name Nephi...hehe), we would ask our student what their favorite letter was and write a couple names starting from that letter and they would choose a name to go by in English. Most students didn't have English names. But Ammon did, and he insisted that he kept his name! Which we thought was really cute because he was probably named Ammon by a previous teacher and he wanted to keep that name.

These past couple of weeks we've been hanging out with him and his friends during their break and playing ping pong. One day he asked how we were doing and we said we were good and then he said he was sad. We asked why and sweetly but so sadly said "my home." My heart broke! This kid is 12 years old, isn't always excepted by his peers, probably feels demeaned in his classes because it takes him longer to understand and to top it all off he doesn't get to see his family for weeks at a time. And I realized how blessed I have been in so many areas of my life. It was so sweet because Ammon just kept giving us hugs. So tender! I love that boy. And even though he may have seen us as a blessing to him that day, he really is a blessing to us.

And after lots of hugs, making funny faces, playing ping pong and a couple rounds of rock-paper-scissors, I think Ammon was a little happier. :)