:) Another Week in Hong Kong

Note: Sara's address has changed because they just completed a new mission office. I'm sure if you have sent letters to the old address, they will still get to her, but future letters should go to the address posted on the right.


Sooo its Pday again!! YAY! We also get to go to the temple for the first time today! I am so ooo excited! This week has been amazing. We had some new stuff we learned that the apostles have sent out to every mission everywhere- some areas to work on and some things to change. Like inviting to baptism from the very beginning. We started applying these things in our lessons on tuesday and we have seen so many miracles.

I love this work, even though my language skills aren't amazing and I am obviously facing challenges communicating with people. Its kind of nice sometimes though, because when people start being rude to me on the hingtit I don't understand them, because I don't know any bad words in cantonese! haha! I try to write down the stuff I don't understand and last week I wrote down something that was NOT something I want to learn how to say. Needless to say, elder N who was helping me translate the stuff (he's half chinese and from britain) thought it was hilarious.

I dont know if I mentioned this before, but my district is all really young, my companion has been here for less than a year, and she is the oldest one! So it's really cool because none of us are really set in our ways of "THIS is HOW to Do Missionary WORK the way I WANT". you know? It's really fluid and everything works together really well. I love it.

Today I also am going to go get my ID card! WOOP WOOP! And eat this thing called a gatjaibeng or something like that. its essentially a waffle with peanutbutter and sweetened condensed milk on it or something, but apparently is to die for. This week I ran out of money for 1 day because we are supposed to get $ on the 25th but since it was a sunday the thing went in later, so we didnt get $ till yesterday. It was a bit stressful but now i am going to always save a little bit extra in case. it was only one day but still kind of a pain!

Yesterday was so stormy! I love it when it's stormy because it's not too hot! And there is rain and thunder and lightning all day! We also had service at crossroads again, and our job was to clean out some storm drains before the big rains hit. Unfortunately (or fortunately from my perspective) the rain hit right after we got there and so we were digging mud and debris and roots out while the roads around the compound thing were flooding. SO FUN! haha! except there were a couple of larvae things I found while using my hands to get the mud out. Not my favorite. But it was a little adventure. LOVED it.

Then the guy in charge of us while we volunteer got a call. There was a black rain warning in the area (black rain = worst kind of rain in HK) and i REALLY want to see it. but when its black rain, us missionaries arent allowed to leave our buildings. Schools in HK are closed if there is a black rain warning. So apparently it is pretty legit rainfall. Again, i say i WANT to see it because i never have. :( Where we were, there was no black rain, just heavy rain and lightning and thunder! So we had to leave early and head back to our apartments. And we had to cancel our dinner appointment and spend the evening in studying and making phone calls to check up on our investigators etc.

I talked for a while to this recent convert to the church, and she asked if i spoke any mandarin. I said I know like 2 sentences and then told them to her. "I am a student" "You are a teacher" blabla. SOoooooooo. then she told me I sound better mandarin than cantonese!! WHAT??? oh dear. Cantonese will be the end of me. haha! No but it is hard but the amount I know... there is no way I'm learning this quickly without God's help. I've tried to learn languages before, and this is one of the hardest in the world. I know that He helps me every day.

So my companion and I were working on our message for the family we were going to eat with the other day, and we were reading in Ether about when they were prepping to leave after the tower of babel. The first way God guided the brother of jared was to tell him what he needed to do, and how to do it. The second time, the brother of jared asked for an answer to a specific question and was given a specific answer. The third time, the brother of jared asked for another answer to a specific question and God let him work it out on his own. These three ways of recieving revelation helped the brother of jared grow spiritually. Sometimes God will tell us what we need to do without us even asking, sometimes He'll answer our prayers specifically, but even more difficult are the times where he expects us to use our ability to choose to make good decisions. We have the ability to reason and come to conclusions. Sometimes, that is our act of faith. I know I've sometimes prayed about things and have felt like I got no answer, but then when I move forward trusting in God, that shows Him my willingness to do my best here on earth, I want to be proactive about life. So everyone... be proactive in life! Always move forward! :)

I am loving Hong Kong. Every minute of every day even though it is sometimes hard for me to get out of my comfort zone. Every minute of every day is precious. Use all your minutes and don't waste a second. That is my goal here, and for the rest of my life too!

-- Sister Black! Baahk jimuih!