The thought came to my mind after listening to two months of teleconference sacrament meeting in China. Why? It is because I noticed that almost no anecdote of exchange between US expatriates and local Chinese has been mentioned or referred to in the sacrament meeting talk or in the testimonies given. What are talked about, of people, are mostly about families back in the States, news of home wards, etc., and about co-expats here, and none else. I felt as if these people are here in China, but their topics, their minds are basically facing back toward America. And their associations are limited among co-expatriates themselves. So the comparison to the people of the Book of Mormon, where neither the Nephites nor the Lamanites mentioned the local natives at all though they moved into a new land. Writing the thought I noticed that the major reason for this is to be found in the enormous difficultness of the language, Chinese to the Westerners. But still I think it is expected of the visitors who would stay for a substantial length of time to learn and speak the local language. It is part of newcomers obligation and courtesy. And aren’t lds known for their ability to speak foreign languages? (The thought is posted in my Japanese blog NJWindow(J) dated 29 Oct. ‘09)