March 31, 2013

Nothing exciting is going on right now because it has rained for 7 days straight sooo not finding (at least successfully) and/or weird stories to report. The only exciting thing is move calls tomorrow... There are really only three/four options:

1. Stay with Elder Tse

2. Leave

2a. Stay junior

2b. Step-train/go senor

3. Stay in Aberdeen and go senor

Well, I hope its option 1 because I still don't know the ward as well as I want too and the area is still kind of confusing. I don't live in my area (I live in West Point) and so there is a lot of traveling and buses and no MTR so it can be a little confusing.

You've been right about way to many things. (he is speaking about his mom) This moved my Chinese as gotten a lot better. Still not as good as I would like it to be but its moving A LOT faster... Two weeks ago my brain just clicked and now I can just learn words really fast. I can learn about 30 - 50 words day (remember about 25 - 35 effectively  but its a dramatic increase and I'm going to say that it is due to serving with a local. I can read about 300 - 400 characters (still not nearly enough to read anything) and write about 150 (which is nothing... texting/writing is the craziest thing ...)

Well, like I said not much is going on right now we don't have many investigators who are really progressing, no new investigators because it rained all week and we are working with a couple LA's but they aren't changing all that much... I hope things start moving faster this week because I'm so sick of finding for ever then having to stop because its raining cats and dogs... bleh whatever,  take it with a smile haha

On a side note I am restarting the Book of Mormon. I am already up to 2 Nephi 10. 

 This is the Ward's Bishop and his family

Just playing around with the camera.

March 24, 2013

We have TON of freaking new missionaries coming in with in the next few months. The April move we get 20 missionaries and I think 17 are sisters... We are getting A TON of missionaries and we really don't have room for them. By the end of August we will have 150ish (we currently have 100ish). That is a lot of missionaries we need to put in places and Hong Kong is pretty small in the sense of a places of finding and preaching. Anyway, the next couple of months in Hong Kong (now until about Sept) will just be crazy... Even President Hawks is nervous about all the changes that will have to occur...  

My area Aberdeen is pretty large but we don't even use half of it because basically this chunk called Stanley is full of white people and other tourist soooo its kind of worthless to go finding there. It also takes like 40 minutes to get there on the sketchy small buses we have here... (Yeah they have buses like in Mexico; I'm excited for you to ride them...) The area is pretty hard to find in because it is all city with no quite places at all so there are soooo many distractions when we try to stop people. I still stink at finding and this place makes it even harder. 

Right now we have 6 investigators; none are progressing. They all seem interested and will keep meeting with us but none of them keep there commitments. (None of them come to church either). So we are having some difficulties right now but I think we will be fine. After the DSE (a HUGE public exam, kind of like the act but on steroids, that controls the Hong Kong persons future is right now until about the end of April) we should get a lot more investigators. We have 4 former investigators who are golden but are too busy to meet because they have to study for the DSE and go to tutoring... Ugh. Some good news is they still want to meet after the test; they haven't been anti'ed yay! Also Melody has two friends in Aberdeen she wants me to meet after the DSE! YAY REFERRALS! haha 

Gosh.... I'm not excited for the summer there have been a couple days where it's been up to 30c and it sucks... I'm not excited for the summer heat...

Well my Chinese is getting pretty good Elder Tse is helping me a lot... I mean a lot... Having a native companion just makes your Chinese better I swear... I love serving with elder Tse haha he is so awesome and funny. I had a baby missionary come up to me and ask when I became fluent in Chinese... I laughed and said at the end of my mission... (She also asked Elder Brown who said the same exact thing haha).

March 18, 2013

So things are going as normally as they do in a mission. My Chinese is getting a lot better because you know my companion is a native therefore I speak a lot more Chinese... So that's nice haha. Finding in this area is really tough. Its different and I'm still not adjusting my style yet. It doesn't help soooo many people here are busy with school testing, jobs, and other problems that they wont take one second to hear me out. Most people will just shake their head then keep walking or they will just put there hand up and keep going. I will keep trying to talk to them but they wont really respond... Ugh I don't know the ward is nice, the investigators we currently have are doing okay but we really need to more... Last saturday we went finding (and less active finding) for 5 hours.... we got one phone number. That sucks. We tried all day but nothing. Zero. Zlitch. Natta. So hard. Whatever just got to keep pushing through we will find the prepared eventually right? 
Things are going fine with me and Elder Tse. Honestly, I am very glad to be with hi. This is his first time to go senior and he got called to district leader so I was told by Elder Brown (a flatmate/good friend) he was pretty scared of the whole situation. However things are going okay. 

My Chinese is getting better because I am forced to use it, Elder Tse does have pretty good English though. I try to force myself to speak it more and I can see a bit of change each day I try. My District is pretty cool. It consists of me, Elder Tse, Elder Brown (we were in the same district my first move, he is two moves older than me), Elder Leung (Elder Brown's new baby yayyy), Elder Woods/Braislford (the mandarins I lived with in CWB) and two sets of sisters. So my district is pretty cool. 

Aberdeen is different than CWB. Just like all of Hong Kong it has some SUPER RICH areas (Stanley) and some super poor areas (places next to Wa Fuh, I forgot the name). I do however think the finding here is a lot harder than CWB. People here tend to be less happy, even more in a rush, and just as much anti... its freaking sweet. Our ward is amazing but everyone is really busy here so they want to help but they cant? I don't know its a little strange. I don't attend the the Wan Chai chapel (the thirteen story building), we have a chapel in Aberdeen. Well, its not a chapel we bought the 5, 6, 7th floor in a building. 7th floor is the cultural hall, 6th is the chapel, and 5th is classrooms. (There are quite a few chapels like this in Hong Kong). 

Yeah sooo thats Aberdeen:)

Right now I just read from Mormon to Ether 10 sooo a lot of stuff. You got all of Mormons' problems with the people, you have "O all ye fair ones," you got Moroni's strong little section, then you got Ether... Powerful stuff. I think its funny how the Brother of Jared get criticized because he forgets to pray for a well so God teach/chastises him then later he has sooo much faith he sees him... Kind of a dramatic turn around, he went from forgetting to pray to seeing Jesus Christ

I had to add this story...Sam's dad went to England and went to a Manchester soccer game and bought Sam a authentic team jersey while he was at the game and this was his reply:

The Jersey took me a minute to register... I was like why is he sending me this I can buy it here for like USD$15.... then I saw the UKD sign and was like WHOOAAA ITS LEGIT>:O. I'm wearing it right now... Thanks :D -- Also I think we are going to make guacamole tonight YAYA (we also sent him some Mexican food mixes like guacamole)