October 28 2010

Hello Again!

This week's weather was a complete disappointment. The huge storm that was coming our way apparently turned at the last minute and didn't even touch hong kong one bit! In fact, the time when it would have hit, it was beautiful and sunny and clear skies!

But in other news.. I passed off another language pass off this week which means I only have 2 more left out of the 8 total until I can start studying characters. yeah! We went on a bike ride last week for pday which was super fun. And the week before that I don't remember if i told you about the ward trip we went on. In fact i just checked my sent emails, and i didnt! I can't believe it haha! So a week and a half ago we had this ward trip because it was a holiday. We went out to the boonies of the boonies of hong kong. First to this wildlife reserve/botanical garden out in the northeastern New Territories, (there are a bunch of pictures from that) and then to this "dairy" it was so cool because there aren't many places like that in hong kong, and the ward members just LOVED it. loveeeed it. They were super excited to feed the cow some long grass stuff (more pictures) and they insisted that us missionaries do it too. At first when we got to the dairy I was just thinking.. hmmm this is kind of reeeally funny how exciting it is for hong kong people to see livestock, but then i remembered going to petting zoos at the fair and stuff when I was little and how exciting that was.

on our way out of the "dairy" there was the biggest spider I've ever seen (picture) the elder's hand in the picture is. . . 6'4'' probably maybe even a little taller, and so if you just compare the size of his hand to the spider.. well you'll get an idea of how gynormous it was. and apparently they can jump too. . scary.



Then the rest of the pictures are from our bike trip out in the Tai Po area. This was the day before the typhoon was supposed to hit so it was pretty windy, and so fun. Unfortunately though, like i said before, the typhoon turned and that little bit of wind was all we got.

We are teaching this less-active woman from thailand who doesn;t read chinese so when we teach we just explain things then we have to somehow figure out how to find the book/chapter/verse in her thai scriptures so we can use the scriptures. When she was baptized she didn't speak cantonese very well so she didnt quite understand what was being taught. It is cool to teach someone who already has a testimony but needs to understand things more clearly, especially when we are having to use two languages to teach. she also has the CUTEST 2 year old daughter EVER. her name is CC and she's so smart. her parents are teaching her thai and chinese, and she also knows a little bit of english. Last time we saw them she brought out a book she wanted me to read, which was old mcdonald had a farm... and then she just starts singing it. she's still 2 so can't really communicate well but it is the funniest cutest thing ever.

Sorry this is so all over the place, but. . . last night we went to visit a family waaay far away in our tsuen wan area. So far, in fact, it doesn't even show on the wall map that we have in the apartment. We had to take the metro and then a small bus out up into the mountains above tsuen wan for about 30ish min. It took an hour to get there total. Then the bus got to the end of its route and we had to walk about a quarter of a mile, continuing up the mountain until we see a road with a few spots to park cars. At first we missed the road, and had to turn back to find it. So that was where the directions ended. We had three options for little paths to take, one veered to the right and continuted through some banana trees, one was straightish and the last was to the left and went uphill. So it was dark, a couple of street lamps and house lights were farther down . (the paths were like 2-3 feet wide maybe at most? and we couldnt see anything really) so we prayed and decided to go down the middle one, and after passing a few gates, we found their house finally. It was quite the adventure. On the way back sis hancock actually slipped off the path because there wasn't enough light at that part and fell off the edge a bit. Luckily it was only a few feet because other parts of the path had like a 5-6 foot drop off. yeah. so much fun!


we also taught one of the girls who was baptized a little over a month ago, and she is soooo awesome! she plays the harmonica! in a harmonica choir!! i've never met someone who played the harmonica before. and its so legit. she says shes not even very good at all but she uses like two at the same time. I'll attach a video cause its so cool. in the next email actually because its too big otherwise.

Love you all!! Thanks for the support, prayers, letters and love!

Sis Black/Baahk jimuih