Niujie Mosque

Today my friend Sam took us to a mosque in the heart of the city. Turns out that Islam has been in China for a very long time, so long that there are some ethnicities that are known for being Muslim. This particular mosque was built in 996 AD, and has had various renovations and additions since then. What many of us were surprised at was that the architecture and motifs were all Chinese. Except for the Arabic
writings in parts of the buildings, and especially in the prayer hall, you would have thought is was just an ancient Chinese community.

I appreciated Sam sharing this part of his culture and religion with us. The exchange has been
very mutual; he has been asking so many questions about Latter-day Saint (LDS, or Mormon) beliefs and has come to believe that we about 90% in common, from a principle standpoint. He told me that in the Koran there is a prophecy from the Prophet Muhammad that speaks of Christian religions in the last days that will have much in common with Islam. Frankly, Sam has been searching for such a religion and such a people, but in the past four years he has been at this international school, meeting people from all around the world and of a plethora of sects, none ever came close to what he believed, until he met the Mormons.

Sam has expressed on several occasions the joy he has felt at finding people in Christendom that he can relate to, and though he is one of the more popular guys on the campus, he has lately chosen to spend most if not all of his time with the BYU-I students. He seems like the kind of person that will go far in life, and I'm glad that in this point of his searching he has found a positive representation of Christianity and Americanism in us.

As an afterthought, he is an avid fan of Lord of the Rings and Avatar, which means that aside from the all that I have already said, there is sufficient grounds for an automatic and zealous positive bias towards him in my book.