November 18 2010

I don't even know where to start with this last week. On saturday we hiked Lion Rock. It was awesome! We went with the young men and women. So anyways on the way up we met this mormon-hater man who was yelling at us that we were evil and stuff like that, but we kept going, and then when we got to the top, it was AWESOME. So a few min after we reached the top, all of the sudden we see this monkey. Now it wasn't like a cute cuddly looking monkey this monkey was scary. Like mangy evil came out of the depths of not-a-happy-place scary. Anyways, not really that bad, but still not nice looking. So I decide I'm going to take a picture with him when he comes walking around me. and as I sit down with my hand out kind of like woah there's a monkey. i'm sitting aways away from him, you can't tell much in the picture, but he's behind me and back and to the side a bit. So RIGHT after this picture was taken the monkey like springs out at me and scratches my arm. I didn't bleed, just had some bright red lines down my arm thank goodness. But I never would have thought I'd get attacked by a monkey. The hike was good, there are also a few more pictures attached from it.



Last week I also recieved a letter from my portuguese class friend, EJ. he gave me an international contact- his cousin's girlfriend is here studying at law school. So since our appointment had canceled we decided to pay her a visit. We had a fireside at 630 so we had to make it pretty quick and really hope that 1. the guards would let us up to her apt, and 2. she would be home and willing to see us. Anyways, it all worked out and we visited her.She's so nice!! She knows it's all true and stuff i think she just doesn't want to get baptized yet. I don't know what is stopping her, but I hope that we can help her in some small way. The fireside was also really good. I was able to see a lot of my MTC district and sister E before she goes home. I am really sad to see her go because she was such an awesome missionary!!

Then monday night sister A and I went on splits. it was sister h's birthday and kwai chung ward was celebrating for her so she stayed while sis a and i went to Tsuen wan. We went and knocked some doors (very rare because most people live in huge buildings we don't go into) up in this area called sam shing or something like that. Anwyays, as we were making our way, everyone we met had the same last name- fu. eventually we asked someone, and come to find out that whole row of houses is one gigantic family! they were all super nice. On our way down though, there was a man walkign up but to one of the different levels right there- after talking to him briefly i was like "so are you a Fu too?" and he just stood and looked at me like i was crazy "i'm a chan. we don't like the fu's" and left it at that and kept walking up the hill. So just thought that was interesting- i can just imagine some modern day romeo and juliet stuff going down on the hillside in sam shing.

tuesday was moves calls, and we had this game where we had clues and then had to go find the paper with picture clues to our new companions/areas. My clue directed me to a map book for the primary kids, and My clue, well hard to explain but one of the pictures was of vegetables (Choi means vegetable in chinese, and my new sr companion is sister choi). I am now in ANOTHER tri-panionship, which makes this my 5th on my mission. I lived with sister choi before, but not my other companion, her trainee from last move, sister C. Sis Choi is from Hong Kong, she speaks english, cantonese, mandarin, and hakawa. Sister C's mom is a native cantonese speaker but she is from Tahiti. So I am now with a native and a half. It is going to be tough for sure, but I know I'm going to be able to learn a lot from them. My language is going to skyrocket if I put in the effort.

yesterday I got to climb bamboo scaffolding and paint a building for service at crossroads and got white paint in my hair. It was sunny and beautiful and we had a delicious dinner in tuen mun with some members and sister h's trainee who came a day early. We all came home, packed, and today I moved. I know there are a lot of possibilities for this move, with three of us, but still it is kind of frustrating to constantly have 3 of us together and having to work with three people's personalities instead of just two. The mission president came up to me while we were all sitting in the office and started telling me that with 3 you can do so much and its so good, etc etc etc. but personally to be honest I'm not much excited for this move except for the fact that sister choi is amazing, I'm living in the same apartment as my mtc companion, and I know i'll learn a lot.

I loved my last move/area/companions and am sad to have to go. just trying to look forward instead of back, and keep working hard. Thanks for all the love, letters and support!

Sister Black/Baahk jimuih