I LOVE HK

Leihdeih hou!
This week has been so good!
Here's some exciting things that happened:
1. Last p-day Sister Christensen and I played badminton with a member and it was seriously SO. MUCH. FUN. Like, I got to show off my awful hand-eye coordination at first, but then we got the hang of it and now we're pretty much professionals. You're looking at your next Olympic badminton team. ;)
2. We also ate at a member's house this week! It was my first time eating with a member and it actually went super well and I had so much fun! Also I think this week we're being treated to Pizza Hut and I. Am. PSYCHED.
3. We had zone conference this week and we were combined with Kowloon West so I got to see a bunch of MTC friends! Love my zone so much. :)
4. This week we were on the MTR heading home and some random guy took a special interest in Sister Christensen and followed us off the train. He would have potentially followed us home except we managed to lose him in the mall. Super exciting, hahaha.
5. We got move calls last night! I'm only a third into my training, so neither Sister Christensen or I are going anywhere, as expected. Rumor has it that in November though, 50% of the mission will be training, so in a couple of transfers move calls should be a lot more exciting. :)
6. This week it got so hot that when it was time to get ready for bed I just laid on my bed and waited to melt and Sister Christensen grabbed an ice cube and just sat there rubbing it on her face. We're ready for some cooler weather for sure.

FUN THINGS ABOUT HK:
1. Minions are still definitely a thing here.
2. Pokemon Go is also still definitely a thing here. Mostly only on weekends though. If you see a huge group of people all staring at their phones, you know what's up.
3. There's this Japanese cereal here that everyone is OBSESSED with, and honestly I can see why. It might have changed my life. It changed my breakfasts for sure. I'm hoping that I can find it in America.
4. RAMEN. RAMEN IS SO ADVANCED HERE. They have SO MANY FLAVORS and a WHOLE AISLE in the grocery store is dedicated to it and it makes my college kid heart so happy.
5. Also lizards get into our apartment all the time. This past week Sister Christensen decided that it was my job to perform a catch-and-release and she armed me with a chopstick and a bowl. I failed miserably but he went outside of his own free will later, so it's all good.
6. KIDS HERE ARE SERIOUSLY SO CUTE. I've made it my personal goal to win the love of every child in the TaiWai area and so far I think I'm doing pretty good. All the little babies love to smile back at me and last week when we were visiting a member, I made good friends with her 2-year-old. She was SO CUTE and was obsessed with my freckles, which was so funny.
7. Something that I love about Chinese culture is that you always give your guests a gift, so we always leave appointments with some type of new food to try, which is so cool. Also, everyone brings SO MUCH FOOD to church, and then they give a TON of it to the missionaries, so we always leave church ABSOLUTELY LOADED with candy and snacks, and it's kind of the best. :)

So in love with missionary life! Hong Kong is so great and I love everyone here so much! Life is oh so good. :)
Love you all! Gayauh!
Gwok Jimuih (Sister Wasden)​​
郭姊妹

Week 2 in HK :)

Leihdeih hou!
It's been a good week! I'm feeling a little more adjusted this week, and I'm coming to really truly love it here. Missions are great. :)
We had the opportunity to teach so many cool people this week and I feel so much love for them all! One of the people we taught is a sweet lady named May. May doesn't speak Chinese, so we actually taught her lesson in English, which was so weird because I'm so used to teaching only in Cantonese, but it was a really special experience (and it was admittedly also nice to be able to contribute to the lesson more than usual, haha). I love each of our investigators so much and I love seeing their lives change! Missions are THE BEST.
We also had lots of fun exchanges this week! Sister Christensen (my tuhngbuhn) and Sister Lee (who we live with) are the Sister Training Leaders for our zone, so when they have meetings, Sister Mak (Sister Lee's tuhngbuhn) and I get to work together! Two baby missionaries in big old Hong Kong, no big deal. ;) It actually went really well each time. The first time, our trainers had us go street finding (which we don't typically do very much because it isn't very effective here in Hong Kong, but there wasn't much else we could do without getting hopelessly lost), and I learned a few things: 1. Finding is actually super fun, 2. Take a native with you. They're an actual blessing, and 3. If you go finding by the river, WEAR BUG SPRAY or you will suffer. So many bug bites. Super fun though. :)
I also went on exchanges with Sister Lee this week, and we taught a few cool lessons, attended and helped with English class, and treated ourselves to McDonald's (side note: McDonald's here is WAY cooler than in America, what's up with that?). Sister Lee is SO SWEET and I loved it all. :)
Something else I've really noticed this week is how much people listen with their eyes. I of course knew that that was a thing already--that's why when we perform in orchestra concerts we wear concert dress (all black), because if we look more unified then we sound more unified. One of the funny ways this has been made more apparent to me here in Hong Kong is when I talk to people on the train or the street. They'll look at me, and since I'm [obviously very] white, some people will be just CONVINCED that I'm speaking English, even if I'm speaking perfect Cantonese (which obviously I'm not, but my trainer pretty much is), and they'll try to explain to me that they don't speak English. Even though I'm speaking Chinese. So funny. :) That got me thinking though. How often do we hear with our eyes and let preconceived notions based off of what we see affect how we interpret what we hear? I know I'm guilty of it sometimes, and I want to personally be better at hearling with my ears (and even better, with my heart) instead of with my eyes. Does that make sense? Obviously Christ is the perfect example of this, so I think I'll spend some time studying that this week and see what I can learn. :)
Other exciting things from this week:
1. The language is (suprisingly) getting better already! The Gift of Tongues is SO REAL. I still can't understand a lot of what the natives are saying to me, but I'm starting to be able to pick up on a lot more words than before. Making progress. :)
2. We're (probably) getting NEW TAGS (again)! I feel like every other email I send involves us getting new tags, hahaha. We're all excited every single time though. The church stopped making our half Chinese half English tags about a year ago, so the mission started making their own tags here in Hong Kong (which is why they don't have the official church logo) because we NEED both languages on there, and those are the tags we got. However, we found out this week that the church will start producing the official ones for us again, so we'll have OFFICIAL tags with the OFFICIAL logo and we're STOKED.
3. This week Mak Jímuih tried to kill me with some spicy Korean death ramer. If Mak Jímuih ever innocently offers you some ramen, just say no. It hurts. Or say yes, because it actually tasted pretty good through the pain. Your choice. ;)
Hong Kong is amazing, the people are so nice, the language is coming, and life is so good!
Love you all so much! Gayauh!
Gwok Jímuih (Sister Wasden)
郭姊妹

Pictures:
1. Us with Lau Jímuih, one of our cute investigators, and her mother-in-law and adorable baby (I've definitely won the baby's love, thank you very much).

2. The view from my study room window featuring pretty clouds.

3. One of the many views from the gorgeous park that we exercise in. :)

4. Mak Jímuih and I are pros at accidentally matching.

Leihdeih hou!!!
It's been a crazy week, but Hong Kong is SO GREAT! Get ready for the most chaotic summary of your lives:
The plane ride to Hong Kong was long, but survivable. I (and my luggage) made it in one piece, and that's what counts. :) President and Sister Lam met us at the airport, and they. are. the. BEST. I seriously love them so much! Our whole district stayed in the mission home for a couple of days, and then on Thursday we got to meet our new companions! It was hard saying goodbye to my MTC district, but it was so exciting meeting our new comps! My trainer is Sister Christensen from Arizona and I adore her! She's been out for a year, so her Cantonese is super great, and she's super great, and she's been so patient with me and I am so grateful for her. :) We are over the Tai Wai Area in the Lion Rock Zone, although we actually live in ShaTin with the ShaTin sisters (one of whom is Sister Mak from my MTC district! So fun). We walk through a mall to get to our apartment, which is kind of cool. Our apartments are also thankfully cockroach free (Sister Lam is very proud of that), and I am oh so grateful. :)
Meeting the members and our investigators has been so much fun! They are all SO SWEET and I love all of them so much already! They're also very patient with my elementary Cantonese, and I'm grateful for that too. :)
Oh! Also! We got our new tags and I love them so much! It's cool to actually be able to read Christ's name on my tag for once, since I can't actually read characters, haha.
Other exciting things about Hong Kong:
1. They drink warm water here.
2. Pedestrians don't have the right-of-way. This makes being a pedestrian very exciting.
3. We teach an English class once a week and I love it so much!
4. It's all SO GREEN and I am OBSESSED. I love it here SO MUCH!
It's SO HOT, it's SO HUMID, but I am OH SO HAPPY!
Life is good and this gospel is so true! Make sure you enjoy a nice cold glass of water for me, I sure miss those.
Love you all! Gayauh!
Gwok Jimuih (Sister Wasden) :)

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) :)