April 21 2011

Today I have been on my mission for one year. AKA... i only have six months left and a lot left to get done. BUT WOW one whole year?! the time has gone by so fast, as it usually does when you stop focusing on yourself and just focus on others.. but yeah. ONE YEAR!! I'm still loving serving with sister la, a bit sad that she'll be leaving me next move, but also really excited to train. It is now official, though I knew about a month ago, that elder holland is coming to visit us may 24th. So funny because im also pretty sure i'll be singing for it (e. merrill asked me today about my singing skills and what part i sing in a not very subtle way). which would mean on my mission I will have been able to meet/sing for e. uchtdorf and holland which are.... even though i obviously cannot choose a favorite apostle.... my favorites. I kind of hope e. holland chastises us or something in a powerful motivating way. that'd be kind of awesome since i'll also be training at the same time.

Yeah. so this week was good, s passed her bapt. interview butttttt... her Dad who pretty much 24/6 lives in the mainland is opposed. It looks for now like for now we have to postpone it. <--bad english much? ouch. Im going to go back for school in 8 months.. ummmm... yes. But, another investigator who we didnt think would make her date is looking pretty good for being baptized this sunday. I'm really grateful that this week I've been able to see the Lord's hand in my life.

So in two weeks I start training, right? well... guess who showed up this week? my trainer SISTER E! she decided to take a vacation and come to hong kong so this pday we just hung out all day. its so weird because she's been in ''real life'' for 6 months already and well its just strange. But it was also so nice to just be able to chill and talk. She chenged us to mcdonalds and her and me and sis mills just chatted all day. I asked for a bit of trainer advice and what did she tell me? "anything your trainer did that you didnt like, don't do that" um considering there was pretty much nothing i didnt like... i guess I'll just try to emulate her in my own way. Its also cool since its on my year mark that we were able to talk. It was weird too thinking about how life used to be before the mission and how glad I am that I've been able to learn and change on my mission. Because some things i thought were fun and important seem so superficial and stupid now, it'll be interesting to see post-mission what happens.

This week we've also been able to schedule a few more people (finally). which means we won't be spending all day every day finding!! yaaa! on tuesday we had our whole day scheduled out really nicely and then everything pretty much fell through. But it was cool to see how the lord pretty much re-arranged our schedule and we ended up meeting this family of four on a playground when we met up with sara to talk about overcoming challenges. She started playing with the 2 year old daughter and the dad came up to me (nevvvver happens) and started talking about the changes in hong kong and people arent as willing to help each other these days etc. anyways we've scheduled them for next tuesday to help the kids practice english and teach their family about the gospel of jesus christ. Its sooo awesome. Heavenly Father is so good to us, especially when we're willing to do our part.

I hear the two new sister missionaries coming in have pretty darn good cantonese already (YESSSS!) and they seem really spiritual and intense workers (sis e volunteers at the MTC regularly). sooooooo I have high hopes for this next move. especially because new missionaries have HUGE FAITH. since they haven't dealt with months of rejection, often they have a higher vision of the work. So hopefully we can work with that to help the Lord help us. :)

So this lady in the computer lab is falling asleep at her computer. its pretty funny. head bobbing, etc. just a little something from my life.

We had a 4-zone olympics today which was pretty fun, luckily it was at hte church near our apartment so everyone came to us. We played soccer, dodge-ball, basketball, ping pong, chess and settlers of catan? yeah i donno why but they had like this epic catan game going on too. I played soccer and it felt sooo good! i was a bit nervous to play because we've got some college athletes in the mission and my soccer skills have definitely depleted since high school, but i did okay and we won anyways. Sis Lam was bulldozed by one of the other zones' zone leader and has a sore face but I think she'll survive.

My latest thing i'm really pushing for in self improvement is being full of energy whether I feel it or not. I don't knwo ifthat makes sense, but basically even when i'm exhausted out of my mind, I'll not let it show when I'm out on the street. I just feel like if theres one thing that makes other missionaries lose their fire, it is working with a companion who doesnt seem motivated. And since I still feel pretty motivated about missionary work, letting that show and lift other people will be gooood stuff. plus my next companion is probably going to be full of new-missionary-vigor-and-vim whatever that means, and I'll have to keep my 90-yr old woman self nice and spunky so the miracles can be had.

Love you all! thanks for the prayers!

Sis Black