Shea's Mission!!!: I'm Training!!

I am still alive and trying to work hard! I have moved and am opening up a new area down in the city city. CITY city. Our chapel is the Kowloon Tong Chapel across from the Temple. But our area goes from half of Mong Kok to Mei Foo. But we live in Kwai Fong. It is kinda annoying and really hard to figure out of to get things done here. Because we dont live in our area, and our chapel is not in our area we end up spending ALOT of money on travel. We have to take the train ALOT. I dont even know how we are going to budget our food money. But anyway....

My new Companion is AWESOME! Her name is Sister Choi. She is from Hong Kong, but speaks pretty much perfect English cause she studied at BYU Hawaii for 2 years before her mission. She has been a convert for 3 years now. She just one day saw the chapel that was next to her house and went to church. She was baptized like a month later and in the following months her mom and sister and little brother were baptized as well. She is a super great missionary already. She is pretty much training me.

But we have been struggling because it is a new area. We have no records and I have no idea where anything is. The Elders took us on a tour of our area, but it is really weird cause it goes from practically no people to too many people. So Friday and Saturday we spent 5 to 6 hours out on the street trying to talk to people. But sister choi had big blisters on her toes from the first day when we got the tour, so she couldnt walk to much. So she would sit on benches and try and talk to people and I would walk back and forth and try to talk to people. Everyone here is in a really big hurry. It is nothing like Sheung Shui (my last area). But Sister Clements called me Sunday night to let me know that Niky (the possibly drunk girl we found), Mr. Jehng and his 5 yr old daughter (who live in a 2 story closet) and Peter Leuhng (who does illegal work (i wont say what) dont worry it is not that bad...) all were at church up in Sheung Shui. That made me SUPER happy. It gives me some hope for this area. We opened Sheung Shui and it turned out awesome... so we will open up Cheung Sha Wan and it will be just as awesome.

Cheung Sha Wan ward is the smallest one that goes to the Kowloon chapel. It is really small and has very few families. When I was asking our district leader all about the ward I was losing hope cause it sounded like a very dramatic ward that didnt like to help the missionaries. But when we went to church yesterday we got to meet everyone and I think that it is going to be a great ward! It is still going to take some work, but this were all SO much better than I was expecting. It is really better just to go to everything without any expectations.

This is still crazy. Everyone agrees with me. I have only been here 9 weeks. I am training AND opening a new area that is completely opposite of my last area. I feel really bad for Sister Choi cause she has a lot more pressure on her than a new missionary should have, but it cant be helped. We have been really stressed the last couple of days, but not to worry, I am over it. Things are starting to move along. We are meeting with as many members as we can this week to get to know them and ask if there is anything we can do to help them share this gospel with their friends.

Slowly but surely we will have work to do. It is really hard, but we are both growing so much and learning so much.

I have had to remind myself several times as to why I decided to go on a mission. Things are hard and stressful. But I wouldnt want to be anywhere else doing anything else. I love doing this work. It is trying the very best thing in the world. There nothing that gives me more satisfaction than seeing others come unto Christ.

I love you all! I will tell you all about the awesome people we will meet this week, next week!

Shea