"How Can I Be a Missionary Without My High Tones?" --Me

Leihdeih hou!
HELLO EVERYONE.
It's been a wild week.
This week I came down with this awful cold. It's been 8 days now and I'm still trying to kick it. It's been funny though--I nearly completely lost my voice for a couple of days there, but I TOTALLY lost my higher registers. This, in English, is no problem, but in Cantonese, a tonal language, it proved to be a bit of a (hilarious) challenge. ALL OF MY HIGH TONES WERE GONE. That means that I'd speak a sentence and only like every other word would come out, leaving me dying laughing (and dying coughing) and the person I was trying to communicate with confused (good thing on the Island I can get away with English). Lots and lots of laughs here.
We did Helping Hands service on the beach again! And our cute new friend Nida came! SO FUN.
I also went on exchanges in Chai Wan with Sister Mangubat (from the Philippines)! So fun and I love all the cute sisters in my zone. :)
We had interviews this past week too! President and Sister Phillips are ANGELS. That is all.
Also, I've been afraid to announce it for the past few weeks in fear of a heat relapse, but I'm going to say it now: AUTUMN IS HERE. We're having less and less rain and more and more cool weather (I even wore a CARDIGAN the other day) and We. Are. Living for it. Bless.
Anyways, time for pictures.
Love you all. God is good. Please go review conference, again and again and again. Remember that God loves us, so He'll never give us more trails than we can handle, but because He loves us, He'll also never give us less trials than we need.
Gayauh!
Sister Wasden
郭姊妹

Pics:
Beach service :)
Card games and cereal for dinner, anyone?
Games night with SO MANY FUN PEOPLE
Saying goodbye to the Chan family, who is moving out of our ward :( :( :(
Cute shirts given to us by an even cuter member :)

SO MANY GOOD THINGS

Leihdeih hou!
A list of good things that happened this week!
1. Got a special opportunity to meet with my uncle, who just happened to be in Hong Kong. This was actually super cool and I'm really grateful for the chance.
2. One of our cute investigators accepted a baptismal date! So happy for her!!
3. Okay so general conference though! SO. GOOD. Hey everyone, I LOVE THE PROPHET. All of our church leaders are so inspired and I felt like so many of their messages were just for me. I hope you felt the same. I'm also loving the direction the Lord is taking the church with home-centered worship. So good.
4. Went to the temple! I love the temple. Just what I needed.
5. Met some new really cool people! I also love new friends.
6. Saw some miracles, as usual. God is here and He's involved in His work (which is my exaltation and yours too), don't forget that.
Anyways, this week was actually kind of a hard week, but looking back I can only see the good. I love how that works. I think that's the beauty of the gospel, is that all things work together for your good, so even in retrospect all the hard things turn into good things in the end too.
Love you all. Have a good week.
Gayauh!
Sister Wasden
郭姊妹

Pics:
Temple temple temple
Fancy dinner with fancy people
Our Helping Hands squad from a couple weeks ago!
I love these ladies :)

[Still Need Better Subject Lines...]

Leihdeih hou!
This week was good! A brief summary:
We went golfing last week for p-day! I actually have never really been golfing before, so it was an adventure, but our sweet member was so patient with us. I made enough progress that I might show some promise in 15 years or so!
This week was full of lots of good things. Lots of good finding sessions, with lots of good new friends. The kind that leaves you best friends after 3 minutes of talking. I love those. We also had some delicious changs this week (meals with members), and best of all, we got to spend time with our cute members! They're the sweetest and feel like family. Our games night was also really good this week--over 7 non-members there! It's a nice casual way to get to know everyone better and let them see the church, without all the formality. We love it.
This week we also got the rare opportunity to do some service! We don't get to do service very much in Hong Kong since they already pay people to do everything, so when we get a chance we take it! This was a stake service project (complete with Helping Hands uniforms and everything) at Deep Water Bay! The typhoon had blown trash all over and had also pushed a bunch of the sand into dunes by the road, so we showed up Saturday morning to pick up trash and move sand. It was hot, it was tiring, and I am still sore, but it was so fun!
This week I've learned a lot about including the Lord in our plans. It's such a simple thing, but it's so important. Our best finding comes out when we say a prayer on the street right before we start and ask the Lord to guide us. Who would have thought He'd be so willing to help out? ;)
Life is good folks. I heard conference was crazy. Excited to watch next week!
Love you all!
Gayauh!
Sister Wasden
郭姊妹

Pics:
1. [help I don't know what I'm doing] Golfing!
2. Hanging out at the driving range
3. I love the members here
4. [help it's so bright] Helping Hands :)

Still Alive

Leihdeih hou!
This week was interesting. I'd heard that older missionaries' bodies fall apart at the end of their missions, and I didn't fully believe it, but oh man is it true. I feel like Sister Gaillard and I are always having some kind of medical problem (nothing major, promise) on alternating days, and while it's not enough to kill us or keep us down for TOO long, it's enough to be a little exasperating, hahaha.
This all came to a climax on Wednesday, when Sister Gaillard passed out on the subway. In the busiest station in all of Hong Kong. Typically I would have just dragged/carried/probably taxied her home, but since it was SO PUBLIC chaos ensued. The MTR staff called the medical personnel, as is policy, and pretty soon (for privacy) they had her up on a stretcher and into an ambulance. (Side note: this was my first time in an ambulance. I rather enjoyed myself. Ambulances are cool.) Sister Gaillard was already doing better by now, but they recommended going to the ER just to check up on her, and since ambulances are free, we figured we might as well, so off we went. (Because of the heath-care system here, the ER isn't as scary as it sounds, promise. Pretty much if you have a flu or any sort of slight ailment you take yourself away to the ER.) Basically, Sister Gaillard is fine, we had a good time chilling in the hospital, and we had an even better time hanging out with President and Sister Phillips (who came to be with us) until they released her. And we felt rebellious and cool getting home past midnight. The shining star of this whole experience is a sweet member who I'd never met before (she's from a different stake) named Sister Wong. She was coming back from work (going home to her fam) and happened to be walking by RIGHT as Sister Gaillard fell to the floor, and then she stayed with us and dealt with all the medical papers and such until 10:30 pm (three hours later), when President and Sister Phillips came. AND she speaks perfect English. It's like God knew that we would be needing a mother figure and sent this sweet angel right as we needed her. I'll never be able to express enough of how grateful I am for her. God is good. And Sister Gaillard is alive, don't worry.
We met a lot of really cool people on the subways and buses this week, so that's been really fun! Hong Kong is full of super awesome people and I'm sad that I can't get to know every single one of them.
Anyways, life is good. God is so aware of every single one of us and He knows exactly what we need. Trust that and trust Him.
Love you all! Have a good week :)
Gayauh!
Sister Wasden
郭姊妹

Pics:
1. Escaping the hospital, featuring a lot of laughs
2. In case you didn't know, Hong Kong means "Fragrant Harbor." There are indeed a lot of harbors. (No comment on the fragrance.)
3. Games night party with these cuties
4. Boat selfies
5. Ukelele--fave pasttime
6. Combined ward party :)

Hidden Blessings

Leihdeih hou!
This week was...good.
I think this week will best make sense backwards (it's been one of those weeks, hahaha). So on Saturday, we had a day that I've pretty much been dreading since it happened last year: flu shots. We got a nice text about it in the beginning of the week, and on Saturday the whole mission had to mosey on over to the mission home for our vaccines. I immediately felt cold tendrils of fear grip my heart and experienced a rather unpleasant flashback to flu shots last year, when I cried nearly uncontrollably in front of not only my whole zone, but most of two other zones as well (a panic response, I wasn't actually that freaked out, promise). As a young trainee, this was not the best first impression to make on half the mission. So anyways, the text comes in, and I'm not excited to see how I can outdo myself this year. BUT God heard my prayers, and He decided to bless me in an unexpected way... with the actual flu itself.
Admittedly, I grumbled about the flu a little bit when I first got it. I'd woken up with it on Tuesday, but after being stuck inside all of Sunday and Monday (why couldn't I have gotten it then, when we were stuck inside anyways?), I wasn't about to let ourselves be cooped up again, so we proceeded to go out and do all of our needed meetings and things. Twelve hours of freedom after the typhoon misery, folks. Only twelve hours. On Wednesday the fever hit me hard and I had to stay home all day. (Lesson learned from staying inside so much: I would not do well under house arrest.) I still wasn't doing better by Thursday, but the work of the Lord must go on, so we pressed forward. The fevers and other misery can't keep this companionship down. However, on Saturday, when I told the lady with the needles that I had the flu at that very moment and she said it wasn't "recommended" that I get the flu shot, I said a prayer of gratitude and have not uttered one complaint since.
Other lesson learned: sometimes we have awful trials in our lives and we're not sure why God would allow them to happen to us, but often, if we look back, we'll see that those trials were really just hidden blessings all along. And I think if we try to see them as blessings while we're in the midst of those trials, we'll be all the happier for it. I'll be working on applying that to my other trails too. Let me know how it goes for you.
In other news, feel free to pray for the rest of the misson's arms. From what I heard, the flu shots hurt. ;)
Seriously though, life is good and we're all doing well. The Lord's work is wonderful and I'm so happy to be here!
Love you all! Gayauh!
Sister Wasden :)
郭姊妹

Pics:
Just riding the boat to get to the other spots of our area :)
My favorite meal these last few days

Typhoon Mangkhut came and went but we're still alive and kicking (and preaching)

Leihdeih hou!
First of all, sorry this email is late! Typhoon Mangkhut (the biggest to hit Hong Kong since they started keeping record) swept through Hong Kong on Sunday (this made Saturday, if you're curious, one of the hottest days of my life). Hong Kong's infrastructure is really really good, so we were all very safe up in our apartments, no worries there! We mostly just saw a lot of wind and rain from where we were. Even though we were stuck in our apartments, the missionary work must go on, so Sister Gaillard and I split up our time between doing weekly planning and calling every person that has ever given the Pok Fu Lam sisters their number in the past twenty years. Real exciting stuff.
Monday rolled around, and although the typhoon was gone, there was some flooding and a lot of fallen branches and broken windows, so the missionaries were asked to stay home again to allow the city to pull itself back together. Good thing I had recently bought myself a deck of Bruce Lee playing cards, so I passed most of the day playing more games of Solitaire than I can even count. Sister Perez and I also tried to teach our foreign companions the very American game of BS, and that was an experience I'd definitely recommend to anyone. But alas, it was not to last. After almost 50 hours straight cooped up in our tiny apartments, the China Hong Kong missionaries were allowed to exit their little nests and see if there was any service we could do around the city. Sister Caunca, Sister Perez, Sister Gaillard, and I decided to grab our old broom from our house and see if we could sweep up some leaves and trash off the streets. We only thought to grab three garbage bags, and that ended up only lasting us about one and a half street corners, but I'd like to think we made a difference. That street corner looks great.
This week we also had Mission Tour! Elders Homer and Muers from the Asia Area Presidency came to speak to our mission, along with their wives. It. Was. So. Good. I learned so so so much and I just have such a testimony of God calling the right people to be our church leaders. Elder Homer actually served in Hong Kong as a young missionary, so he had some good experiences and bits of Chinese to share with us. They mainly focused on how the Lord is calling us to a higher level of missionary work. Right now, our mission averages about 0.7 new people we are teaching per companionship per week, and if we want to "Teach Repentance and Baptize Converts" every single month (something we all desperately want), we're going to have to bump that up to about 5 new people per companionship per week. We spent all day receiving amazing trainings about how to make that happen and to say the least, we're all excited to go to work and start! (After today because today will still be all service and clean-up. We'll likely proselyte tomorrow haha.) Something I really loved from Elder Muers was the idea of setting a really big ambitious goal and then asking ourselves, "What would it take to accomplish it?" And then, simple as that, you just do that thing. Amazing.
We also had MLC the day after Mission Tour (how much spirituality can one person take in a week? Turns out a lot, actually), where we again had Elder Muers, Elder Homer, and their wives with us, and we spent most of the time reviewing what was learned in Mission Tour and planning how to review that and apply it with our zones. Good stuff.
Life is good, and not being stuck in a typhoon is even better. Thanks for all the love and prayers, everyone. Grateful.
Gayauh!
Sister Wasden
郭姊妹

Pics:
A mini MTC reunion (only missing a few people!) at MLC
The pier in the morning time is artsy
WE LOVE ELDER AND SISTER ROSKELLEY (if you're reading this, I love and miss you both)
Went up to the roof again this week (pre-typhoon, of course. I suggested going up for fun during the typhoon and Sister Gaillard said probably not). Panoramas for life
Your local enthusiastic typhoon clean-up crew
Broken windows in downtown Wan Chai (look at both buildings)

Don't panic I'm not dead

Hey familia :)
So yesterday we had the big typhoon/hurricane hit HK. It was kind of a letdown--we stayed inside all day and all we could see from our window was a lot of wind and rain. There weren't any deaths in HK, just 200ish injuries (because a lot of people think it's cool to feel the real force of the typhoon by standing on the pier, exactly what they tell you NOT to do. I will reserve my comments about natural selection for another time). There's some flooding going on but nothing incredibly dangerous. Just in case though, the mission is having us stay inside all day today while the city cleans up, so we will not be emailing normally until later in the week. We're just allowed to send you a short one to let you know that we are still alive (and very stir crazy). Love you all tons! Talk to you sometime later in the week. :)
❤❤❤
Sister Wasden