December 30 2010

Hello again! I feel like it was just yesterday I called emailed and called home etc. Yeah so this week has been interesting. We got moves calls and sister l and I will still be together next transfer! (woop woop!) she got sick this week so i've spent like 40 hours making calls and stuff. but that's ok. no one scheduled us but at least its still stuff to do.

Not much else to say about this week. We went to a grand total of three different ward christmas parties, which considering that our area is huuuge was quite the feat. My favorite was probably ma on shan because the food was delicious. I won a prize for answering some question about christmas that was stuck under my seat, and there was a great turnout. I am pretty much ALMOST sick of chocolate though because every ward member I swear has given us a bar of chocolate or something for christmas. but with some marshmallows and these cracker things another member gave us, I had smores for christmas breakfast... so im thankful for the chocolate. well they were kind of smores anyways.

We did have one good new crazy story this week though. So I dont remember if i mentioned it but a couple of weeks ago, this woman walks into the ma on shan chapel while the elders are doing studies and is like, i've learned about a lot of religions and i think this one is the best. I met missionaries in 2003 but i moved abroad and wasn't able to join the church then. Anyways so what you normally think is... GOLDEN! right?! so this is Delia. yeah so the elders taught her and then turned her over a few days later. We met her and apparently she had told them, and then told us, about this stalker she had which is why she's moved so much and that theres been a lot of scandal in her life, and the stalker is an old boyfriend who still hires people to follow her so she knows there are like detectives following her and stuff. I was like, ok, a little paranoid. Then she came to church on sunday (we werent there) and she talked to the ward correlator all church. we talked to him afterwards and he thought she probably just has a lot of stress about being around people because her life is really lonely (lives with her mom, her bunnies, oh yeah she brought her bunny to listen in on our lessons too..) anyways so tuesday night she calls before our appointment the next day and cancels saying she doesnt believe the bible and doesnt want to join our church and if for some chance i ever hate the missionaries or don't want to do this anymore i can call her or stay with her or something. anyways 30 min later im like ok.. well good luck if you ever change your mind you know where to find us.

so then yesterday we made calls all day, had 1 lesson and a dinner appointment. sis l took a nap at the church because she was getting dizzy and once she finished she made a few calls. one of the first calls is to this woman Muffy. She was taught about 7 months ago and just called the elders up one day saying 2 years ago missionaries had met her and gave her a book of mormon. they taught her a few times. her record also said stuff about her having a stalker. So sis l is talking to "muffy"s mom and im sitting there reading this and im like... there is NO way. so i check the number and what do you know. . . MUFFY = DELIA. "muffy" won't talk to us so her mom is like "oh she's unavailable right now" ok so we keep going calling some of the other old investigators. then DELIA calls us and is like sister black.. why did you just call me"???? anyways. i didn't tell her i knew she was muffy, but yeah. it was funny. Sorry if i bored you but the crazy stories are pretty much the only thing out of the ordinary here. even though they're actually quite commonplace. i dont know if other areas of the world get this many crazies.

then what else. . . . today we're going on an adventure and we're also going to try to find a place in hong kong to celebrate our 6 mo in HK mark. We'll probably go hiking or do something else really REALLY incredibly fun that sis L and i are going to find today. the problem is that we're all spread out all over the place, and one of the elders just moved to "international" serving the expat wards so his Pday is on monday instead of thursday.

oh and we finished watching kung fu panda in cantonese this week for language study. so funny. so chinese.

hmmm I can't really think of anything else exciting from this week. Im sorry to everyone i need to write back to, because my pdays have been so busy i haven't had time- but this week I should be able to write back (its been like a month or so now..). I am really grateful for every letter I get, they really help keep me going some days.

ps I am turning into an old woman. I wake up in the morning and like can't walk my body aches so bad. I think its from a combination of bad sleeping conditions, stress, not enough time to work out/stretch, and being on our feet all day/eating weird chinese food. yup. pretty much almost 60 years old by now. I'm going to come back with gray hair and wrinkles and not be able to stand up straight. (hopefully not actually). but really. i/my body feels SO old these days. pps i dont know how the elders sleep in these beds because MY feet stick out the bottom and im not even that tall!

um yeah really thats it, i can't think of other stuff- we have a lot of investigators we're trying to see but everyone is busy. the mainland either eats them or they have testing. seriously school is so hard/stressful/yucky here. it like takes over lives. not to say school isn't important, but when it is the entirety of your thoughts and your time, i definitely see a problem. alright seriously im just trying really hard to come up with stuff to say right now.

hope to hear from more people next week. i'd love more letters, as every missionary would i think. keep serving people, keep remembering to be grateful... because really.. no matter what situation we're in there is a lot to be grateful for. i mean seriously.. i have hands so i can type on this computer. what a blessing! someone in this world was inspired/smart enough to come up with computers!! wow what a huuuge blessing! there are people in hong kong who clean the streets every day over and over again so we're not walking on trash. HUGE blessing! i wish every time i see them i could thank them, because im pretty sure there lives are not easy- a lot of them are permanently hunched over from years of labor intensive jobs. but even in those circumstances they smile, they wave, they are just awesome! what a blessing.


oh and the stake gave me a sweater for christmas thats like 5 sizes too big. its sooo funny on me. but i think i'll keep it just to wear around the house.


Love you all!!

Sis black