Dragon Boats

Family!!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

me: have you read the book of Mormon lately?

LA: oh I have been so busy lately

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

LA: taking care of my grandkids

me: how old is he again?

LA: 12

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

LA: I gotta buy groceries and cook food

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

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

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

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

I love you all!

Shea

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

 me plus the dragon boats

 dragon boats

Apparently the law of chastity is against the declaration of independence...

FAMILY! how is everyone doing? I love all the videos and pictures. Thomas really is getting cute! I keep seeing little Chinese babies around here with our LA's and this of Thomas every time. But he is a bit younger than the babies around here. In my head I keep picturing Thomas Asian. So to see those blue eyes it kinda threw me off guard.

But this week has been great! So fast. I really dont understand where the time goes... I feel like I email you everyday.

Last Monday night we were out finding. We have been doing this finding everyday where we show people a picture of baptism and teach them about it. We also pick a date everyday that we could possibly give someone out on the street. As we started finding Monday, as soon as we got to the area we were going to focus on it started raining like crazy. No big deal. We just tried to stay under the coverings, thats where most of the people are anyway. Personally I kinda like finding in the rain. Only the truly prepared people come out. :) So we went for an hour or so without any luck. Then within the last 3 min of finding we start walking next to this lady who is giving us the "What the heck are you" look. So we start talking to her about baptism. She said she had already been baptized but that she is really dirty right now. We promised that she could have a fresh start through this baptism with proper authority. She was so excited! You could just tell she was so un happy with her life right now. So we gave her a date for July 27th! :) As she said a prayer with us she said 3 or 4 times how grateful she was able to run into two angels to help her change herself. She had tears running down her face. All she could say was thank you.

This week we also contacted a lady Chinese doctor who said that she died and spent a few days in heaven and hell. She then tried to teach us about everything she knew. She made sure that I knew the BOM was just a "spiritual book" not comparable to the bible... that was all I really got. She talked really fast and about things I had never heard of before. She said alot of really good and correct things, but then she was way off on others. But in the end she took a bom. Maybe sometime next week we can explain a bit more.

We also ran into Peter, a catholic old man that speaks perfect English that is ALWAYS rolling around Tuen Mun park in his little wheelchair. He made sure to let us know that the Law of Chastity goes against the Declaration of Independence. How? I am not sure... but I am sure he will get it sometime... he always just says... "Save me the conversion!" Then we say, "come on peter, only you can convert yourself. Just try coming to church." but he doesnt. He will get it sometime. :)

Sorry this is a weird email... these were just some of the first things that came to my mind when i thought over this last week. but long story short... there are prepared people and there are some not yet prepared people.... we are just working on finding those prepared ones. :)

I love you all!

Shea

                                             we're kind of a big deal

Swimming everyday :)

Hey everyone! How are things on the other side of the world? HK is great! We are currently swimming in the humidity everyday. I wish you could all just see how much we sweat daily. It is gross.

 

But the last couple of days has been GREAT! I cant believe I called home a week ago. It feels like ages ago. Friday andSaturday we got to teach 2 new families!

 

On Friday as we were riding the light rail to the chapel I was calling through some old numbers to invite people to English class. No one really answered, but you know, what else is new... then as we were buying some dau fu fa (watery tofu that they scoop out of a wooden bucket and put some sugar on top) to go along with our dinner when a random number called back. I had no idea who it was, but tried to schedule them anyway. ... she said she could see us the next day at 2. GREAT! scheduled someone I have no idea who it was. Looking back through my planner I match the number up with a Mrs. Leung, but the only notes I have are "no church, Tony, English". great. that is not much help. I still couldnt remember for the life of me who this lady is.

 

The next day we wait for her at the light rail station (hing tit stop) and a cute lady shows up with her 7 year old daughter, Tony, and her husband! The entire family! WHAT?! We were so excited! I have never taught a family where both the husband and the wife are investigators. So we took them over to the chapel and gave them a good tour. Mr. Leung is a sassy little man. I like him. He made me a bit stressed, but he was super funny. Both him and his wife had wondered why are there so many different churches and what the differences are. Mrs. Leung is originally from mainland so doesnt have any background on anything, but Mr. Leung went to a christian school growing up. We ended up teaching them the restoration and trying to answer their questions as best as we could. When they left sister shoemaker and I just looked at each other and said, "what just happened? did we just teach a family?" I couldnt believe what actually just happened!

 

We have been praying to teach more families. If there is one thing this gospel can help it is a family. There are FAR to many broken families in HK. Just yesterday one of our younger investigators was telling us how she is currently living with her grandmother and how her parents got divorced when she was just 3 years old and now they have other families. She hardly ever gets to see her parents because they are working all the time in order to support her. She wants to help her family. It is so hard to patch together a broken family. It is so much easier to just keep it strong from the beginning.

 

All I want to do is teach these people how they can have a strong family. Family truly is the strongest most important unit in all of the universe.

Thanks family for being the best ever.

I love you!

stretching hearts

wow it was so good to talk to everyone on mothers day! I can't believe I already called you. Time is weird. It feels like that call never really even happened. I miss you all so much and am so excited to see you all again. 

But don't worry I am still fully enjoying the time here in Hong Kong! The weather is getting more and more humid by the min, and hotter and hotter by the day, but the miracles still are coming in. 

This morning I actually went back in time and went back to Cheung Sha Wan and my last area. I knew that Sister Yip hadn't seen the missionaries in a long time and last week I felt like I should call her, so last night I called her to her surprise and scheduled to see her on our P-day. :) 

She is still so good. I love her so much! She just thinks that the commandments are to hard so hasn't been going to church because she feels guilty. But she has seen how much the gospel has changed her son and wants him to keep going to church. Actually King, her son, wants to keep going to church. :) We had a good long chat and she said that this sunday she will go to church. :)

When I called the Cheung Sha Wan sisters to let them know, they also were able to give me some updates on how everyone is doing. Sister Chan, with cancer, (do you remember her?) anyway is getting baptized in June also Wannie Ng, who had disappeared because she got offended by someone has come back and is also getting baptized really soon. I had thought that both of these people had lost any sort of contact with the missionaries, but they are here! And they are progressing!!!! It makes me so happy to know they are still around. :)

It is weird to feel so much love for so many people. I literally feel like my heart is in so many different places and with so many different people. Cheung Sha Wan, Butterfly, Home, Sham Shui Po, Sheung Shui, Tai Kok Tsui... not only in different places, but with different people. If there is one thing a missionary learns, it is how to stretch and grow a heart. It is a painful process but it is so worth it and brings amazing blessings. I am so grateful for everyones love. I can honestly say that I love everyone as well. I love you all!

WOW!!

Look at my hot shot brothers! That article was so good! I am so excited for Ben, and Nick has never looked better.

HK is fantastic! Last night there was a HUGE lightening storm. We all woke up at 2:00 in the morning, to our room looking like there was a strobe light on. There was lightening literally every 3 seconds. But after a while it slowed down and we all went back to sleep. This morning it was one of the clearest mornings I have seen in HK. I love it here.

Yesterday we had a literal miracle! Yesterday after church all I could say was, "wow. wow. wow. wowowowowowowow. WOW!"

So I dont think that I have really explained much about how the mission is working towards having 65 people be baptized in July... But there is a system and goals that we are supposed to be striving for each week. I was nervous that we would never be able to achieve these goals, since Sister Palmer and I always fell just a bit short, and now that Sister Shoemaker and I are doing training, we have less time to be out in the streets. So I broke down all the numbers and decided how our new companionship was going to achieve these goals. I came to the conclusion that we were just going to really really focus on getting more people to church. So over the last month or so we have been focusing on it. and we have been able to see more and more people come to church. This last Sunday we were able to have 6 investigators and 3 LA's at church!!!!! It was a literal MIRACLE!!!!! I was starting to doubt that we would ever be able to reach anything and then the Lord proved me wrong. The Lord is too good.

We were then able to finally teach Sister Cheuk and her husband. They were sister palmer and I's Christmas miracle family. Their baby boy Hansel received a blessing and we are going to start teaching Sister Cheuk's husband! :)

So many great things happened this week...

- Met Rainie's husband

- Ran into LA's and investigators while out finding

- Got to meet our investigator who cant really speak Cantonese, grown children.

- A lady didnt freak out when I tried to commit her to a baptismal date on the street. That was fun.

- An Indian man ran through us while we were talking to this family, only to STOMP on the cockroach that was 2 feet away from us.

-Got pumped up by Zone training

- Watched Sister Mckown huge a nasty bug infested mattress while we helped this man from Africa move

-Found Gaats ngai behng (waffles with peanut butter and sugar) for only 7 $

- Got to clean Choi Lai Wah's fans. She is still the best LA ever

- Met a 70ty year old lady who had just gotten done with a performance. She sings and dances. She was awesome.

HK is great. an adventure everyday. I love you all!

Shea

FAMILY!!

Hey everyone!你好!

How is everyone?

Things over in HK are so good!

This week went by so fast. Like every week unfortunately.

Sorry this email is going to be a bit short...

Here are the highlights!

-As we sat down to do our closing finding prayer, this boy walked up to us and said, excuse me, are you from the church of latter day saints? We said yeah! Then he asked if we were from Utah and went to byu... Turns out this kid had looked up just about everything you could about the church. He had seen us talking to a couple that ended up being Jehovah Witness, and wanted to know what we were doing. He knew SO much about the church and missionary life. So we sat him down and taught him the Restoration, which of course he already knew about. Then he asked how we could keep so many rules for ourselves, so we explained that when you know these things are true, you want to keep them. Then we talked about the spirit. I asked him, how to you feel right now? He said... when you were talking about Joseph Smith I felt like I wanted to cry, but I dont know why. He was SOOO good. I thought he was a member just trying to pull the missionaries leg, but we could literally see the spirit moving inside of him.

- We taught Sister Lee this week. She is a tough one to teach since her Cantonese is not so good. I can really only understand about 10-20% of what she says. The member gets about 60. But when we went over to her house her daughter was there! So we got to teach both her and her daughter! :)

- One night while finding, this lady came up to us as we were talking to this grandma and her granddaughter. At first she was just amazed that we were speaking Chinese, then she went off on how she wanted to go to America, but then at some point we sat down with her and started chatting. Turns out her husband had died 7 years ago. This lady was Christian and Christ has helped her a lot in the past, as we taught her the Restoration we were able to teach her about temple work. She had already see the temple in Kowloon all the time and said that she sometimes goes over there to pray. We taught her about how she can be with her husband forever and how she can help him be baptized.

What an amazing gospel we have. I am amazed by it everyday. I cant believe I get to be a messenger of such an amazing message. I love it here. I love everything about it.

I of course also love all of you.:)

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!!

Hey everyone!!!! 

This week I said goodbye to an old missionary and said WELCOME to a new missionary. 

Tuesday and Wednesday last week were just a blur. We saw so many people and had to take care of so many things to prepare Sister Palmer to leave. but on Thursday I met my new companion Sister Shoemaker!!! Sorry I would send you a picture, but I think my card reader is broken. She is fresh from America. Cantonese is a bit of a struggle, but I dont know who it is not a struggle for for the first half of a mission. She is already growing like a weed. 

Because we saw pretty much all of our investigators on Tuesday and Wednesday, Thursday through Saturday we had some good time to go out and practice some finding. 

Finding always brings great adventures. Such as:

Being sticker attacked by little Indian girls

Backing away from dogs

Being called wife, by a crazy man

Meeting people that you cant tell if they are a man or a women

Can you just imagine how weird it really is... 2 white girls, walking around HK and teaching people how to pray, or who Jesus Christ is. 

It is weird stuff... but I love it so much! 

On Thursday, after doing all of our studies, we headed out. We had met some good people, but no one really seemed to interested in what we had to say. They right as we were going to have dinner, we stopped to talk to think lady who was actually from the Philippians. Usually I dont talk to them, because they are all SO good, and willing to listen, but there is no place for them to go to church in the New Territories. But for some reason we felt like she should talk to her. Turns out she has been looking for a church to go to. Philippians's have it rough in HK. They leave their families to work for a family in HK. They are pretty much like slaves. Karen, this Philippine, had two kids in the Philippines, her husband was working in Saudi Arabia. She was feeling extra lonely as she sat looking out to the ocean at the Ferry Pier. She actually grew up next to on of our churches in the Philippines, and has a cousin who is a member. So we taught her and has we said the closing prayer, she just started crying. She said, I am coming to church on Sunday. I dont care if it is in Chinese. So we had the Philippine sisters call her the next day.

After we taught her I turned to sister shoemaker and said, I never teach Philippines. But that was right. She needed that. 

The spirit leads us and guides us. I never know what I am doing beforehand, and sometimes I even wonder afterwards. But the spirit is guiding this work, there is no doubt about that. I love you all!