Rain + summer missionaries

FAMILY!!!!

Thanks for the birthday wishes! I am sure tomorrow is going to be a great day. 

We just got summer missionaries less than 30 min ago!!!! I now get to be comps with Shek jimuih for the next 2 weeks. Sister Shoemaker and I will be on splits working with our summers, but still working in the same area. 

Oh yeah. Move calls came... I am staying here in Butterfly! Best ward ever! 8 months here we come! I wouldnt have it any other way. 

Sister Mckown went home (picture #3). We had some nice Indian curry for her last lunch together. 

I am so happy to stay here for the next month. July is almost upon us. We are seeing so many miracles everyday!

Sister Shoemaker and I have decided that in July we are going to have four baptisms. It is totally possible. But we need to develop more and more faith. It is going to take some serious miracles for it to happen. In my 6 months here so far we have yet to have a baptism. But 4 of them are right around the corner.

We haven't had to much contact with Tammy lately. I think her phone broke for a bit, but we were finally able to schedule her for tomorrow. 

Our new investigator Anna is SOOOOO good! She is the sweetest mom you will ever meet. Both of her sons have special needs. Her husband still thinks that church is a waste of time, but Anna thinks it is good. When we met with her last week she had downloaded the LDS library on her own. Yesterday she brought out a notebook during gospel class and took notes. SHE TOOK NOTES! that is the first time I have ever seen that. She is awesome. We haven't been able to extend a date to her yet. But hopefully we will be able to see her tomorrow and give her a date for july. :)

This last week we received a referral from Mormon.org. Weirdest thing ever. We don't ever get referrals. So when a text came in with an address, name, and numbers I freaked out just a bit. I called is right away. But the thing is. British Pinyam. I hate it. It takes all the tones out of a name to make it english, so we never really know how to say peoples names if we just read them. We need the characters. But that wasn't included in the text. So when I asked for Ms. Siu, no one was there with that name. British pin yam. worst thing ever. So we went to the address the next day and a man in some boxers answers the door. We still don't really know who to ask for, so we just said, hey do you have a son or daughter in America who goes to this church? They said your wife had interest to learn more. So the wife comes to the door and who is it...... none other that Doctor Lam's friend. Remember her? She was there when Doctor Lam tried to enter into our bodies. I remember her friend saying that she had a kid who went to our church, but no one really knows that there are different christian churches, so i didn't really believe her. But it was her! Mrs. Chan! I was so excited!!!! That day we first met her  at doctor lams we left and said to each other, "man I wish we could teach her friend" and now we get to teach her!!! I am so excited! 

We met with her a couple days latter and taught her the restoration. She has been anti-ed a lot. She goes to another church. She mostly just wanted to make sure that her son wasn't part of an evil church. I am excited for her to find out that it is true. :) .... yesterday I called her to asked why she missed church and if she had read yet. She said she wanted to give us back our book, but I ended up scheduling her for tomorrow. Hopefully we will be able to help her see the truth. She will. I know.

I am so excited for the coming weeks! They are going to be awesome! Miracles every day!

I love you all!

Shea

Picture # 1 Summers! Me and Shek jimuih

Picture # 2 We like lychee. and the ward likes to give them to us. :)

Picture # 3 Indian curry

Mandarin Almight God members, mango pudding and pizza at the pier...

Hello everyone!!!!

 

how is everyone doing! This week has been great!

Last Monday after emailing we got some pizza on the island and was able to eat it over the water. We met a man named "Jesus" he is awesome. (I will send you a picture in a sec.)

 

Somehow on Tuesday we ended up in this random lady's house who we had contacted a few weeks ago. She introduced us to her mom who only speaks Mandarin and kept trying to tell us to speak Mandarin to her. The problem is.... I know about 4 words in mandarin. Her mom kept going off about the Church of the Almighty God. She tried to have us read their book, listen to their songs and watch a video... but we really cant understand anything. She was trying to preach their gospel to us, but there was no way for us to understand her. In the end we just ended up telling them that we would have the Mandarin Elders call them and we booked it out of there.

 

Wednesday we were able to see Queen on her birthday. She didnt let us know that it was birthday till we sat down and asked how her day was. So we went out right then and got her a piece of mango cake. Happy birthday to Queen. :)

 

On Wednesday we were doing some service and I pallet of heavy carpet pinched my toe. We thought that I might have broken my toe so we went home to rest and eat some lunch...  but about an hour later there was nothing wrong with it. It was awesome. Now there isnt even a bruise! I think that the spirit protected my toe. :)

 

Friday we got to go on exchanges again and I got to go with Sister Wilcox yet again. I love being companions with that girl. She is so good!

 

Saturday we played volleyball with one of our LA's and with some of the YW in our ward. We then talked about how volleyball is like the gospel. We have our team and then we have Christ as our coach. :)

 

This morning we got to go on a hike with Brother Cheung, Tuen Mun Wards recent convert. He is just the cutest little hobbit man that just hikes everyday. He is awesome. We hiked around Tuen Mun. HK is a really cool place to hike because when you hike up all you see are tall buildings and green mountains.

 

Where the poop do I live? This place is awesome!!! I love it here! I love you all too!

It isnt a farmers tan, it is a fishers tan

Hey everyone!

How is it going on the other side of the world? Things are great over here! Still super hot and humid, but all weather is good weather when you are a missionary. :)

Last night is started raining right before we were going to go to bed, so we decided to try sleeping in the main room because when it rains at night it pounds on the AC unit. So we all slept on pads on the floor last night. It was fun. :)

This last week I got to go on exchanges again with Sister Choi. It is the third time that I have gotten to be companions with her. It is fun to see how we grow over time.

We also had Zone Training this week. Can I just tell you all how awesome the missionaries in Hong Kong are? They are the best. As you all know, we have been working towards getting 65 baptisms in July. Last month the mission got around 25. But the missionaries here have so much faith! President Hawks was so touched when he saw the results of a survey he took asking how excited we were for July and how optimistic we were. On a scale from one to seven the lowest score was a 5. It is amazing!!! Miracles truly are happening everyday!

Wednesday I got sunburned for I think the first time since I have been in HK. I dont know if it is the humidity, or the pollution or what, but usually no matter how long I am outside or what the weather is I dont get burned. But on Wednesday we were doing some service where we were sweeping a roof. After only about 2 hours I got a nice burn/tan. I love a good old farmers tan. Then sister mckown said, "we dont call it a farmers tan, we call it a fishers tan. I fishers of men tan." I got a good laugh at that. :)

Tuesday we met up with Doctor Lam to try and teach her a lesson.... how do I explain Doctor Lam.... she thinks she is a prophet. a healer. she donates her skin. lover of the bible. all other books are "spiritual books". she is SUPER nice. Offered us all kinds of different teas. We met her a while back and she said we could stop by her shop and chat with her sometime. So we went over and one of her friends was with her. We had some nice chats about what prophets really were. She thinks there are seven prophets... I dont really know... and I dont know how much I should say. But at one point she turned to her friend and said, "Look, you see, I want to heal them but they have to many doubts. I cant enter into their body because they have to many doubts." ..... of course we have some doubts! So I said that is funny cause we have a message that we really want to share with you that we KNOW will help you, but you have to many doubts. her friend then was kind of on our side saying like yeah, you need to believe what they say. I had a good laugh from them as well. I am just really grateful that the spirit protects us from Chinese doctors trying to enter into our bodies.

Being a missionary we get a chance to talk with allot of people. I have learned so many things from the people on the streets. There are so many different religions. They all have a portion of truth. Even Buddhism has some truth. Allot actually. At one point we were talking to this lady who says that she finds so much peace in their temples, she is just trying to figure out how to apply it into her everyday life. I am so grateful that we have a gospel that we can apply into our everyday lives. It is what we do, how we live and how we choose our futures. If there has been one thing that I have learned up to now is that this complete. I know it.

I love you all!

Shea

Dragon Boats

Family!!!!

I am sorry to here about Caleb's mom. But I am really happy to see everyone together. :) 

This morning we got to watch the dragon boat races! I dont really know the history of why they have them, but we watched a couple of them and called it good. They have about 40 people on one long boat and they race a few hundred meters.  We are all sweating like pigs over here. Everyday is like a rice cooker outside. It is great! 

I dont even know what to write about anymore.... sorry....

We went over the Sabbath day again with Tammy because she is getting so close to baptism but has to leave right before our sacrament meeting to go to work. We were getting a bit scared because we had taught it last week, but nothing changed, so we went over it again with her a bit more in detail and she said that she would be able to stay for half of sacrament meeting. Sundays are really truly impossible for her to get off. She sells furniture. But even when she gets vacation time she still has to work on Sundays. Everyone does. Hong Kong work life is crazy. I dont know how people can do it.

We taught Sister Lee, but we didnt have a place to teach her cause her family didnt want us in their house and our members mom had physical therapy in her house. So our member pulled out her living room table and stuck in it the hallways and thats where we taught her. haha the member even made dumplings, so it was like we were having a picnic in the middle of some government housing. :)

We got to cook with one of our LAs. This LA is one of the sassiest HK people I have ever met. She is SUPER funny. I love her, but she is a punk when it comes to coming to church. SO many excuses that are so not good excuses. I really like to keep digging till they have no excuse left so this is how our conversations go...

me: have you read the book of Mormon lately?

LA: oh I have been so busy lately

me: what are you doing to make you so busy?

LA: taking care of my grandkids

me: how old is he again?

LA: 12

me: so he goes to school right? what do you do during that time?

LA: I gotta buy groceries and cook food

me: hmmmmm... well you should still have you know like 2 min or so you can read a verse or two right?

LA: But then I have been whatsapping (do they have whatsapp in America?) one of my old classmates. 

Man. she is so good at changing the subject. But the good thing about sassy straight up people is the fact that you can do it right back. I love it. It is probably something I should do less of. I will work on it. 

But this week has been great! Filled with pizza with chopstix, basses on bicycles and sweat marks all around. 

I love you all!

Shea

cheung faahn, best noodles ever (they have soy sauce, peanut butter sauce and some sweet sauce plus sesame sauce.)

 me plus the dragon boats

 dragon boats