Hellllloooo America!

Hey family! 

Guess what... I am in China. And it is sooooo freakin awesome! I am up in Sheung Shui, look it up. I could walk across the border. When I got my trainer Sister Clements she said that we would be opening back up Sheung Shui. And I was like GREAT! .... where’s that? So she said, "Well.... let’s just say... we can’t fall asleep on the train and miss our stop or we will end up in Mainland." We are the last stop before mainland. :) I love it so much. Hong Kong is crazy. I love the trains. I love the old ladies in the park eating nasty durrian. I love the old men with their bird cages gambling. I love the kids with hard core anime hair. I love the Buddest shrines outside every other persons door. I love how many people are stacked on top of people stacked on top of people! 

But I am going to focus. So much has happened! I don’t even know where to start! But ....

Day 1: We arrived in the evening. The elders took the train in and had to do contacting. We just talked with the president and got the know everyone. We stayed in Patron housing right next to the temple. There were some really funny Thai people there. They made us eat something weird. I don’t know what it was. 

Day 2: We did workshops with the AP's and president. Then went finding in the afternoon. Finding is really hard. I have no idea what anyone is saying. Sometimes they speak in Mandarin, but I wouldn’t really know. Super great! :)

Day 3: ASSIGNED my trainer! Her name is Sister Clements. She has been out here a year. She is from Oregon. She is awesome and we get along really well. We have a new area so that means we are starting from square one. We had no records. No investigators and we didn’t even know where our church was. So the first thing we did when we came out to our area was get together with the Elders, find our chapel (which is out in the boonies. Literally. It goes from multiple skyscrapers to tin shacks and jungle.) and get some members and less active records. So we got the records and were trying to organize them. 

Day 4: We got to go less active finding with the Elders. Which means that we go up and down skyscrapers and knock on our less actives doors. Most of the time no one answers... but every once in a while someone will open up. But that was fun. Everywhere we go I just love it so much. At the end of the night we went over to Manzee's house. She is a member but one of her daughters and her sister is not. So we thought we would stop by. They are super nice. They kept feeding us food, while telling us Americans are fat. Kinda contradictory. I couldn’t really understand alot of what was going on.... but apparently they made fun of how I couldn't understand anything. That is ok though, cause I would too. :) 

Yesterday: Yesterday we got to meet our ward. (General Conference is a week later so that they can do translations) Our ward is soooooooOOO happy to get sisters again. Apparently they have been asking for quite some time now, but there wasn’t enough. So they had us get up and bare our testimonies and introduce ourselves. We also tried to talk to as many people as we could. Sister Clements and I are really focusing on the ward and building the members and getting them to trust us so that they will give us referrals. So we did alot of socializing (by that I mean sister Clements did alot of socializing and I followed her around...) We set up loads of dinners at members houses so that we can get to know them and how we can serve them. Last night we had dinner over and Bishop Choi's house. He is super awesome. We were looking at his family pictures on his walls one second and the next he was showing us pictures of his family from years 2004-2009. Super funny. He had 2 sons. One just left for a mission this last Wednesday to head out to England. His other son is 16 and is EXACTLY like Landon. I couldn’t even believe it. From just being super tall and lanky, to eating a crapload, to playing basketball and sassing those around him. It was so weird. His English name is Samuel. He is actually moving to Utah and the end of this month to go to UVU. They were saying how they here looking for a host family. I was like... HE NEEDS TO LIVE WITH LANDON. But alas he needs to be within public transportation of UVU. His parents don’t want him to go to a singles ward cause he is only 16 so they really want him to live with a family. Anyway. That was weird and kinda awesome. But the bishop is great and has already given us names of part member families and people that he thinks are ready. I am so excited to light this ward on fire and get the entire ward striving to bring many people unto the gospel! 

Sorry I forgot my card reader! Otherwise I would have sent pictures! Next week for sure! Also... feel free to email me back here. I don’t know when we get dear elders and we get plenty of time here to email. 

I love you all so much! 

Shea