Oh the Hong Kong people....

Hey family!!!!

 

I am still alive and doing well. The work has slowed down alot this week. We have been out finding some days for 5 to 6 hours. Our main investigators Kirsten and Sister Chan havent answered any of our calls or texts the last couple of days which makes me extremely nervous. But I think it is just cause I am a missionary and I forget that they have normal lives where a couple days without talking with someone is completely normal. but still.... I know at least Kirsten always sees our texts and calls cause she lives on her phone. I dont know though.... I am still nervous for her. But!

 

LAM JImuih got BAPTIZED!!!!!!!! I dont really feel like she is our baptism cause we didnt really do anything. We knew she wanted to be baptized before we even met her. She was so ready. I wish you could have seen how happy her sister, mom and husband were. Everyone was just glowing. So that was super fun. But we didnt really work for it. It was her family and a bunch of other missionaries who have taught her the lessons 6 times before we showed up. It was all about timing.

 

So like I said we have been finding alot alot alot lately. Usually it is not so bad, but summer is soon on its way and it is turning into a rice cooker here. Thank goodness I bought some short sleeved shirts last week cause I am sweating like a little piglet. and it is only May. I am going to die. Oh well.... at least I will have gone out working hard. :) Just kidding I wont die, just be soaking wet all the time.

 

While we are out finding I have been learning alot about Buddhism. Since usually when we say we are missionaries and have a message about Jesus Christ, they say "Oh I am Buddhist" and walk away. So usually I like to ask them questions like: "Why are you Buddhist?" "So... what do you think the purpose of life is?" "Where do you think we go after this life?" Most of them have no idea. They just say, "I am Chinese. So I am Buddhist." .......... ? ..... wha? So usually I just ask why that makes them Buddhist. Most people here are only Buddhist because their family is Buddhist and it is tradition, but they have no idea what they believe. Sometimes it is quite fun. Other times it is just frustrating how close minded they are. But that is OK! Cause they just arent ready right now. They will have another chance when they are ready.

 

That sounds awesome what the New York missionaries are doing! It is great to get some publicity out there. And I also think that laughing at yourself is great medicine.

(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danielle-tumminio/dont-judge-a-book-of-mormon-by-its-cover-how-mormons-are-discovering-the-musical-as-a-conversion-tool_b_3267252.html)

 

I am happy that you guys are working hard to full fill your role as ward missionaries. Your activities sound great! I want to hear how everything goes! It also sounds like prayers are being answered with that kind of a sacrament meeting. Tamarra sounds like she is doing great! Keep working with her! I am excited to meet her sometime!

 

It is really good to hear about everyone! I love you so much!

Shea

 

 Pictures:

 

 My Favorite LA family. They are so great. We help Hillary with English and I play with June the 5 year old. :)

On the way to district meeting we ran into these Mainlanders on the train. Mainlanders are awesome. Because there are no missionaries in china, but there are churches and members, the members share the BOM and people read it and come down to Hong Kong, hear the lessons in 2 or 3 days and get baptized. Just like that. This is a family. Some of them were going to the temple for the first time and the son who was like 16 was going to get baptized. :)

                                         our hike

                                Lam jimuihs baptism!

I will tell you about my week

Saturday was pretty much the funnest day of my mission. AAAAH IT WAS SO AWESOME!!! Sometimes I really just can not believe that I am a missionary and that I am in China. Saturday was the day of our exchanges so it was Sister Aguilar and me. Sister Aguilar is super funny. She reminds me alot of my friends back in Utah so we got along rather swimmingly. But neither one of us really knew what we were doing. We had planned on visiting a LA, Kirsten and have dinner with a part member family. But our LA cancelled on us and we couldnt get a hold of Kirsten, so for the whole afternoon we went finding.

 

So.... both of us hardly speak Cantonese. But for some reason, this put more people at ease. Instead of when we normally go up to people and say "Hello, How are you today" and they just shake us off and say "I am in a hurry" or " I dont need" (that sounds better in Chinese.) but anyway... they would just smile at us and be so nice, because we couldnt speak very well! So then that would give us an opportunity to tell them why we are trying to speak Cantonese and share this awesome message. It was actually working wonders! So we contacted quite a few people on the street. We were originally walking over to this neighborhood we could knock some doors, because in Sister Aguilars area there isnt any places that she can so we thought it would be fun.

 

But when got to the neighborhood, no one was really home and we didnt feel like we should knock doors, but next to the houses there was this area of people sitting on benches while their kids ran around. So we said to each other, Let's go talk to them. We walked over slowly, cause we are still nervous new missionaries, and said Hello. Then the two ladies said "Come over here! Sit down! We need you to pray for our friend!!!" We just looked at each other like ..... wha...? So we went over and I sat in between the ladies while one proceeds to tell me in Cantonese that her friend got taken by the police but did nothing wrong, at the same time the lady on the other side of me is trying to translate everything into English. Anyway there was something about her friend who lost his job and was depressed, he took some bags for some reason, but not to steal them, but then the police took him and beat him and now he is waiting for trial somewhere in Kowloon. But he has no money for a lawyer. something like that. I dont really know. But they insisted that we pray for him. So we were trying to explain how our prayers and their prayers are the same cause we are all God's children and he hears all of us. They had loads of excuses to have us pray instead of them. Ranging from "My heart is too hard, I havent been to church in years" to "God speaks English so he will hear your prayers better." So we explained everything and countered all of their excuses and got them to pray for their friend. We said Amen at the end of their prayer, then they said now you do it! I looked at sister Aguilar and said "What the heck. Go for it!" So she said the prayer in English and made sure to include "Patrick" their friend. Afterwards one of the ladies was asking about our church and so I got to explain about the Book of Mormon and about how church works and she said that she really wanted to come to our church. Alas... her daughters were still sleeping yesterday so she didnt want to wake them up in order to come to church.

 

When Sister Aguilar and I walked away from the two ladies on the bench we really just couldnt believe what just happened. I think because we are both just so new to the whole missionary thing, everything we did that day was just awesome. After the lesson on the bench we then found another lady sitting by herself in the park. We taught her the entire plan of salvation. What?! That never happens in Hong Kong!!!!!!!! At least that is what my trainer tells me! We are told that it is extremely hard to teach lessons on the street. But I am not going to believe that. It's only true if you believe it is! OK well.... Well I will for sure talk to you and tell you more about our awesome mission. I am so excited to talk to you all!

Love you lots!

Shea

Pictures!

family Shea is working with

apartment

Chan Poh Poh

In front of Temple

apartment

poop on a leaf!

I am Still Alive!

I am still alive. I am not sure about you all. Bishop Choi showed me a picture of mom dad and Landon with Samuel and Sister Choi so I am guessing that you are are still alive and hopefully well. Well here are a few of my own pictures. I don't know if I am allowed to send a video but I thought that I would try anyway. I hope it works so you can get a feel for what knocking doors is sometimes like. :) It has been raining alot alot lately. Which makes finding kinda of difficult. We didn't keep knocking doors for to much longer after it started raining that hard, cause even when we do knock, most of the time I don't think they can hear us because the rain is so loud on the roof. So usually we go find a tunnel or bridge to find people on. We found one sweet spot next to our house that is a tunnel. So we just stay under there for a couple of hours. Sometimes I feel like the troll under the bridge just waiting for my next victim. Except I am a happy troll with a good message, not an angry troll that wants to eat them. :)

This week as gone by really really fast. It was another week of planning and getting organized an entire day and then the next day being awesome. Sometimes our days are so packed that we have to eat on the run cause we forgot to schedule in meal times. I love those days. It only usually happens once a week. On those nights I sleep like a rock. Actually I always sleep like a rock.

I freakin love being a missionary! I love it when we find ways that we can serve people. We had like 4 or 5 investigators at church on Sunday along with 2 Less Active families. When I watched them come in and sit down I couldnt help but smile. Our chapel was the fullest I have ever seen it! I couldnt stop smiling for the entire Sacrament meeting. Then there were some really good testimonies born. I can understand alot of it when my mind is focused 100% on the speaker. So usually I can get the jist of what is going on. But by the time relief society comes, my brain is toast. But my Cantonese is getting better and better every day. It is kinda crazy how the first day at the MTC I couldnt even say Hello properly and yet now I can understand an entire conversation. I Gift of Tongues is definetly a real gift.

The reality of training sooner than I thought has started to hit me. Not that I have already been told that I am going to start training, but we have been warned that we will have to start training new sisters alot earlier than past sister missionaries had to. I did the math and realized that I have one of the most experienced trainers in the mission. That means that the President wants me to learn as much as I can from her so that I can pass it on to a newer missionary. My trainer , Sister Clements has also been called as the Zone Sister Trainer Leader, so she will be going on exchanges with the 3 other sets of sisters in our zone. But the thing is that she has to work with both the new trainers, and the trainees. Because 2 of the trainers have only been here 2 months, so she wants to work with them as well. That means that me and another baby(another sister who came at the same time as me) will have an entire regular day as companions. That means visiting LAs visitng members, finding, teacher, everything. With 2 missionaries who have been in Hong Kong 1 month. AGH! I am nervous, but kinda excited. We wil get to see how good/bad our Cantonese really is. Good thing the Lord wont let us destroy the area. :) Nothing too bad can happen. Pictures to follow!

 

 

Ok I love you all! talk to you in a week!

Shea

Family

Family!

We have a baptism scheduled for the 19th! We are so excited! I don't know if I told you about Sister Lam. Her husband is a semi less active with a heart sickness. We went and visited Brother Lam my second day here and we asked him about possibly teaching his wife. At that time he just said that it was complicated and that we would talk about it later. Then last Saturday we called to invite her to a Relief society activity and Brother Lam was like... can you come over and we can talk about my wife's baptism? She wants to get baptized now. So we ran over there are sure enough she now wants to accept the gospel. She has already heard the lessons 6 times, but had some big decisions to make. But we have reviewed almost everything with her and we can see how much faith she really has. I am excited for her. When we brought up why she wants to get baptized now, she just said that she needed to be sure. But she really wants to be sealed to her husband. She got all teary eyed when we brought up the temple. I am so very grateful that we have the knowledge to be sealed together in this life, so that we can be together for all eternity. sigh.... I love it so much.

The Lord is defiantly blessing Sheung Shui. There are so many people here who have just been waiting to hear about the gospel. It is just a matter of finding them. Finding is still really hard. It takes guts to go up to someone and try to get them to listen to your slaughtered Cantonese. Missionary work is weird. It is amazing it even works. Just think about it.... 2 giant white foreigners, trying to speak Cantonese, come up to you and tell you about Jesus Christ, then ask for more time when they can share with you and your family more about Christ. Then you let them into your home and speak with you. I don't understand how it works. It is kinda creepy. There is no way that we could be doing this work without the spirit. That is the only way that we can get into peoples lives. They feel something and want to learn more.

Oh yeah! We got to go to the temple on Thursday! So technically this isn't my Pday. We are just emailing then it is back to work! It was a nice boost in the week. The Hong Kong temple is beautiful. Small but awesome. We have been meeting with families in the ward pretty much every single night. Honestly we didn't have to buy like any food last week. We met with Sister Lam every morning, and they fed us breakfast and then we had dinner and other members houses. The food here is great! I haven't run into anything to bad yet. Allot of it is greasy but that's why we drink hot water with everything. Some of the members live in very humble circumstances. We met with one of the families who lives in literally a tin shack. But inside they have a TV and a computer and a nice kitchen. People are funny here. They would rather sleep on the floor and own an Iphone.

There was an activity with the Young womens and young men on Saturday. They were going to ride bikes, which is a rare activity to do in Hong Kong. So we invited Kirsten and Kirsten invited 3 friends. We were planning on going as well since there were so many potential investigators going, but according to the white handbook, we both have to be wearing helmets. NO ONE wears helmets in Hong Kong. Such things are only for the real road bikers. We searched and searched for helmets and asked every family we ate with that week if they had one or if they knew of someone who had one. We tracked down one helmet and had hopes that someone else would bring one more helmet to the activity. When we got there and were ready to get the bikes, we still only had one helmet. The rental place doesn't have any helmets either, so we just thought that there was no way that we would be able to go. We thought and thought of any way we could make things work. The YW and YM were like "just ride a tandem bike and the person in the front can wear the helmet!" or "Just use a bucket! Chinese style!" We even tried to get special permission from Pres. Hawks to go since we had so many investigators going. But alas. no permission nor did a helmet appeared. So we told them to go without us. We had work that needed to get done anyway, and walked off to the market to see if we could find a helmet to buy. We were really sad that we weren't able to go, but proud of ourselves for being perfectly obedient. Then we got a call from the YW leader saying someone just brought an extra helmet! So we raced back to the bike shop, grabbed our bikes and took off to catch the group, who were waiting for us on the other side of the train station! Miracles happen when you are obedient. :) Biking was really fun. My butt is bruised. but the scenery was super pretty! we road all along Tolo harbor down to Tai Wai. It was really good to bond with the YW and YM as well as spend time with Kirsten and her friends.

Well that was my week in a nut shell. Dads trip sounds awesome! I cant believe he didn't take anyone with him! I am glad that he gets the chance to use his mission language. I hope one day to be able to use Cantonese. And be semi good at it. A man in the street just before we got our bikes told me that it is impossible to learn Cantonese. He went on a rant to me. I told him we can do it with God. He wanted to know why our church was different, but had no time. I gave him a flyer. Hopefully he calls and learns why we are different.

Blast this computer. I was planning on sending a big load of pictures, but we went to a closer library and it wont let me attach an flyers. Or open anything but the Internet for that matter. I am really sorry! I wanted to send you pictures of everything. I will next week for certain.

For now I need to send an email to the pres.

I love you!

Shea

Our Area is on FIRE!!!!

Family! 

For real though. Our area is on fire. It is like they were just waiting for sisters to show up. We now have 2 investigators committed to baptism and we had 6 LA's at church yesterday and we have only been here 2.5 weeks. It is crazy to see the miracles. I really can’t even believe it. 

When I first got here and we were spending so much time inside planning and studying I was kinda angry cause I wanted to be out working. But low and behold... studying, planning, records, and calling are a huge part of the work. We haven’t even been able to go out finding that much, which surprises me, cause I thought we would be doing alot of finding. But between putting our records in order, visiting LA families, calling, and doing our 4 hours of daily study we haven’t had that much time to go finding. Like I was telling sister Clements... It is like we plan and study and set things up forever, then we have one huge moment that is awesome. 

Can I just tell you how much I love Hong Kong? I forgot my card reader again. :( I am sorry! I will repent and bring it next week. The weeks just go by so fast here. But I have to tell you about Grandma Chan. She has been a less active for 10 years now. Apparently the Elders found her just a couple of weeks ago, but we were going down the list that Bishop Choi said was a part member family, and decided to call and see if we could visit her. She agreed to visit with us if we came out to her house. So we called the bishop, the elders, and talked to other members to see if we could figure out how to get to her house. She lives out in the boonies of the boonies. We took this bus, that then dropped us off on the side of the road... the bishop just said look and whatever direction is going up and go up. So we did. We also called the Elders and made them explain everything in detail... but anyway it is way up in these mountains. So we get there and she is the cutest little old lady! She lives in this little cave of a house. Her 50yr old son lives with her, but he is always working and has no interest in the church. But we talked with her and showed her pictures of our families. Then she asks us if we have eaten yet. We are like yeah a bit. Then she goes into a dark closet (actually her kitchen) and comes back out with what looks like poop on a banana leaf. We take and say thank you and then look at each other like Oh no. what are we supposed to do. So we take a bite and it is not too bad. It looks really bad. I will send a picture next week. I really meant to bring my card reader. SORRY! But anyway. Then we were like "How did you make this? Like what is it made of?" She then proceeds to get up and walk out the front door and pick some weeds from the ditch outside her house.      .....        I didn’t even know what to say. Apparently she boils the leafs down and makes a mush of them and adds geliton. So we asked for bags so we could take some to the other sisters we live with and she then gave us like 5 more. Oh how I love Grandma Chan. She came to church on Sunday. :) We are also going to help her be able to go to the temple and do her family history work. 

I also have to tell you more about Kirsten. She is still as awesome as ever. On Saturday we had a Relief Society activity and she came. She also brought her little brother, and 3 other friends. We were able to watch the Restoration with them and talk about the BOM. They couldn’t come to church yesterday, but Kirsten said for sure next week. Oh man she is great. 

Nope. We didn’t feel any Earthquake. I just barely saw something like that on the train TV. We guessed it was mainland, but nope had no idea. I am excited that Landon is getting excited about a mission. It really is super great and I love every min of it, even when I don’t understand everything that is going on or things are just really awkward. That is one of the mottos of our apartment. "Embrace the Awkward." You really have to. :) 

The Carlson’s called from one of the missionaries phones down in the English branch.

I have actually seen Kelsie quite a few times. Her companion was in our sister district so I actually know her pretty well. Sister Aliaga is awesome. I have also strangely met 2 or 3 people from Spain traveling on the train here. But when I try and speak in Spanish is comes out as Chiesh. Half Chinese half Spanish. It is no good. Kinda a bummer, but I will pick it back up when I get back to the states. No worries for now. Cantonese is still coming slowly but surely. Sister Clements and I speak alot of English which is bad for learning Cantonese, but there are alot of things we need to organize and put together that we need to be able to communicate. It will come in time. I am not too worried. 

I gave the bishop your email. If he hasn’t emailed you yet I am sure he will very shortly. They still don’t have housing for Samuel yet and they leave for Utah on Thursday. So watch out for that email. They were really grateful to get some help with that. They speak some English... But idk how much cause I only speak in Cantonese with them. Samuel is said that he is leaving his friends, so I hope that Landon can fill the gap for him. :) 

Dad we live in Sheung Shui. On San Shing Ave. I don’t know what the building is called. The Tai Wo sisters live with us. It is really fun. 

Ok, well I love you all. But I still have to write President Hawks! Keep writing me, because I love to read your emails! Thanks for all your support!

Shea

Table Manners...

Hey family! 

Still alive and doing well! The language is still coming. Slowly but surely it will come. It is still frustrating but I can make due. Except when people talk really fast, then there is no hope. One of the people we had a dinner with, her name is Manzee, her and her friend were there. She is a member but her friend is not. They just kept going at each other and at the end of every sentence was a  -gaaaaaammaaaaa. Which is like adding Duuuuhhhhh onto every sentence you say. They had their mouths completely full with rice sliding out every time they talked. I couldn’t understand anything.... but I thought it was hilarious so I just laughed to myself and let them keep going. So I might come back with just as bad table manners. If I do..... oh well... Chinese people are awesome. 

Conference was really good! We were lucky enough that the members understand that even for missionaries who have been out over a year conference is still hard to understand so they set us up a program in English. 

WE HAVE AN INVESTIGATOR!!!!!! She is freakin Awesome! When we were meeting the elders to go less active finding the elders ran into her. They thought she was going to be trouble since she flat out told them they were cute and followed them for a good while. Then she showed up to English class the next night. Sister Clements and I had chosen to go finding instead of to English class cause we weren’t planning on anyone being there. So the Tai Woo sisters and our Elders taught her together... (the Chinese person to the left of me just burped and coughed up a giant luegee, just thought you should know.) but anyway... They invited her to conference on Saturday and she came!!!! To all 4 hours! And then she stayed for a 30 min lesson with us! Then we walked to the train station with her where she met her friend and she went and took her friend back to the chapel to chat with a bunch of other missionaries!!!! She has already felt the spirit many times in her life and already prays everyday. She is amazing. There is alot of negative perceptions of the church here in Hong Kong. People say that we are a cult and a devil worshipping church. When Kirsten (the name of our new investigator) told her friends she was meeting with the Mormons they totally anti-ed her saying how she can’t meet with us and how we are evil. But she said she said that she can make her own decisions and wants to find out for herself. She said when we taught her that she thinks meeting with us was the right decision. She. is. sooooooo. awesome. But she is only 15. So even if she wants to get baptized she can’t unless she can get her parents consent. Her parents said she couldn’t come to conference on Sunday because she had to do her homework. She has been through alot in her life; I don’t know how her relationship with her parents is yet. We will see her on Wednesday. I am excited!

Ok I don’t have as much time as I thought. But I love you all! Thank you for your prayers. I really do feel them. They lift me up everyday! They are much needed and are well used! I will keep on keeping on. The Lord lifts me up. I believe and he will help me in my unbelief!

Love! Shea

Here are some pictures I promised! Ah... I don’t remember what they are....

1. Where we go finding. Addresses are really complicated here. I will explain some other time. Especially since we can’t read or write

2. The view from my apartment desk window. I love it. We live on the 5th floor. Which is really the 4th floor they just don’t use fourth floor here because it sounds like the same word as death just a different tone, so they skip it. 

3. Just crossin the road. You cross halfway and wait and then cross more. Kinda weird. You have to be careful. 

4. on the way back from conference. Our church really is out in the boonies.