Black Rain?

Hey family!

There have been a couple of black rain and typhoon warnings the last couple weeks but I haven't seen to much. If it is black rain we are not allowed to go out and i don't remember what level of typhoon means that we cant go out.... but the weather hasn't been bad this week at all. A few thunderstorms, but mostly just really hot and sweaty. I have just come to the fact that I am going to be soaking wet for the rest of summer. Being sweaty doesn't even really bother me anymore, except when I get it dripping down my face... that is bothersome.

But it sounds like everyone is doing good over there and still having a good time together even though everyone got sick for a bit. I hope that it didn't last too long. I am just happy I wasn't there for that part. I have been really lucky to not get sick here yet. (knock on wood) Being sick would not be fun. You all went down to Arizona in July?! You are all crazy. It is way to hot to do such a thing.

Hong Kong is still doing great! I still love this city. It is super crazy. We have decided not to teach the grandma that we brought to church last Sunday. She really has ZERO interest in learning the gospel. We went over to visit her/ teach her and she wouldn't let us talk about anything that had to do with the gospel. She wouldn't even let us say a prayer. So..... we don't want to waste the Lords time.

But our other 2 investigators are doing really good! We have found out the real problem as to why Carolyn has not been progressing and gave Elizabeth a baptismal date for August 25th! Elizabeth came to church this last Sunday with her mom who was less active for a really long time. I am so excited for them! Carolyn almost made it to church.... she got up and got herself dressed only to then fall back asleep. I told her she needs to take some drugs to help her fall asleep at a decent hour so that she can wake up before 4 in the afternoon. She has been an investigator now since February. She has gone through 3 baptismal dates, but as not been able to get herself to church for a long long time so hasn't been able to keep any date. But she told us why she hasn't kept her date and I think that we will be able to help her truly prepare herself. I refuse to give her another date though, till she gets herself to church.

The week went by super fast. I can hardly remember all that happened....

Oh! Friday we went on exchanges, so I got to take Sister Tidwall with me into my area. She just came in this last transfer so she is really new. We had a really fun time together. She was just amazed at our area. Our area really city city. Lots of people, lots of buildings, lots of lights. We went to find some LA addresses to go and visit them in the evening. The addresses were in an area of the city I didnt know to well. We usually dont go over in that area because there are to many people and it is hard to get them to stop and feel the spirit. But anyway... it was dark and I have my map book out and think that I know where to go. We were waiting at a stop light when this man comes up to us and says, "Dont go that way! Dangerous! Pit Pockets! Go this way! More people!" This is really weird to me. Ever since I have been in Hong Kong I have never ever felt in danger. The address we were looking for was right in the middle of that "Dangerous" area. Sister Tidwall and I started going down the street where there were more people then turned back into the "dangerous" area. I asked her how she felt about and she said not bad. I didnt feel bad about it either, so we just went. We found where we thought the right building was and hiked up 5 flights of stairs only to have them not answer the door. But we left them a flyer and a note and went back down the stairs. The area is kinda sketchy looking... it looks like is could be straight out of the movies. I have no doubt that there are all kinds of illegal things that go on there, but the Lord would have protected us if we ran into anything. :) But dont worry I still use my street smarts. I am not dumb. If something would have seemed dangerous I wouldnt have done it. So calm down mother.

I am still loving Hong Kong and being a missionary! Things are finally starting to pick up. Our ward is full of drama, kinda bothersome, but it is a good ward. Nothing is every boring that is for sure. We have a couple of families and alot of single people, like either just a mom or just a daughter... idk it is weird. but good. We have a good young womens and good young mens, an awesome relief society but not very many priesthood holders.

Ok! I love you all! Be safe in your travels! I sent a flash drive with Carol that has some video's on it.... I guess no of you are home though. Oh well. Maybe I will just mail it to you as a late birthday present. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!! AND GRANDMA ALDANA!!! I love and miss you!

Shea

Happy 4th to you all!

Sounds like you are all having a great time together! PAARRRTTTY! I am kinda sad that I missed it. The fireworks sound awesome, and I am glad that no one got hurt. 

We spent the fourth here finding ALL day. Our appointment with the possible new investigator cancelled, so we went finding all day. We tried to find some Less Actives as well but there was no success. We did meet Grandma Lai. We were trying to get into this apartment to go and knock on our of our LA's doors, but the guard made us call up first (I hate it when that happens cause no one ever answers or they just say no and we cant make them feel guilty by saying it to our faces.) . So no one answered. But then this grandma (pohpoh) came up to us and was like "Oh you are looking for church friends? I go to church! I think I have seen you there!" Sister choi and I just looked at each other like.... huh? Cause she did not look familiar to us at all. So we asked her which church she went to, but she didnt know the name. Anyway.... So we scheduled to meet with her the next day. The next day we went over to her house and she was extremely happy to let us in. She just kept saying how happy she was to have 2 lengleui (pretty girls) as her companion. But she is pretty much blind. So we get to know her. Turns out she goes to church, but also practices Buddhism in her house. She has a couple statues that she prays to sometimes. We start teaching her the Restoration and we bring up the great apostasy and she says "STOP! I cant hear anymore!" we were really surprised cause she was loving the lesson up till that point. She changed so fast, I thought I was just hearing things wrong for a while. But she would not let us continue onto Joseph Smith. We asked her what was wrong, and what happened, but she just kept saying how she couldnt tell us now, but she would tell us down at her church. It was so weird! I really felt like all of the sudden she acted as if someone was watching her that didnt want her to learn the most important part of our message. I honestly think it was that bloody Buddhist statue. It is evil. We told her we are not from the same church that she goes to, but we invited her to come to church. She was like Yeah sure why not! call me later. 

So we called her Saturday night and tried to tell her where to meet us and after a good 5 min of trying to explain we concluded that we would just go pick her up. So Sunday we went over to get her. Our Chapel is a good trains transfer away. She hadnt ridden the train in i dont even know how long. Old people dont leave their towns. But I bought her a ticket and held her hand the entire way. I hadnt realized how cut throat the trains are until I was trying to get a 70 something year old through a train ride. Trains are completely packed with people. They will just smush themselves into the train and wait for the doors to close. I think she was scared cause their were so many people and she thought she would lose us (hence the hand holding, even though it is freaking hot and sweaty). But we finally got to church just in time. We went into Relief Society and start shaking hands with everyone like usual and Lai pohpoh is right behind us shaking everyones hands and just loving all of the attention. The Relief Society loved her and Lai pohpoh was just so funny. During the first hymn Lai pohpoh turned to me and said "I am just so happy that you brought me here!" Which made me feel much better cause the entire train ride and walk to the church I just felt like I was taking advantage of a little old lady. So she loved church! Sister Choi and one of the members taught her after church while I taught one of the Recent Converts with another member. Sister Choi said that Lai pohpoh stopped her again during the great apostacy but they moved on anyway. Apparently Lai pohpoh is afraid of the spirit. She just wants to have fun. She really has no interest in learning the gospel. I am not quite so sure what we are going to do with her. But in the mean time we will find a member with a car to take her to church. 

We also found another LA named Brother Cheung who is 69 and Autistic. No one has visited him in a really really long time. He was smoking when we found him and Sister Choi told him flat out that he cant smoke anymore and took his cigarettes away. She was awesome. I couldnt understand a single word he said, but sister choi was awesome. We told him everytime he wants to smoke to eat an apple, so right after the visit we went and got him 2 large bags of apples. We went to visit him a couple days later and he hadnt smoked! We will probably go see him tonight to see how he is doing. 

Well I am glad that you are all having loads of fun together! Dont have to much fun with out me! Say hi to everyone and I love them!

Shea 

Family!

Oh how I miss you all! It has been a long long week since our Pday is today instead of Monday. We got to go to the temple today and it was lovely. I love the temple so much. It was so relaxing. I feel so refreshed afterwards and ready to take on the Hong Kong people!

There has been so much that has happened, I wish I could just make a phone call instead of writing everything down... but alas... Christmas is 6 months away.

This week we got to meet Sister Lu (I changed her name, cause i think it would be better just in case anyone visits HK). It was really a miracle that we found her. Every night we usually call all of our investigators and then usually randomly select a few from our less active names. Sister Choi just happened to choose Sister Lu's name and sister Lu was willing to meet with us! She has been a less active for a really really long time. She was baptized when she was 16, went to church two Sunday's after her baptism and stopped going to church after that. She is now 46. She said the ward didnt even look for her, but she didnt have a cell phone then. She has had a really hard life. She got married young and had one child, then her husband started beating her so they got a divorce. A few years later she lived with her boyfriend and had two other kids together. One night she came home drunk and her boyfriend said I dont ever want to see you again and left her and the 3 kids. She was a single mom with no job or much education. She turned to selling her body and doing money scams. Recently she got all of her money stolen from some online scam. The police found out about her money fraud and she is going to prison sometime in the upcoming months. She opened up to us and told us everything about her life. (Not like I could understand all of it... but Sister Choi translated to me after...) Sister Lu had already met with the Bishop and is going through a rough repentance process. We asked if there was anything else we could do for her, but she said she just really wanted us to meet her son. So this last Sunday we went over to their house in the afternoon.

I had been fasting last Sunday, cause I REALLY wanted some investigators. We have been here a month now and still dont have any progressing investigators... so I thought I would try "waxing strong in prayer and fasting". I thought that the opportunity to meet Sister Lu's son would be awesome and maybe we could start teaching him. But when we went over and Sister Lu yelled for her son to come out, he came out angrily saying how he told her not to force him into anything and stormed out of the house. I was kinda sad... but I decided I would just focus on Sister Lu. Then while we were talking to her, Sister Lu's daughter Liz came out from the back room! She is also a non-member! Her mom had said that she goes to a different church down in Central called "The Fight", but Liz sat and talked with us and listened and participated in the lesson! And then said she would meet with us the next day at the chapel!!!! Liz is super awesome! She said that she wants to serve a mission... but I think she just wants to go abroad.... but dont worry... we will help her see what a mission is really about. :) The Lord answers prayers. He is kinda awesome. More like freakin awesome! He totally blessed us with the opportunity to meet Sister Lu and Liz. I will update you on how they do in the upcoming week. :)

Carolyn, the investigator that the Elders turned over to us, is kinda stuck at a standstill. She is no longer progressing. She already knows everything! This last lesson we talked about temple marriage and she informed us that if the temple doesnt allow dogs in she is not getting married in the temple. ..... yeah. In time I think she will change. She just needs to WAKE UP AND GET HER BUTT TO CHURCH!!! That seems to be a problem with alot of people I work with. In my last area and this area. Speaking of my last area... Remember Nicky, the girl we found who was drunk, I talked to the Sheung Shui sisters and it turns out she has a baptismal date! I cant remember when it is... but she has one! I am so excited for her!

Well I hope that everyone has a wonderful 4th of July! I will be here. Walking the streets of Hong Kong. I agree with Kelsie, people are much nicer when you just look like a lost tourist. But it is still all good! On the 4th we are meeting with Ms. Wong and her daughter Alex (who loves Jesus). Hopefully it will turn into something...

One of our members is going to Utah next week. Her name is Carol, she is one of the strongest people I think that I have ever met. But she said if i wanted to send something with her i could... So I might just send something. i will give her your email and number so she can get a hold of you. She is going to look for a house in American Fork. she is planning on moving her family over there in the upcoming months. I will let you know next week if I give her something.

But for now I love you all!

Shea

                                                            

                                 

                                                         Us at the harbour

                               

                       Our ward missionaries! (Me, Sister Choi, Elder Allen, and Elder Peterson)

yeah! happy birthday to me!

I am finally the age that I have been waiting my entire life to turn so that I could finally do the thing that I am already doing. A mission! Weird. Hong Kong wanted to celebrate my birthday as well so it gave me Amber rain. There are 3 kinds of heavy rain here in HK. Amber (it just rains a crap load), Red (alot alot alot, be careful outside) and Black (we are'nt allowed to go outside cause it is like a rain blizzard). So the rain kinda ruined our plans to possibly go out and try and see some pink Chinese dolphins. So after email we are going to go to a couple of museums.

 

The work is still going good. Slowly but surely. This week we found a LA who has been less active for over 10 years, and she was willing to come back to church with us! She is originally from Thailand, but moved here over 30 years ago. But she doesnt remember anything about the church, so we are going to start teaching her to help her remember. No major no investigators this week.... the Elders turned over one of their investigators to us, but she has already been taught everything, we just need to get her to come to church. She just cant wake up on time. She lived in the states for a long time, so she speaks perfect English and Cantonese, which is super nice, cause Cantonese is still really hard.

 

My Chinese is coming along slowly but surely. Now that I have a native companion, people talk a mile per min. So I have a really hard time keeping up. When people ask me a question slowly or just simpley tell a story I can understand just fine, but when they are going off chit chatting, I cant understand anything. But no problem! One day I will understand. I hope. But I did give Sister Choi quite a fright the other night, when apparently I was praying out loud in Cantonese, with a perfect accent. I just wish I could do that when I am conscious.

 

Sister Choi my companion is awesome. Luckily she doesnt even really need training. She is from Kwun Tong, which is like the area next to ours. Her family actually came to English class the other night. Kinda weird, but oh well. She wishes she was further from home, but she is needed in Cheung Sha Wan. :)

 

Yeah! Kelsie and I are in the same Zone! So we get to see each other once a month! she is also training and is living in the most crowded place in HK. Mong Kok, which literally means "busy corner". Our areas actually border, we also have like 1/4 of Mong Kok in our area.

 

Sorry nothing to exciting/funny this week. John, the investigator we turned over to the Elders, came to church on Sunday. Apparently he liked it, but was a bit freaked out at the sacrament. So when they passed the bread over him, he took a piece of bread and stuck it in his pocket. ... he drank the water after looking around for a good 30sec for somewhere else to put it. :) He is so funny.

 

Here are some pictures!

                                          Sunday dinner, actually that is what every lunch looks like...

                                            on the way to email last week

                                     Meih Foo, to Mong Kok is our area! We love trains! Ride them everyday.

It sounds like everyone is still doing super good. I am glad! Every once in a while I wish I was there with you all, relaxing and having fun together, but that time will come soon enough. I cant believe how fast time is already flying by. I have already been on my mission for 5 months. Thats almost 1/3 of the way done. Gross. I feel like I just started and yet I have already been here forever. Mission time is weird. But I love it.

 

Thanks for the emails! I love you!

Shea

Fathers Day Card

       
                                                 Hong Kong post card- Fathers Day

Happy Fathers Day Pops!

Happy fathers day pops! Fuhchan yaht faailohk!!!!

I love you all so much and I am so blessed to have you as my father! I sent you a postcard in the mail. I hope that it gets to you sometime.

This week has been much much better than last week. It has been raining alot, but it makes it much cooler so I am ok with that. Except it makes it kinda hard to go finding when everyone has umbrellas up that they can use as shields. But no problem,that is why we go to bridges that have coverings. :)

It was a long week of finding. Finding is hard work, but it needs to be done. Finding is a hard, but it is a time of miracles. We have met some really cool people this week. Some are just..... characters. Last Tuesday we were finding over in this area of apartments, it was almost time to head home, but i said we needed to talk to 2 more people before we got on the train to go home. We went over to talk to this girl who was just standing there waiting for a friend. ... she rejected us. eh. oh well... then when we turned around to look for one more person, this man came up to us and said "you are Mormon-gau?" We then looked at each other in surprise and said "The Church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints. that is just a nickname. (which in Hong Kong is not a very good nickname cause Mormon means devil door)" So we explained a little bit about the Book of Mormon. And the man, his name was John, was like I want to know more about this book. But is it necessary to read the entire thing to know what is inside?" We were like we would LOVE to explain to you about this book. So we scheduled a time to meet with him. He wanted to meet at his apartment but we told him we couldn't unless we have another male with us, so he said we could meet him in the common area gardens on Friday. Oh John. He is kinda weird. He likes to try and speak English with me. He is weird, but has a strangely large interest in learning about the gospel. Anyway... Friday. We had the Elders come with us, cause we thought it would be best to turn him over to the Elders. So when i called John to ask if that was ok, and if we could meet at his house he said this about 10 times with his Chinese accented English, slightly yelling, "OHHHHHHHHHH, SO BECAUSE YOU HAVE A MALE. A MALE. A MALE. YOU CAN COME INTO MY HOUSE. BECAUSE A MALE. YOU WONT HAVE TO WORRY WORRY FOR YOUR LIFE." I was cracking up on the other side of the phone. When we got to his house with the Elders the first thing he said to me was "If you are worried for your life, you should learn Kungfu." and that started off the lesson. He is probably in his 60s, lives with his brother Philip probably also in his 60's and they take care of their parents, who are paralyzed and super old. They are funny. But weird. But they said if they learned that the Book of Mormon was true that they would have no problem being baptized.

So thats John. We also met Mrs. Lok. She is a Catholic, we taught her the Restoration and gave her a book of Mormon and she seemed really excited about it. But like 15 min after our lesson she called us and said she wanted to give the book back because it was so different from the Bible. Choi Jimuih tried to smooth things out over the phone, but she still wanted to give the book back. I tried to schedule her last night, but she said that she thinks her Catholic church is enough. She thinks they are all the same. I talked with her for a good 20 min just trying to help her see how important phrophets, preisthood and more knowledge about our savior Jesus Christ is. But she really just doesnt want it right now. I was pretty  bummed, but I know one day she will open back up that Book of Mormon and feel something.

So things are looking up. Of course bad/hard times come, but they always pass. I love my mission. It is the hardest, best time ever. Hong Kong is still awesome. I am cool with planting seeds. Future missionaries will thanks us one day. :)

As for the investigators in Sheung Shui. As far as I know they are doing pretty good. They are still meeting with Niky, and Kirsten (her baptismal date has been changed), Mr. Jehng, Peter Leunhg and I dont know who else they are working with.  I dont get a chance to be updated on them as much as I would like. But I have new souls that I am responsible for. So I try on focus on the people of Cheung Sha Wan. I trust the other sisters, and I trust the Lord.

I hope that everyone continues doing good! I hope that Fathers day was great! Sorry I missed it, but you all know that I am where I am supposed to be. :)

Love you all!

Shea

I'm Training!!

I am still alive and trying to work hard! I have moved and am opening up a new area down in the city city. CITY city. Our chapel is the Kowloon Tong Chapel across from the Temple. But our area goes from half of Mong Kok to Mei Foo. But we live in Kwai Fong. It is kinda annoying and really hard to figure out of to get things done here. Because we dont live in our area, and our chapel is not in our area we end up spending ALOT of money on travel. We have to take the train ALOT. I dont even know how we are going to budget our food money. But anyway.... 

My new Companion is AWESOME! Her name is Sister Choi. She is from Hong Kong, but speaks pretty much perfect English cause she studied at BYU Hawaii for 2 years before her mission. She has been a convert for 3 years now. She just one day saw the chapel that was next to her house and went to church. She was baptized like a month later and in the following months her mom and sister and little brother were baptized as well. She is a super great missionary already. She is pretty much training me.

But we have been struggling because it is a new area. We have no records and I have no idea where anything is. The Elders took us on a tour of our area, but it is really weird cause it goes from practically no people to too many people. So Friday and Saturday we spent 5 to 6 hours out on the street trying to talk to people. But sister choi had big blisters on her toes from the first day when we got the tour, so she couldnt walk to much. So she would sit on benches and try and talk to people and I would walk back and forth and try to talk to people. Everyone here is in a really big hurry. It is nothing like Sheung Shui (my last area). But Sister Clements called me Sunday night to let me know that Niky (the possibly drunk girl we found), Mr. Jehng and his 5 yr old daughter (who live in a 2 story closet) and Peter Leuhng (who does illegal work (i wont say what) dont worry it is not that bad...) all were at church up in Sheung Shui. That made me SUPER happy. It gives me some hope for this area. We opened Sheung Shui and it turned out awesome... so we will open up Cheung Sha Wan and it will be just as awesome. 

Cheung Sha Wan ward is the smallest one that goes to the Kowloon chapel. It is really small and has very few families. When I was asking our district leader all about the ward I was losing hope cause it sounded like a very dramatic ward that didnt like to help the missionaries. But when we went to church yesterday we got to meet everyone and I think that it is going to be a great ward! It is still going to take some work, but this were all SO much better than I was expecting. It is really better just to go to everything without any expectations. 

This is still crazy. Everyone agrees with me. I have only been here 9 weeks. I am training AND opening a new area that is completely opposite of my last area. I feel really bad for Sister Choi cause she has a lot more pressure on her than a new missionary should have, but it cant be helped. We have been really stressed the last couple of days, but not to worry, I am over it. Things are starting to move along. We are meeting with as many members as we can this week to get to know them and ask if there is anything we can do to help them share this gospel with their friends. 

Slowly but surely we will have work to do. It is really hard, but we are both growing so much and learning so much. 

I have had to remind myself several times as to why I decided to go on a mission. Things are hard and stressful. But I wouldnt want to be anywhere else doing anything else. I love doing this work. It is trying the very best thing in the world. There nothing that gives me more satisfaction than seeing others come unto Christ. 

I love you all! I will tell you all about the awesome people we will meet this week, next week! 

Shea

                                                          Us before first study session

It front of our chapel 

                                                                   Apartment view