October 21, 2013

So I serve in Cheung Sha Wan but I live in Kwai Fong, it's the area next to mine. The flat has me and Elder Allen then Elder Beal and Elder Anderson. So its nice and organized because its only four people! The flat is clean and nothing to complain about. Elder Allen is my older MTC group so I've known him my entire mission and we are pretty good friends. We are both sarcastic, like soccer, and going home together in 8 months yaya haha jk. I actually haven't seen my ward as a whole yet because last week was conference and this week was stake conference but I was told its like a 100-ish people like the rest of the Hong Kong wards. So Elder Allen as been on his mission 6 weeks longer than me, he is from Gilbert Arizona and he is a great missionary, has good language and leadership. 

I've been studying characters and I am making sure to learn how to read and write them before I move on. Learning to read is pretty easy because its just memorization (I could learn about 50 ish characters in an hour) but I really want to be able to text and write which is pretty hard. I can read around 700 characters now so I can get by in Book of Mormon my comprehension is not all there when reading so I still need a lot of work. Writing I am only at like 300, its hard because Chinese has stroke order so you have to write it a certain way... yay Chinese....Not worrying about Mandarin right now, I can work on that when I get home or whatever. 

Since Hong Kong was once a British colony thing most the schools here are private religious schools meaning most people know Jesus Christ. I'm not in China I am in a British China haha. I would say about 90% of the people I meet know the bible stories, of the those 90% I would say 60% have been to church AT LEAST once, of that 60% I would guess only 15% consistently go to church as an active member... Yeah so people have knowledge of the stories of Jesus Christ. However most of the older generation (your generation) are buddhist or baaisahn (worship of ancestors). A lot people just do it due to tradition and not because they believe it. A lot of the younger generation (mine and younger) are Buddhist because there parents are kind of Buddhist too... So yeah not much real active religion but there are still some. The most annoying people to deal with in Hong Kong are three churches 1. The Almighty God's church (a church who believe Jesus was resurrected again in this day an again in mainland China as a women or something dumb) 2. JW's! Jehovah's Witnesses are up here 3. All private church-school-things they tend to anti people about our church... oh well not my issue :)

We have a lot of investigators right now but they aren't doing to hot so we need to find new ones soon but here is the list.

John BD (baptismal date) 10/27 will change because isn't ready, just doesn't get we have to change for the gospel, he is around 40 and has to take care of both his bedridden parents.

Kenneth BD 11/17 kind of looking at us to solve his family issues, has a good heart but not much of a desire to find the truth.

A Wing 22 years old, works to provide for his family (dad died), he is a little slow to the gospel but super willing to try and learn, BD 11/17.

Eric 17 years old, good kid super busy and has a desire to find the truth, BD 12/8.

Phillip is John's brother he also takes care of his mom and dad too, he is really busy with things and just hasn't made the biggest effort to find the truth, BD 11/23.

Jason 18 years old, his mom met the missionaries and thought we could help him, we meet with him and his friend Simon they are doing pretty well, Jason has a date for 11/17.

This are our BD investigators so we have a couple more and LA's we are working with but they are our main focus. So we teach about a total 20 lessons a week (street, member present and LA's). So its a lot of work here haha.

It was weird President Hawks made the move because the day before I "got in trouble" or at least that's I how I felt about it. Maybe he was looking at my desire to change or something. Regardless I am stoked to be here with Elder Allen!

A talk to look up is Looking Towards the Mark by Val D Hawks given at BYU devotional in 2003 or 2004. President Hawks gave it to me to help realize my real potential as an obedient missionary and I think I really understood what that meant when I studied his talk today. I think you would like it, it'

 Alright funny story of the week... So we went to visit this less active member and afterwards we have to walk about 10 blocks from his place to the MTC (subway) stop. Well we walked down the the 10 blocks next to this lady in the yellow, well actually she walked down the middle of the street blowing a whistle, while me and elder Allen walked down the side walk in confusion... She literally blew this weird whistle thing and walked down the middle of the road! SHE ALMOST GOT HIT like three of four times and caused some serious traffic. I think she thought here whistle would make the cars stop? I don't know it was super obnoxiously loud... I see the weirdest things here...

 Just a cool little sun set out side of my flat in Kwai Fong! The city is so beautiful!

 Sooo I found out I can grow a beard in like three hours now!!! WOOOO count your many blessings! ... not one of them... 

Anyways got a hair cut to day and its pretty ballin' not hair paste right now so it s really good.