GA TIHNG! Leih deih hou ma?

I love those videos. Sorry dad. You want a happy daughter right? This is the best place, and I am really happy here. :) I love the people and am really grateful that I get to stay here extra time. You are really just jealous that you only got 18 months on your mission and I get 19. haha. 
It sounds like the weather is getting a bit better there. It was cold here in the beginning of the week, but now it is fantastic. It feels like a great spring day, like everyday. 

The language is still coming along. It is still really really hard. I am going to have to learn mandarin when I get back. I don't know if I will ever be able to speak spanish again, it is hard. It took me a long time to even remember como esta? But mh gaan yiu! not important. I will get it later. 

But how is everything going?

We are doing great over here in Butterfly. 
This week our ward started their 40 day fast for missionary work. Along with the fast the ward has written their testimonies in 80 BOM. 

In just the last half of the week we were able to place 4 BOMs with our members testimonies in them. One was to our new investigator Rainie Siu. She is SOOOO good. We met her when we were going some LA finding. She rode up in the elevator with us and we just started talking to her. She said that she had actually been looking for a church to join. Then later when I called her, she was really nice but she had said that she had researched about our church and talked to some of her friends about our church and just started asking me a bunch of questions like if we practiced polygamy and why some people say we are evil. I just kept taking to her on the phone but she was not willing to meet, and said she doesn't want to enter any church right now because she is not ready to commit to anything big. I tried to explain that english class is just english class, but she still wouldn't even enter. 

I called her at the beginning of this week and was able to schedule her just at her chyun garden so we could just answer any questions that she had. She came down and we just started talking for a little bit, and then we said that we wanted to share a message with her, but that we wanted to start with a prayer. So I said a simple quick opening prayer, and then cracked open my scriptures getting ready to share a scripture with her, when she started reaching and looking around for something in her bag. She was crying. So we just paused. The spirit was the strongest I have ever felt since I have been in Hong Kong. She just cried for a good 2 min, and when she could talk, she said that that was the first prayer she had ever done. She said she didnt know why she was crying but that she didn't want us to talk about this stuff here anymore, but that she wanted to go to our chapel. So we just talked about this feeling she was having and how much God loves us. She said she has talked with a lot of other missionaries from other churches but has never had this feeling before, and that we must have something true and good. 

So we met with her the next day, and turns out she read AND understood the entire Restoration pamphlet. She said her and her husband talked about the message it shared and said that if this message is true, then the world needs more missionaries. It is just crazy to me how much she changed. Her entire countenance changed with just one touch from the spirit. She then came to English class and church with her daughter. She is amazingly prepared.

 

We were also able to teach a-chung. His wife is a member that is now almost active. We got to teach him the entire Restoration. He is just starting to open up to the idea of religion. He is SO nice and wants to have an eternal family. But he will need some time. We have just started planting a seed in his little brain. 


Sister Palmer and I are still getting along like 2 peas in a pod. She is super great, I love being her companion. I have never met a harder worker or someone that loves missionary work more than she does. 

I love you all so much!

Shea.

ps. guess who is going to shake Elder Hollands hand tomorrow. 

General Update

Another week come and gone in the blink of an eye.

How was your week?

This week was great! We got to teach two of the part member families we have been trying to work with. We have had to have lots of patience scheduling them because of New Years. One is a less active members husband, they are both SUPER nice. The member has a great testimony, she just has to work alot. She wants us to teach her husband, but it just took her a while to find time for us to visit. Then the Leung Family have been busy the last couple of weeks because of New Years. But Leung Hingdaih, I think that I have told you about him before, the family all says that he has no interest in the church. He wont listen to his wife or three daughters when they bring up the gospel, but when we go over to visit "Leung Jimuih" we just invite him on over and he will listen to us. We have taught him now three times. He participates in the lessons, but anytime we invite him to pray with his wife he just laughs. But he came to sacrament meeting a couple of weeks ago to listen to one of his daughters give a talk. Sister Palmer and I were SO excited. It was his first time EVER coming to church. He said that his family doesnt like church. We think that is why he has been so against learning about it for so long. But this last week we had a great lesson about why we need Jesus Christ. The spirit was strong, and even though Leung Hingdaih still didnt have a large reaction to it, he is opening up more and more. :)

We had scheduled several new investigators this week, but called the day of our appointments and cancelled saying it was to cold. Which this last week it was. It was SUPER cold. We were wearing leggings and tights, two sweaters plus my raincoat and big coat. It is really only like 40 degrees F, but the humidity is like 97%, which = freezing. But it is already heating up again and is a really nice temperature. So all the new investigators that cancelled we will just see this week. I am excited to start teaching them. :)

Someone we gave a flyer to, called us last monday after emailing telling us that we left a good impression with him and thinks that we were really happy people and wanted to meet with us! I remembered him. He was an older dad who was pulling a 6 yr old son behind him. When we went up to contact him he said he was busy cause he had to take his son back to foster care. The little boy didnt want to go at all. He was crying and trying to run down into the train platform below. It was a really sad situation, and it broke my heart. We were only able to give him a flyer. But he called, wanting to change his life! So we did a turnover lesson to the Tuen Muen Elders and they were able to give him a baptismal date right there in the first lesson!!! I am so excited for him. :)

Erica and Vanessa are both progressing really well as of now. They are both reading and praying. They both have a large desire to develop their testimonies. Vanessa should be baptized March 23, and we are going to give Erica a date this week. She had a date before, but dropped off the face of the earth after they taught the Sabbeth day. But we were able to reschedule her and have been helping her re build the basics. Her testimony truly is growing, and she really wants to keep the Sabbath day holy.

We have been fortunate to work with a couple of LA's this week as well that said that they will come to church next week. :) Choi Lai Wah jimuih has changed SO much. We really cant believe how much she has softened. All that she has needed is someone to care about her and be her friend. The other LA Cheuk jimuih, we taught awhile back on Christmas with her non-member husband. Yesterday when we taught her, her husband had to work, but she came up with no excuses as to why she couldnt come to church next week. Before it was that her baby was to small, but he is six months old now, and she is ok to take him out. See that little baby made me think of the little nephews I havent met yet. I cant wait to meet them!

Our members have been playing a really big part this week. The ward is starting a 40 day family fast this week, where every family will fast a certain day for 40 days. We now have about 80 BOMs with our members testimonies written inside. They are communicating with our investigators without us asking them to. They are doing AWESOME! Our investigators know about activities that we dont even know about. Our members know how some of them are doing better than we do. For example with Mandy (the one we taught tithing to and she stopped meeting with us) we havent been able to call her. But our members can call her and chat like real pals. In fact one of our ward missionaries is going to go with Mandy to visit and help her little sister who is sick.

The work is really progressing. The Lord truly is doing great things in Butterfly. I love this area so much. Couldn't be happier I'd say.
:)

I love you all!

Oh don't be a baby

Oh papa,

 

You know I wont want to just hang out with all my roomies when I get back. come on now. Sorry my date is later. but I am actually REALLY happy about it. There is to much of this work that needs to get done, and I love doing it. :) You are all busy doing other things anyway. I am not sure if that means I will be home on the 22nd or leaving on the 22nd, I am sure the mission will send you more stuff on it later. I am not sure when everyone else is getting back, and also not sure about the apartment stuff. It is still all a long ways off.

 

I think that I can sign up for my classes over here. It might just be easier than trying to explain how to set everything up. But that wont be for another couple of months so I am not to worried about it right now. When the time comes I will talk to Pres. Hawks about how to figure everything out or talk to you. It is only February. Thank goodness. I love you all very very much, but the thought of going home earlier stresses me out big time.

 

did you know that Kelsie leaves Hong Kong this Friday? Crazy right?! I cant believe it. I feel like it was just yesterday I was writing her a letter telling her that I was following her out to HK.

 

That video that Ming Wai sent you was from our New Years party last Saturday. For some reason the ward convinced the missionaries to play this game where we listen to a Chinese pop song and try to sing along with it and then they have to try and figure out what the song is. It is flippin hard!!!! That is why it was just laughing. I dont think that I sang any Chinese at all. Sorry. Ming Wai is great. She just got back from her mission to California last April, so she has been helping us out alot.

 

Answers to some of your questions: 

We actually have quite a few investigators. We just havent seen them very often lately because of new years. I will be sure to give you a good update on all of them next week. I absolutely LOVE being companions with Sister Palmer. I couldnt ask for a better comp. We get along great and she is one of the hardest working people I have ever met. I would send you more pictures this week, but for some reason this computer wont read my camera card, and I dont want to waste time trying to figure it out. Next week for sure. i ate a duck foot and yam cha this last week. Then of course all the new years food. gotta love a good rice flour cake thing. :) 

 

Ok... I will write you a quick email of how the week went:

 

So another SUPER fast week! Crazy. I cant believe the transfer is already over.

 

This last week we had Mission Leadership Council, zone training, and 24 hr zone exchanges. But we didnt get to see to many of our investigators this week, cause it has still been new years and they are either still in Mainland or out visiting family.

 

Zone Training went great and MLC is always the best. I love getting to hear about all the other zones and how everything is going. Sometimes I forget what a big work we are doing, since we do it on such a small scale. We mixed up Zone Training and tried some new things, which I think worked out for the best. :)

 

Then I got to go to Tin Shui Wai for the day and work in a 3-some. 3-somes are pretty much the weirdest thing ever. It is so hard, you have to do everything differently, it is just so easy to scare people with three of you. that evening I started calling through some of their potential investigators from a couple of years ago and saw that one was a referral from Butterfly wards, ward coordinator, so I gave her a call and ended up scheduling her for the next day to take us out to Yam

Cha. So the next day we show up to the Yam Cha place and there is this nice looking lady sitting at the table wearing cheeta print leggingpants. When she saw that we were 3 Americans coming to sit down at her table her face lit up. She was SUPER friendly. she is originally from Beijing, but has lived in Hong Kong for like 20 years or something. But she just liked to speak English with us. She tried REALLY hard to have us join her in the Multi Level Marketing Business, but alas (thank goodness), us missionaries cannot work. She was really something else. We taught her how to pray and hopefully the TinShuiWai sisters will be able to turn her over to the Mandarin missionaries tomorrow. It was just a really cool miracle that came out of now where.

 

We get a chance to see miracles everyday. Even just yesterday, it was fast sunday so i was hungry, I hadnt been sleeping well because I was a wee bit stressed so I was tired and then we had this 12 year old investigator that was driving me crazy, I was pretty much at the end of my rope, but after church I cooled off and we were able to go out and have enough energy to go finding for a couple of hours. Another HUGE miracle.

 

I know I say it like every week, but I love this work. I feel like I was born to be doing what I am doing. There is something exhilarating about going about, being bold and telling people what I know is true and will bring them true lasting happiness. It is the best, cause it is true, and although alot of people say they dont need it now, one day they will realize that they really do. Cause if there is a group of people that need a taste of what REAL happiness is, it is the Hong Kong people. and thats why I will keep working and keep loving it. 

 

I love you all so very very much!

HAPPY NEW YEARS!!

Wow, where has the time gone?! Time really is SO crazy. But HAPPY NEW YEARS EVERYONE!!!!!!

That means a happy new years for everyone but missionaries really. New years is great, but that means everyone and their dog go to mainland or are just SUPER busy. I mean it is a good travel and a good busy. New Years is a holiday all about family. Usually it is like 5 days long, but people can really only afford 3 days off from work. The first day they visit the husbands side of the family, the second they visit the wives side of the family and the third day/ rest of the time they visit other random family. Thats why so many of them need to go to mainland. To Baailihn (visit family). 

People who are married have to pass out red pocket filled with money to people. Missionaries are not really supposed to take them, but when we do (cause sometimes you will offend people if you don't) we just take the money and donate it to the mission fund. But it is still fun to get them. :) 

There is some very special unique New Years food. Raddish cake for example. Most of the new years food is cake, but not like cake cake. It is more like a mashed potato bar, like the texture of a brownie. Then they have all kinds of other unique cake dishes. They are very....... unique. We haven't eaten to many of them since the new rule that we have to have an investigator or LA in order to eat with any of our members. 

New years is BEAUTIFUL. Everyone cleans their houses and buys flowers. Each kind of flower has a different meaning. Some bring good fortune, some bring love. all different kinds! 

Everyone as we go through the streets when we say "San lihn faai lohk!" (Happy new years!)  They say "San tai gihn hong!" (Healthy Body!) or "Gung hei faat choi!" (Good Fortune!) I think that I am going to start saying that in America when people say happy new years. HEALTHY BODY! hahaha. It might not work in English, but it is perfect in Chinese. 

So we haven't been able to see many of our investigators this week since they were all gone, so we spent some time Ding dong ditching our LAs. .....

But we left gifts of fruit with some notes that we tried to write in Chinese. Ding dong ditching in Hong Kong is kinda hard. It goes down like this. : We are on the 24th floor. The door is open, but the gate (cause every house in HK has a gate) is closed, we can hear the TV on,   the people are right on the inside, so what do we do?.... slip the bag of fruit on the gate handle, yell "WAIH! LEIH HOU!" and then we book it out of there. we were to scared to wait for the elevator a couple of times  so we took the stairs down a couple flights. 

We don't do this for to many of our LAs. These were just a couple that last time we tried to visit, the response wasn't to warm. So we thought they could use a wee bit of New Years love. Hopefully next time we visit they will be a bit warmer. :)  

Ok... well I love you all SO much!

Hong Kong is great! Missionary work is still the best thing in the world!

We found some Turkish Delights in the grocery store last Monday. We had to try them and have a Narnia Party. :)

We finally got our NEW TAGS!!!! I almost peed my skirt of excitement when I saw them. 

the market of flowers that we had no idea was going on till it was to late. I could only snap one picture on our way home. so sad

Vanessa (our investigator, who is AWESOME!) as a child around New Years. ALL the kids around here wear cute traditional things for new years. They are so cute I am tempted to get some for my future kids.