FAMILY!!

Hey everyone!你好!

How is everyone?

Things over in HK are so good!

This week went by so fast. Like every week unfortunately.

Sorry this email is going to be a bit short...

Here are the highlights!

-As we sat down to do our closing finding prayer, this boy walked up to us and said, excuse me, are you from the church of latter day saints? We said yeah! Then he asked if we were from Utah and went to byu... Turns out this kid had looked up just about everything you could about the church. He had seen us talking to a couple that ended up being Jehovah Witness, and wanted to know what we were doing. He knew SO much about the church and missionary life. So we sat him down and taught him the Restoration, which of course he already knew about. Then he asked how we could keep so many rules for ourselves, so we explained that when you know these things are true, you want to keep them. Then we talked about the spirit. I asked him, how to you feel right now? He said... when you were talking about Joseph Smith I felt like I wanted to cry, but I dont know why. He was SOOO good. I thought he was a member just trying to pull the missionaries leg, but we could literally see the spirit moving inside of him.

- We taught Sister Lee this week. She is a tough one to teach since her Cantonese is not so good. I can really only understand about 10-20% of what she says. The member gets about 60. But when we went over to her house her daughter was there! So we got to teach both her and her daughter! :)

- One night while finding, this lady came up to us as we were talking to this grandma and her granddaughter. At first she was just amazed that we were speaking Chinese, then she went off on how she wanted to go to America, but then at some point we sat down with her and started chatting. Turns out her husband had died 7 years ago. This lady was Christian and Christ has helped her a lot in the past, as we taught her the Restoration we were able to teach her about temple work. She had already see the temple in Kowloon all the time and said that she sometimes goes over there to pray. We taught her about how she can be with her husband forever and how she can help him be baptized.

What an amazing gospel we have. I am amazed by it everyday. I cant believe I get to be a messenger of such an amazing message. I love it here. I love everything about it.

I of course also love all of you.:)

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!!

Hey everyone!!!! 

This week I said goodbye to an old missionary and said WELCOME to a new missionary. 

Tuesday and Wednesday last week were just a blur. We saw so many people and had to take care of so many things to prepare Sister Palmer to leave. but on Thursday I met my new companion Sister Shoemaker!!! Sorry I would send you a picture, but I think my card reader is broken. She is fresh from America. Cantonese is a bit of a struggle, but I dont know who it is not a struggle for for the first half of a mission. She is already growing like a weed. 

Because we saw pretty much all of our investigators on Tuesday and Wednesday, Thursday through Saturday we had some good time to go out and practice some finding. 

Finding always brings great adventures. Such as:

Being sticker attacked by little Indian girls

Backing away from dogs

Being called wife, by a crazy man

Meeting people that you cant tell if they are a man or a women

Can you just imagine how weird it really is... 2 white girls, walking around HK and teaching people how to pray, or who Jesus Christ is. 

It is weird stuff... but I love it so much! 

On Thursday, after doing all of our studies, we headed out. We had met some good people, but no one really seemed to interested in what we had to say. They right as we were going to have dinner, we stopped to talk to think lady who was actually from the Philippians. Usually I dont talk to them, because they are all SO good, and willing to listen, but there is no place for them to go to church in the New Territories. But for some reason we felt like she should talk to her. Turns out she has been looking for a church to go to. Philippians's have it rough in HK. They leave their families to work for a family in HK. They are pretty much like slaves. Karen, this Philippine, had two kids in the Philippines, her husband was working in Saudi Arabia. She was feeling extra lonely as she sat looking out to the ocean at the Ferry Pier. She actually grew up next to on of our churches in the Philippines, and has a cousin who is a member. So we taught her and has we said the closing prayer, she just started crying. She said, I am coming to church on Sunday. I dont care if it is in Chinese. So we had the Philippine sisters call her the next day.

After we taught her I turned to sister shoemaker and said, I never teach Philippines. But that was right. She needed that. 

The spirit leads us and guides us. I never know what I am doing beforehand, and sometimes I even wonder afterwards. But the spirit is guiding this work, there is no doubt about that. I love you all!

Goodbye Sister Palmer!

Hey everyone!!!

 

Tarmia Cashie! Samama! (Thanks! to you to!) Thats all I know how to say...

So I learned some Indonesian this last week. :) Friday night we went over to dinner with Brother Lau, also known as Jack Smiley, and his non-member wife. Brother Lau grew up in Indonesia so speaks it fluently and his wife knows alot as well. So over dinner they tried to teach us some, but it just sounds like chicken talk to me. But that dinner was a hoot and a holler the entire time. They are SO funny. Between their stories of gambling in America to singing Chinese Opera for us to hear, it was a night to remember.

 

Confrence was SO good this weekend! We had so many people come! It was a miracle! On Saturday even Choi Lai Wah came with her little granddaughter!!! She had to tell her daughter in law that she was going to lunch with some friends, but then really came to the chapel. Then Elder Eyrings talk was PERFECT for her. When I was listening all I could think was, wow, I hope that Choi Jimuih is watching this. There were so many good talks that fit our investigators situations perfectly. I am so excited to use what I learned to help them all progress! :)

 

On Wednesday a couple of members wanted to throw a little lunch/going away party for Sister Palmer. But Sister Palmer and I have been very strict with the ward members telling them we really cant eat food with them unless there is an investigator or a less active there. So the members invited 4 of the LAs that lived in there area, and ALL 4 CAME!!!! It was SO good! Everyone got to make some more friends and we got to share with them a message about General Conference. Obedience truely does bring miracles!!!

 

Last night we had the My Conversion Fireside, where all the going home missionaries invite one of their converts or whoever they want to bear their testimony. We had to get there a bit early to have a meeting before and as we were sitting there, President Hawks called me back into his office. Everyone knows what this means. Anytime, the Sunday before transfers you get called to talk to Pres. Hawks that means you are training. Yep. Turns out I am training. No more Sister Trainer Leader for me, I am now going to be training a new fresh American missionary. Everyone has said that I am going to train, and I felt it coming, so it wasnt much of a shock. I feel like I will be a much better trainer this time than last time. There is no doubt about that.

 

But Mom and Dad you will have to say hi to Sister Palmer for me. I told her she could hold Thomas, that is of course as soon as he comes out of the hospital.

 

But I love you! I will tell you more next week. I love you!

Shea

 

PS Remember almost a year ago when Sister Clements and I met Nicki? We thought she might have been drunk and ended up texting us the next morning? Well she is still around! She has been coming to church for almost a year! She has a good solid testimony! I saw her again last night and ask her if she remembered me. She is so good! But still needs more time. Missionary work is AWESOME!!!!

So Close and yet so far

Hey everyone!!!

There goes another week. wow. what is going on?! time is crazy!

 

here are just a couple of highlights!

- Zone exchanges! guess who I got to be companions with.... none other than Sister Wilcox! My old companion! We got to be companions again for the day and see how much we have changed over the last 4 months! It was so fun. We got to go on a little hike Saturday morning with one of our LAs and as we came into this little valley we stopped by this stream and shared a message about Agency and how we get to choose the path we will take in this life.

-We also got to teach Tammy Tam, who is still SO good. She just says that she wants to "get closer to Jesus Christ faster" and she thinks the Plan of Salvation makes sense and is good. We also talked to her about teaching her husband who doesnt have any religion, so hopefully we can start teaching a family!!! :)

-At Zone training we are really trying to focus our zone on teaching families. We set a large goal for our zone, but I know that we can accomplish it.

-At Mission Leadership Council Pres. Hawks talked alot about faith. The mission has a huge goal we are trying to accomplish. We need all the faith we can get. Miracles are wrought with faith. and we need some miracles.

-We taught our LA choi lai wah about the temple. she wants to get there!

-We were able to meet with a lady that we contacted last week and teach her a lesson. But it really just consisted of her telling us everything about why she is not happy. I honestly couldnt understand more than: Diabetes, little sister, Singapore, shirt, a-line haircut, money, very un happpy new years. thats about all I got. But luckily we had a member with us and the spirit told us just to testify about God's love and how she can turn her life around and choose to be happy. We are meeting again with her tomorrow. :)

-Yesterday was kind of rough. I was extra tired from waking up extra early to go to ward coucil, we were fasting for faith, it was raining, and the member present we had scheduled that afternoon to make our goal never answered the phone so we couldnt get up to their apartment. So we were left to go finding in the rain. I was bummed. I really thought we were going to make at least our member present goal. But I got over it and thought, cool, Heavenly father will give us a different miracle. But as we were walking around Wu King Estate, no one really wanted to talk to us. No one. They wouldnt even take our flyers. I was really just trying to endure the time until 5:30 so we could go home and eat some dinner. We kept going and going, trying to talk to everyone we could. The time finally came for us to go home, we said a closing prayer, and started walking to the light rail to go home when we walked past this lady and her bulldog. I felt like we should talk to her so I turned around to talk to her, but as soon as i said who I was she said, "I am BUDDHIST. I dont need that." and walked away. I had really thought she was going to be our miracle. But alas.... she was not quite prepared.

 It just goes to show... I dont get to choose the miracles that we see. We still get them, just not in my time table or in the form I choose. But they come.

I am so grateful that i get to be apart of this work. Everything is SO good. the hard and the easy. It is all SO good and SO worth it!

I love you all!!!!