the last!

Hey everyone!

How is it going? It sounds like everyone is fantastic. For some reason everyone keeps saying this is my last email. I am not sure what you are all talking about. :) Just kidding. My next transfer is going to be an awesome transfer. I really am super excited to see everyone. I am just really really sad to leave everything here. I dont really know what I feel anymore. Everyone keeps asking and I have no idea. SUPER conflicting.

But there is no point in writing to long of an email.... since sooner or latter I can just tell you to your face....

But this last week has been AWESOME!!!!

I think the Lord knew that I wanted to go out with a bang so he sent miracles right and left! Yesterday alone we were able to have 7 investigators attend church. That doesnt even include the elders investigators or the lady that came on her own! Butterfly really is just exploding and with Sister Shoemaker training next transfer amazing things are going to happen.

This last week we had scheduled our new investigator a-young, then right has we got to the chapel she called us to say that she wasnt going to come because it was going to rain, but that she was just able to change her job so that now she can come to church Sunday mornings. Great! But also poopy for not coming. Then right has I hung up the phone, her two sons run up to the chapel doors. Eh?! So I call A-young back and say, hey do you know your kids are here? What? she said, I didnt think they would have enough guts to go on their own!, well I guess I will come then. So then after waiting an hour, she finally showed up and we were able to teach the three of them together. her sons are SUPER funny. We invited them to be baptized on October 5th. A-young said yes. Jackie said, heads is yes, tails is no and flipped a coin. It was a yes. :) Jimmy just follows big brother. :)

Everyone else has been doing pretty good. I have been saying goodbye to alot of people but it doesnt really feel real. Nothing feels real. I dont know what to think anymore.

I think I might be going crazy.

Hopefully you will still all love me anyway.

well.....

I guess I will see you all soon!

love you

東姊妹

What??

mother this is not my last letter. I will be sending one next week as well. :)

Man none of you have any mercy. I am excited to see you all as well! But. Just know that I am considering what is coming ahead as just another transfer, and then I will be right back to Hong Kong. PS I have possibly been telling people I will be coming back next summer... I hope that is ok. :) 

But this last week as come and gone in the blink of an eye! SO fast. We had Mission Tour on Wednesday and Elder Funk and Elder Wong were able to come and train us missionaries. It was really really good. We learned all about how to teach according to our investigators needs, teaching the Restoration with the spirit and how to get our investigators into the BOM. So Sister Shoemaker and I have been trying to apply what we have learned. We decided that we were going to take some time to read with everyone we are teaching for 5 min EVERY time we see them.

 

So on Friday we got to go over to Anna's house for the first time and teach her another after baptism lessons. Do you remember she has 2 sons with autism? Well she does. Wing Yiu's isnt as bad but Wing Lok's is pretty bad. Wing Yiu was playing on the computer and making his own cartoon. He would type some English and then the computer would read it. Wing Yiu's english is SUPER funny. He watches alot of youtube videos so he really only knows alot of slang. So the whole time we were trying to have a lesson the computer kept saying "How dare you speak smack to Terrance Brown, you are grounded for 5,345,458 years." or "You are creepy." I couldnt help but laugh. This is all coming from an autistic, Chinese, 10 year old little boy. He really is amazing. Wing Lok would have some fit because the internet stopped working on the phone he was playing with so Anna would have to calm him down and help him out. Anna is such an amazing person. She must have SO much patients. But anyway, we had originally planned to review the Plan of Salvation and Temples, but because it took her a while to calm down her sons, we ended up just reading a bit with her. Which was PERFECT since she was on 2 Nephi 4. Anyone know it? It is a great chapter. It is Nephi going off about how he trusts in God. It ended up being a really good lesson. 

This week we were also able to find 3 new investigators! A-yung and her 2 sons! A-yung is originally from Vietnam but has lived in Hong Kong for a really really long time. She speaks, understands, reads and writes Chinese. We met her in the park walking home from work. We were able to teach her about prayer in the park and then we met with her and her sons on Thursday at the chapel where we taught them the Restoration. Her sons, who are 8 and 10 had SO many questions. Sometimes I think that kids are better at coming up with questions than adults. They asked questions from, "What do prophets do?" to "When will Christ come again?" to "Why does God allow there to be diseases in the world?" So many questions. Way more than the average Chinese. I used to think that everyone in the world thought of life questions and wondered if there really was a God, but the Chinese don't. I used to think that it would be a great finding technique to ask people the purpose of life, but no one has ever even thought of those questions.

China really is an amazing place. I have been trying extra hard these days to learn everything I can about this place. I love it here. It is so different and yet it is my home away from home. So even if I leave I have to come back. :)

Right now is an amazing time to be a missionary and I am soaking in every second of it that I can. 

I love you all! 

Shea 

Pictures:

 Yuki, a past mandarin recent convert with our member Wong jimiuh.

 Dinner with the Chan's and our investigator Sister Lok and her daughter Katie

wrestling cockroaches

Hey Family!!!!!

How is everyone! We are doing fantastic over here it is hot and humid and there are prepared souls everywhere. :)

 

First I have to go back to the title of today's email.... wrestling cockroaches. So in Hong Kong people dont really have rodent problems in their houses usually they just have some cockroach problems. Even when your house is really clean and on the 34th floor you can still get cockroaches. The little suckers are everywhere!

 

So we have been fighting this battle with them in our apartment over the last couple of weeks. A couple weeks ago we finally bought some bug killing spray and sprayed everywhere is our apartment, of course that just made all the rest that we couldnt get to come out so for the rest of the week we were killing little cockroaches everywhere. Now before you freak out (mom), they were just little ones. Nothing to crazy. But last night I got up to go to the bathroom, half asleep of course, and I heard some rustling. I automatically thought it was the clothe line that is just outside of our bathroom window. but then... I see it. A GINORMOUS cockroach crawling up and above the door. Seriously the BIGGEST THING I HAD EVER SEEN! I dont know what is worse, rodents or cockroaches the size of rodents. Either way, I freaked out. I threw up my pants as fast as I could and tried to figure out what to do. By this time the cockroach is trying to fly around the bathroom. It was really the size of a small bird. I had no idea they could fly! So I grabbed my towel and tried to cover the cockroach to catch it, but it was a sneaky little sucker. It took me a good 4 tries before I could catch it, when I finally had it all wrapped up in my towel I stood there for a good 2 min trying to figure out how to kill the thing. I finally came to the thought to stick it out the bathroom window. So I stuck my towel out the window and tried to shake it hard enough that it would fall. When I brought my towel back it, it only brought the bloody cockroach with it! So I freaked out again and tried to catch it again and stuck my towel out the window and shut the window on my towel. Only then did it get off my towel.

 

By this time I have my adrenaline pumping through my body than I have had in a really long time. I tried to go back to sleep but ended up just laying there for a half hour only to here the tuen mun sister's summer missionary start speaking Korean in her sleep. So I tried to speak some back to her, but then she woke up and said what are you doing, since I was looking right at her in the middle of the night of course. Then I just really could help but laugh for the longest time.

 

Last night was a weird night. It is just still all on my mind so I thought I would share with you. :) But the work this last week has been great! We have been doing lots and lots of finding and if it wasnt for slurpees I think that I would have gotten heat stroke a long time ago.

But Anna got confirmed!

Our ward had an awesome and super fun water fight activity!

A potential family came to english class! We are SO close to teaching a family! Pray for it please!

July's baptisms came to a total of 51 for the mission!!! Not quite the 65 we planned but it has been the China Hong Kong mission's Zions camp. Look up the story and you will know what I am talking about. It has been awesome.

I had my last Zone Training and it was the most spiritual one I have ever been to. Our mission is not stopping with just July. We are reaching for high things. Us missionaries are changing this mission. We have all set a new goal for 65 in December. I am SOOOOOOOOO excited!!! It is going to be awesome.

But that is all for this week!

I love you all!