Transfers and Moving! (Not in that order)

Leihdeih hou!
It's been a good, crazy week! Just the way we like them.
This past week we moved apartments! We actually stayed in the same estate and just moved two buildings over into the elders' apartment, and they moved into Tai Wai (into an even bigger, fancier apartment. We're definitely not jealous). Seriously though, this new one is still really small by American standards but it's WAY bigger than our old one, so we're happy! Also the view is stellar. That's my favorite part. My least favorite part is probably the shower. It can't decide if it wants to spit out ice water or actual lava, so it usually just rotates between the two on a 15-second cycle, which keeps things exciting (also the term "water pressure" feels like a dream from a life long past). Definitely helps you wake up in the morning, though.
We also got transfer calls this week, and surprise! I'm not moving. 7 transfers in your baby area is totally normal, right? Honestly though, I'm more than happy to stay and keep loving Tai Wai and Sha Tin. I'll also still be companions with Sister Risenmay, and we're happy about that! And here's the twist: we'll be in a trio again! Sister Gaillard from France will be joining us! We overlapped for 3 weeks in the MTC and I've just adored her from the start. We're all excited to see what happens!
In other news, I have found a deep (and probably undying) love for coconut water. I've bought probably 4 bottles of it in the past 5 days. This isn't really that important, but I just thought that you should know if I get swept away to an island during typhoon season, I'll stay hydrated, don't you worry.
Yesterday was also Easter, and I hope that in the midst of eggs and candy, you found some time to think about Jesus and His Resurrection. I know my Savior lives and I'm so grateful for the knowledge that through Him, all is possible. Hope you all had a good Easter/conference weekend (SO excited to watch conference next week!). :)
Love you all! Gayauh!
Sister Wasden
郭姊妹

Pics:
1. The message I'm trying to share here
2. Since moving took all day, but we were supposed to have district meeting still, we got permission to come to district meeting in our moving clothes. This has been fondly dubbed "t-shirt Tuesday" and here is a very backlit picture in remembrance of it.
3. The view from my study room window--in love with it.
4. So we were walking to the church building (most of our walk is through a mall) and we passed by these things (I think they're Hatchimals??) and since there was nobody around Sister Risenmay and I decided to snag a picture for the weekly (since I promised you all better pictures, obviously). Cue the CROWD of people SWARMING to get pictures of dumb white girls taking pictures here, hahaha. We made sure our tags were very visible. :)
5. Easter eggs, y'all.

Exchanges Exchanges Exchanges

Leihdeih hou!
This week was good. Lots of exchanges, as you can see. As STLs, we KNOW that we're supposed to do exchanges with every single companionship every single transfer, but somehow they always still end up getting shoved into one week near the end of the transfer?? I don't know how that works out. But anyways, this week I was on exhanges with Sister Liang and then with Sister Atzback a day or so later. Both lots of fun. It's so fun to get to know the other missionaries and so fun to see some new areas. :)
This week I also had the privilege (with Sister Atzbach) of having an older woman come up to us while we were talking to a high school girl on the street and scream in our faces that we're a cult and then scream to everyone in the vicinity to be careful of us (tiny, harmless, 19 and 20 year old girls). We tried to act as Jesus would and not as we would have liked to, haha. Reminds me of that scripture in Acts where the apostles are getting yelled at by the Sanhedrin and when they leave they're so happy that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for Christ's name.
We also got to visit lots of sweet members, and oh man do I love them. Hong Kong has my heart and soul.
Life is so good here! It's hard, but it's good. Keep sharing the gospel and loving the missionaries--they gave up more than you realize to be there in your ward with you.
Love you all, thanks for all the support from each of you! Gayauh!
Sister Wasden
郭姊妹

Pics:
Lots and lots of selfies. Better pictures to come next week, so sorry.

This Week in HK :)

Leihdeih hou!
This week has been good! And long. We are so so so tired.
A few highlights:
Last week for pday we went to Central and took a ride on the ferris wheel! Pretty views and lots of good friends. :)
Sister Kimball left us for Macau. :(
We had our mission conference! Elder Stevenson (as well as a few others) came and spoke to us about the power of repentance and it was so so good.
We FINALLY got a new investigator! Our first for this month (our goal was 12, which is twice the amount that I've ever gotten in a single month before). She's GOLDEN. And she lives out of our area, so we'll probably be turning her over soon. As it goes.
Someone told me that I could try to speak in English if that would help me express myself better. That felt good.
We met with one of the Sha Tin recent converts, Cheng Pohpo! She's so sweet, and only kind of an RC? She was found on the street by missionaries and baptized later, and THEN they found out that she was actually a less active from another ward and she couldn't remember being baptized. So she was baptized twice, haha! Doubly clean. She's so sweet though, and it was really fun. :)
We had lots of meals with members in the Sha Tin ward. It's so fun to get to know new people, and I'm looking forward to continuing the work here.
Keep the faith, folks. God is good. :)
Love you all! Gayauh!
Sister Wasden
郭姊妹

Pics:
1. Ferris wheel fun (check out the view behind us)
2. Love these girls
3. Gorgeous Central
4. MTC reunion at mission conference!

Sangyaht Faailohk

Leihdeih hou!
This week has been really good! Again, not too much time today, so here's another highlights reel for your entertainment:
1. All of the missionaries had to give talks in church yesterday in the Sha Tin ward. Turns out I don't like giving talks in Cantonese any better than I do in English. I talked about how the Book of Mormon can help members do missionary work. The Book of Mormon is really really important everyone. Make sure you're reading it and sharing it. :)
2. Sister Risenmay's birthday is today! For her birthday celebration we're going to go hear Elder Stevenson from the Quorum of the Twelve speak to all the HK missionaries. We're pretty excited. :)
3. On Saturday, we got a nice surprise emergency moves calls from the APs: Sister Kimball is going to Macau! TODAY. It was really short notice so we've been doing lots of packing (and a little bit of pouting). We've started really loving trio life and we're so sad it only lasted 2.5 weeks! Also Sister Risenmay and I will still be covering both Sha Tin and Tai Wai and we have no idea how we'll get around Sha Tin without Sister Kimball's help. Hopefully this is the closest I'll ever have to get to whitewashing an area. We'll be calling the elders for directions a lot, probably.
4. Oh yeah, I'm 20 now! Thanks everyone for all the birthday wishes, they really made my whole week! I feel so blessed to have so much love and support from all of you, and I'm so grateful for each of you! To party (last p-day) we met up with a bunch of other sisters and headed to the Cheesecake Factory. It was hard to find, expensive (really actually just American prices), and so much fun! A great way to party.
5. Oh yeah, while we were out finding on my birthday, I got hit on by a 16 year old (as opposed to the usual old men). Nothing to make you feel like you finally beat your teenage years like teenagers flirting with you. Adulthood is weird.
6. While at a less active's house, I made a cat friend! Not gonna lie, this was one of the highlights of my week.
7. We also sent a postcard to General Mills. This is because we really do love cereal, not because we're hoping they'll send us cereal in return (although that would be nice). When you're a missionary, you gotta find ways to keep entertained, you know?
Anyways. Life is good! I feel like as soon as you get comfortable and start to feel like you know what you're doing, things change on you, but that's how you keep growing. That's definitely what's been happening to me over here in Hong Kong for the past nine months! But if you keep Christ at the center of your life, He'll keep you balanced, every time.
Thanks for all the love and support! Have a good week!
Gayauh!
Sister Wasden
郭姊妹

Pics:
1. Am I going to declare this cat the new third member of our trio? Maybe.
2. Birthdays and artsy trees
3. The tripanionship. We'll miss this.
4. A dramatic send off of our postcard

Summer is Coming

Busy is good. Some brief highlights from the week for your entertainment:

1. We went finding a ton! Which is hard, but we're all getting a lot better at it, which makes it a lot more fun. One high school girl told me she thought I was 35, which did great things for me. We also ran into a group of Mainlanders, and as usual, as soon as we started speaking Cantonese to them, they all busted out their phones and started taking pictures and videos with us. Me, being a good little missionary, made sure the Book of Mormon that was in my hands was clearly prominent in every picture they had with me. Maybe you'll see some of those pictures floating around the internet or something. If you do, send them my way. ;)

2. We had lots of meals with members in Sha Tin this week (and a few in Tai Wai), and I have never eaten so much with members in my life. I love it though, and I love getting to know all the cute people in Sha Tin! I haven't had to get to know a new ward since I first came to the Tai Wai ward as a baby missionary, so it's been really fun to do it again, except this time I can actually talk to people and don't want to cry every time someone speaks in Chinese to me. It's great. :)

3. To make our week even more interesting, we went on splits with the Mandarin sisters this week! The Mandos cover seven wards, so sometimes when they have investigators going to different wards, they have to split up. It was so fun though, and I love love love hearing people speak Mandarin. It sounds way more like I expected Chinese to sound than Cantonese ever did, so that's really fun. Sister Anderson (the Mando) and I even managed to have a successful conversation on the train, half in Mandarin and half in Cantonese, even though neither of us can speak the other language. So cool! Our poor wards were so confused though--last week was our first week as a trio, and it took SO MUCH EXPLAINING to clear up all the confusion of how there's now three sisters covering two wards, so showing up one week later with a fourth sister who now only speaks Mandarin about broke their minds.

4. This week we found out the President Nelson and Elder Holland will be visiting Hong Kong this April and we couldn't be more excited!!

5. Also, the humidity is creeping back into our lives. We're starting to feel really sticky 24/7 again. If you leave anything cold out, it's immediately dripping wet on the outside. Summer is approaching. Most of all, it just SMELLS humid. It smells like Hong Kong again. It's throwing me back to my baby missionary days a lot, actually. I got here literally one week before the worst part of the Hong Kong summer, and Sister Kimball arrived soon after, so we've been enjoying telling Sister Risenmay (who got here in the wintertime) horror stories about heat and humidity. Not going to lie, I don't think I'm quite ready to let the nice cool weather go yet, but at least in a few weeks we'll be allowed to have air conditioning again! All part of the fun. :)

That's pretty much it this week! We've had a lot of really cool lessons and experiences about the temple this week, so here's a friendly reminder: the temple is really special and really really important and actually kind of the coolest thing. Don't you ever take it for granted.

Love you all so so so much! Thanks for all the love! Enjoy your nice dry, cool air for me.

Gayauh!

Sister Wasden

郭姊妹

Pics:

I'd like to apologize, I've been living so close to this gorgous river for 7 months and haven't really sent that many pictures of it home, so here's a few. The really really bright light in the background of the dark picture is the horseracing track, which they used in the 2008 Olympics. :)

Trio goals: the fat ballerinas in the Choi Hung subway station

A Week of Growth

Leihdeih hou!
Not going to lie, this week has been pretty hard. Being in a trio is harder than I expected (although thankfully we all get along great and our sense of humor is straight fire, let me tell you), and covering two areas is way harder than I expected, and trying to adjust to doing both of those things at the same time (while two of my two companions are basically on their deathbeds with bronchitis/the cold and while we have a new district leader who is really pushing us to be better than we've ever been before and better than we think we can even be, which is admittedly a good thing) has been an interesting experience. Here's some things I've learned:
1. It's okay to struggle (you'd think I would have learned that week 2 in the MTC, hahaha)
2. Communication fixes pretty much everything (you'd think I would have learned that sooner too)
3. Growing mentally and emotionally and spiritually is like growing physically--when you grow really really fast all at once, it gives you lots of growth pains. It's not fun and it hurts a lot, but the good news is that by the end of it, you're not a puny eleven-year-old anymore. Not that there's anything wrong with being eleven, but once you're not eleven anymore, you know that there's so many better things ahead (has anyone ever tried being nineteen? I'll probably look back at this and laugh at that when I'm thirty, haha). I hope none of you are ever content with being a tiny eleven-year-old. The growth pains hurt but they're worth it.
4. Chocolate doesn't fix everything, but it sure helps.
So yeah, it's been a week of really fast growing, but I've already learned a lot! I'm definitely feeling stretched in almost every way I can be, but the good news is that when we rely on the Savior, He'll keep us from snapping. And that's the best news I can share. :)
In other news, I hit my 9 month mark this past week! I still feel like a little baby missionary, so it's crazy that before too long I'll be considered what we call "experienced" (now that I'm here I'm figuring out that that term is a joke, hahaha). Since I'm serving an almost 19 month mission (due to the way transfers work out), I'm not quite over the hill yet though! (And no, I'm definitely not using the discrepancy between my 9 month mark and my halfway mark as an excuse to treat myself to fancy Chinese junk food twice... Definitely not. ;)) Thanks for all your love and support on this crazy adventure of mine! Love you all so much, let me know if there's anything I can do for you. :)
Love you! Gayauh!
Sister Wasden
郭姊妹

Pics:
1. Transfer day! Saying goodbye to Sister Bannagao :(
2. THE TRIO
3. A nice morning greeting on a sign in our mall

Paint and Tons of Group Pictures

Leihdeih hou!
This week has been the craziest week of my life! I'm pretty sure last p-day was probably 3 years ago. Let's start with a story...
Let me paint a picture for you (slight pun definitely intended, please hang on). A paint can, full of white paint. Innocent enough, right? Wrong. This paint can has a tiny little hole in its side, near the bottom. Now picture a water balloon with a small hole in it. You know how the water shoots out of it? Yeah, that, but with paint. This was the start of my week. I was hopelessly squatting next to this paint can with fear in my eyes and terror in my soul, just trying to keep this thing plugged up. I felt like the Little Dutch Boy in that Hans Christian Andersen story, the one who sticks his finger in the dam to keep Holland from flooding. "How did you get into this situation?" you may ask. Well, let me take you back about four weeks to an apartment leader (aka the people in charge of making sure that everyone in the apartment does their chores) meeting. "Apartment Deep Clean Day!" Daaih Chou, one of our office elders, announced. "February 12th! Two-One-Two! Easy to remember!" So here we are on Two-One-Two, and we've got a problem on our hands. Oh boy, has our apartment been deep cleaned. We've scrubbed the floors too many times to count, reorganized the kitchen, and we even did a little feng shui magic to make our tiny living/bedroom feel a little bigger (the secret: we moved Sister Risenmay's and my portable closet to our study room. It made our study room feel about 8 times smaller but it's a sacrifice we are willing to make). Our apartment was now the cleanest it's been in at least a year, and Sister Risenmay and I got a little (over)ambitious and decided that our apartment walls needed some serious TLC and more than a few touch-ups (actually, we decided that they need to be repainted entirely but as limited missionaries who only had until p-day ends at 6:30, we could only do so much). So yeah, we decided to paint the walls and our paint can decided to paint the floor (hence scrubbing the floors too many times to count). Realizing that I couldn't keep up this Little Dutch Boy gig for much longer, as fun as it was, Sister Risenmay and I moved the paint can to the shower, which left a trail of paint splatters behind us. Artsy, but messy. Thankfully Sister Kimball is a quick thinker and thought to spray the paint on the floor with cleaner to prevent it from drying until Sister Bannagao could come through and swipe it up. It was a messy maneuvre, but once the paint was safely draining in the shower (along with a ton of water to rinse it down), our lives got a little easier. Convinced that although we may have lost that battle, we could still win the war, Sister Risenmay and I armed ourselves with kitchen sponges, dipped them into the leftover paint, and got to work on a couple of spots. I don't know a lot about makeup, but the three tips I know about blending foundation really came in handy here. After about three spots we gave up. We lost the battle and we lost the war. Our walls are still gross. BUT the rest of our apartment is so nice and clean! May it stay that way for at least three weeks.
This was a great start to a great week. It's been Chinese New Year for the last few days, and while missionaries can't see a lot of the festivities, I did get to witness a Lion Dance from my window. They also have Chinese calligraphy artists outside painting these red sign things (to bring good luck), and they give them out for free. They gave Sister Risenmay one about having a prosperous life and me one about always smiling, and then they insisted that we try to paint our own, which was so fun! If anyone was wondering, I am absolutely awful at Chinese calligraphy. Thanks to New Year's, all of our investigators went to Mainland or were otherwise completely unavailable, but for some reason that made all of our members available, so we got to eat with so many different families this week! I love this sweet Tai Wai ward. For one cheng out (member meal) the family (and their less-active friends, who are SO NICE) took us to see a flower market (it's tradition to buy a ton of flowers for your house for New Year's). We only had time to see a little bit of it, but there were so many sights and sounds and snacks and people and I'd love to go back. So sweet!
This week we also had zone conference. All of the trainings were so great and President Lam talked to us a lot about the enabling power of the Atonement and how that can--and does--help us in our everyday lives. I mean, I definitely couldn't learn Cantonese on my own. That's a testament in and of itself. We (the Lion Rock zone leadership) gave a training about having a positive attitude and loving the work, even when it's hard and discouraging, and I think I learned way more from preparing for that than anyone else did by listening to it. Great things are ahead, only if you let yourself think that they are.
The other really exciting news from this week: MOVES CALLS! I can't even believe that this transfer is already over. It has completely FLOWN by and I can't even wrap my head around it. Big news! I AM GOING TO.... stay in Tai Wai! Yep! By the end of this transfer I'll have spent half of my mission here and I couldn't be happier! There's always a surprise in every transfer call though, and here's ours: right now it's Sister Risenmay and I covering my beloved Tai Wai and Sister Kimball and Sister Bannagao covering Sha Tin. However, Sister Bannagao is moving to the international zone and they're not sending anyone in to replace her. Sister Risenmay, Sister Kimball, and I will all be in a trio, covering both Tai Wai AND Sha Tin. That means that we get to figure out all the weird logistics of being in a trio (we're now shopping for three, cooking for three, and we have to figure out how to make our tiny study room work for three) and all the weird logistics of covering two areas (we have twice the area to cover, two wards, two sets of elders to coordinate with, and so many other things like that), all at once! It will be completely chaotic and a big change. It's a ton of responsibility for sure, but I'm excited to see what happens! Tai Wai has got my whole heart, but I guess I can share some of it with Sha Tin too. :)
There's just a piece of my crazy week! I'm loving the people, loving the work, and loving where I'm at right now, and there's only room to go up! As is my motto right now, "Let us not be content with where we are, but neither let us be discouraged" (Elder Christofferson). Life only gets better as long as we're keeping our sights in the right place and keeping ourselves centered on Christ.
Love you all so much! Gayauh!
Sister Wasden
享姊妹
Now for the loads of group pictures (sorry):
1. Well, actually not a group picture. But here's me with some rice cakes our Bishop's wife made for us! Rice cakes are a traditional New Year's treat. :)
2. Aaaalso not a group picture. Sorry again. Here's my trying to paint my name. They were really impressed that we can write characters (I literally only know my name, haha), even if it was really ugly.
3. Us and the painting people. I think they were really excited to see white people.
4. Us at the flower market!
5. The Tai Wai squad with Justin and George, our ward mission leader and ward missionary. Elder Stansfield is leaving (so sad) so obviously we needed a photoshoot.
6. Our barbecue with some members today! Chinese barbecues are so different from American barbecues. I almost got attacked by a monkey. Monkeys stole some of our corn. It was great.