MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Leihdeih hou! This week has been good! Filled with Christmas fun and goodness, which has helped it to feel a little more Christmasy around here (because it's definitely super warm still. Definitely no white Christmas for us!). Some highlights from the week: We had our zone Christmas party. Sister Risenmay and I were in charge of mashed potatoes (again), and I'd like to say that I think I made Idaho proud. They were definitely a crowd favorite. ;) It was so fun to be able to celebrate the season with the other missionaries who are all in the same situation as us. So so so blessed. :) The missionaries were also invited to go caroling with the Young Men and Young Women. The cute old ladies we visited were so so happy to see us (for some old ladies, this included dancing around the room. So fun, hahaha) and it was so fun to spread some holiday cheer! It was also so fun to get to hang out for a little bit with the youth in our ward. They're so sweet and it was all in all one of my favorite parts of this week. On Saturday we had a ward mission barbecue! This was for the ward mission leader, the missionaries in the ward, and our investigators and less actives that we're working with. Unfortunately, all 5 people that had committed to come stood us up, but we had already bought all the food, so the missionaries ended up going barbecuing with some of the other members instead. It was pretty disappointing to not have any investigators there, but it was still a really fun time and a good opportunity to build relations with the ward. Let me tell you, Chinese barbecues are so different! You just skewer raw steaks and chicken wings and such and roast them over the open flames. Really delicious, and it's also kind of fun to not be sure if your meat is totally cooked or not and then wonder if you just gave yourself food poisoning and/or salmonella. We also had some wild boars running around (although no monkeys, which we were expecting) to keep things exciting. We're all safe though, and left full of good food. :) Yesterday we had a special Christmas sacrament meeting with the Tai Wai and Sha Tin wards combined, and the missionaries got to sing in it. Good thing Sister Risenmay has the voice of an angel--she saved us. It all went really well though, and we left loaded up with more treats than ever! #snacksunday Today we got to Skype our families! It was definitely the highlight of my whole Christmas. I've been so so so blessed with such love and support (from them and all of you), and spending a Christmas away from home in order to share Christ's love is worth it, no question. Today in personal study I read a little bit about the Christmas story, and this time through, the shepherds really stuck out to me. As soon as they gained their testimonies of Christ, they went out and shared the good news of Christ's birth, and I am so grateful for the opportunity that I have to do the same, two thousand years later, here in Hong Kong. So many blessings! Thank you all so much for your love and support! Christ is so real, and He is the reason behind the season. Don't forget that! Gayauh! Sister Wasden 郭姊妹 Pics: Not really any pictures this week since my camera broke (sorry about that), but here's an artsy pic of me in our study room that Sister Risenmay got a few days ago. :)

The Weekly!

Leihdeih hou! I apologize in advance, but this weekly email is probably going to be the worst ever. So sorry. Next week I will be better. Sorry. This week we went to Cheung Chau again for p-day! Seriously the cutest little island. Love it! We also had zone conference! Now that I'm in a leadership position, I had to be part of the trainings, but it went well. The other trainings were also so good and I felt the Savior's love so much! Saturday was also the ward Christmas party! Legitimately the craziest, most chaotic, happiest time of my life. I love these people! Merry Christmas next week! Don't forget the reason for the season! Christ lives and loves each of you so much and I'm so grateful for the opportunity that I have to spend this Christmas sharing that love. Love you all!! Gayauh! Sister Wasden Pics: 1. Cheung Chau beach with the whole crew 2. Sis Risenmay and I 3. Cheung Chau pirate cave (featuring a slight case of the crazy eyes) 4. Cheung Chau gorgeousness (photo creds to the comp)

Singing and Singing and a Little More Singing

Leihdeih hou! I hope you're all doing well! It's been a good week over here in Hong Kong! Our investigator pool is running a little low so we've been trying to come up with some good Christmas finding ideas to spread some holiday cheer over here at it's been really fun! There really is such a special spirit around Christmas time when we all get to celebrate the Savior, and it's cool to see that even in Hong Kong (where the majority of people are definitely not Christian) it makes a difference. The highlight of the week this week was singing! The missionaries from our zone got asked to sing a bunch of Christmas songs in one of the big malls here, and it was so much fun! Tons of people stopped to listen and hopefully we got to brighten their days. :) We also sang at a baptismal service that day, and this coming week we'll be singing in our ward Christmas party, and then the week after at our ward Christmas sacrament meeting. I haven't sung so much in all my life! Spiritual thought for this week (straight out of my study journal and only slightly paraphrased, not going to lie, haha): So Sister Risenmay and I were going through our study journals the other day and were sharing cool things that we've learned over our missions, and she shared this quote from Mitch Davis (from an MTC devo) with me and it really stuck out to me: "No one wants to go on a mission and lose who and what they are, but maybe, in a way, they should. Lose yourself and you can find your true self. You are putting yourself in the Lord's hands and letting Him make you better than you've ever been. Are you afraid God is going to mess you up? Make you something you don't want to be? Don't you trust Him?" When I was in MLC (mission leadership council) the past week, we talked a lot about obedience and that quote that Sister Risenmay and I had just discussed the day before kept coming to mind. This is so true not only for mission life, but also for life in general. Sometimes if there's a commandment/rule/standard that's really hard for us to adhere to, it's because there's a gap between where we are currently and where that rule says we should be. Sometimes it's natural for us to resist that rule and try to stubbornly remain where we are and how we are. However, God gave us that rule for a reason--to help us become something more. Maybe to follow that particular rule we'll have to let go of a little bit of the person that we were before. Maybe we'll have to change, and maybe we'll have to change a lot. That can be scary, but we KNOW that God isn't going to meses us up and any change we have to make for Him will be a change for the better. That change isn't something to fear; it's something to embrace with eyes, mind, and heart wide open. After all, as someone said in MLC, "Obedience isn't about what Heavenly Father wants you to DO, it's about what he wants you to BE." That was kind of a big paradigm shift for me and it's a big motivator for me to be more perfectly obedient (always something I'm trying to do) so that I can become the person that Heavenly Father needs me to be. Thank you all for all the love and support. I'm so blessed to know each of you! Love you all! Gayauh! Sister Wasden 郭姊妹 Pictures: 1. Three generations (my mom (my trainer, Sister Christensen), me, and my daughter (my trainee, Sister Risenmay)) 2. Ten Thousand Buddhas last week :)

The Weekly!

Lehideih hou! It's been a really good week! I don't have a lot of time today, so here's a quick summary! We had SO MANY meals with members this week since Sister Christensen was leaving! Our members are seriously the sweetest and are so so so supportive of missionary work. They're the best! My new companion is Sister Risenmay from Washington! She just barely got to Hong Kong, but she's already doing SO GREAT. We're both pretty new missionaries, so it's been really cool to see how the Gift of Tongues has kicked in for us. Tai Wai is not falling apart! That's pretty much all I have time for this week, so sorry! I promise I'll be better next week! This church is so true and don't any of you forget that! If we continually put our trust in God, He will support us and help us accomplish the impossible. :) I love you all! Gayauh! Sister Wasden 郭姊妹 Pics: Sis Risenmay and I (this picture was definitely taken outside the library this morning because we realized that we didn't have any other pictures, haha) Throwback from Thanksgiving last week :)

BIG WEEK!

Leihdeih hou!! This week has been crazy!! We'll go for a highlights reel again because I'm not really sure how else to make it all coherent. Here goes: 1. Last p-day we went to Big Buddha! It was really really cool, really really cold, and really really interesting to learn more about Buddhism. Buddhism is pretty big here, so it was really interesting to learn about it--it definitely helps us to understand people's backgrounds more. 2. We had a zone Thanksgiving feast on Thursday and it was SO MUCH FUN! There was so much food, so much laughter, and so much to be thankful for. Since I'm from Idaho, the zone leaders shamelessly picked Sister Christensen and I to make the mashed potatoes, and let me tell you, they were some of the best mashed potatoes China has ever witnessed. The mission also provides each zone with a turkey, which was a welcome addition to our feast. :) It was so fun to get to hang out with the zone for a little while, and I'm so grateful for all the friendships I've made while out on my mission. Also we have such an inifite number of things to be grateful for and it was good to reflect on those too. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving doing the same thing across the world. :) 3. We got transfer calls this week! I will be staying in Tai Wai, which I was excited to hear because I love Tai Wai so much! Sister Christensen has finished her mission and will be going home, so I'll have a new companion here! I'm really excited to keep working with my sweet ward and also to see what happens here in the next few months! 4. Yesterday was probably the highlight of my whole mission so far. We had THREE baptisms in our ward!! Two of them were the kids of one of our newer members, and the other one was one of our sweet sweet investigators (Sister Lau, who I actually met on my first day here in Tai Wai) that we've been teaching for a long time and we're so happy for all of them! The elders shared a cool spiritual thought (inspired by our big meeting with Elder Evans a couple of weeks ago) about how missionary work is just completing families and it was really cool to see that happen in our investigators' lives. The two kids who were baptized are another step to creating an eternal family, and Sister Lau's family was just completed (her husband was very recently reactivated). We're hoping that she and her husband and their cute baby can be sealed soon! Knowing that my family can be together forever is one of the most precious things in the world to me, and it's really such an amazing opportunity that we have as missionaries to help other people obtain the same blessing of having an eternal family like we have. I LOVE MISSIONARY WORK. Life is great and God is so good. I love you all, so grateful for your love and support! Have a good week! Gayauh! Sister Wasden 郭姊妹 Pictures: 1. One of the temples at Big Buddha 2. Big Buddha 3. Baptisms!! 4. Seriously so cold outside 5. Sister Christensen and I and our sweet Young Women :) 6. Thanksgiving fun!

Thankful:)

Leihdeih hou! Nothing too wild to report this week! Just lots of good lessons and good people and good meetings. :) Since Sister Christensen is leaving soon, we have had SO MANY MEMBERS feed us this past week, and I have never been so consistently full in my whole life. I love love love getting to know the members better though! Tai Wai is seriously such a golden ward and I'm so grateful for every single one of them. :) This coming week marks my SIX MONTH MARK, as well as my 4 month mark in Hong Kong! SO CRAZY. Time is definitely flying, and I'm so infinitely grateful for every moment on my mission so far. It's definitely been incredibly difficult, but I've learned and grown so much and I've been so happy here that I wouldn't trade any of it for the world! This week is also Thanksgiving! We get to have a feast/party as a zone and I'm so excited! Updates on that to come next week. :) I'm so grateful for every single one of you! You are all such big blessings in my life and I'm so grateful for all the love and support I feel. You all make all the difference. :) I'm also so grateful for this gospel! Sometimes as I look out at all the people in the big crowds, I'm amazed that they don't know about Jesus Christ and they don't know all the blessings that can come from following Him, and it makes me that much more motivated to go and tell every single one of them about it in broken Chinese. :) It really is such a big blessing to know that we have a Heavenly Father who loves us so much that He sent Christ here to make it possible for us to return to Him again. Don't ever take that knowledge for granted, and make sure you go out and share it with others (and refer them to the missionaries :)). That's pretty much it for this week! Love you all! Gayauh! Sister Wasden :) 郭姊妹 Picture: Us and the Tai Wai elders at Jeh Jimuih's house for dinner :) She and her granddaughter are so sweet!

MONKEYS! And other exciting things.

Leihdeih hou!! This week has been so good! First things first, MONKEYS! I'd been here in Hong Kong for around 15 weeks and had yet to see a monkey. Everyone told me that since I'm in Tai Wai (which is a little more jungle-y than other parts of Hong Kong) that I would see them for sure around people houses, and still no luck, so I decided to take matters into my own hands. Last week for p-day, we took the trek to Monkey Mountain. Fun fact: since monkeys are definitely a thing here in Hong Kong (a fact I was previously very doubtful of), if you ask a taxi driver to take you to Monkey Mountain, they will in fact just drive you up a random mountain and drop you off, so the key to enjoying this particular adventure is to go with a member who knows their way around. Our member of choice was Tanner, our fabulous ward mission leader, and his mom, who is one of our investigators! Apparently I am natural monkey repellant (which I am now grateful for after actually meeting monkeys) and there were not nearly as many monkeys as there usually are, but I saw enough to be content. Baby monkeys are adorable, adult monkeys are terrifying. That is all. We also did a cool hike around a lake that involved walking through a mini bamboo forest, and after all the monkey excitement we went to the Hong Kong Heritage Museum, which is for the most part shamelessly dedicated to Bruce Lee. I've since determined that becoming a martial arts master is part of my future plans. Among other adventures this week: I finally tried chicken feet! We were eating at a member's house, and she was serving us some fish, and her cute two-year-old daughter Ouji (who I LOVE) also wanted to serve us some food, so she grabbed the serving spoon, dipped it into the bowl of various chicken parts, and somehow got one of only two chicken feet in the whole bowl. I was sitting right across from her and saw the danger I was in. My heart dropped. Ouji moved the spoon (and the chicken foot) towards my bowl, and her mother saw what was happening and quickly said "Oh, missionaries don't like those! Don't give it to her!" but Ouji was DETERMINED to be a good host and serve me food, so into my bowl it went. (P.S., it's Chinese culture that if something goes into your bowl, you have to eat it unless you can sneakily slip it into your bones pile or into your purse or some other hidden place.) Sister Tohng told me that I could just put it on the table and not eat it (bless her soul), but I was determined to try it. I asked Ying Ying (the seven-year-old daughter) to show me how to eat it (you bite off the toes, suck off the meat, and then spit the bone out. I wasn't really digging that), and then the pressure was on me. Sister Tohng kept telling me to just put it on the table, Ying Ying kept saying "It's SO GOOD! TRY IT," Sister Christensen was telling me to go for it, and Ouji got excited by all the noise and started yelling her two-year-old Cantonese gibberish at me and waving her arms. The pressure was high. The moment was now. I ended up chickening out (pun intended) and just gnawing off a tiny little bit of the skin (none of that bone-biting business for me, thank you very much). I'll stick to chicken wings for the time being. Also, during our regularly scheduled English class finding session this week, I had not one, but TWO people come up and ask to take a picture with me (because I'm white). So that was definitely a big milestone for me as a missionary here. This week we also had a lot of miracles in our missionary work! We have been trying SO HARD to find new investigators, especially through the members, and this week it finally happened! We had the opportunity to meet with FIVE new people this week, THREE of whom became new investigators! That kind of miracle doesn't happen often here, and we are so so grateful for it! Two of those new invesigators accepted baptismal dates already, and they all have so much potential. I love being a missionary! God is really watching out for us. This is His work, and when we really show Him that we're willing to do things His way, it all works out for the better. Life is good, and life with God on your side is even better! Thanks for all the love and support! Keep smiling, don't get too close to monkeys, and avoid the chicken feet. Sending love to you all! Gayauh! Sister Wasden 郭姊妹 Pictures: 1. The hiking crew (me, Sister Christensen, Tanner, Sister Lai, Sister Lee, and Sister Bannagao) 2. MONKEYS! They got a lot closer than that, but when they did, I didn't dare turn my back on them 3. Be water, my friend​​

The Week :)

Leihdeih hou! It's been a crazy fast week! I can't believe it's already November! Not a whole lot of time this week, so here's a couple highlights: 1. This past week we had a big meeting with Elder Evans, who is in the Asia Area Presidency. It was a super super cool meeting, and he answered a ton of my questions that I'd been studying and praying about. It was also really cool to hear him talk to us about missionary work, because he actually lives in Hong Kong and spends all day going over numbers for the missions in our area, and he also served as a mission president in Japan, so he knows what missionary work is like in Asia and he knows what our particular challenges are and he was able to address those specifically, which was awesome. He talked a lot about different ways to get referrals and about how missionary work is all about completing families, which I loved. He also talked a lot about the "if you will, you may" principle. If you will be obedient, then you may have the promised blessings. If you will really dedicate yourself to obtaining the Gift of Tongues and learning your mission language, then you may speak Cantonese (or your assigned language, whatever that may be) at a higher level. If you will ask for referrals, then you may have a lot of people to teach. If you will, you may. So cool and so applicable to real life too, not just missionary work. :) 2. We had a really cool miracle this week, and two of our investigators that we've been working with have finally accepted baptismal dates for the end of this month! One of them is a 9 year old, and her little brother (who's 8) will also be getting baptized then, so we'll have THREE baptisms in one day! We're so excited and so happy for each of them! We've been working really really hard, and it's so good to see the blessings coming in. God is real. :) 3. I found some American money in my bags the other day and it looked and felt so weird to me, so that's cool.​​ Life is good! Missionary work is hard, but there are so many blessings. God is looking out for each of you. Don't forget that if you will, you may. :) Love you all! Sister Wasden 郭姊妹 Pic: Sister Christensen and I, featuring the temple in the background :)

The Weekly :)

Leihdeih hou! This week has been good! Nothing too spectucularly crazy, but a good busy week nonetheless. :) For p-day last week, we went to this gorgeous place called Stanley and I'd definitely recommend it! There was a lot of cool stuff to explore, but we mostly did some shopping in the market so that Sister Christensen and I could buy some souvenirs. Super awesome though! This transfer, we've been really focusing on finding a lot of new investigators since our investigator pool has been shrinking. To make it more fun, Sister Christensen and I have given ourselves a different finding challenge every day, and we've been seeing so many small miracles. For example, on Monday our challenge was to talk to every person we came across that was wearing a yellow shirt and sunglasses. The bus ride home from Stanley is pretty long, and we ended up sitting with a bunch of guys that were visiting from the states. One of them asked us a TON of questions about our religion and how missionary life goes, and we of course were very happy to answer them. They were all so nice, and then as they stood up to get off at their stop, we realized that the guy who had been the most interested was wearing a yellow shirt, AND he had sunglasses on his collar! SO COOL. We also went paak muhning (door-knocking) on Saturday. It's not allowed here for the most part, because most residential areas have security guards that will kick you out if you try, but there's certain village-type areas that have no such guards, so it's okay there. I was kind of terrified to try because that's something that I've never really done before, but it was actually so much fun! It was less of door-knocking and more of just talking to people on the streets and on their porches (because these villages have REAL porches, how crazy is that?) and we met some really cool people that we'll be swinging by to visit again soon. :) All this finding has also been a big testimony builder for me that when you do the work, God will give you the blessings, even if it's not in the way you expected. Although we've been doing TONS of finding, we haven't really found any new investigators through our efforts, which has been kind of frustrating, but we're remaining hopeful. Sister Christensen kept saying that the new investigators would come from SOMEWHERE, and lo and behold, yesterday at church a member from out of the blue brought two of her friends to church! We'll hopefully be meeting with them soon, and I'm hoping it all goes well! That's pretty much it for the week, haha. Hopefully more exciting things to come in next week's update! Love you all! Thanks for all the love! :) Sister Wasden 郭姊妹

The Weekly :)

Leihdeih hou! It's been a busy week, but nothing too out of the ordinary! Here's a short SparksNotes version for your enjoyment. :) 1. Last p-day the sisters in my apartment met up with Elder Roskelley (one of our sweet senior missionaries) so he could teach us how to make cinnamon rolls! I've definitely eaten a lot since then and they're all delicious, just so you all know. :) So sweet of him to share his talents with us! 2. We got new missionaries! We finally have elders in Tai Wai and they are so sweet! One of them is a trainee, fresh off the plane, and it's so fun to watch him experience the Hong Kong way of life for the first time, hahaha. Definitely throws me back to when I was still a baby, so fun. :) 3. I also got to take out one of the new missionaries to go finding before they all got sent out to their new areas. It's always so cool to see how much power baby missionaries have, and we definitely experienced a couple of miracles together. I was really really hoping that we would be able to teach a lesson on the street (which is something that I'd actually never done before, because it's really hard to get people to listen to you for that long here), and after going through a few people who weren't interested, we finally found a guy that we could teach! We taught him most of the first lesson, and I could actually understand almost everything that he said to us (which is also something that doesn't really happen for me yet) and my cute little comp also did a really good job bearing her testimony of Christ and saying the prayer and everything. The guy we taught was still definitely NOT interested (he wouldn't even take any of our pamplets or give us his phone number or anything), but to me, it was a huge miracle that he was at least willing to sit and talk with us for so long. Super cool. :) 4. This week I gave a district training on charity, so it's been on my mind a lot the past week or so. Let me tell you, charity makes ALL the difference! It's the greatest motivator, and if we do everything in our lives out of a pure love for others and a pure love for our Savior, we'll never go wrong. Obviously we'll never be quite THAT perfect, but it's something we can always work on and definitely something that I'm striving to further develop and pray for every day. The more charity we have, the happier we are, and the happier we can help other people to be, and then before long, the whole world will just be a happier place in general. How sweet is that? :) Life is so good! Missionary life is definitely tough, and some days definitely don't go as smoothly as I'd like them to, but there's so many miracles every day and it's such a privilege to help other people and their families find the same happiness that I've been blessed to have. Love you all so much! Gayauh! Give your local missionaries some love for me. :) Sister Wasden 郭姊妹 Picture: Us making cinnamon rolls. This is the only picture that I have from this week, I'm so sorry. I'll take more pictures this week, I promise. :)

The Weekly :)

Leihdeih hou!

It’s been a good week!

Some highlights:

This week is transfer week! I’m staying in Tai Wai, which I’m super excited about! It’s Sister Christensen’s last transfer, so I get to be the one to send her home! We have a LOT of things to do, so we are anticipating a very busy and very very good transfer, and I’m so excited to see what happens. We are also getting elders back in Tai Wai, and we’re really excited to get to work with them and have some extra help with our ward. Also, Sister Mak moved to Macau, and Sister Bannago filled her place as our new apartment-mate! She’s also so sweet and I’m excited to get to know her better! I’ve seriously been blessed to meet so many amazing people!

Also, this coming week I will finish training! That doesn’t really mean much except that I’ve officially in Hong Kong for three months now and also that I can no longer be considered a baby missionary! I’ve upgraded to toddler. ;)

In other news, the whole mission had to get flu shots this week. I definitely cried in front of my whole zone and will probably never live that down. But I hopefully won’t get the flu, so that’s good news!

Our mission has a goal to reach 242 baptisms by 2018. It’s actually a pretty big reach for our mission (people tend to wait a long time to get baptized), and we still have over 100 baptisms left to go, so this past week we had a mission-wide fast for our goal, and we saw SO MANY miracles! I had the most successful travel contacting I’ve ever experienced (one guy sat by me on the bus and said in perfect English, “Oh, are you guys Mormons? I’m from San Francisco and I’ve seen your temple in Oakland!” I LOVE San Francisco so I was able to have a really cool conversation with him and get his number and everything. SO COOL. And while I was talking to that awesome guy, one of our formers that we dropped last month called Sister Christensen and said that he’s ready to meet with us again, and he’s showed a LOT of promise since then, which is really cool. God is so so so aware of each of us, it honestly blows my mind sometimes. How cool is it that we have this all-powerful, omniscient being on our side, and He loves us even more than we can possibly imagine? I love getting to share that message with so many people every day. :)

We also had another Level 8 typhoon yesterday, so church was cancelled again, which was a bummer because we had committed a lot of really awesome people to come to church! Next week, fingers crossed!

Life is so good! God is great and missionary work is the best!

Thanks for all the love and support, I’m so grateful for each of you!

Gayauh!

Sister Wasden

郭姊妹

Pics:

Saying goodbye to Sis Mak

A little more Disney because why not :)

The two happiest places on earth :)

Leihdeih hou!
I don't have a lot of time today, so here's a very quick version of my week!
This week was Mid-Autumn Festival and it was pretty much the cutest thing. A full moon, lots of lanterns everywhere, cute little kids running around, and crazy celebrations made for some fun contacting!
This week we also got to go to the temple (the happiest place on earth :))! We get to go once per transfer and it was SO GORGEOUS and I loved it SO MUCH! Our temple day came right when I needed it and I left feeling so much better about everything. The blessings of the temple are real, folks.
We also got to watch General Conference this past weekend! Also just what I needed. If you haven't seen it yet, please please please go watch it! It was all (as always) so inspired and I know that it's the words of the Lord to us. Seriously so so so good.
Today for p-day we went to DISNEYLAND! (The second happiest place on earth ;)). It was seriously a dream. I love love loved it and I had so much fun with my companion and our apartment-mates! They do everything in a combination of Cantonese, Mandarin, and English, which I thought was delightful. :) Sooooo fuuuun!
Also, here's a PSA from China to America (because I definitely didn't know that this was a thing until I came here): please wash your rice before you cook it! You just pour some water in with your rice, swish it around with your hand, dump out the water, and repeat two or three times. This is good because the water that comes off is actually pretty gross, and also all the bugs that have been chilling in your rice float to the top so you can scoop them out. Happy eating, everyone. ;)
Life is good! I'm so grateful to be a missionary and see so many miracles every day! Keep the faith :)
Love you all! Gayauh!
Sister Wasden
郭姊妹

Pictures:
The aftermath of a rainstorm (we legit almost got hit by lightning)
My cute color-coordinated district at the temple :)
Disney fun!

This Week's Shenanigans :)

Leihdeih hou!
Some highlights from this week:
1. Last p-day we all cooked a meal for dinner with Sister Lam! It was so much fun and I love her and President Lam so much! We're seriously so blessed. :)
2. On Tuesday we had the GROSSEST lizard I've ever seen in our sink! I take back everything I said about surviving the occasional lizard, this thing was NASTY. No one else would come near it though, so I got the (dis)pleasure of catching it. There was lots of screaming and lots of laughs and I will never forget all the excitement, hahaha!
3. Sooo someone always donates TONS of pens to the mission office, and this week they donated blow pens! We decided to get artsy and blow pen my face, which was really fun and exciting, and then a little less fun (but no less exciting, mind you) when we realized how hard it is to wash off. I thought I was going to have a purple face for days! Thank heavens for makeup wipes and some serious scrubbing though. Those did the trick. :)
4. The other day Sister Christensen and I were doing some finding and we took this path that led us from the skyscrapers straight into the JUNGLE. It was AMAZING (and mosquito infested. Forgot to wear bug spray, oops). I had actually just been thinking about how I loved the city, but I was starting to feel crowded, and I really missed a good ol suburban neighborhood, and God sent me a jungle. Tender mercy for sure. There were actually a lot of houses on the side of the path that we could technically have gone door-knocking at, but they had big gates and bigger dogs and we decided to just stick to talking to the people on the path. So fun! (Still no monkey sightings though.)
5. Yesterday we got to see Women's Conference! (Our conference schedule is a week behind because it takes a week for them to translate everything into Cantonese, and even though the missionaries get to watch it in English, we still like to watch it when everyone else does.) Our stake actually forgot to set up the English room this time, so instead, all of the sister missionaries from our zone just piled into the APs' office and watched it together with them! It was so much fun and all the talks were SO GOOD and exactly what I needed. If you haven't seen it yet, go watch it now! SO GREAT.
God is so good and this gospel is so true! I've seen miracles and tender mercies every single day. Life is good!
Love you all! Gayauh!
Sister Wasden
郭姊妹

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.

TYPHOONS ARE CRAZY

Leihdeih hou!!
This week has flown by and I can't believe it's already p-day again! We've had a super super busy week here in Tai Wai. Here are some highlights (buckle up everyone):
Last Monday, a group of members from our ward took us out to the classiest buffet I've ever seen and I was in heaven. It was amazing. Cake, brownies, mashed potatoes, ICE CREAM, CHOI (legit my most favorite vegetable in the whole world. Last week I once ate only choi for dinner and I loved it) and so many other wonderful foods. Blessed. Sister Christensen and I also played badminton with Sister Lee again and it was so fun! So grateful for our cute members. :)
On Wednesday we had a TYHPOON! It hit a Level 8 in the morning, which means everything shuts down and the missionaries have to stay in our apartments all day until it drops back down to a Level 3. We did lots of call finding and lots and lots of cleaning! By the afternoon, it hit a Level 10, and Bishop said that it's the first Level 10 typhoon in Hong Kong since 1962! Also the weather reports were calling it a Level 10 hurricane? I don't actually remember the exact distiction between a typhoon and a hurricane (I think maybe just wind speed?), so if anyone who has access to Goodle wants to send that nugget of information my way, I'd be much obliged. :) It's been crazy to see all the fallen/broken trees everywhere (including one RIGHT OUTSIDE OUR WINDOW! We were sitting by our window almost all day and I didn't even see it happen, not that I'm upset about that or anything. ;)) If Bio 1620 taught me anything, it's that trees have to work really really hard to grow, so I was so sad for them. We're all safe though, so no worries!
Thursday was my 1-month mark in Hong Kong and my 3-month mark on my mission! It's gone so fast already, I can hardly even believe it. Bishop and his family also chinged us out to a Thai restaurant and it was SO GOOD. SO. GOOD. Oh, and Sister Christensen and I also got battery fluid on our hands that day, and that was an adventure. :)
On Saturday I found a REAL DONUT. Let me repeat that. A. REAL. DONUT. Chocolate glaze and everything. You'd better believe I bought that donut and I enjoyed every single bite. We also had our usual English class on Saturday, and then after that, we had our first Korean class (taught by Sister Lee)! If I go slowly and I have my chart, I can now read Korean (although obviously I can't understand what I'm saying), so that's pretty sweet. :)
Yesterday we had... Another Level 8 typhoon! Which is a bummer because we were going to have a lot of really cool investigators at church, and then church was cancelled. Next week. :) We still managed to make it a really productive day even though we were stuck in the apartment again and there was nothing left to clean. Also, I LOVE storms so it was super fun to watch all the rain all day. So cool. :)
Overall it's been a really good week! The Canto is still sometimes really frustrating for me, but I'm making a lot of progress and learning to be more confident in myself and in the Gift of Tongues and it's getting there. We've taught so many cool people and it's been really cool to see the gospel help them and to be able to see the Savior's love change them, and that alone makes all the hard days completely worth it.
Life is good! Thanks everyone for all the love! Love you all!
Gwok Jimuih (Sister Wasden)
郭姊妹

My Week in HK feat. The Raddest P-Day Yet

Leihdeih hou!
This week has gone by SO FAST! It's hands-down been my favorite week so far though!
Last p-day, Sister Christensen and I went to OCEAN PARK, which is kind of like SeaWorld. It actually made me miss Six Flags a lot but it's all cool because it was SO FUN. The rides were delightful and there were SO MANY little aquariums (AKA my most favorite things) and we just had so so so much fun. :) There was also a cable car that went over the mountain, and the views were INCREDIBLE. I'll try to attach a couple pictures. :)
On Wednesday, we headed into Kowloon Tong to see the new missionaries, all my cute MTC pals! Seeing them all again was so happy! We got to take them out on splits to show them some of Hong Kong, and even though I'm still definitely a baby missionary and probably shouldn't be trusted to wander off into Tai Wai without a more experienced missinoary, I still got to do exactly that with Sister Johnson! She's already such a pro and we had a super productive and super fun finding session! Also, the Gift of Tongues is SO REAL. Typically, without Sister Christensen around to translate for me, I wouldn't be able to understand ANYTHING, but we were able to ahve SO MANY conversations and understand everything, which was such a cool experience. It was also exactly the boost I was needing, since I was kind of feeling pretty down about Cantonese in language study that morning. Super cool. :)
On Thursday, Brother and Sister Hui chinges us out to PIZZA and ICE CREAM (seriously the best ice cream cone I've ever had), and my littler American heart about exploded with joy. Also my pizza had a fried egg in the middle and it tasted SO GOOD. So grateful for our sweet members. :)
Later that day we had a WILD stake youth activity where we literally just split up into teams and shot at each other with Nerf bows and arrows (apparently they also had a wild water fight activity right before I got here. This stake doesn't mess around). SO. FUN. Also we moved down to the 2nd floor to do ambush-style attacks and I got hit in the face, which 1. Was a really sweet shot, and 2. Cued a MASSIVE bloody nose. Again, no big deal (that was #6 this week), but this  cute little kid was SO CONCERNED about me and it was SO SWEET. He saw Sister Christensen and I rushing off to the bathroom and went "WOAH. Are you okay??" and then he ran off to tell everyone by saying "OH NO! Ngohdeih saatjo chyuhngaausih!! (We killed a missionary!!)" So sweet and so funny. :)
I also tried moon cake this week. As it turns out, I do not like mooncakes.
We also had SO MANY good lessons this week! My favorite was Lau Jimuih's. We taught her and her cute family (including her husband, who I'd never met) about eternal families and the temple, so naturally we taught them with President and Sister Lam. In President and Sister Lam's house. Which is IN THE TEMPLE. Seriously such a cool lesson and President and Sister Lam were SO HELPFUL. So so so grateful for them!
You guys, this church is SO TRUE! I love being in a position where I can share it with others and watch it change lives. Life is oh so good!
Love you all!
Sister Wasden
郭姊妹