CRAZY WEEK

Leihdeih hou!
It's been a BIG WEEK full of so many exciting things! Here we go:
Last p-day we went to an island called Cheung Chau! Turns out Cheung Chau is one of my favorite places in the entire world, and definitely the most picturesque place I've ever been to. So many adorable shops and cute alleyways and fun beaches and the harbor was so pretty and I just LOVED IT. I'll probably be going back 50 more times, haha.
On Tuesday for district language study Elder Rodriguez made a Canto pingyam Scrabble board, and it was basically the greatest thing. Just thought you all should know that. :)
Also on Tuesday, I went on exchanges with Sister Mak! Since both of our trainers are STLs, they have to do 24-hour exchanges with every sister in our zone, so Sister Mak and I just get thrown together so that way neither of us has to move around (thank goodness she's already fluent since she's an ABC). I LOVE exchanges with Sister Mak because it's always so obvious how much God helps out his baby missionaries--every time Sister Mak and I are together we always experience so many miracles. This time we managed to track down a less-active and teach him a cool lesson through his doorway. :)
The next couple of days were a little tough missionary work-wise, but it's okay because (as always) miracles happened again. :) On Wednesday, we had to drop one of our MDJ (I have no doubts that he'll eventually come around though), and then on Thursday one of our MDJ (who last time was ready for a baptismal date) backtracked and said that she needs more time, so Sister Christensen and I were pretty bummed out because we just love both of these people SO MUCH and we just want them to be SO HAPPY. Anyways, so we were pretty sad about all of that, and we've been praying really hard to find new investigators (between baptisms and other things our MDJ pool is shrinking) that we can teach, and this week we met this other guy who wanted to hear all of the lessons all at once, and then he said that he wanted to be baptized as soon as possible--WHAT. At first I was a little nervous about it all (I was worried that he'd be so golden and then just disappear), but he came to church and talked to the bishop and is keeping commitments and I'm really excited to see what happens! A miracle for sure. I LOVE OUR INVESTIGATORS. :)
On Saturday we had a ward activity where we learned how to make mooncakes (which apparently isn't super common knowledge, so that's sweet). It was SO FUN! I definitely don't love how traditional mooncakes taste (I'll take all the untraditional ones though, so good), but the sure are cool to make. :)
On Saturday night I had Sister Mak cut me hair in our apartment, because are you really a missionary until you've had a haircut in your apartment? I think not. ;) (And because I promised them I would, here it is: hair cutting creds to Sister Mak, hair length decision creds to Sister Christensen.)
Yesterday was the best day of my mission so far--MR. GWOK GOT BAPTIZED! I am SO HAPPY for him! Also it was ward conference, so obviously the ward had a FEAST afterwards, and it was so fun to mingle with everyone and see him fit right into the ward. I LOVE TAIWAI.
Life is so good! God is so real and miracles still happen. Don't you ever doubt that. :)
Love you all! Gayauh!!
Gwok Jimuih (Sister Wasden)
郭姊妹

The Weekly :)

Leihdeih hou!
This week has been so busy and gone by so fast (that's definitely been a common theme lately) that I'm not actually totally sure what even happened, but here's some things, haha.
We had zone conference this week, and I LOVE zone conferences! We had a lot of trainings about having faith in Christ and His atonement as well as how we can help our MDJ (investigators) develop that faith, which is so so important. Faith in and a love for Christ is the single greatest motivation for making and keeping commitments and becoming personally converted. Sister Christensen and I have actually been taking about that a lot lately. Faith in Christ HAS to be a MDJ's foundation (not faith in anything else, although that can build on their foundation), and often lately when we have a MDJ who is having trouble keeping commitments, we usually slow down and do a lesson just on Christ and what He means to us personally, and it helps them so much. So cool. :)
This Saturday we had a stake primary talent show. Sister Christensen played the piano for our cute primary kids (also we regularly visit every single one of the kids in the picture, so that's cool), and it was all so cute! We couldn't stay for very long though because we had to get to a baptismal interview for Mr. Gwok. He passed and he will be getting baptized this coming Sunday! I'm so excited for him!
Other news: Sister Christensen and I found a massive rat running around our apartment building stairwell yesterday. Hopefully no updates to come on that one. (Also yesterday we found a spider in the ShaTin sisters' study room. The rat didn't freak me out that bad, the occasional lizard is no big deal, and our 3-week long tiny bug infestation in our kitchen wasn't even that awful, but if we start regularly getting spiders I might die.)
Anyways, I think that's about all for this week! Love you all so much! Keep the faith! Gayauh!
Gwok Jimuih (Sister Wasden)
郭姊妹

Pics:
Our cute primary kids :)
Study room selfies
Sister Christensen projecting Yoda onto my face

The Weekly :)

Leihdeih hou!
So turns out the weeks are FLYING BY and it's starting to panic me a little. I can't believe I've already been in HK for a month and a half! It's been kind of a crazy week (aka buckle up, everyone), here's some of the highlights!
1. Last p-day, we went to Mong Kok (a huge shopping area) and for lunch, we got AUTHENTIC NEW YORK PIZZA. Also it was the BIGGEST SLICE OF PIZZA I'VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE AND IT WAS SOOOO GOOD.
2. This week Mak JM and I had to go on splits for a WHOLE DAY since our trainers (who are STLs) had their mission leadership conference. It was completely terrifying and we were both SO NERVOUS (we had 3 appointments and were sure we were going to get lost and we didn't think we knew how to be functional missionaries on our own), but it actually ended up going really well and our appointments were good and it was a really good day!
3. OH! This week I got kicked out of a building for the first time! The security guard saw that our name tags said "Jesus Christ" and she wasn't having ANY of that, so she quickly escorted us out. (They're afraid that we'll go door-knocking, which is very much NOT ALLOWED here.) Thankfully, we were visiting a member who we had scheduled, so we just called her and she came downstairs to pick us up. Also, it's definintely a blessing that I was a security guard for that one summer, because sometimes it's tempting to get frustrated when the guards are mean to us, but since I was once a security guard and my job was pretty much the exact same as theirs is (let the residents through, make the visitors fill out a form), I have a lot more understanding towards them, and even if they're being a little meaner than they necessarily have to be, they're still just doing their job. Getting kicked out was still a fun experience though, I look forward to the next time. :)
4. It was kind of a brutal week as far as teaching goes. Sister Christensen and I were only able to schedule ONE of our investigators this week (although not for a lack of effort--we called the rest of them almost to the point of being stalkers), and even that lesson didn't go as well as we would have liked. To make up for that, we went to visit I think 7 or 8 less-actives instead, and not a single one of them was home (we were visiting ones who didn't have accurate phone numbers on our records so we couldn't schedule them, so no big deal). Yesterday, we FINALLY had a less-active that we scheduled, and we were SO looking forward to being able to meet with a real person, and then she wasn't home either! However, despite all this, we actually had some cool miracles. On the first day of less-active finding, our night was about over and we were about to head home, but we weren't sure if we should try to visit one more person, or if we should head home a little early so we could instead do calls and try to schedule people. Sister Christensen and I decided to pray about it, and I felt that we should visit one more person, and Sister Christensen felt that we should go home. So we prayed about it again. And then we prayed about it individually. We both still felt the same way, so we decided to walk in the general direction of the train station (which is also the direction that one of our less-actives lives in) and see how we felt when we REALLY had to make the decision. When we got there, I was just about to say that I now felt good about going home, when Sister Christensen turned to me and said that she felt good about visiting one more person. AHHH. Sister Christensen remarked that maybe the reason why we were getting different answers was so that the Spirit could stall us so that we could meet just the right person. We ended up taking the train home, and I talked to this guy who was nice but not very interested, and Sister Christensen talked to this lady with a sweet fold-up electric scooter, who was also nice but not very interested. Bummer. We headed home and did some calls and records and that was that. Yesterday, after our scheduled less-active wasn't home, we were taking the train home again, and LO AND BEHOLD, there was the same lady with the sweet fold-up electric scooter! We saw her TWICE and in a place like Hong Kong, that NEVER HAPPENS, so you'd better BELIEVE we went up and started talking to her. She remembered us! She's still not interested at all, but maybe if we keep running into her, eventually she'll change her mind. :) The other miracle was that we met this super sweet lady named Tencil, and she was SO interested and yesterday she actually texted us to see if SHE could schedule US! That NEVER happens, and I'm excited to be able to meet with her!
5. I got into a paper airplane competition with Jim, one of our recent converts (he's 8). I lost.
6. On Saturday, the church put on a HUGE music event for anyone in Hong Kong, and missionaries could go if we had an investigator going. I. LOVED. IT. There were piano solos, and violin ensembles (aka my whole life--they also played a few songs that I loved playing in high school and AHH, memories), and the coolest drum ensemble, and some sick Chinese instruments that I don't even know how to describe, and awesome singers, and Disney songs, and Phantom of the Opera songs, and Josh Groban songs, and (obviously) church songs, and SO MANY MISSIONARIES and SO MANY INVESTIGATORS (it was the most chaotic and happy reunion I've ever witnessed) and I just LOVED IT. It was amazing. :)

Aaaand here's some random fun facts!
1. I may have already talked about this, but honestly, I'm in awe. You know how in America elevators (PS, here, they're called "lifts" because of Britain, haha) have the door open and door close buttons that do absolutely NOTHING? Well here in Hong Kong, they actually WORK! It's amazing.
2. All the chapels here are so different from each other and so unique and they're all so pretty. :)
3. I got a real tasted of the legendary Chinese bluntness last week in church that I forgot to mention! Sister Christensen was in the bathroom, so I was just chilling in the hallway, and a sweet younger lady from the other ward (who I'd never met) came up to me and said "You seem to have insufficient sleep," and then she pointed to underneath her eyes (apparently I had some serious bags going on), hahaha. She told me about when she was a summer missionary (that's a cool program they do here. Young men and women if they'd like can be paired up with a missionary companionship and be full-time missonaries for two weeks in the summer so they can get a taste of missionary life) she didn't get much sleep either and that I should take a nap on p-day. She was super nice though and I definitely haven't stopped laughing about it.
4. Aaaand last but not least, I don't really have any good pictures from this week, so here's an artsy picture of some ramen I had the other day! It was so spicy that it gave me a stomachache. 8/10 would recommend. (My favorite ramen so far though is actually this Indonesian ramen that you dump FIVE different flavoring packets into, how sweet is that??)

Alright, I think that's all for the week! Love you all tons! Have a good week!

Gayauh!

Gwok Jimuih (Sister Wasden)
郭姊妹

The Weekly! :)

Leihdeih hou!
This week has been so crazy and it's gone by so fast that I just know I'm not going to be able to put together a comprehensible update, so here's some highlights!
1. We went to a mummy museum for p-day last week! It was super cool and super interesting, but boy am I glad that we have the truth about what happens after we die. The history was super awesome though. :)
2. We had a carbon monoxide scare or two in our apartment a few nights ago! The housing elders had to come over to shut our gas off and we slept with the windows open just to be sure (Sister Lee didn't appreciate my pros and cons list of sleeping warm (windows open, thus counteracting our precious AC hours) or dying cold (windows closed), hahaha.) We're all alive though, no worries there. :)
3. Sister Mak and I officially had our 100-day mark this past week! We obviously went out and celebrated in the most Chinese way we could... with KFC. No regrets there. :)
4. We had SO MANY cool lessons this week! Our investigators are all doing really well and we have a lot of potentials that we have high hopes for! It's been cool to see how as we've followed promptings, we've been lead to find a lot of really cool and open people who are ready for the gospel. This really is the Lord's work, and He's definitely leading it!
5. Funny story for the week: this week we visited the sweetest old couple. As is tradition, they wanted to give us food as we walked in, but since we actually surprise visited them (we weren't able to get a hold of them over phone), all they had was soda. They were super sweet and pulled out two cans and put straws into them and everything, and then as they passed them to us, it became very obvious that it was actually cans of beer, not soda, and they were SO embarrassed! I laughed SO HARD, hahaha. They gave us nice glasses of water instead after that.
6. We're in the middle of another typhoon! This one is only a level 3 though, and should pass by Hong Kong before it hits an 8, hallelujah.
Life is so good! This gospel is so true, and there's nowhere else I'd rather be than here in Hong Kong sharing what I love with the people I love. :) Thanks for all your love and support, you are all the best!
Gayauh!
Gwok Jimuih
郭姊妹

Pictures:
1. Sister Christensen and I in the science museum
2. Me with the big city
3. Part of TaiWai, which is NOT the big city. I know there's monkeys out there in those hills and I want to meet one so badly. Updates to come on that front.