HONG KONG HERE I COME :)

Léihdeih hóu!
I leave for HONG KONG on MONDAY! I can't believe it's actually happening! The MTC went by SO fast and it's always felt like I'll never leave, and it's only just barely starting to sink in that we're actually going out into the real world. CRAZY
We don't have much time this week, so here's a brief list of interesting/exciting things that have been going on:
1. The MTC started doing their open house tours this week! They moved our class temporarily to the second floor so that the tour groups would walk past our class and hear some Cantonese (as well as a few other languages that they moved into the hallway), which was an interesting experience. We all missed our normal classroom a lot, but it was kind of fun to get to see the tour groups coming through and also maybe show off a little Cantonese along the way. :)
2. This week I learned the difference between saying "I had" and saying "I'm pregnant." The hard way. Glad I figured that one out before I'm in the real world, oops. :)
3. This week I experienced déjà vu in Chinese, which was pretty sweet. I'm not totally sure what that means but I sure hope that it means that I'm almost fluent. ;) (Haha, riiiight)
4. We had our last classes today! I'm SO EXCITED to go out into the field but I have to admit that I'm a little sad to leave the MTC. I've seriously have been so blessed with THE BEST teachers and THE BEST district, and saying goodbye to all of our teachers was really hard. Thankfully our whole district flies to Hong Kong together or I'd be a total mess. I've learned and grown SO MUCH in the MTC and I'm just so so so grateful for my experience here. You guys, the church is so true! I'm constantly in awe of this gospel and how perfect it is. It's really something that's for every single person on this planet and I'm so excited to share it with the people of Hong Kong!
Love you all, thanks for all you do! Gayàuh!
Gwok Jímuih (Sister Wasden) :)
郭姊妹

UPDATE: I'M GOING TO HONG KONG

Léihdeih hóu!!
This week has been so good! We only have ONE MORE WEEK in the MTC so things have been picking up!
This past week we finally got our Chinese tags! They came a couple of weeks late, and we'll get totally different tags once we're actually in the field, and we can also only wear these ones when we're in the classroom, but we were all really excited nonetheless. :)
Also this week we finally got our FLIGHT PLANS! One week from today I will be on an airplane heading to CHINA! We were all so nervous to see if our visas went through or not that it basically felt like mission calls part 2, but it all turned out well. Our whole district (plus two other missionaries that are in the fast track district) will all be flying together. I've come to love my district SO MUCH and I'm so glad that we won't have to say goodbye because we're all going to the same place together. :)
This week Douh Hingdaih taught us a bunch of Chinese idioms, and long story short, I LOVE CHINESE. Seriously guys, Chinese is GREAT. The idiom we really focused on was "po fú chàhm jàu," which means "break pots sink ships" and it comes from a story about a battle where they broke all the enemies' pots and sunk all their ships so that way they couldn't eat or escape, so their only options were to win or die. Douh Hingdaih used that as an analogy for our missions (and our lives) and talked about how we need to break all of our own pots and our own ships so that we can go ALL IN with no excuses and no regrets. Super super cool. :)
Yesterday our district decided to watch "Character of Christ" by Elder Bednar again for our Sunday film (I had to miss like half of it the first time, so we wanted to be sure to watch all of it again) and HOLY COW IT'S JUST SO GOOD. He talks mostly about how Christ has always turned outward to serve others instead of turning inward to worry about Himself, and if we want to be Christlike we should focus on doing the exact same thing, and it was a super cool thing to hear. Really excited to start applying what I learned, especially out in the field!
Ummm I think that's about it for this week! In other news, I'm starting to think in Chinglish and sometimes when I say things I can't tell if I'm speaking Chinese or English (or sometimes even Spanish? Don't know what's up with that), so that's pretty cool. :)
I've been so blessed here and I'm so grateful to be learning so much! Life is so good!
Love you all! Thanks for all you do! Have such a good week and remember to turn outward. :)
Ngóh ngoi léihdeih! Gàyàuh!
Gwok Jímuih (Sister Wasden) :)

The Weekly :)

Léihdeih hóu!
This has been a crazy week! I have a theory that time flows differently in the MTC, so I'm not actually totally sure what things happened when this week. Or if they even happened this week at all? ANYWAYS, memory problems aside, here's a list of exciting things that are going on for us here in the MTC: :)
1. The 4th of July shower sing-along was a raging success! Not going to lie, we used to kind of joke around about all the people singing in the shower, but then when Lòuh Jímuih and I actually tried it it ended up being way fun and lowkey changed my life. Wish we'd discovered it 7 weeks sooner. ;)
2. Also on the 4th, we all were super cute and wore patriotic colors and Hah Jímuih definitely looked the most patriotic of us all and she doesn't even celebrate the 4th of July, so that was cool (shoutout to Hah Jímuih for not being American). :) (Also the next day we all accidentally wore matching striped shirts. Sorry, those are legitimately the only good pictures I have from this week.)
3. We leave the MTC TWO WEEKS from today! We should be getting our flight plans this Friday and we're all PSYCHED. It still definitely doesn't feel like we'll be really leaving (and probably won't until we're at the airport) but it's for sure an exciting step! We all still have a lot to learn but we're definitely getting really excited to go!
4. Hosting this week was CRAZY but so much fun! It was super super busy (we got 700+ new missionaries this week) and super super hot (about 104 degrees), but then it got super super windy and overcast towards the end which was honestly such a blessing because it cooled down a ton. I got to host one international missionary (from Germany) and four other sisters and it was seriously the best. :)
5. Douh Hingdaih did a fun activity with us in class where we got into groups and acted out Book of Mormon stories, and my group did Alma the Younger's conversion story. I was the angel and Alma Sr., and not to brag or anything, but I'm expecting my Grammy in the mail any day now. ;) Really though, it was so fun to watch everyone's skits and I honestly just love my district so much!
6. My word of the week is "gleichzeitig." It's not even Cantonese, it's German. Shoutout again to Hah Jímuih for not being American. ;)
7. Our devo last night was SO GOOD! My favorite quote was this: "It's not enough to be willing to do ANYTHING to have a successful mission; you have to be willing to do EVERYTHING." Super cool. :) He also talked a lot about becoming a "go-to missionary" and how to be the best we can be and I just loved it so much.
I think that's about it? Life is oh so good here and I'm learning so much! This really is the Lord's work and it's been so amazing to see everyone growing and progressing! I can't wait to get out into the field and share this awesome gospel with everyone!
Thank you everyone all for all you do! Love you all so much! Gayàuh!
Gwok Jímuih (Sister Wasden)

The Weekly! Apostles and Fireworks and Craziness

Léihdeih hóu!
It has been a wild week here in the MTC, so get ready for a chaotic summary!
On Monday and Tuesday our district got to work and do some training with President and Sister Davies, who will be over a mission in the Philippines! President and Sister Davies were SO COOL. They were so awesome to work with and it was so weird teaching in English, but it was a really cool experience.
Our Tuesday night devotional was CRAZY. Since the Quorum of the 12 was here for the mission president training conference, we were pretty sure it was going to be a really good devotional and BOY WERE WE RIGHT. Elder Bednar was our speaker and no big deal, only NINE OTHER APOSTLES were also there on the stand! It was SO COOL and the Spirit was SO STRONG and I just have such a testimony that the leaders of the church are truly led by God. It was amazing. Elder Bednar talked to us about treasuring up the words of Christ and having them in our hearts. He also talked about Joseph Smith and the choir (which I'm in :)) sang Praise to the Man because it was the 173rd anniversary of Joseph Smith's martyrdom and it was so so so good. Really powerful.
Between that and a few other cool experiences, my testimony of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon have really grown a lot this week. Sometimes when we have some extra time in class, Douh Hingdaih does this activity with us where we all write down a question or two in our notebooks, and then we all read the same chapter out of the Book of Mormon together as a class, and regardless of how different all of our questions are, we all always find an answer. Every single time. This book is so true and it has SO MUCH power! Make sure you're reading it every day because it changes lives!
On Saturday the MTC Presidency gave all of the missionaries special permission to stay up late and watch the fireworks from the Stadium of Fire event and it was so fun! At first I wasn't that excited because I really really wanted to go to bed as soon as possible, but it was actually tons of fun and I really really loved watching the fireworks. :) We also had a devotional about religious freedom beforehand and we're seriously so blessed to live in a country where we can worship however we want. Way cool. :)
Other news:
1. We should be hosting again this week and I'm super excited! It was a lot of fun last time and I'm really excited to help out again. :)
2. I'm officially developing a watch tan. I'm not sure how I feel about that yet.
3. We start Skype TRCs (lessons with members) TONIGHT! We'll be Skyping people in HONG KONG and I'm really nervous but also SO EXCITED!
4. We get new missionaries this week! We thought we would be getting new Cantos but we just found out yesterday that they'll be all Mandos, which is kind of sad but still really exciting! The older district (Mandos) leaves today and we'll miss them so much!
5. New hobby: Hah Jímuih and I have started eating popcorn with chopsticks. WAY more fun and a lot less messy (sort of).
6. I LOVE CHINESE (in case you couldn't figure that out already ;)) This week I learned that the word for "firework" breaks down into "smoke flower" (seriously, how cool is that?) and the word for "bench" is "long chair." So literal. So good. ALSO THIS IS SERIOUSLY MY FAVORITE THING: We learned this week that a nice polite way to start a conversation with someone is to ask "Have you eaten yet?" (which literally translates to "Have you eaten rice yet?") and if they say yes, you proceed with the conversation, and if they say no, you say "Hurry, go eat!" and that's that. How sweet is that?! Chinese is GREAT. :)
Anyways, I think that's about all for this week! Have a happy and safe 4th of July tomorrow! Lóuh Jímuih and I are planning on leading an America-themed sing-along in the showers tomorrow night to celebrate. ;)
Thanks for all you do! Ngóh ngoi léihdeih! Gayàuh!
Gwok Jímuih (Sister Wasden) :)