Hi. Wow. China is neat! I wish I had some pictures to show you, but my camera is rather crappy and i keep forgetting to bring it places, so I will try to vividly describe all that was my first week in hong kong. (You can also look at sister Darcey's blog, I think her mom put some up!)
1st- Mail goes to the mission office, and then it's distributed to every zone. Since the new territories are the farthest away from kowloon, i only get mail once every three weeks. So encourage everyone to write me, often. It's sad not getting mail.
2nd- I'm not exactly sure what you want to hear in these emails, so in your next email back to me, ask me some questions that i can answer so i don't feel so scatterbrained. Also, encourage friends to ask questions through the family emails too!
Ahh! so I'm in China. I don't know if you forgot that, I certainly didn't. This place is awesome. I learned a lot more about the area i'm serving in so first i'll talk about that.
We live in Teun Mun, but the two wards we cover are in Yeun Long. Yeun yat and Yeun Yi (yat literally means 1 and yi means 2) and the members are...really cool. haha. I had my first sacrament meeting in both wards on sunday, and I got to give a talk, in Chinese! It was terrifying. Sis D helped me to translate what I wanted to say, but I was so nervous that most of my tones went out the window. Everyone thought it was really funny. haha, so at least I make people smile. That's good. I'm speaking again this sunday so I guess they liked it, and we're inviting all of our investigators to come and hear all 4 missionaries speak. I'm speaking on the book of mormon this time.
Sister D thinks that I got sent to this area because of my faith. The members here are really reliant on the missionaries, which is a bad thing, because most baptisms come from member led missionary work, (with the help of the missionaries) not the other way around. So we have to figure out a way to get these members to invite their friends to church and give us referrals. They are really cool people. We've had the opportunity to work with several of the young women in fellow shipping, so I definitely think we can make some huge progress. I have faith this area is going to explode!
Ok so our best investigator right now is Stella! She is Stellar, for sure. She's the smartest 15 year old that I have ever met in my life. She goes to school every day in Kowloontong because it's the best school in hong kong. It's crazy how hard she works and how much she understands. I can't convey to you the special relationship that you develop with your investigators. I've never been so intently concerned on the spiritual well being of another person in my whole life. I feel like Stella is mine. :) I know that sounds weird, but right from the start, even though we speak different languages, I knew that I needed to help her know Christ better. She was raised Buddhist and she is very traditional Chinese. I guess the missionaries have been working with her for a long long time and haven't figured out why she doesn't want to get baptized because she accepts all the commitments and sincerely wants to be a better person. Her older brother Peter is also getting baptized at the end of the month, so we couldn't figure out what was wrong. But this week we had a extremely crucial lesson with her that went on for two hours and we finally figured out her concerns. She really opened up and it was so neat. I felt the spirit guide me to ask her again to be baptised, and she still declined, but she more or less told us that before she had no intention of getting baptized, and now she thinks that she wants too. We had another great lesson with her on Monday about how science and religion support each other, and she came to church Sunday, and she is now praying earnestly about getting baptized. My belief is that she will, maybe not soon, but she's totally ready, she just needs a little more faith. It's honestly amazing to see the lord working in people and helping them change to feel the spirit.
Speaking of feeling the spirit, that's about the only reason i'm surviving right now. haha. This week I made huge leaps and bounds in my efforts at talking to people in Cantonese. I admit I don't understand a lot of what people say to me when I talk to them, but that's why it's great that I have the spirit. I can kind of use my other senses to feel out what I need to say. I study body language, and expression, and I'm not always right, but there have been miracles! I can talk to people in Chinese, it's ridiculous. My companion has been helping me learn common phrases and different dialects, so I'm able to talk to a wider variety of people. The Pau Pau's (grandma's) I normally can't understand and they always talk for like 500 hours, (sometimes they even start randomly singing to you, it's pretty weird) so I usually stay away from them. haha. That sounds horrible but it's true. Yesterday I listened to one talk about her cats (i think) for about 30 minutes before I said "I have to leave, and I don't understand what you're saying!" haha. So precious. I love meeting people here, they are all so interesting.
This week we had something called "consecrated finding time" where we pray about a time and place to go tracting and we go, no matter what. It really helps our faith and leads us to prepared people. When we went this week the first day we went to Fan Ling Road. It's a little stretch of road between two busy streets and lots of people go there. My shoulder was hurting so I was sitting down and looking for people to talk to, and I saw this lady and i grabbed my companion and we went to talk to her. I don't even know her name, and when I started talking to her she looked at me for a full minute before she responded, but then we asked if we could share a message about the gospel and she invited us to sit down. (THAT NEVER HAPPENS!) So we did and she just started crying. It was ridiculous. Chinese people don't cry. They don't even hug you. But she told us all about her problems and we shared about the gospel and invited her to baptism right on the street. We told her where the church was and invited her to church on Sunday. And she ended up getting a phone call and having to run away before we got her number, but our prayers are with her, and I think that we will see her again. Praying for miracles.
Another person I saw, sitting down, we got to share a full lesson, prayers included, on the street. And she also invited us to sit. It was the coolest thing ever! Her name is Kitty and we have a follow up lesson on her book of Mormon reading tomorrow. So excited!
One cool think about NT is that we are the only zone in the mission that get's to knock doors. There's a special area that we went to on monday (Sis D birthday!!) called Kam Tin. It is the most Asian place i've seen, ever. It's really close to new year and also really close to mainland so there were people practicing the lion dance out in teh court yard and I about pooped my pants because It was so exciting. The living conditions there are some of the worst I've seen, and it's one of the most concentrated area's of Buddhism, so it's hard to tract there, but I got to see a lot of Chinese culture that i've never seen before, and it blew my mind.
I also had my first experience with street vendors this week. Haha, so cool. They cook everything on the street in little stands and you just pick what you want and pay. It's really cheap but we felt like we had to bless it three times before we ate it. I haven't eaten anything super disgusting yet, but I've had a lot of neat fruit that I love. Like dragon fruit, star fruit, and Asian pears. Soooo Good. I also went into a stationary shop to buy some awesome stickers for sister D's birthday. I love stickers. I also love stationary shops, and I love them because it's super trendy to write english on everything, but chinese people don't know how to speak or spell correctly, so I bought a journal with "happy memorial sky! yew can becomeing happyalways!" on the front in big letters. So funny. And pretty much everything with english on it is spelled wrong. It makes me happy because I know English is as hard for them as chiense is for me. Yay! haha happyalways!! :D
Oh yeah, we also had finding time in Yeun Long park ( sooo pretty) and this old asian man started hitting on my companion. It was probably the funniest thing I have ever seen. He was trying to woo her with his stories of many travels, and he asked both of us if we had plans for Valentine's day. So awkward. haha. He also called us 4 times (not my fault, didn't give him our number) but he's coming to church Sunday! (without any ulterior motives at all...lol)
So I need prayers for my shoulder, it's started hurting bad again and i'm not sure what to do. I also need prayers for Stella to decide to get baptized, and for my companion to not be stressed out, and for the work in Yeun Long to EXPLODE! I would also like mail. Tons of mail. Mail from everyone. If you are my friend, write me mail. I need mail.
I appreciate your daily prayers for me, I draw strength from them all. And I know you are mindful. I miss you all and I hope you have a good week. Have the kids email me and let me know what's going on in their lives.
Oh, and on Tuesday I get to see all my MTC pals, because the whole mission gets to go to BIG BUDDHA! for new years! It's a big deal! it's gonna be sweet! You should google it and read up about it, it's one of the hugest things in HK that everyone wants to see. We are also doing deep clean, because Chinese people do that every new years, so our apartment will be spectacular for the new year, and we have a few really fun ward activities planed. I get to taste Korean Barbecue today and i'm really excited for that.
I'm working harder than I ever have in my life, and i'm always exhausted and stressed out, but my faith is so strong because I know that the lord is with me! I hope everyone is well at home! And I am learning so much! Hong Kong IS AWESOMMMMMMMMMMMMMME
Happy New Year! Ga Yauh!!
Gou Ji Muih
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