November 24, 2013

In all honesty I think the only way to maintain my Cantonese is to comunicate with my friends here as much as possible and the ones that come to America to study because I really don't think I am going to meet that many Hong Kong people in America. I do plan to learn Mandarin sooo that should help me maintain grammar but it is pretty different. Yeah I want to do an internship here, I met a return mission (Bro Jolly) who served like 2 years back and got to be here for 6 months to do some work. So I might try that. 

A Wing is doing great, he should be able to make his baptismal date of December 8th! He has changed dramatically since I've gotten here (nothing to do with me), he is more easily able to recognize the spirit and that is what is helping him the most. We are seeing him again tonight to finish up commandments and hopefully set up his interview. He is pretty excited soooo things are going well for us!

Patrick is just amazing... So we saw him last Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday at the lesson on Tuesday he told us he couldn't come to church because of work this week but he really wanted to. He said and awesome prayer and we ended out lesson. Ten minutes latter he called me and Elder Allen back and started talking about baptism and told us he actually wants to get baptized in December! SOOOO yeah we gotta work to do to help him! He text us later last week on Thursday saying he got work off to come to church and we were soooo stoked! But he got sick Saturday evening with the flu and couldn't make church yesterday but we have him scheduled for Tuesday soooo its all good!

Every thing else is going well here!! My only request for my next package is Men's Gellet deodorant, I like it more than this brand I have. 

My camera is an Olympus tough TG-1, I saw in a store here they now have a TG-2 (its a little bit better was reading the specs). AWESOME camera soooo worth selling my two long boards. This thing has lasted sooo much abuse!

I hope you have a great Thanksgiving! I HAVE ALREADY HAD TURKEY TWO TIMES AND I GET IT AGAIN ON THURSDAY :D hahah YAYA

我爱你。

 Went for a Hike with my original district from the MTC in Tuen Muen this last pday and got a pretty good view of the city haha. Nothing like Hong Kong, mountains and cities where ever you go.

 This is everyone on the hike (us and all of our companions, Elder Morton actually has two comps at the moment) yaya super fun stuff!

Yup this is my district all grown up! Sister Cutler, Sister Law, Elder Morton and I. My sisters go home like the second week of December. So that's pretty crazy, that will mark the beginning of the last portion of my mission... crazy

November 17, 2013

I think I get about as many packages as anyone else does... Like its alright not anymore or less. So I am happy! Yeah I know packages are expensive and I am thankful you send them they are always fun to get and open with others. OH exciting news! So sister Hawks was given some extra suits from couple missionaries going home and I REALLY needed one because my one from last year is dying... So I went in and found one that fit perfectly and its a HUGO BOSS from TURKEY! Some old guy left me behind a SUPER nice suit! ITS SOOOO NICE :) and its navy.

I like the city its fun and I just like it more as a missionary. I feel here it gives me more opportunities... You gotta understand when you live in the boondocks here you live like sooo far away from things its just inconvenient to you and everything else... Sooo yeah I like the city but I don't think I could ever raise a family here. I see to many reasons why every day I couldn't well rather wouldn't want to. Sooo yeah I love the city right now. I probably would live more like you and dad just in a suburb next to a city. 

Zac is going to a pretty interesting place. Actually at the MTC I played with the Bulgarian missionaries everyday soccer and volleyball so I got to here the language a lot its funny sounding to me. He will love it. Seems kind of fitting. Me Asia and him Europe (he is such an aristocrat [did I even spell that right] anyways!) 

Just a quick story for the week. Actually two.

So we have this investigator named A Wing. He is pretty awesome but he is very busy working (his dad died so he supports his family by working a lot of hours at bread shop) and he likes meeting with us. By the way he is 22 years old. He is a little slow to spiritual things and doesn't seem to always get it but over the last couple of weeks he changed and progressed so much. Two weeks ago we invited him to a new baptismal date of Dec 8 and to ask his boss off work to come to church and he agreed with no hesitation. His work situation is crazy he works at a crazy busy bread shop and only three people work there... so no one really gets time off. However he had faith and we promised him it would happen and he got work off! SO HE COULD COME TO CHURCH THIS WEEK! YAYA! He has a deal with his boss for every other weekend but I really challenged him again to ask for every sunday off and I said he wants that and even prayed for it in our less yesterday! It was so awesome and I really think his boss will let him. He is so cool.

Next is Patrick, we got his number as a referral from another ward and me and Elder Allen (working together) started texting him (all in Chinese). We talked for a bit then rescheduled him for last Saturday to share a message and tour the church. He was a really nice guy and pretty open to what we shared and he said a beautiful prayer at the end. We invited him to church and he came yesterday for all three hours! IT was awesome! We then shared a quick message at the end and gave him a baptismal date for Jan 12th and he was completely willing to accept! IT was sooo great! Pretty good week :)

This last week we actually had Zone Conference it was Kowloon West Zone (my zone) and Tolo Zone (my last zone) sooo got to see some friends and heard a lot of things and I also got to do my own little instruction with Elder Allen too. It was pretty cool and one thing President Hawks shared from PofGP was when the God's organized the earth they did four things

1. Organized

2. Ordered

3. Prepared

4. Obeyed

Through these four step (I think this is Abraham 4 and 5) the God's were capable to organize the earth. Essentially the message he was trying to get across was if the God's need to take time to plan and then follow through with it, we should do the same. There was a lot of other stuff and I got it written down back home. Me and Elder Allen shared about "Not taking No for an answer" basically how to overcome people with commit issues or how to find the real underlying issue that's stopping their progression soo it will be interesting.

We also got an assignment today from President Hawks, we have to prepare a training session for a DL's on how to have more effective district meetings but he want's us to like super prepares this with papers and demonstrations and then report back and maybe do a full mission training if successful.... Sooo a new pressure on my back, oh and has to be done by next Tuesday and previewed to him by next Sunday haha.... Fun

Also me and Elder Allen are actually being videoed right now by these two college girls... They are doing a report at the university on us and they are following us around and stuff... Like with meetings, finding, teaching, etc sooo thats been fun and awkward haha. Really I have had a special mission here.

Oh by the way I do have a facebook but our mission rules are a little different. We don't have ipads yet (they may come in the future we have so issues president Hawks wants work out first in the mission-- he is afraid of disobedient missionaries abusing this and ruining it very quickly sooo only ZL's have FB's and they have to use church computers). So I basically use it like once a week to contact investigators, to make post about activities, to find missing/lost investigators, etc. Stuff like that. It feels weird to use like I am breaking the rules because I see worldly things... That sounds really funny to me when I reread that last sentence. haha