Kwun Tong 8-21-09 to 8-27-09

Hi Everyone!

So Darilyn is now married! Thanks everyone for writing the details and Darilyn for sending pictures! I couldn't open half of them, but I could see the one of Dar and Jonathan cutting the cake and Dar dancing with the little boy! Darilyn looks so beautiful as always! It looks like it was so much fun! I wish I could have been there.

So, missionary work! Last week, I had to practice the piano like crazy because Elder Hyde (from my MTC district) asked me to accompany him while he played the flute. We only had an hour to practice together and it was so amazing that we survived the performance hahaha! We played the "Abide with Me" duet arranged by Sally Deford, I think. He's been playing the flute for only 3 months now . . . he just decided one day to learn how to play it and bought the flute somewhere in HK. Isn't that just amazing?! Well, he also plays a kazillion other instruments so he's just really talented.

This past zone conference was really different because it was like a mission conference except only with our zone. We got officially introduced to the 100% Home Teaching Plan, I played that duet with Elder Hyde, and our zone leaders Elders Robertshaw and Saunders shared a really neat sharing on "Opening the Heavens." They committed us to have a 10-minute devotion with God everyday in personal study. First, we have to do everything in our power to have a good personal study, like pray, plan our studies, write notes, etc., and then we save the last 10 minutes of the hour to find a quiet place to have the devotional. We have the devotional through prayer. We're to share with Heavenly Father all the things we've learned and then ponder! By doing these things, we can receive more revelation on how to be better missionaries, help our investigators progress to baptism, and everything! It's been really great so you should all try it!

It was great last Sunday because Brother Jau brought his girlfriend Paula to church and we got to teach her! :) It was a miracle because the last time I asked her if she would come to church, she said no. We taught her about God and prayer so now she and Brother Jau can pray together! We are going to see them again on Saturday at a dim sum place! Brother Jau is super excited, I can tell, and is willing to do anything to get Paula to go to church. We are just going to have to baptize her so they can get married in the temple! :)

For Winnie's baptism, we are planning to make her a candy lei! I'm super excited and she LOVES candy! The baptism will be at 12:45 p.m. and we want all the Young Women to come since she'll be turning 12 in October. I want her to make more friends! We took her shopping on Tuesday so she could buy her first dress to wear to church! It's so hard to find anything around here, especially if you don't know all the cheap clothes are in hidden mini malls and in hidden outdoor markets! After a while, we finally found a pretty dress for her with orange and white flowers. :)

Sister Lau and I made goals this week to eat healthier. I was doing so good before I came to Kwun Tong! Everytime I see something weird, like pickle-flavored Pringles or Burger-King-flavored chips, I just can't help but buy it just to say that I've tried it. And I eat way to much ice-cream hehehe cause it's really hot. But no more! Today is the only day I'm going to have ice-cream, and we're going to try a really good place (so says Elder Fung) in the APM Mall. I'm so excited!

It's time to go again! I just mailed a letter to you all in NC! I have no idea what Dar's new address is so please let me know!

I love you all!

Love,
Sister Chu :)

Read more

Kwun Tong 8-14-09 to 8-20-09

Hi Everyone!

Winnie will get baptized on Aug. 30! She had her baptismal interview last Monday and passed with flying colors. After, she wanted to take pictures with her baptismal form, and we're all just so excited and happy! Everytime we meet with her, we bring her candy because she just loves it so much. Ever since we taught her about the Word of Wisdom with candy (give 10 M&M's and give 1 back!), she has been calling her candy "blessings" heee!

For now, my date to go home is December 11! Or I could have chosen Jan. 22. These are set dates because the way the schedule is for missionaries to move to new areas. Every move period is 6 weeks. I know Dad will be in HK on Dec. 19 so I'm not sure what I would do! I have my interview with President Chan in a couple weeks so I can ask him about what to do then. Someone told me that if I don't have anyone to pick me up, then the church pays for my plane ticket home. If someone comes for me, then the church does not pay for my ticket. I am not totally sure yet so I will let you know when I find out!

I love Fridays because we have sports night! We just play badminton or ping pong or whatever with our investigators and it's so much fun! I love badminton! We just end up playing a ton of people at the same time and it usually ends up pretty confusing because there's so little space to play ping pong, badminton, AND Chinese checkers! Oh and there's usually karoke going in the corner too! It's really funny to have all of these things going on at the same time in the same room. There's usually an investigator who comes and sings Chinese opera REALLY LOUD too haha! So fun!

I went on a 24s exchange with my old Macau companion Sister Harding! Heee! I had it secretly arranged that we could be together! :) It's her last moves already! It was so fun to teach with her again, except instead of English in international, this time was Chinese! Wahoo! It was SO hot outside so we stopped at a Seven Eleven to get some drinks and to try the new pickle-flavored Pringles! They were so good! If you like salt and vinegar chips, you'll like these! Since we liked them so much, the Seven Eleven lady worker bought some too . . . she got some "Blazin' Buffalo Wing" flavored ones and then she had us try some! It was way fun! We just hung out there for a while and talked to the lady about church while we ate our Pringles. Do they have pickle-flavored Pringles in America? I hope so even though the can said "for the Hong Kong market!"

Last night I taught English class. Well, actually, it's not English class anymore. It's the gospel taught in English! President Chan is worried about having to pay a tax if we just teach English class so we now make sure we focus on teaching the gospel, which is much better anyway! We taught about Christlike attributes and told some stories about Jesus Christ, like the one about how Jesus fed the 5000. We found fish-shaped fish cookies from the bakery and 光蘇餅 (I think those are the characters for those cookies! I had Elder Leung type it in for me hehehe!) to represent the fish and loaves of bread. We passed them out during the story and eveyone loved them! I love food!

I have to go again! Good luck to Darilyn and Jonathan this Saturday!

I love you all!

Sister Chu :)

P.S. I'd better get some good DETAILS about this wedding! I haven't heard from Darilyn in WEEKS! :(

Read more

Kwun Tong 8-7-09 to 8-13-09

Hey Everyone!

This week has gone by so fast! I just read my email from last week and wow, I use a lot of exclamation marks. I used to think it was really annoying to read emails with lots of exclamation marks so sorry hehehe! I'll try to use less hehehe.

There are a lot of changes happening in the China Hong Kong Mission! In our last district meeting last Friday, Elder McAllister announced that we no longer have mission conference--EVER! Weird, huh? We're all going to miss them and seeing all the other missionaries, but I guess President Chan knows what he's doing and we support him! So instead, each move (6 weeks) will have one zone conference instead of 2 and then a district meeting for every week except for the week we have zone conference.

Oh, just in case I haven't said this before . . . my district now has Elders McAllister and Leung, Elders Crowder and Fung, and Sister Lau and me. So great! Half of our district is from HK! This is such a great blessing to the work in Kwun Tong because of all the less active and lost sheep that we have to sort out. Since we have all of these native companions and they can read Chinese (horray!), we can finish everything so much faster! We go less active finding almost everyday, where we call or go to the homes of less active/lost sheep members and try to figure out who needs reactivation and home teachers. While we go to these people's homes, we contact people on the street. It's so much fun!

Sister Lau is doing so great as a missionary! She is very humble and just does what she is supposed to do. Everytime I lead, she follows and I admire her so much! It's different to be a missionary serving in your home. Sometimes, it is hard especially during finding time because Chinese people aren't used to smiling and talking to strangers! Good thing I just love finding! I told Sister Lau that I love finding because even though we get so many rejections, God always prepares at least one person for us who will listen! I told her that I just imagine my own mom and dad wandering around on the street, and then it's not hard at all to find joy in finding. We had a cool experience the on Sunday because we contacted a man who was Christian. He was so open to learning more, and it was the first time Sister Lau felt the Spirit as she taught! It makes such a difference!

Last night, we had a zone dinner (to make up for the loss of a zone conference LOL!), and our zone leaders announced this amazing plan that the mission is going to start doing! It's called the China Hong Kong Mission 100% Home Teaching Plan!!! This plan was used in England and so many miracles happened! What we'll do is have the bishop select 150 names of members in the ward and then also a member for each missionary to go on exchanges with every week. Then every week, each missionary will go on exchanges with the members to visit 4 families. We barely know the details, but we are so excited to do this! I could feel the Spirit tell me that this is the right plan when they announced it . . . it should be up and running on September 1.

Last Tuesday was interesting because one of our investigators came crying to the church with her 1 1/2 year old baby. She was going crazy because she had just taken drugs and was having hallucinations. Good thing my whole district was there to help! It was the first time we'd ever had to call the police on our investigators, but they couldn't really help because as soon as they came, she went sane. As soon as they left, she went crazy again. The elders tried to help her get home but she was just not in a normal state of mind with the after-effects of doing drugs. Some reporters came to see what was going on, but we made them go away . . . I hope they won't do anything to discredit the church! In the end, the church next door, the one that doesn't like Mormons, decided to help her and said they could help her get a social worker. We were all so relieved because there wasn't anything we could do to help! That was also the first time we ever gave another church one of our investigators. I'm not sure if they were any help because when we walked by an hour later, the same police were there trying to figure out what to do. We're praying that everything's ok!

My MTC companion Sister Bostwick got to choose her date to go home a couple days ago, and they gave her a choice between December 11 and another date in January. She is going home on December 11. So far, no one has set a date with me so I'm just guessing I'm going home on December 11! I really have no idea!

I love you all!

Love,
Sister Chu :)

Read more

Kwun Tong 7-24-09 to 8-6-09

Hey Everyone!

I'm still alive! I was trying to email last week but I only had 5 minutes and then the internet didn't work. Wah! So thanks for sending me emails anyway this week! Hehehehe! Oh and while I'm thinking of it, could you all email me a day earlier? Sometimes, I don't get to read your emails because my companions want to email in the mornings. Thanks so much! :)

So that other week I didn't email was kind of crazy because I was sick, and then I went to see a Chinese doctor who gave me a pill for every little symptom I said. Like he gave me 6 kinds of pills and then a bottle of cough syrup. I only took 2 of the pills and they knocked me out for a whole day and made me all dizzy! Good grief! After that, I decided not to take the rest and I got better just fine. I think everyone here is still afraid of getting the swine flu . . . Sister Black said that her little sister in America actually got it! Don't worry, though, she is ok!

Last Thursday, we went to Daai O to see the pink dolphins! We took the MTR for 45 min., rode a ferry, took a bus for an hour, then went on this little boat out into the ocean, and THEN saw them! They really are pink! And then, the boat man took us to see the neighborhood. There are a bunch of people who live on the water--their houses are on stilts above the water! Amazing!

So this week! We had moves calls last Monday, and Sister Black got transferred to Dai Wai! Our threesome is no more! I loved our threesome! We worked well together and ate lots of ice-cream! :) Sister Lau will stay with me till she gets her visa, which will be kind-of weird because after she leaves, I won't get to see her in the mission! It was really funny this morning because as Sister Black, Vance, and Kuta were getting into the elevator to move out, the elevator door closed, and Sister Black and Vance got stuck in there with the luggage! The rest of us just hung out outside the elevator till the elevator man came hahaha!

So Winnie, our cute cute 11 year old, now has a baptismal date!!! I am so excited for her! She is doing way good. We taught her the Word of Wisdom, tithing, and fasting this week, and she says that God's commandments are easy to keep. :)

So since Sister Black knew she was leaving, we got to see a lot of investigators before she left! Yesterday, we went to see the Wong Family. The mom is originally from mainland China and she has 4 adorable kids! The lesson went so well! We gave them the kids Book of Mormon, the one with all the pictures and she read them the Joseph Smith story. The kids are so well behaved and the mom said she would read them a chapter everyday! Hallelujah! :) The kids always go to the kids English class we have every Saturday and they LOVE it! :) I love teaching families!

The Kwun Tong Ward is so amazing. Last Sunday was fast Sunday and the members literally flew up to bear their testimonies! There were so many who wanted to bear their testimonies. So great! We were so busy after church . . . we all had to split up to teach lessons! That's one reason why it's so great to have a threesome! Key, our ward mission correlator, brought his friend, and I got to teach her! She's been a Buddhist her whole life, but then one day last week, she just had a feeling that she wanted to pray. So she did and then came to church to find out more! She lives in another area though so I am so excited for her to keep going!

I love you all!

Love,
Sister Chu :)

P.S. When are you all driving out to go to Housten? Is Jonathan from Housten?! Where are they going after the wedding? I have no idea about ANYTHING!!!
P.P.S. Good luck on the lei!

Read more