Apparently the law of chastity is against the declaration of independence...

FAMILY! how is everyone doing? I love all the videos and pictures. Thomas really is getting cute! I keep seeing little Chinese babies around here with our LA's and this of Thomas every time. But he is a bit younger than the babies around here. In my head I keep picturing Thomas Asian. So to see those blue eyes it kinda threw me off guard.

But this week has been great! So fast. I really dont understand where the time goes... I feel like I email you everyday.

Last Monday night we were out finding. We have been doing this finding everyday where we show people a picture of baptism and teach them about it. We also pick a date everyday that we could possibly give someone out on the street. As we started finding Monday, as soon as we got to the area we were going to focus on it started raining like crazy. No big deal. We just tried to stay under the coverings, thats where most of the people are anyway. Personally I kinda like finding in the rain. Only the truly prepared people come out. :) So we went for an hour or so without any luck. Then within the last 3 min of finding we start walking next to this lady who is giving us the "What the heck are you" look. So we start talking to her about baptism. She said she had already been baptized but that she is really dirty right now. We promised that she could have a fresh start through this baptism with proper authority. She was so excited! You could just tell she was so un happy with her life right now. So we gave her a date for July 27th! :) As she said a prayer with us she said 3 or 4 times how grateful she was able to run into two angels to help her change herself. She had tears running down her face. All she could say was thank you.

This week we also contacted a lady Chinese doctor who said that she died and spent a few days in heaven and hell. She then tried to teach us about everything she knew. She made sure that I knew the BOM was just a "spiritual book" not comparable to the bible... that was all I really got. She talked really fast and about things I had never heard of before. She said alot of really good and correct things, but then she was way off on others. But in the end she took a bom. Maybe sometime next week we can explain a bit more.

We also ran into Peter, a catholic old man that speaks perfect English that is ALWAYS rolling around Tuen Mun park in his little wheelchair. He made sure to let us know that the Law of Chastity goes against the Declaration of Independence. How? I am not sure... but I am sure he will get it sometime... he always just says... "Save me the conversion!" Then we say, "come on peter, only you can convert yourself. Just try coming to church." but he doesnt. He will get it sometime. :)

Sorry this is a weird email... these were just some of the first things that came to my mind when i thought over this last week. but long story short... there are prepared people and there are some not yet prepared people.... we are just working on finding those prepared ones. :)

I love you all!

Shea

                                             we're kind of a big deal

Swimming everyday :)

Hey everyone! How are things on the other side of the world? HK is great! We are currently swimming in the humidity everyday. I wish you could all just see how much we sweat daily. It is gross.

 

But the last couple of days has been GREAT! I cant believe I called home a week ago. It feels like ages ago. Friday andSaturday we got to teach 2 new families!

 

On Friday as we were riding the light rail to the chapel I was calling through some old numbers to invite people to English class. No one really answered, but you know, what else is new... then as we were buying some dau fu fa (watery tofu that they scoop out of a wooden bucket and put some sugar on top) to go along with our dinner when a random number called back. I had no idea who it was, but tried to schedule them anyway. ... she said she could see us the next day at 2. GREAT! scheduled someone I have no idea who it was. Looking back through my planner I match the number up with a Mrs. Leung, but the only notes I have are "no church, Tony, English". great. that is not much help. I still couldnt remember for the life of me who this lady is.

 

The next day we wait for her at the light rail station (hing tit stop) and a cute lady shows up with her 7 year old daughter, Tony, and her husband! The entire family! WHAT?! We were so excited! I have never taught a family where both the husband and the wife are investigators. So we took them over to the chapel and gave them a good tour. Mr. Leung is a sassy little man. I like him. He made me a bit stressed, but he was super funny. Both him and his wife had wondered why are there so many different churches and what the differences are. Mrs. Leung is originally from mainland so doesnt have any background on anything, but Mr. Leung went to a christian school growing up. We ended up teaching them the restoration and trying to answer their questions as best as we could. When they left sister shoemaker and I just looked at each other and said, "what just happened? did we just teach a family?" I couldnt believe what actually just happened!

 

We have been praying to teach more families. If there is one thing this gospel can help it is a family. There are FAR to many broken families in HK. Just yesterday one of our younger investigators was telling us how she is currently living with her grandmother and how her parents got divorced when she was just 3 years old and now they have other families. She hardly ever gets to see her parents because they are working all the time in order to support her. She wants to help her family. It is so hard to patch together a broken family. It is so much easier to just keep it strong from the beginning.

 

All I want to do is teach these people how they can have a strong family. Family truly is the strongest most important unit in all of the universe.

Thanks family for being the best ever.

I love you!

stretching hearts

wow it was so good to talk to everyone on mothers day! I can't believe I already called you. Time is weird. It feels like that call never really even happened. I miss you all so much and am so excited to see you all again. 

But don't worry I am still fully enjoying the time here in Hong Kong! The weather is getting more and more humid by the min, and hotter and hotter by the day, but the miracles still are coming in. 

This morning I actually went back in time and went back to Cheung Sha Wan and my last area. I knew that Sister Yip hadn't seen the missionaries in a long time and last week I felt like I should call her, so last night I called her to her surprise and scheduled to see her on our P-day. :) 

She is still so good. I love her so much! She just thinks that the commandments are to hard so hasn't been going to church because she feels guilty. But she has seen how much the gospel has changed her son and wants him to keep going to church. Actually King, her son, wants to keep going to church. :) We had a good long chat and she said that this sunday she will go to church. :)

When I called the Cheung Sha Wan sisters to let them know, they also were able to give me some updates on how everyone is doing. Sister Chan, with cancer, (do you remember her?) anyway is getting baptized in June also Wannie Ng, who had disappeared because she got offended by someone has come back and is also getting baptized really soon. I had thought that both of these people had lost any sort of contact with the missionaries, but they are here! And they are progressing!!!! It makes me so happy to know they are still around. :)

It is weird to feel so much love for so many people. I literally feel like my heart is in so many different places and with so many different people. Cheung Sha Wan, Butterfly, Home, Sham Shui Po, Sheung Shui, Tai Kok Tsui... not only in different places, but with different people. If there is one thing a missionary learns, it is how to stretch and grow a heart. It is a painful process but it is so worth it and brings amazing blessings. I am so grateful for everyones love. I can honestly say that I love everyone as well. I love you all!

WOW!!

Look at my hot shot brothers! That article was so good! I am so excited for Ben, and Nick has never looked better.

HK is fantastic! Last night there was a HUGE lightening storm. We all woke up at 2:00 in the morning, to our room looking like there was a strobe light on. There was lightening literally every 3 seconds. But after a while it slowed down and we all went back to sleep. This morning it was one of the clearest mornings I have seen in HK. I love it here.

Yesterday we had a literal miracle! Yesterday after church all I could say was, "wow. wow. wow. wowowowowowowow. WOW!"

So I dont think that I have really explained much about how the mission is working towards having 65 people be baptized in July... But there is a system and goals that we are supposed to be striving for each week. I was nervous that we would never be able to achieve these goals, since Sister Palmer and I always fell just a bit short, and now that Sister Shoemaker and I are doing training, we have less time to be out in the streets. So I broke down all the numbers and decided how our new companionship was going to achieve these goals. I came to the conclusion that we were just going to really really focus on getting more people to church. So over the last month or so we have been focusing on it. and we have been able to see more and more people come to church. This last Sunday we were able to have 6 investigators and 3 LA's at church!!!!! It was a literal MIRACLE!!!!! I was starting to doubt that we would ever be able to reach anything and then the Lord proved me wrong. The Lord is too good.

We were then able to finally teach Sister Cheuk and her husband. They were sister palmer and I's Christmas miracle family. Their baby boy Hansel received a blessing and we are going to start teaching Sister Cheuk's husband! :)

So many great things happened this week...

- Met Rainie's husband

- Ran into LA's and investigators while out finding

- Got to meet our investigator who cant really speak Cantonese, grown children.

- A lady didnt freak out when I tried to commit her to a baptismal date on the street. That was fun.

- An Indian man ran through us while we were talking to this family, only to STOMP on the cockroach that was 2 feet away from us.

-Got pumped up by Zone training

- Watched Sister Mckown huge a nasty bug infested mattress while we helped this man from Africa move

-Found Gaats ngai behng (waffles with peanut butter and sugar) for only 7 $

- Got to clean Choi Lai Wah's fans. She is still the best LA ever

- Met a 70ty year old lady who had just gotten done with a performance. She sings and dances. She was awesome.

HK is great. an adventure everyday. I love you all!

Shea