Family

FAMILY!

Those videos are fantastic. I cant believe how much Brayden has changed! I didnt even realize that it was him until he started talking. His face has changed alot and it looks like he has gotten alot taller. Michelle looks GIGANTIC. She did not look that big in the pictures. That thing needs to get out of there. Decided on a name yet? I hope that Christmas will be great! I am working on send a small package to you all from here, but I am not sure if it will get there in time. I havent gotten the package you sent yet, but I am sure I will real soon.

 

So remember how Sister Wilcox and I thought that we were staying in our lovely little Cheung Sha Wan? well.... move calls came and PSYCH I got kicked out. I have now moved up into the New Territories, to Butterfly ward.

 

When they first told us that I was moving I balled like a little baby. I really fell in love with everything in that area. Especially the investigators. It is just really sad, cause when you move from an area, you never know if you will ever see these investigators again. I was really torn up that I wouldnt get a chance to see Sister Yip again. She should have been back from Mainland by then, but hadnt been answering her phone and everytime we went to stalk her and King, she didnt come by. As soon as District meeting was over, we decided to go out and stalk them one last time in hopes that she would come by. 3:30 came and passed. I was super bummed. I had been praying in my heart with all my might that I might be able to see her one last time. We sat down for a second and Sister Wilcox made some calls while I just sat there for a sec.   ...... and then......

 

there she was. with King. walking down the path. I jumped up and ran over and gave her a gigantic bear huge. She was so surprised! I was crying again. This time out of happiness that my prayers were answered. She was like, "Why are you crying?!" I just said how much I missed her and how I was afraid that I wouldnt ever see her again. She was so touched. She said no one has ever missed her so much. Apparently her phone had gotten stolen and she hasnt felt like calling us cause she has been really sad lately. She looked sad. Her hair got darker and longer. Before she was quick to smile and laugh. But by the time we left she was happier and we were able to schedule her to see her the next day.

 

It was one of the BIGGEST miracles of my life. Heavenly father MUST hear and answer our prayers. I dont think that I will ever forget that day. It made me feel SO much better about leaving the area. Now that I know she wont be forgotten about I feel so much better.

 

But Butterfly is great. I might have ripped out my heart and left it in Cheung Sha Wan, but I am growing a new heart here in Butterfly. The area is tiny, but the ward is huge! It is filled to the brim with families! I was just amazed on Sunday at how many families were sitting in our little chapel (Which is situated above Welcome the grocery store ^-^). The area just opened to sisters last transfer so it is still building. 

 

I am now companions with Sister Palmer who has been out 4 months longer than I have so I finally get to be the junior companion. :) But we are both the Sister trainer leaders of the New Territories Zone. So that should be fun. 

 

Missions are great. I cant believe how fast the time is going. It is SO crazy. 

 

I love you all!

Shea

                                           Last Pday together at the museum

                                         Sister Yip, the one closer to me

                                          Fantasy the fantasy

                                Apartment view of our area. We live on the 34th floor! CRAZY!

Buddhist or J-Dub?

Hey ya family!!!!

This week has been C R A Z Y CRAZY! Our investigators are still doing great... we didnt get to see them as often as we wanted, but nothing to big has happened. But this week as still been crazy! 

Last Monday night we had a miracle. Remember that former investigator Flora that Sister Wilcox was so persistent about finding? Well.... we found her. We thought we had just scheduled a different less active named Sister Wong. There are just so many sister Wongs that we got all confused... but then it ended up being Flora's mom and we were able to teach both Flora and her mom together! They are both so nice! 

Tuesday was a day of finding. We got to teach Winnie and we think we had a bit of a breakthrough with her. She said at one point that even when we go back to America that she will continue going to church.:) So that was exciting...

Wednesday we had a freaking awesome meeting. So.... since we got called has Sister Trainer Leaders of the Kowloon West Zone, we got to go to the Missionary Leadership Council on Wednesday. It is a meeting where all the zone leaders, sister trainer leaders, APs, and President Hawks gather around together and discuss the goals and actions for each zone. The meeting was SUPER good. 

Thursday was kinda a not very fun day. We had 3 people cancel right as we were heading out to their lessons... so we ended up just doing our weekly planning all day. In the evening we taught the best Restoration lesson that Sister Wilcox and I have ever taught, but our SUPER catholic investigator said flat out in English, No. to taking the book of Mormon. She said that she felt like she would betray her church if she took it. But we ended up getting her to say that she would pray about Joseph Smith. We were happy with that. The spirit was really strong in the lesson and I know that God will answer her prayer. 

Friday we had Zone Training where we got to split up with the sisters in our zone and talk about the Mission leadership council meeting. We have awesome sisters in our Zone. They are SO wise. They are going to teach me so much. In the evening we did FHE at Carol's house again with Sister Jeung. This week we did a cool object lesson to explain baptism and the holy ghost. The kids all loved it. I will tell you more about it another time...

This week was just great! I cant believe how fast time is going.... before I know it I am going to be headed home. Gross. The bishops son just got back from his mission this week so he gave a talk on Sunday. He pulled out his name tag at one point and started crying. Sister Wilcox and I were balling as well. I dont ever want to think about removing this tag. It means the world to me. 

I think that I have hit a changing point in my mission. This last week something just kinda clicked. There are so many things that I have been doing with only half of my heart. I have learned what true obedience means. I have learned what a big part the Atonement must be in a missionaries life. I couldnt believe that I was JUST barely figuring things out. You would think that after being a missionary for almost a year that I would have things kinda figured out. not. There is SO much I still need to learn. It is kinda overwhelming sometimes, but luckily I am not doing this alone. He is with me. 

I love you all!

till next week!


             Lauh jimuihs birthday at our recent converts house. 

                     Christmas decorations in our building! 

                                    We found the coolest knocking door area!

                        the zone sisters!

Thanksgiving

Those videos were SOOOOOO great!!!! For Christmas you have to send me just a bunch of videos of everyone opening their presents and eating Christmas eve dinner. Seeing everyone in almost real life is totally different from just reading a letter. I would send you all a video if I could, but I dont really know if there is anyway possible besides through the mail.

I am glad that Landon got the letter and the present. I am not sure exactly what it is either. (some sort of dried fish jerky) One day during Relief Society they were just passing them out like candy, and of course as missionaries we left with like 3 in each hand, so I thought I might as well try and send it home.:)

Well Thanksgiving has come and gone. It sounds like everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving and ate lots of pie. Our Thanksgiving day went like this:

7 wake up and run

7:30 prep and leave

9 go to yam chah with Winnie. yam chah (drink tea) is really just like a restaurant, but they just order alot of small dishes and drink tea or like us hot water. It is very very popular here. Someone told me that there is a yam chah place is Salt Lake City somewhere... but I have no idea. They are all over the place here. The dishes range from dumplings to veggies to mochi to fish heads. Winnie ordered as the best and last what was apparently a rare dish that consists of a fried rotten orange peel, a fungus of some sort and chicken feet. Luckily by that time we really had to go to make it to the lesson we had at the church. (There is just a little bit about the food for you dad.)

11:00 we had a lesson with Sister Chan. She and our member were running a bit late so we thought we might as well start watching the new Mormon messages dvd our chapel just got. We started the first one, "Mountains to Climb" which just made us start balling like little babies. We just turned to each other and said "Why are we watching this?" and started laughing really hard. That video is SUPER good. watch it. it will make you cry. But we just barely managed to put ourselves back together by the time they showed up for the lesson. We watched Finding Faith in Christ together because Sister Chan has no background of Christ at all, so that movie really helps people to have a little bit more of an idea of who Christ is. Afterwards she said it would be so good to live in the times of Jesus Christ because he could heal us and help us. So I thought we should just pop in Mountains to Climb because it is all about how the Savior can heal us in our troubles and trials now. Afterwards we learned that Sister Chan has cancer. She is in the second stages of breast cancer. Her husband is in Mainland working so she takes care of her 2 daughters and going through therapy. She is in the middle of chemo therapy. At this point I had a rough idea of what was going on, but i didnt really know. Luckily we have really great members. Our member told her about priesthood blessings. In fact our members mother also has cancer and before she became a member she got a blessing and it really helped her to have less pain. Our member, Erica, told her that the Relief Society can help her watch her kids when she has to go to the doctor and so many other things.

After the lesson I was just kinda in shock. I had no idea. I thought something might be off with her, but I didnt think it was THIS big of a trial. She is just so humble. She has said so many times. "I dont know why you two were in that garden that day or why you talked to me" Everything was just so planned by God. His plan is amazing. We are just such a small part in it. ... Yesterday Sister Chan got a blessing. :)

anyway....

thanksgiving. After the lesson with Sister Chan we did our studies and then had a zone Thanksgiving dinner!!!! It was SO good! We had all the usual turkey, stuffing, gravy, a bathtub of mashed potatoes, corn, even some jelly. It was fantastic. While we were waiting for some of the food to cook we all played knock out in the gym. It was like a real Thanksgiving. :) just basketball instead of football and a bunch of missionaries instead of real family. :)

Well... Hong Kong is great. Everyone is slowly progressing. Sister Yip as still not answered her phone and has been picking up King from school so we are pretty sure she is still in Mainland.

Cheung Sha Wan is great!

I love you all and miss you!

WOWOWOWOWOWOW... WOW!!!!

Holy Cow what a wonderful week it has been! SOOOO many miracles! You know how last month was pretty hard since we hadnt had like any investigators and we were feeling like poopy missionaries? Well if you didnt know... thats how we felt somedays... but this week and last week have been amazing!!!! All of the blessing from working so hard are finally starting to come in!

 

Last night was our wards Thanksgiving party. Hong Kong doesnt normally celebrate it, but it is a good excuse for our ward to have a party so two Sisters said they would make turkey and everyone else brought other random food. Sister Wilcox and I invited everyone and their dog to come to the party or to invite their friends and family to come... and they did. We ended up having 8 REAL investigators at the party, not even including members friends or family. We were running around like our heads were chopped off for most of the time. Running back and forth between Sister Chan and her 2 daughters, to Winnie, to Vicky, to Sister Jeung to just everyone! Luckily we didnt have to worry to much about Sister Jeung cause Carol has been taking really good care of her and Hoi Yee, her daughter. It was Vicky's first time to the chapel and meeting any members, plus, she is just hard core Catholic so that was kinda stressful but it was cool. Then Sister Chan's daughters.... oh i love them... but I hate them. They can either be little angels or little devils. Throughout the entire movie, oh yeah, we watched The Testaments after everyone ate food, Ying Ying (2 yrs old) kept running around the entire chapel which wouldnt have been so bad if she would have stopped when people went up to bear their testimonies, but she didnt of course. Just kept making a big circle all the way around onto the stage. Sister Chan of course did nothing. Then her other daughter Chingching (10 yrs old) was crawling under the benches. CRAWLING under the benches! She is 10!!! I poked her and said "Waih, Leih geido seui?" (Hey, how old are you?) 10 she replies "gan jyuh chah." (then SIT.) of course she just blew me off. Our coordinator was giving me the eye to do something about it... but i had no idea what to do. It would be SO easy if I could just grab Yingying and make her sit on my lap or something. But for some reason we have this rule where we cant play with kids which includes holding them in our laps. Normally I am pretty good at staying calm when kids are loud during sacrament meeting, but last nights activity was SO good. and kids were screaming while Jesus was healing Jacob. Gam cham.

 

But the activity was super great! Loads of people and they all really really liked it.

 

I wish you could all hear and see the weird/funny things that happen every day. but really. Things like listening to Steven Lauh's prayers that he insists saying in English even though we are the only ones who understands. I don't even know if they really count has prayers since he never starts with "Heavenly Father..." He just walks up to the front bows his head and says "good morning brothers and sisters, I am so grateful that we could be gathered here together in the lovely chapel to worship our God." and goes of in something that sounds like Shakespeare. or hearing someone mistake our investigator Fantasy's name for Fantastic, or seeing the old grandmas going their dancing exercises.

Just SO many things.

 

Ma/ Pa are you planning on coming to Hong Kong to pick me up? I sure hope so cause their is SO much I want to show you.

 

I could not be more happy! Sister Wilcox and I agree that we are far to happy right now, which means that when transfers come... one of us is leaving. BUT we have faith! Companions forever la! Cheung Sha Wan is the greatest place to be! I would love to stay here for the rest of my mission.

 

Love you lots!

Eats lots of turkey dinner!

I will. dont worry. I have already had 2 thanksgiving dinners and still have one with the missionaries on Thursday. After this we are going to go help sister pearl make some apple pies. :)

 

                                          Sister Chan

                                                      Chingching and yingying

                                                            Just one section of the party

                                         Vicky, me, Winnie

Here's the email...

All the emails this week were super good, so I just spent forever reading them and watching Lunas cute little video

And that article was really good. We live with a couple of sisters from the Philippines and they were super worried this last week. Sister Dequilla hadnt heard from her grandparents last I heard, but she was more worried for her friends who were serving that mission. But I am happy to know that everyone is ok ish. 

I have been trying to remember... our zone in the MTC was with a huge group that were going to the Philippines. I have to look through my journal to see if I know Amanda Smith. 

But Hong Kong is still super great. This week has been full of miracles. People are just popping up all over the place ready to be taught the gospel! ^-^ 

Yip JM and our other investigator Eva have kinda fallen off the face of the earth since they havent answered their phones in the last 2 weeks... but since then we have met so many people. On Wednesday we were out finding in the afternoon before English class not having to much luck... but we kept talking to everyone anyway. We went to one of our favorite playgrounds to talk with some of the moms over there. The first mom literally RAN away from us.... so we moved on to the next mom her name is Sister Chan. And she ended up being SUPER de duper nice and actually really wanted to learn more about how church could help her two daughters (Chingching and Yingying) They ended up coming to English class and came to church on Sunday as well! Sister Chan is really humble and just wants the best for her kids. 

Last night we had a fantastic lesson with Sister Jeung. I dont remember if I have already told you about her... but we got Carol to help us teach her and it was a match made in heaven. Carol and Jeung jimuih have SO much in common it is ridiculous. Carol pretty much just taught the entire lesson and bore testimony throughout the entire thing. It was awesome. We are going to have a FHE with them tonight at Carols house. I am super excited. 

OH! the other fantastic miracle. We went out finding in Sham Shui Po (look it up it is just a crazy market) with our display and it was just really hot and no one was looking at us. Then all of the sudden the office elders call us and say "where are you? Can you get to the chapel quick? There is a mainland member referral here." So we just look at each other in shock and then within 30sec take down our poster and run for the train. At the church was waiting Fantasy. Her co-worker lives in Mainland and is a member of our church. The member was getting her patriarticle blessing so Fantasy was waiting and wanted to learn more. She is awesome! Has alot of desire to know if it is true! I will keep you posted on how she is doing.

I am sorry... this letter is awful. But just so you know. Things are great here. I am surprisingly not homesick like at all. I thought with the seasons approaching that I would miss you all alot more, but it still doesnt feel like Thanksgiving. I still feel like it is September. 

I love you lots!

I will write better next week. Just read Sister Wilcox's this week. 

I will also take pictures this week. sorry la. 

Love!

2 investigators at church?

Hey!

Another week has passed.... ha! not really... only 3 days. Time is still super weird. Not to much exciting has happened the last couple of days. Here were a few of the highlights...

Friday we had a fantastic Zone Training. Sister Wilcox and I had to give a short spiritual message at the beginning to set the mood of the meeting.... after a couple days of thinking we ended up telling all the missionaries that they needed to repent and work harder along with us. It ended up going really well and the rest of the training was awesome. Our zone leaders taught us all about how to make our lessons more meaningful and easy to remember. They gave us a challenge for our sihfaahn (role play) to pick something in our bags and teach a gospel principle using whatever we could find. So sister Wilcox whipped out her anti-itch cream and bug spray and we related the anti itch cream to the atonement and her bug spray to the commandments. It was actually super good. So we used it the next day in one of our lessons.:) 

Later Friday night we went over to Carol's for dinner. Do you remember Carol? She is the one who gave you the flash drive. Can I just tell you that she is one of the awesomest people I have ever met. Her life story goes like this: When she was 17 she got baptized, but soon fell away, got married to a nonmember and had two of the cutest kids I have ever met. Then just a 2 years ago or so, her husband suddenly passed away. This made her end up coming back to church bringing her nonmember parents and best friends family. All ended up joining the church. But that is not all. She then has been doing family history out the wazzo. She talked to her husbands grandfather who remembered some of his ancestors in his hometown in mainland. Carol was then able to track down like 10 huge SUPER old books that are just records of her husbands family history. She now has over 3,000 names she can now start taking to the temple. She understands God has a plan and has one of the strongest testimonies I have ever heard. She is fantastic.

Saturday we did some finding without much success. We visited Sister L whose life is exactly like a drama. I would tell you the story of her life... but that would take up the rest of my email time. So that one will have to wait. 

Getting dinner Saturday night I asked the lady how old the curry was instead of how much the curry was. everyone got a good laugh at that one.

Through prayers we were able to finally track down this possible lost member and her former investigator daughter. Whichever missionary in the past who made their record was extremely awful. Luckily Sister Wilcox is very persistent and has a lot of faith.  

Oh and to top of the three days.... SUNDAY!!! where all of our investigators either didnt answer the phone or just couldnt come. except ...... Sister L. The recent convert 0 friend who we have taught a couple of times. Sister L came with O and brought her little sister who was visiting from mainland. But........ both were totally and completely drunk. At first I just thought her little sister was drunk and sister L was ok... but they were most definitely not themselves. We had just visited them on Thursday and they were super great. But they were all over the place on Sunday. For Relief Society they just sat outside on the couch. When we went to investigator class, we decided to just make them come with us... both of them just kept saying what handsome men our elders were and that they really wanted to take pictures with them. Fortunately they didnt do anything really crazy. I think it was just the last little bit of their drunkenness. I think Sister L had more of just a hangover.  Apparently they had a rough night. O slept through all of church. she said she had to watch them all night. By the time they left we were kinda exhausted of stress. I dont know whether or not we even count them as investigators at church....

But Hong Kong is still great! It is filled with all kinds of awesome people. I love it SO much. 

I love you all!

we just do missionary presents...

FAMILY!!!

 

So we just got done with a fantastic trip to the temple. I love the temple so much. I have decided that it is the one place that can lift the burden of the badge, for a short time. I love the calling and the pressure that come with being a missionary. But it is so nice to step into the celestial room and just take a big deep breathe and just relax for a few min. The other sister's usually have to drag me out of it by the time we have to go.

 

But this last week has been fantastic! SOOOO many miracles! Can I just tell you how much prayer works?! But really! It is crazy! Goodness gracious... it has been so long since I last told you anything I dont even know where to start.

 

We have been busy teaching lessons this week. By that I mean... we have been busy listening to people talk. Almost every single investigator we have right now is a talker. A MAJOR talker. Most of the time I wouldnt mind, except when they go off about I dont even know cause I have no idea what they are saying... then it just gets kinda frustrating. Not only the not understanding part, but the part that I want to teach them something to help them progress and not just listen to what they did yesterday. We have been trying to have members at ALL of our lessons, cause no one really wants to tell us their problems or concerns cause they know that we wont fully understand what they say. That is also kinda frustrating. But there really isnt a quick solve solution, so we just use our members. Fortunately our members are fantastic and pretty much teach the lessons for us. Usually it is cool cause we just tell them what we want to teach the investigator beforehand and then they just teach the lesson. I have come to the conclusion that you dont really need to speak fluent Chinese to be a missionary. You just need to have awesome members who are willing to help.

 

We are so blessed to serve in Cheung Sha Wan. Yeah, we might not get near as many referrals as other missions or areas, but everyone really does want to do missionary work. Even just last Monday, since it wasnt Pday we had the entire day without even one appointment. So we called up a-kei who is leaving on his mission in January to Texas, and Jacqueline who just recently quit her job to take a break and made them come out finding with us and do a display. They just ended up hanging out with us like the rest of the day. Our ward is filled with so many great missionaries. I am kinda jealous of how much interaction they get with missionaries. I can only remember seeing the missionaries like once all growing up. But all the kids and teenagers participate here in missionary work. It is awesome!

 

One miracle that happened this week:

That same day we went to do the display, we decided to stop at 3:30 to take a break and try to stalk King (Sister Yip's son) and his grandma. So we know the exact path that they have to walk from Kings school to go home... so sometimes when we want to see them we just hang around that path until we "miraculously" run into them. :) So as we were walking up and down the path, we stopped this lady who was a hard core christian and started teaching her about the Book of Mormon... when all of the sudden Sister Yip is running towards us!!!! What?!?! isnt she supposed to be in mainland?! She just said "Hi! Oh i want to talk, but I have to go pick King up from school." We were just totally shocked to see her. The lady that we were teaching was really really confused.... We are like 'No problem!" we will wait! So we continued teaching without much success, till Sister Yip and King came back. I went to talk with them while Sister Wilcox continued to talk to the other lady. Turns out she hasnt been to mainland yet cause they have to be put on a waiting list to burn her father in laws body. She said they still have to buy a coffin to burn with him and then they have to buy 32 jade urns to put his ashes in. So she wont be going up to mainland till the 14th. She said that her husband has been feeling super regretful and has been trying to sleep alot so that his dad will come to him in a dream and he can say sorry. I told her that her father in law is really busy right now learning the gospel so probably doesnt have time yet to come back to see everyone. It was a total miracle that we ran into her! We taught her again later in the week. She has been reading and praying, but she thinks that Kings school and homework are more important than church. Ugh. Everyone in Hong Kong just needs to take a chill pill and breath a bit.

 

OK. This is a long letter and I didnt even tell you half of what has happened. But dim shun a.

I love you all!

Missions are awesome. 

Quit reminding me I am already past halfway. It's gross.

I was confused by all of your Halloween pictures. I thought that Halloween was in a couple weeks. weird.

I LOVE YOU!!!!