Church in Shanghai

In Shanghai, we finally made it to church. My nephew, Nate, and his family had lived in Shanghai for a few years, so he was able to get me a contact who could provide me with some concrete instructions on where to go.


After a few emails with Tonya, a lovely home schooling mom, I received the following instructions:

“The church is in Yongda Tower on Fangdian Road and Longyang Road. Both are main roads. If you are taking the subway, you will want…the Longyang station on line 2.…Once you exit the station, look for the scaffolding/construction. That is Longyang Road. Just cross the road and you will be able to see the Yongda building, which is about 20 or 30 floors high; the only high rise in the near vicinity.

“Once you are at the Yongda Tower, go to and take the outdoor escalators to the second floor. There is only one set and they only go to the second floor. At the second floor, you will be at an open area from which you can access the conference center on the right, and that is where sacrament meeting is held.”

The directions were excellent, and we discovered the construction right away. However, scanning for a tall building was slightly more problematic. There did seem to be one building taller than the rest, but it was a little farther off than I had imagined. Coming from New York, I somehow expected to get off of the subway and have the church right there! We walked for about 10 minutes to get to the building, but I kept wondering if we were going in the right direction.

As soon as we approached the building, I started looking for escalators which were not immediately apparent. A quick glance into the first opening, revealed elevators. As I turned away, Kinsey muttered, “They have alligators in the lobby!” I glanced back and realized that there was indeed a tank of alligators there…unfortunately most likely waiting to be used as restaurant meals.


We started rounding a corner toward the front of the building and immediately saw the escalators. We followed a couple of other people up and made it in time for the sacrament.

The conference center was a big circular room with a stage and podium set up on the far end, and chairs filling about half of the room. After the sacrament, it was announced that some Chinese government officials were also attending, and then the conductor reiterated Chinese policy on religion: no proselytizing of Chinese Nationals. I noticed a row of Chinese people, several men and a woman, all in dark suits, wearing headphones and listening intently. The talks for the day were on the Proclamation on the Family, which was probably a very good, non-controversial topic for the government officials.

The Shanghai branch we attended was made up of ex-pats from all over the world. There were a few visitors, a few couples, and some singles, but I think the bulk of the branch was families. The first thing that struck me was that they nearly had a full complement of Aaronic Priesthood to pass the sacrament, although it didn’t seem like they had Priest-age young men. After Sacrament Meeting, I flagged down a girl who looked to be about Kinsey’s age and asked her if she was in Young Women. She said she was, so I asked her to take Kinsey with her, and they disappeared for the rest of the meetings.

Tonya came up and introduced herself. She has five children ranging from 2 to 12, so we chatted for a minute and then she told me where to go for Sunday School, while she attended to her kids.

The rest of the meetings were standard fare, but it was interesting to glean little bits of how people live in Shanghai. In this particular branch, there was a little more of a suburban streak, so some people did have homes and some even drove cars--which seemed horrifying to me, but more on that later. The Relief Society spoke about having a hoe-down social, complete with a costume contest. I don’t know why this struck me as particularly difficult, but I somehow couldn’t conceive of how to manipulate my way through China to put this together. I realize that it must be how many of our new Manhattanites feel, and that I was experiencing it again on a larger scale. Learning how to get around and live in a city in as foreign a place as China must be doable, because these women seemed to be doing it without much thought about it being hard. It seemed the one area they struggled with the most, was one common everywhere…finding a babysitter.

After church, I met up with Kinsey and she reported that the Young Women program here was “huge,” meaning there were between ten and twelve girls in the group.

Tonya had invited us over for dinner, but regretfully I declined. Looking back, I wish I had accepted, but dinner was at 3:30, still more than three hours away, and I was exhausted and looking for a nap.


The longer we travel, the more I stop for a day or two each week and take a short day or an entire day for rest at the hostel. We can catch up on laundry, writing, reading, napping, or resting, but I figure this is the only way we’ll make it through the entire four months. Sundays seemed to be a good day to enforce the rule, so on the road, Sundays are really our day of rest.