Temple Trips and Frozen Fingers

Leihdeih hou!
This week has been so good! The highlight of my week was going to the temple. Always such a special experience, and I feel so lucky that we get to go as missionaries! This time we had the opportunity to go through with a group of 19 Cambodian saints, and their sweet humble spirits touched me so much. I only know one word in Cambodian, so I wasn't able to talk directly with them, but one of the senior missionaries that accompanied them told me about all the sacrifices they'd made and miracles they'd experienced as they worked to get to the temple, and it was amazing. Cambodia is a very poor country, so some of them saved up money for five years--FIVE YEARS--and could only manage to save up twenty American dollars even though they'd sacrificed so much. The church covered the rest of the money (through the temple patron fund, something I'd never even thought to donate to until now) and these sweet saints were able to go through the temple for themselves for the first time (including a few branch presidents who'd been teaching about the blessings of the temple for years but have never had the opportunity to go), and then they were able to go through for their ancestors. These sweet people were soaking it up--they went to every single session they could, back to back to back. It made me feel so spoiled to have always had a temple so close to me. Each of the Cambodians managed to find at least one family name to take with them, and because back in the day there was a big cultural movement to burn all the family records (similar to what happened in China--it makes family history a little difficult, to say the least), that's no small feat. There were a lot of miracles that happened for everything to work out, and hearing about them was nothing short of inspiring. (And soon the Cambodians will have a temple that's so much closer--only a 10 hour drive away!) The session we went to was in Cambodian, so all the missionaries got to wear translational headsets, which meant that I got to not only listen to the Cambodian, but I also got to switch back and forth between English and Cantonese the whole time. I LOVE THE TEMPLE. The blessings of the temple are so so so real and so so so powerful and so so so precious. If you live close to a temple, PLEASE don't take it for granted! Go as often as you can. There's so many people in this world who only get to go once in their lives, if they're lucky, and they would love to be in your exact position.
In other news, these last couple of weeks have been SO COLD. Granted it's only like 50 degrees Fahrenheit (who even knows how to spell that), but with the humidity, it makes it feel so much worse that it actually is. Good thing I know how to layer (thanks, Idaho), although layering with a skirt is admittedly a little more tricky. The hardest thing about the cold here is that there is NO escape. In America, if it's cold outside, you huddle up in your warm house, and then you rush outside really fast until you get to your warm car, and then you rush outside really fast into you're in the next warm building. Here, heaters aren't a thing. So you're really really cold, and you rush outside and into the trains, and the trains are really cold, and then you rush inside to the store, and then the store is also really cold, and then you rush home, where it's still really really cold. Thankfully we have a tiny little space heater, and we basically live in front of it when we can. So different from the summer, where it's so hot that you do literally anything you can in other places (studies at the church or in McDonald's, etc.) because those places have air conditioning and our apartment air conditioning is severely limited, to now, where we do literally anything we can inside, so we can huddle in front of our little space heater and try not to lose our fingers and toes. Sometimes the only phrase that gets me through the day is "at least I'm not in Russia."
Another highlight from this week was English class. Since it's February, class was Valentine's Day themed. Picture this: teaching a bunch of sweet Chinese people the meaning of the phrase "friend zone." Hahaha it was great. Another word was "poetry" and Elder Stansfield stunned the whole class by saying "I'm a poet and I didn't even know it" and now everyone thinks he's a literary genius. We didn't have the heart to tell them the truth.
Okay, last thing: This week we got a new investigator! Her name is Miss Wong, and I love her so much. We taught her this past week and it was the scariest mission of my whole life. Miss Wong has some very real family problems going on right now, and it was terrifying to hear her talk about them, and then look right to us for help. I definitely don't know the vocab for what she was telling me (the Gift of Tongues is REAL, let me tell you), and even if I DID know the words, I wouldn't even know what to say to help her. This problem is bigger than me. I kept thinking of little things that could maybe help her, but the Spirit kept telling Sister Risenmay and I to just stay quiet. Just listen. Don't say anything, just listen. The longer we sat in complete silence, the more Miss Wong opened up. And the good thing is that even though her problems are way bigger than little 19-year-old Sister Wasden, there is no problem that's bigger than the Lord. We sat and we listened. She talked. She cried, we cried. Then we bore a simple testimony on the very real and very literal power of prayer, and then we left her. I've never been through family problems like that before. I myself can't help her. But the Lord can, and that's what matters. As I sat there and listened to her talk (and tried to understand it--I still probably caught only half at best), I couldn't help but think that only the gospel can help her. The gospel can bless everybody, and obviously I knew that, but as I saw only a fragment of her situation, I was so absolutely convinced that only the gospel can bring her the peace she so desperately needs. Now it's just up to us to keep praying for her and hope that we can guide her to that knowledge too.
Anyways, there's my week. Sorry for the novel, haha. Thanks for all the love, everyone! Go to the temple. Say your prayers. God loves you, and so do I. :)
Gayauh!
Sister Wasden
郭姊妹

Pictures:
Temple shenanigans with this sweet little district of mine, and dinner with the Chan family (the most wonderful little family--also, Brother Chan served a mission in Hong Kong 30 years ago!)