Happy new years!

Hey Gatihng!!!

Happy American new years! No one really celebrates it to much here as far as I know. Some people do a count down thing, but nothing to special. We have been given like over 10 calendars of different sizes to start off the new year. I dont even know what we are going to do with them all. But The real holiday is Chinese New Year coming up Feb. 1st. I am so excited! They are already starting to put up lanterns and pass out red envelopes. Apparently there are all kinds of foods that only come out around New Years, and everyone just stays with their family and eats food. But I dont really know since this will be my first New Years. :)

aaahhhhhh, I am sorry, I hate emailing these days. I never know where to even start. SO much happens.

Last Thursday we had Mission Leadership Council (MLC), where all the zone leaders and sister trainer leaders get together along with President Hawks and present the months goals and actions. I love these MLCs. They are SO good. Then we are able to listen to what President Hawks wants the mission to be working on. Then everyone from MLC takes what we learn and present it during Zone Training meetings. I love it, cause as sister trainer leaders we REALLY have to pay attention and apply what we learn so that we can help the other missionaries do the same. There are some really wise and fantastic missionaries in Hong Kong and I get to learn from all of them! :)

Our ward for the new year had to make some mission goals. Because Butterfly ward hasnt had any baptisms in over 2 years, no one has much hope for the work to light on fire. Sister Palmer and I think otherwise. When the ward told the stake that they just wanted two baptisms for the first 6 months, the stake and President Hawks said, "That is not good enough." and then they assigned our ward 6 baptisms in 6 months!!! YEAH!!!!! AOPWEIRJALSJKD!!!!!! When I heard that I couldnt contain myself! This last week we also got to meet with our new ward coordinator as well, and he is FANTASTIC! He invited all of our ward missionaries to come so that everyone could know about all of our investigators and know how to help them. We had a coordination meeting that could have been straight from The District (Family if you dont know what that is... look it up on LDS.org. We watch it all the time here for training. It is great.) Butterfly is changing. Things truely are exploding. Not only is our ward starting to get on board but we are being blessed with investigators!

Mandy is still doing fantastic! She will be baptized on Febuary 23. When we gave her the date the only concern she had was if someone gets sick and she has to go take care of them. Mandy is SO good. She is truely so prepared. She hasnt missed a Sunday since we met her.

Isis is also still doing great! Although we didnt get a chance to meet with her because school started again and she started a new job, she is still reading and has already scheduled time for us to meet her tomorrow. She said that she should be able to get Sundays off of work soon as well. :)

Yesterday at church we had 2 new investigators randomly come to church. We hadnt taught them anything yet, and they still came to church. We shared a brief message after church and they are both great! A-queen is 16, likes to play with her pet snake and watch TV, wants to know and believe in Jesus Christ. Then the Elders found Yuki and invited her to church and she came and loved it. She has tried so many other churches but just hasnt found one that feels right yet. :)

Then we also have so many other families that we are just starting to work with! So many less active part member families that we want to teach SO bad. But they all have to work. But I know they will soon have time and a desire to see us. So we will keep calling them. :)

So that is just a bit of the update this week. Hong Kong is still SUPER great. I love this place SO much. I wouldnt rather be anywhere else in the world. I feel like I am just barely tapping into my potential as a missionary and as God's tool. I can feel him working through me everyday. It is the best feeling in the world.

I love you all so much!

Shea

東姊妹