A Week in the Deep South

Leihdeih hou!
This week has been good! Busy busy busy, but that's the way we like it. :)
This past week for p-day we went to a Pixar exhibit. Gorgeous art, fun sculptures, and a whole lot of nostalgia.
This week we also had MLC (Mission Leadership Council). Our mission president talked to us a lot about setting faith-based goals and relying on the Lord to achieve them, so then we promptly set a ridiculously high missionwide baptism goal for 2018 (more than double what we got in 2017). It's definitely possible with the Lord's help though, and I'm really happy that I get to be here for aaaalmost all of 2018 so that I can see it happen! We also ate Mexican food for lunch (a rare thing to have here in Hong Kong), so add that to the highlights list.
Back to my week in the Deep South. Three things: Bible bash, fried chicken, and the word of God.
The Bible bash wasn't anything too intense. We met a friendly missionary from another church (here from Australia) who pushed through a crowd to come talk to us (as white people, we're pretty noticable). Our conversation started out pretty okay but before too long he was set on fighting out tiny little differences between our beliefs (without being willing to listen to anything we had to say), and as peaceful representatives of Jesus, we're not here to pointlessly bicker, so we peaced out after 40 minutes. Sister Risenmay and I reflected on that a lot, and ultimately it made us really grateful for the gospel truths that we have. Even if other people don't want to listen to it, I'm so grateful that not only does the gospel help me and inspire me, but it just makes sense to me. Not to say that I know everything, because obviously I don't, but for me, logically and spiritually, it all checks out. Pretty nice guy though, and really awesome that he's also willing to sacrifice to help tell people about what he believes. The second part of this whole southern thing was when we got a call from one of the members of our bishopric, telling us that there was food in the church kitchen for us to share with the elders. Luckily, we had a lesson at the church in just a few minutes anyways, so we were excited to go and see what was up. We walked into the kitchen, smelled something good, and finally came across a bowl with 5 pieces of fried chicken in it. Don't get me wrong, I love fried chicken, so I was pretty excited, but Sister Risenmay and I were a little confused as to why they would ask us to share 5 pieces of chicken between us and the elders. Pretty soon we figured it out though: we opened the fridge, and there were the two most MASSIVE tupperwares of fried chicken I've EVER SEEN. SO. MUCH. CHICKEN. The elders were very very happy to get theirs, and as for Sister Risenmay and I, we've had fried chicken for lunch and dinner for a few days in a row now. Our whole district has been brainstorming why one person would have so much KFC. Regardless, we're grateful. The third part, the word of God, isn't anything out of the ordinary. Just reading it and sharing it, make sure you're doing the same. :)
Overall, it's been a good week! We've been blessed with TWO new investigators, which is a really really exciting thing here! This coming week is Chinese New Year, which basically means that nobody will schedule us, but the good news is that we have lots of time for finding and a couple more member meals than usual. Life is good. :)
Love you all! Gayauh!
Sister Wasden
郭姊妹

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!)

This Week's Adventures

Leihdeih hou!
This week has been HECTIC! We had a few lessons, a few almost lessons, a few rescheduled lessons, and a few member visits, as well as a new investigator and a few more lined up! Tai Wai kind of went through a slower phase these past couple of months, and I forgot how crazy it is, and how nice it is, to be so busy! It's been great though. :)
A few highlights from this week:
We have English class finding every week. English class finding is always fun because somehow that's the exact two hours every week where you find all the interesting people. This week, this guy named Herman talked to me for 50 minutes straight (in actually really good English) about probably nearly everything under the sun. We discussed baby powder, learning German, teaching English (at least that was kind of relevant), and who even knows what else. He was super nice though, and he really wanted me to remember this little nugget of wisdom that I guess I'll pass on for your benefit: "Knowledge is power, but practice is the key." Sister Risenmay and the elders and I eventually had to leave to go to a member's house, so Herman then went and talked to Sister Bannagao, hahaha.
The member visit was great! Brother Ng served a mission in HK in the late 80's, so it was so fun to see all of his mission pictures, as well as the great fashion of the times. Love our sweet members here.
Miracle of the week: this week we had a zone find in Tai Wai to help us find some new investigators. The NTK elders found Kelvin, who has researched our church a lot and has so many questions! He was so excited to come to church yesterday and he even brought his girlfriend. They have so much interest and we are so excited to work with them!
Looking forward to another good and busy week! This Wednesday we get to go to the temple (so today isn't acutally p-day, we just get to email. P-day will be this Wednesday) and I couldn't be more excited! Life is good, love you all so much! Gayauh!
Sister Wasden
郭姊妹

Pictures:
1. Study room selfie. You'll never stop seeing these.
2. View from one of the apartment buildings at night. (Tanner, this is your house. Sorry if it makes you homesick, haha)
3. Me and a sparkly notebook?
4. Some nighttime less-active finding drama
5. In case you forgot what our tags look like

This Week in HK

Leihdeih hou!
It's been a good week here! We've had lots of lessons (mostly with recent converts and not investigators, but recent convert lessons are some of my favorites anyways), zone conference, and even a cheng out or two (meal with a member or investigator). We have a busy busy week ahead of us and we're so excited to keep working in the Lord's vineyard. :)
Zone conference was so good! We were combined with the Kowloon East and Hong Kong Island zones, and it was kind of cool to see how all of our trainings lined up with each other. The Kowloon East leadership talked about remembering who you are and what your purpose is, the Island talked about having a vision for yourself and setting goals according to that vision, and Lion Rock (aka us :)) talked about the authority that we have as missionaries and how we can make that authority lead to power. All super motivating stuff! It was good to set some goals and to leave ready to make ourselves even better. Goal setting is definitely something that I want to carry with me into post-mission life (and something you can all do too :)). It definitely was not a strength of mine before the mission, but it's something that I'm trying to get better and better at and hopefully I'll be really good at it before I leave. They increase your rate of growth so much and I've come to really appreciate what inspired goals and plans can do.
Okay, so this transfer Sister Risenmay and I are really trying to eat healthy, and for the most part we're doing really good at it, so please excuse these next few sentences about unhealthy foods because they make it sound like we're just eating junk food all the time but they were honestly too good to not mention. One of our cute members chenged us out to pizza this week! Get this: it was a barbecue pizza with peaches and cucumbers on it. And it was some of the BEST PIZZA I've ever had in my entire life. Also are Crispy M&M's a thing in America? They're all the rage here and they are SO GOOD. Okay, that's all. I could also rave to you about all the healthy foods we eat too, but that's not nearly as exciting, is it?
Anyways. I hope you all have a good week! Stay true to the gospel--there's no other way to true and lasting happiness. God will always pull through for you. Praying is actually the coolest thing, make sure you do that lots. Also read your scriptures. Go to church. Serve and love your neighbor. Feed the missionaries pizza. All good and noble things.
Sending you lots of love! Gayauh!
Sister Wasden
郭姊妹

Pics: Sister Risenmay and I (study room selfies are way too common on my weekly, I am so sorry) and some typos in my dictionary (it's so dumb but we cried laughing at it). I will get a camera soon and will send home higher quality pictures, I promise (not going to lie, I actually attached a picture from the MTC before my comp sent me these ones. Things are getting desperate)

This Week's Adventures

Leihdeih hou! This week was super busy, but I don't actually have a crazy ton to report?? Just lots of appointments and meetings and actually a lot of lessons (finally! We have a lot of really awesome recent converts that we love working with). A small miracle from this week: Sister Risenmay and I got to take out a baby missionary that had just arrived in Hong Kong for the night. We decided to go less-active finding (which is actually a huge portion of the work we do here in Tai Wai). Usually nobody is home at 90% of the apartments we visit (or someone is definitely on the other side of the door and we can see them looking through the peephole, but "nobody is home"). However, this time, we visited probably 6 houses, and someone answered every single door we knocked on! That NEVER happens. Most of the people had moved (which is still really good information to know), but we managed to make really good contact with some less-actives AND potential investigators. Baby missionary miracles, y'all. The other small miracle from this week: I ate pig's feet! And preserved eggs. And I managed to not die! The meat part of the pig's feet was actually pretty good (especially with the sauce it was served with). Wish I could say the same for the rest of it. It was fun to try it though, and our sweet member was so excited to see our reactions. Life is good here in Tai Wai! Thank you for all the love and support. Sending you lots of love! Gayauh! Sister Wasden 郭姊妹 Pictures: Okay, I still don't have a camera. I'm really sorry. No new pictures to send home. BUT I have this old picture of me mashing potatoes in our apartment from Thanksgiving time that I don't think I've ever sent. Maybe I'll throw a Big Buddha one in too. Am I desperate for pictures? Maybe. (Defnitely.) By next week I'll either have a camera, or I'll be sending home pictures from the MTC, hahaha.

The Weekly :)

Leihdeih hou! This week has been good! I was able to do some more exchanges (always fun), we did a zone find and I met a lot of spunky old ladies that I want to be best friends with, and then we also had MLC! We talked a lot about having faith, not only in Christ, but also in ourselves and in the missionary work here in Hong Kong. Sometimes it's easy to get discouraged about the work here, but we all left feeling a lot more motivated and optimistic. A good attitude really can make all the difference, so make sure you have one! Towards the end of MLC, President Lam left the room for a moment and then came back with the news of President Monson's passing. We were all pretty shocked. We all stood together and sang "We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet" and it was a really powerful moment. How grateful I am for a living prophet to lead and guide us today! That's one of my favorite things to teach people--we have a prophet who will never lead us astray. I'm so grateful for the amazing life that President Monson lived and the legacy he left behind, and I am excited to love and sustain our new prophet as well. Sending you all lots of love! Gayauh! Sister Wasden 郭姊妹 Pictures: 1. The sunset from our window 2. My cute comp in her natural habitat 3. One of our former investigators randomly came to church and brought us a cake! We were only too happy to eat it that night

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Leihdeih hou! Happy New Year! I'd love to brag that I got to celebrate New Year's 15 hours earlier than most of you, but as missionaries we don't get to party much over here, haha. Wishing you all a year full of love and prosperity and all that jazz. :) This past week has been good! Some highlights: Our ward mission leader Tanner left for Utah this week! To say goodbye, he made us the most fabulous Mexican meal. What a blessing he (and his food) is. If you see him hanging around Salt Lake, take him out to dinner or something, haha. This week we've been blessed to meet with some new people! I'm hoping that we can continue meeting with them. I already feel so much love for them and I can already picture them as full-blown members of our ward, haha. We've also been focusing on building relations with the ward, and holy cow, I love all of these people so much! The wildest, most interesting ward in Utah has nothing on the ones here in HK, but they all work so well together and I love each person here so much. This week I've studied a lot about miracles. I've been working on reading through Jesus the Christ (I'd definitely recommend, if you ever have incredible amounts of motivation and brainpower, haha. It's a tough read but it's so so so good). It struck me how sometimes people don't believe that something is a miracle because they can't understand it at all (like Christ turning the water into wine), and other people don't regard miracles as miracles because they can scientifically understand how that miracle worked, but in reality, a miracle is a miracle regardless of whether we understand it or not. It also reminded me of the talk in the last general conference by Elder Hallstrom about miracles, in which he talked about how sometimes the lack of what we perceive to be a miracle is actually a miracle in and of itself. We are definitely, without a doubt, surrounded by miracles every single day, and we just miss them because we either take them for granted or just can't recognize them. It's one of my goals in 2018 to be better at recognizing and being thankful for the everyday miracles that I'm privileged to experience, and I'd like to encourage you all to do the same. God's hand is in the details of our lives, even if we don't recognize that it's there. Sending you all lots of love! Thanks for everything you do! Gayauh! Sister Wasden 郭姊妹 Pictures: 1. Okay, so this one needs some explanation. Sister Risenmay and I accidentally matched, and then artsy Sister Risenmay noticed that we also happened to match the pink buildings and blue sky outside, so we tried to get a picture to show that, but the lighting was bad so you can't see it. So now it's just a picture of us sitting in our cluttered windowsill, hahaha 2. We had a weird day and there's nothing better to fix that than face masks 3. Our ward travel day was today and one of our sweet members bought us these treats! Frozen strawberries with a sugary syrup and rice paper over them. SO GOOD. Me, Sister Risenmay, Ying Ying (one of my favorite 7 year olds), and Sister Leung (our fab YW president)