December 9, 2010

Sara and her new companion

Big changes. BIG HUGE MASSIVE changes. I don't even know where I want to begin. So... I knew on thanksgiving day that one of my companionship atleast would be moving to a new area. No worries, I had prepped myself for the possibility of staying and going senior companion over sister c. my brain was aok with that possibility. But i pretty much never expected what happened. so.. . . drumroll please.. I am now companions with Sister L from my mtc group (she moved up into our group because she already spoke some cantonese) and we are opening not one, but 6 areas to sister missionaries. Yes. I am just slightly overwhelmed. But its a really good opportunity to grow and become better. It is going to take a lot of work, but it will be ok. I'll put a picture of the two of us in our new apartment in Mong Kok... which is like pretty well known area for shopping and street vendors etc. It's pretty fun. I like the apartment a lot, even though it is a lot junkier than the luxurious palace of chelsea heights in tuen mun. but it's quite a bit bigger.

anyways, i also am really excited but nervous. I am not exactly sure how taking care of 6 areas is going to work out logistically with six wards and stuff, but its going to be fun. the area in general is called Tolo Harbor and it is on the outskirts of hong kong and borders a lot of mainland. So naturally adventurous sister black is going to have to be a little bit careful of NOT going into the restricted zone on accident.

Tonight we are going to be doing some finding with our mission president and the new sister missionary and the APs, essentially we are going to be doing some caroling around wanchai on hong kong island.

Also, I visited a lessactive last week that my old roommate who also served a mission here had written a postcard for. her name is Y and she's from Tin Shui Wai. anyways it was cool to be able to give that to her, and to know that at one point in time it was my roommate doing the work here and now im doing it.

Um other than that crazy news, I don't really have anything. Im a little under the weather right now, but hope I can get some sleep tonight and hurry up and get over it. I think its kind of a stress-induced sickness because it started after i found out i'd be going senior and opening 6 areas at the same time, so naturally i havent been sleeping so well. My companion is awesome, and since we're pretty much the same age in the mission and had a very similar mtc experience, it will be cool to see what we can get done. She's from New York. She is a really hard worker and just wants to get things done and get them done right, at least that's been my impression of her. It will also be new for me because i've been in tri-panionships pretty much my entire mission except for the first month when I got to Hong Kong, so im not used to having just two people at ALL.

Just a lot of thoughts going through my mind right now. Im in my 4th move here, and have this huge responsibility. it's kind of a lot to think about. Im trying to just stay excited because pretty much tomorrow is when it will REALLY start. We're going to have to get this all figured out. Atleast I have some pretty good map skills (thank you byu geography dept haha) and i don't easily get lost- but i make no promises about not having any getting lost stories next week. which is in fact my birthday too! woop woop! next Pday is going to be fantastic i can just feel it. then its christmas, and awesomeness. i am excited to open the presents you sent me! I was taught well not to open things early because it ruins the surprise but i opened the CDs since i knew what they were anyways ;)

oh and i got attacked by this crazy woman at english class, well not exactly but she was about to leave, and she's crazy-- the elders have her in their phone as "sketchy janette" because she is like super sketch and yeah anyways.. she grabs out her perfume and starts spraying me with it like 5 times, i already can't breathe because she smells so strongly of it, and then like im doused with it. im almost positive it did some lung damage because the next morning i woke up hacking and sneezing still.

other than that, no awesome stories for the week. I hope Tolo harbor just picks up for us but we shall see. I love you all and am so SO SO grateful for all that you do for me. I am so grateful for this gospel and how much it has blessed my life. I am grateful for the security and love I get from my Heavenly Father. He's always there, no matter what! I am so grateful that because of Jesus Christ, my family will be able to be together forever. I love christmas! I love being a missionary! I am so so thankful! Everyone, please remember how much people in this world need love. like... my companion sis c said yesterday, people in this world have a hard enough time on their own, they don't need other people making it harder for them. We need to lift those around us, help them feel the love that God and Jesus Christ have for them.. which is HUGE..... we can't even understand it.

anyways, Im super grateful. Im up for this challenge but really, please keep me in your prayers.

With Love,
Sister Black/ baahk jimuih

December 2 2010

This week was again suuuuper busy. We had another week of many days without time for lunch or dinner, and our friend HC got baptized on sunday! :) We had a miracle monday night contacting, and we were able to talk to SO many people. I still don't remember peoples' names and the area is really confusing (well 2 areas actually). I kind of am just still following my bundeih and a half around because 1 they pretty much just talk to each other and 2 its faster if they just do everything becuase then they don't have to explain anythign to me. Its really frustrating but at the same time I am learning a ton about patience and love. And anyways, its only going to last another week anyways. I don't quite know what all to write about because when I'm working hard i'm too busy to think about how hard this companionship is, but when I get a chance to sit down im like... WOAH this is hard. haha. But then I think about how much they have to put up with with me, It's probably a pretty equal share of toughness.

Last night I got to teach LA by myself with his sister as my companion on splits. It was fun because we made cookies and taught about the Gospel of Jesus Christ: faith repentance baptism holy ghost and enduring to the end. I tried to make it a pretty light lesson because the two of them don't have a perfect relationship. She's getting married soon and going back to BYU hawaii and He's getting ready to go to BYU hawaii. He has a testimony I'm sure of it, but its strengthening that that I think we can help him with. Because its not easy moving countries and starting school im sure, and he's definitely going to need the Lord's help.

sister choi really wanted to go to Korean BBQ today (we each chose 1 thing we wanted to do for Pday this move) so we're heading over there after email (maybe im also pessimistic because i haven't eaten all day?). I do have to say, when all is said and done, I am grateful to be here serving a mission. It's not easy all the time, and a lot of people reject you and the amazing message you want to share with them, but in reality i know that they aren't rejecting me, which makes it easier. I'm living an extreme lifestyle right now! I get to be around sister Choi and C... who are SO funny at times but they have no idea. I am living in the palace apartment of the mission: chelsea heights, and I get have a change of pace halfway through the move. I know that Jesus Christ is my savior, and I know that I am doing His work right now, and he's with me every step of the way. I am going to hit my halfway mark in a little over a month... so.. . . . I have a LOT more left to do!

oh funny story. this week I put a letter in the mail, and sister c was like "WHAT You can just put a letter in the mail? you don't have to go to the post office?!" she didn't know! so I got to teach sister c how to send mail- you put a stamp on it, $3 for international mail and 1.40 for HK only, and then you write their address on it, put it in the mail box, and... the mail will go to them! :) Those are the little things I find joy in in this companionship. Oh, and she's the bomb at contacting. There are like. no black people in hong kong, but in the past 2 days weve ran into two of them, and they both speak french. yeah so sister c's like SWITCH go into french. I'd love to be awesome at several languages and be like, if someone doesn't speak english "oh, what do you speak? oh tagalog? no problem blablabla" Speaking of Tagalog, I wanted so badly to go international speaking english teaching philippinas and indonesians, but now not so much. Probably because my chinese is getting better and im starting to be able to understand stuff finally. (mostly just at church, but still that's good right!)

um and the man next to me at the library is making these squeaky noises like along with some music he's listening to. oh boy. This is entertaining.

The thing about being a missionary and hong kong especially is no matter how tough it is, there are always little things to smile/laugh about. Like how at church on sunday sister f's skirt was tucked in on accident after she went to the restroom, like the whole back was tucked in and she walked all the way back to class before sister choi ran after her and helped her. or how elder d just got his hair cut, and well.. in hong kong.. haircuts are just different, and if a white person gets an asian haircut, it looks HILARIOUS with bangish stuff. or how I always forget my nametag and had to introduce myself to butterfly ward without it, or the english on everything here. OH THE ENGLISH. let me give you an example of a typical sentence on a shirt or something. "en joy happyer smile!" or something like that. words broken up, misspelled, and doesnt make sense. So funny!

sorry this email isnt more eventful, other than the thanksgiving gathering, not much else out of the ordinary has been going on. just teaching a TON busy busy busy, and trying to eat when possible! haha! Thanks so much for the love, support, prayers, and letters.

Sister Black/Baahk jimuih

November 25, 2010

Ok I know the titles of my emails are so boring, but I want to post mission be able to keep track of them. Anyways------- this week was, well interesting. I dont know any other way to describe it. I went into my new companionship with a totally bad attitude. And that was entirely my fault. I didn't want to go with sis Choi and C, or back to the New Territories, or anything, and I didn't take it as I should have- with faith that I was going to the right place, with the right people, at the right time. So I, Sister Black, for any of those of you who know me, cannot, CANNOT hide my emotions. If i like someone or something, it shows on my face, in my eyes, everything about me. If i don't, it also shows. Try as I might, its a definite weakness of mine. Because of this, my first few days were terrible. I was down, I was also sick with a cold/sore throat, and I was pouty. I was only thinking of myself, and why this wasn't fair to me. Anyways, not sis black at her best. I wrote my first letter to the mission president that had any real complaints in it, and well, yeah I think you get the picture. So finally saturday afternoon when we were contacting I broke down and started crying (not a common occurence). I was so upset and angry and sick and unhappy. I pretty much had these two bundeihs (natives) who knew the area, the people, and everything, and weren't really letting me in on it, because its easier to just have me kind of tag along. So we talked it out, and I realized this was in large part a pride issue, because at that point I was mostly thinking of myself. After a lot of prayer and effort, the companionship is starting to come together. This is still going to be a pretty huge challenge, but doable. I am enjoying speaking more cantonese, and being in an area that is SUPER busy. and when I mean super busy I mean we pretty much don't have time for meals. We have been taking 15 min here and 20 min there to quickly eat lunch or dinner. We aren't done with planning until 30 min before we need to go to bed because we're calling until its too late to call, and THEN planning. It's absolutely insane, but so awesome. It's a lot easier to be happy about things when you're thinking about others and when you're working. Work is so great because it gives us the opportunity to see change, to see improvement, to DO stuff. And when we're working hard, we also get to see the benefits of that in the lives of the people we are teaching. I also get to be companions with sister choi, who is pretty much known as a miracle worker. I have never met anyone i think, with as pure a heart as she has. she really REALLY loves everyone. She'd do anything for anyone. Her nickname is mother theresa, seriously. Then there is sister c, who is actually full chinese but born in tahiti, so a TBC (ABC=american born chinese, BBC=british born chinese... etc). She is SUCH a hard worker. She has no fear when it comes to talking to people, which most missionaries have because, lets be honest, missionaries get rejected and hated-on all the time. (which is super sad because all we are trying to do is help people... but anyways.) Usually I'm ok with the rejections but sometimes its like.. WOAH you did not just do that. Like I just was talking to this lady i just said hi and asked her where she was headed while we were on the metro. .. . so she gets up and moves. which isn;t the worst rejection ive had but that one kinda hurt for some reason. just cause i have this awesome black nametag on. I love being a missionary. and I'm really grateful.

This week is also thanksgiving, actually today in fact. I loooooooove thanksgiving. yum. Today we had our thanksgiving missionary service activity where we made cards to give out during chinese new year. Then we had some time for missionaries to share what they are grateful for, and then we ate. and it was yummy, but not ANYTHING like home. because there are 100 missionaries about, there's really no way it could be as good, right? but the turkey was so nice and delicious and so was the pumpkin pie so no worries, i was well fed for thanksgiving. I am sad I missed the family gathering and uncle duane's wedding, but you can send my love and congratulations on, ok? ok. :) It was also really nice to be able to spend some more time being thankful again, and I was really humbled because we are really really blessed. Even when we are down and think the world is terrible, we need to remember to look outside, or in our hearts and remember the many MANY blessings we have. The fact that our bodies work they way they do is a huge blessing. I see all the old people here with mangled bodies from years of bending over picking rice, or people who have other deformities and stuff, and are still going on with their lives. There are things to live for and things to work for. There are also so many things to be grateful for. yeah. Happy thanksgiving. Im sad I'll miss the tree. But if you want to take a picture and print it real quick on a big sheet of paper once the christmas tree is up and send it to me in a letter that'd be cool.

Oh and the biggest news of all. Today the mission president pulled me aside during the thanksgiving activity (because of the unhappy letter I'd sent to him earlier that week) and was talking to me again about the benefits of having three together. We really have a great mission president. I was talking to him and apologizing and stuff because im sure he worried about me. Then he tells me that even if being 3 is difficult, in 2 weeks we're getting a new sister missionary, so there won't be any tripanionships anymore. And as speculation goes, that means they're going to have to open a new area for sisters, and sister k is training, so her comp sister l from my MTC district is going to have to go somewhere with someone. so the options are for me, in 2 weeks, to be companions with sister choi, sis l, or sis c. somewhere. but who knows if i'll stay in this area or leave. Im trying to not speculate too much, but anyone who knows me knows that my mind will just go and think through all the what-if what-if what-if, and that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid so i don't get disappointed when i dont get my wish (which would be to go with sis l and open a new area) because i'll get my hopes up then get bummed when i dont get it. Because I know whatever happens is what God needs to happen. This is His work, and I am just here to serve him and help him bring his kids back to him. He loves us so much and isn't ever going to let us go unless we choose to leave him.

Anyways, Im so grateful family for you, so grateful for the many friends I've had who have influenced me in my life, and so grateful that I am able to spend this short time in Hong Kong serving people and helping them change and have better, happier, more fulfilling lives.

Thanks for supporting me!!

Sis Black/Baahk jimuih

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

November 11 2010

Hello Again Everybody!

I hope things are going well. I really enjoyed this week. Last friday we had 24's exchanges, where our companionships change from noon-noon the next day. So sister m, from my older group in the MTC joined sister S and I in Kwai Chung and Tsuen Wan. It was so much fun! We went and visited two less-active members and made a few new appointments, then made vegetable soup and apple pie (in the huge toaster oven we just found under the sink last week!). Then saturday and sunday were super busy again, we found out that our zone needed to come up with a musical number for the mission tour on tuesday. Elder M headed it up and we performed "if you could hie to kolob" by michael mc-something or something like that. its actually a piano piece but we sang to it with the music. Its a beautiful piano arrangement though, you should look it up. SO GOOD. President Perkins, the asia area president and member of the 1st quorum of the 70 spoke to us. I learned a ton about faith, and how to develop it. He made this set of stairs- 1. no faith 2. belief, 3. faith 4.witness/testimony 5. power I think thats the order. but the thing I wanted to point out, is that faith is a principle of power, and you have to walk forward testing out different principles until you can gain a testimony, and once you have faith and a testimony, if you can cast out doubt and fear, that is when the power comes. And I know that through faith miracles can occur.


Ok so mission tour was amazing. but also some funny things happened. So in the middle they fed us lunch, and as I was helping set up the table the AP elder A was walking behind me and i stepped back on accident on his foot, which made me completely lose my balance and essentially i fell back onto him and it was SO embarassing. then as I was getting my food a few minutes later, i gave our mission president a flat tire. yes. I am clumsy and it is awesome. Then that night we had english class. the elders taught about making phone calls and gave people HILARIOUS situations to talk on the phone in, but the best part of the night was seeing C and V. We've been teaching this mom and her daughter for a couple of weeks (but we've known them for about a month and a half), and at first it was liek their relationship was terrible. C was always on v's case about being stupid and v thought she was ugly etc. not happy. But since becoming more involved in stuff even now with just a short amount of time I can really see a change. They are talking more, smiling more, you can tell they care about each other and it isn't as cold of a relationship. its really cool to see.

OH OTHER STUFF I CAN"T FORGET! So sister s just found out that she is moving to macau on friday (tomorrow) and she'll be going with sister t speakign chinese for a week and then going International! She's going to get to work in english with the philippinas and indonesians nepalese etc. No doubt her chinese will suffer but it is so cool to serve in international I've heard. That means sister a is coming here for a week to be our companion!! So i'll have been companions with sister a, s, and l from my MTC's older group! so cool! Then we also heard that sister h will be training! there are three native cantonese speakers coming in 1 from macau and 2 from HK. Sister h's trainee will be a week late though. SO- this is my speculation. There has to be a three-some somewhere in the mission. I wonder if they will keep me in kwai chung/tsuen wan with her while she trains! it'd be really nice to be here for the holiday season since i already kind of know people. but we shall see. The chances are pretty slim to train in a tripanionship, but because she'll be a week late, someone has to be with sister h for a week... .. . . . anyways, it'd be really cool. plus i'd get a native companion which would help with the cantonese A LOT. and A LOT is the amount of help my language needs. I know learning any language is hard, and will push you etc, but because of the difficulty of cantonese, I'm going to probably come home not understanding a lot of stuff still, whereas people who go spanish/portuguese/other languages can come home really with a huge vocabulary and a much better ability to communicate in that language. My language is still progressing, but I am still amazed that after 6 months of working on it, i understand so little of what people say. especially compared to when i was in holland, not trying super hard, after six months i could understand a lot more.

but the difficulty of the language is not really getting me down luckily. I know that as long as I'm putting in my effort and trying hard that its ok. I still have 11 months left to keep working at it and my listening skills will improve I know.

anyways I am out of time, but I love you all and its so nice to hear that you had a good halloween and guy fawkes day :)

I hope you are all doing fantastic! I love you so much! keep smiling, keep being good and serving others. The lord lives, Jesus is the Christ, and they restored their church through Joseph Smith. I know this is true because I've read the Book of Mormon and asked God if the things it contains are true and from Him. And the answer I got was a yes. I love this gospel and I love serving others and sharing this message with them. Thanks for all the support!

Sister Black/Baahk jimuih

November 4 2010

Well this week was so good, like almost every other week. But special in a few ways too. We had two days where we had so many appointments and stuff that we didn't have any time to eat lunch. So we were teaching lessons, in meetings, etc. from 10:30am-7:30pm on saturday, and from 7:30am-7pm on sunday. It was a huge miracle because we just had people show up at the church or people bringing friends to activities that they wanted us to meet. It was amazing but at the same time really really incredibly exhausting. Because when I'm teaching I have to work my brain SO hard to follow what's been said, and be in tune with the spirit and also stay awake haha. So physically, mentally, and spiritually exhausting when you have that many lessons in a row. It is interesting to hear what goes on in other missions because we rarely travel to people's houses for appointments with them, 90 percent of the time our lessons are at the church because peoples' houses are really small here and its like "their space" I think, even more than we would think of in the US. like stopping by and saying hi is pretty much an absolute no-no here. 1. they have guards at all the buildings so half the time you wouldn't be able to get up without an appointment, and 2. even the best members or people you have a close relationship with would be upset if you came by on a whim.

Another thing I really have noticed here especially this week, is how focused hong kong is on money. Hearing from like elder calder or elder moss about the humble people they are meeting because they are poor is not what my typical experience is. A lot of time here people think the point of life is to make money. If you don't have money, life is unfair and I've seen a lot of very bitter poorer people. Of course this is not always the case, but we were talking to our recent convert D this week, and he is in his late 40's and still unmarried. We were talking about marriage and stuff and he told us about the pressures of Hong Kong. Women will literally ask if they can afford an apartment and a car and how much money they have to decide whether they are in the least bit interested or not. They are taught from birth to work hard in school and in life so they can make money. So D's point was, that in Hong Kong because of the social pressures to make money, people either get married really late or not at all. That is why there are tons and tons of older people living with their parents still in their 40's or 50's, that have never moved out. So that is one thing I learned this week.

On tuesday we had a 2 hour chunk of finding time, where we go out and talk to people. Usually I don't really like finding, but I decided I needed an attitude adjustment. Even though it is tough to go start conversations with people when you still hardly understand their language, it can also be a lot of fun. I decided to think positively about the afternoon's finding time all day, keep a smile on my face, talk to everyone, and have faith that my efforts will help people come unto christ. We see thousands of people each day and even if i can't talk to them all, they can see my face and feel heavenly father's love for them through me. Anyways, since there is no way to literally talk to them all, you have to pay attention to the spirit and work hard. We were talking to people around this chyuhn (like a bunch of buildings probably like 30ish stories high all together make up one chyuhn... like an apartment complex only MASSIVE) and sis hancock was talking to this lady on a bench. I was just kind of twiddling my thumbs waiting for her to finish so we could move on, when this other lady came and sat down right in front of me while her daughter went to play in the park right there. So sis s and I started to talk to her. We taught her all about joseph smith and the restoration and why there needed to be a restoration- she took a book of mormon and we may be able to see her again on saturday. It was so cool because you could just tell she was prepared to meet us then. And sometimes the lord will just put people into your path to help when you aren't expecting it, and that is really cool. Ok so then we kept walking and walked all the way to tsuen wan from kwai fong (usually we take a bus or the metro) and as we were walking past bunches of people waiting in lines to get on busses, there was a husband and wife and a little baby that just stuck out to me. Soooo going along with my goals for the day I stopped and talked to them as well. Turns out they were from mainland and hadn't ever had a chance to hear about jesus christ or even much about God really. I am really excited for the day that China opens and missionaries are able to spread the gospel to those wonderful people, because they need it so much! I feel really privaledged to be serving here and now because I know we are helping the people here prepare for that day, which eventually will come.

Other than that, I don't think there's much more to report on. I am amazed at the blessings the Lord is pouring out upon me and on these people. I am just going to keep moving forward and try to do my best. That's all I want to do and every day it's a struggle, but when I work hard and rely on the Lord, everything ALWAYS works out in the end. I know that's true. its like in philippians soemthing: through Christ I can do all things. He's my savior and he's with me every step of the way. He is guiding His work, and will never leave us alone. :) Thanks for the love, prayers and support!!

-sister black

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