Kwun Tong 10-22-09 to 10-29-09

Hello Everyone!

Sorry about last week! I'm still here and there have been so many changes in the mission! The mission is preparing to shrink since so many are leaving in December. Moves calls are now on Wednesdays, which makes everything very chaotic if you have to move the very next day with a day full of appointments! Good thing I'm not moving!

My last area is . . . KWUN TONG! :) Kwun Tong and Cheung Kwan O are reseparated--for now! My new companion is Sister Kwok, a HK native from Tai Wo! :) She is so sweet and is 23 like me! She is the only member in her family and joined the church when she was 19. All I know so far is that she loves to eat spicey and sour foods, she cries easily (says her past companion Sister Pon . . . even Sister Kwok herself agrees hehe), and she loves graphic design! She has graduated from a graphic design school somewhere in HK. She is pretty much just amazing and speaks amazing Cantonese heheheee!

I almost don't know what to think because it's my LAST MOVES aaaaaaahhhhhh! I just feel exhausted (but really happy!), and I keep falling asleep all the time. At least I'll have time to do studies now that KT and TKO are separated again! Sisters Bird and Hougaard will continue to serve in TKO. We've had lots of miracles this past moves, but Sisters Bird, Hougaard, and I are still wondering what really happened. We three have worked so hard and had people commit to baptism . . . and what happened?!

On Tuesday, we got the worst package ever. We're so excited but then when we opened it, we found all the Book of Mormons, Bibles, pamplets, and flyers we ever gave to Sabrina and Jean with a note to thank us but that they'll contact us if they ever want to come back. Yesterday, we called Abe and she wants to join another church. This is after months of months of people teaching her and her saying she had faith and felt good about everything . . . Just so many things have happened, and it's a huge trial of our faith. We are trying to bring people unto Christ so we'll just keep going!

Thank you everyone who helped to get my stuff ready for coming home . . . there is so much to do and it's weird since I have to rely on everyone else to help me get things done while I'm out here. I just have to rely on everyone all the time. That's one of the biggest lessons I've learned on the mission, to always rely on God. Trust in the Lord!

I don't have much time again to write, but I love you all!

Love,
Sister Chu :)

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Kwun Tong & Tseung Kwan O 10-9-09 to 10-15-09

Hey Everyone!

Well here I am again!

Some things about Hong Kong . . . you know if you're Chinese if:
- you drink hot water, even in the boiling hot summer
- you wear a blue mask everywhere if you're sick
- you have to carry at least 30 pounds of books to school
- you spend hours fixing your animae hair if you're a guy
- you have your bangs swooped to the side and held up with a big hair clip of something like a cheeseburger or big Hello Kitty if you're a girl
- you like to play ping pong and badminton
- you do tai chi and work out at the poh poh park in the mornings
- you believe in natural beauty
- wear t-shirts with interesting English on them
- you've had clothes fall onto someone's roof from hanging your laundry out the window
- you collect anything that's small and sparkly . . . actually, you collect anything that's collectible! :)

Hong Kong is pretty much amazing! I love it! :)

So here are some things that have happened this week . . .

We got to watch conference in Wan Chai! I just loved watching and it's a totally different experience if you have investigators coming. Thank goodness for our cell phone! I was relieved that at least 6 investigators made the trip, even with some complaints, but that's ok! At least they got to listen to a prophet!

Many talks seemed to be about God's love and God's commandments, which I loved since many of our investigators are struggling with those things right now! I have testimony that God really answers prayers, especially if they are for other people.

We now have termites in our kitchen. We had a little trouble figuring out what they were . . . our elders are so funny and all trying to be helpful, though. Elder Cheng, our mission housing coordinator person, was like, "I printed out a bunch of pictures of termites . . . but I forgot to bring them!" And at the same time, Elder Hyde from Idaho was like, "Do they have a small abdomen and a big butt? If they do, they're ants!" Hahaha!

For companionship inventory, Sister Bird asked me to try to fix my hair differently or something cause it's always in a bun. Ugh I'm just getting ancient and not caring at this point, but I did try a pony tail today! It looks exactly like my usual bun, thanks to my African hair. And I keep finding white hair. Good grief.

Miracle of the week! Wendy committed to keep all of the ten commandments as an experiment for one month! WHAT an ordeal! We know she can do it, but honestly, she's a bit lazy. So we invited her to try it for a month to see what blessings God has in store for her. In the lesson, Sister Bird finally said, "I've just received revelation!" and then offered to cook dinner for Wendy every week if Wendy would be willing to do her part and not buy stuff on Sundays. Then Wendy got all excited about buying food for Sunday dinner. And then she gave us dried apricots and Welch's strawberry gummies to eat. And then, we had to convince her to come to Wan Chai again this Sunday for stake conference. Like I said, more white hairs!

I went to Yi Ma's place again for dinner on Sunday. Uncle Tim also came! They are all so generous with everything, and always give us so many treats. I wish I had something to give them, but oh wait, I have the gospel! :) After we ate the most delicious dinner EVER made by Yi Jeung, we sang them "I Am a Child of God" and "Families Can Be Together Forever." I bore my testimony on God, prayer, and eternal families, and I know they all felt the Spirit. I gave them a Book of Mormon. I am not sure if they will read it, but I wrote a letter to them inside. It was the most amazing evening!

Ahhhh time to go again! I love you all!

Love,
Sister Chu :)

P.S. To Ram, Dev, and all my Macau friends . . . I am coming this Sunday for the Why I Believe fireside! I will also try to be there earlier to go to church at 5 p.m. if I can! I can't wait to see you all! :)

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Kwun Tong & Tseung Kwan O 10-2-09 to 10-8-09

Hey Everyone!

I'm still aliiiivvveee!!! I can't even begin to tell you all the things that have happened in the last three weeks. We've been so busy with all of our investigators and serving two huge areas that we haven't had time to study, eat, or do anything actually besides those two. Which has been great! Until all three get run into the ground with too much to do! My companions and I did an English fast for a week . . . it was one of the hardest weeks just because it's hard enough to communicate in English what needs to be done haha! But we survived!

What a great problem to have too many investigators! Until you don't have time to do a good job in helping them prepare to be baptized! So we went to the temple today and have been discussing for the past three weeks on what to do so that we're not dead tired and overwhelmed everyday till we go home. We talked to President Chan and the APs. We almost decided to have another sister brought in, but then that would mean closing another area. So as of today, we now have a cell phone! Finally! And now we can take a taxi whenever we want to save time so that we can eat and study now! Hallelujah!

Some days, we are just so tired that it's hard to move. But then God sends us people who are willing to follow us! :) Like last Monday, I was just beat. I started talking to the old man next to me, even though most of them usually just say their Buddhist and too old to learn about Jesus Christ, and guess what? He was so great! He followed me onto the bus and made a point to sit next to me to learn more about what I know about Heavenly Father and how to pray. I was so amazed. So you never really do know who will listen till you try!

It's been so great serving with Sisters Bird and Hougaard. Everyone has been giving like 110% since day one and has been doing everything possible to get things done. Even though we all communicate so differently and have such different ideas, it all works out. I am so lucky! I went to church in Tseung Kwan O for the first time last Sunday. The building is huge! Like a mini Wan Chai building! Yih Ma said that she'd once taken Mom to go see it. I invited Yih Ma to come to church since I would be there, but she said she'd be too tired. Maybe next time! :)

The mission is going to change so much after December. It's starting to change a lot with sisters covering several areas because there are fewer now. 23 missionaries are going home with me and the mission won't get very many to replace them. So sad!

Right now we have 4 investigators preparing to be baptized . . . soon to be 5 tomorrow! Member referrals are SO GOOD! We've had to re-prioritize all of our investigators to see who we actually have time to meet with. We've had to lay down the law with some to get them to progress because now, we really don't have any time to help those who aren't progressing a lot! General Conference is this weekend, and I'm so excited to go with our investigators and see what the prophet has to say!

Last Saturday, we had dinner with Mom's family, Grandma, and Dad's older brother. I'm not sure if I've met Dad's second brother before but it was fun to get to see them all! Dad doesn't really look like his brother, but their smiles are alike! I asked Dad's brother what Dad was like when Dad was young, but all he said was that Dad was smaller.

Like last time, Mom's family spoiled us all with so many treats to take home! Thank you thank you! They even gave us mooncake, and Grandma gave me a mooncake, too! Uncle Tim bought Haagen Daaz ice-cream mooncakes! They were so delicious and just a couple days before, our companionship was discussing how we should make it a goal to try some. :)

Everyone is always so nice and amazing, and my companions loved all the relatives! Yih Ma, Yih Jeung, and Bonnie walked us back to our apartment in Kwun Tong . . . I think Yih Ma was worried it wasn't a good place or something! I am so excited cause we get to go back this Sunday evening to have dinner (Yih Jeung said that Dad was so happy eating at his house last time!) and to sing them hymns. :)

That's all for now! And I'm glad you've all FINALLY received all the stuff I've mailed!

I love you all!

Love,
Sister Chu :)

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Kwun Tong 9-25-09 to 10-1-09

Jung Chau Jit Faailohk! (Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! or something like that!)

And Happy Birthday Mom! (Have you received my letter yet?!)

Today is perfect weather! It's been raining a lot for the past couple of days so I'm glad it's not raining on China's birthday! On the way to buy groceries at Wellcome, we saw the neighborhood kung fu people do the lion dance! There were two of them, one sparkly black and one sparkly yellow. I always keep thinking they're dragons, but I guess they are really lions.

Our lovely threesome is working out perfectly now! Somehow, everyone's calmed down. We just are so busy now that we don't even have time to think about having a conflict! I think it just took a couple days for everyone to get used to having three people and two areas. Every day is scheduled full of people. Good-bye to hours and hours of finding outside! Now, we barely have enough time to schedule all of our investigators, even when we go on splits with members. Heavenly Father has blessed us so much!

Kwun Tong is just having lots of miracles. When there's lots of miracles, that must mean that we're doing something right! We've been having lots of referrals, investigators coming back and keeping commitments, and we're all giving like 110% to get things in order and progressing!

We had a multi-zone conference last Saturday. We were combined with one other zone, and it was so much better this time than when we just met with our own zone in place of mission conference. President Chan is just whipping this mission into shape! He tells us all the facts and what needs to improve. For example, when he reported to us that in the first week of Sept., the mission had 12 baptisms, not including the special visitors from China. The second week had 11. Then the third week had 1. He wasn't too happy about the 1! Even though that week was moves week, we know we can do much better than that.

The conference was focused on having the faith to do the things the Lord wants us to do. Now that we have the 13 investigator promise to be able to baptize at least 1 out of 13 new investigators and the 100% Home Teaching Plan, we have to carry all this out! President Chan kept asking us, "Do you have faith to find?" and "Do you have faith that these plans will work?" These are very interesting questions.

I am always amazed at President Chan's English. He always speaks English during meetings. We know it's not easy for him to speak English, and he speaks it well in a very simple and direct manner. I just know that he's able to do that because of the Spirit!

Out of time again!

I love you all!

Sister Chu :)

P.S. We got stuck in the elevator last Monday! It was fun! :)

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