Feburary 2, 2014

So how many elder and sisters are in your zone?

We have a total of 24 missionaries (including my companionship)

6 Sisters and 18 Elders (we also cover the Assistants and the office elders in our zone)

 

Do you over see all the languages? 

I only oversee English and Chinese (Cantonese). We currently have no Mandarins in our zone. If you are a foreigner I have to pass them off in Cantonese and if they are a local Hong Kong person they do the same pass offs in English. (PMG talks a lot about if you serve in your country but you have a English speaking companion this is a good opportunity to learn English, so we will help them too).

 

Do you meet with the President monthly ? 

Yes, roughly ever month. Ever month we have mission leadership council which beings all the missionary leaders of Hong Kong (ie the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders) together and we discuss how each month went, how numbers look, issues we ran into, success we had and the President Hawks will also expound more for the mission. (That is actually Feb 5th). Then like every month to every other month we meet with President Hawks and President Lee (the stake president and sometimes his assistants come) and discuss how Kowloon Stake is doing as far as missionary work, ward relationships and other things on their agenda. (That is on Feb 7th). Takes a lot of our time to prepare and do these meetings but WOW I've learned a lot of how the church is ran and how much this work is looked upon. So interesting.

 

Are you still enjoying being a zone leader? 
Yes I still enjoy it, I hope I stay here in Cheung Sha Wan and as Zone Leader for the rest of my mission (and there is a pretty good chance of that). I like seeing the mission more as a whole rather than just my area, which I think a lot of missionaries don't see until the become a leader. It also gives me a lot of chance to serve which is nice, between language pass offs to exchanges I get a lot of time to help people grow and its been pretty rewarding. However I can say it can give you a little more stress because before I just had to worry about my junior comp and my area. Now I have to worry about 22 other missionaries, there areas, etc etc. I like it though.

Do you think you will have that problem or do you speak enough English that it is easy for you to separate and you remember English words?
My English sucks but I can speak fine. Writing on the other hand, well you can see from my letters my grammar has gone to poop. haha. I should have that big of an issue, Hong Kong is pretty international. Especially the island (which was like half my mission). I do struggle some times in my English to explain things because I can't remember words or common phrases but I should be fine.

 

So when is exactly Chinese New years? 

Well its like a week long celebration. It started last Saturday.

is it a day or a time period?

Like six days or so

 

Why do they go to the mainland during this time?

Well a lot of people have family up there soooo they go see their family. That's really all I hear from them at least. Plus Mainland seems like a pretty legit place to party... haha I really don't know sorry.

 

 what did you do? As I recall your first Chinese New Year you were in your apartment doing a heavy duty cleaning - waxing the floors.

Well because no one is out on the first day of Chinese New Years (CNY) the mission will have a deep clean of their flat... you literally clean freaking everything all day... it's soooo intense and can take for ever if your flat is dirty like ours. We started at 10 am and finished at 10:24pm... It sucked BUT this year I didn't have to wax YAYA d(^_^)b

 

What mps and rclas? It sounds like you are still being able to teach a lot . 

Mp's = Member present lessons RCLA's = Recent convert or Less active lessons

 

Any news on any of your investigators. You should be having a baptism coming up this next week.

Investigators are doing great. CNY makes things a little hard because a lot of people are going for like a week and half in mainland sooo we can't contact them BUT we still had a decent amount of success. A Wing is having his baptismal interview this week and he is so ready. He is totally getting baptized next Sunday and we are all super stoked! Sis Tong is doing great too! She needs to read a little bit more but she is really starting to pick up interest and she came to church all dressed up this week too! Normally she has come in like jeans and a sweater but she came in a dress. It was cool. All of our other investigators are doing okay, we didn't seem them this week due to CNY.

So in Hong Kong during Chinese New Years (last Saturday) all missionaries must do a very DEEP clean of their flat. It took us all day from 10am to 10pm but I was reward with the most beautiful sunset I've seen in a long time. The whole sky was purple, pink and blue with the moon right in the middle. Wish you all could have seen it.

 At the Bishop's home A Wing brought some chocolate moose and Cheese cake moose! By the way he is a trained chef! He made this by hand, his specialty is in cakes, pies and dessert breads. IT WAS SOOOOO GOOD AND SOOO FULL OF SUGAR!!! :D

 Yesterday (still Chinese New Years) we went to our bishop's home to eat dinner and to celebrate a little! (Bishop Kwok is in the red) We also brought Edward (back left corner) a member preparing to leave for his mission to Seattle on Feb 10, our investigator A Wing (he is getting baptized on Feb 9th! He is in the middle back with the glasses), the sisters came with their investigator Cherie (I think that's how you spell is it haha). It was pretty awesome!