Another Week :)

Leihdeih hou!
Nothing too wild this week. It's been good, filled with lots of finding and running all over the place (as is the drill when you don't live in your area). Here's a few highlights:
1. Last week we had a big birthday party for a few of our missionary pals for pday! We all got lunch and just hung out at the church and it was so fun!
2. I went to MLC last week! President and Sister Phillips are so sweet and I'm excited to get to know them better and see what they do with the mission. I'm so grateful for all of the inspired leaders that I've been privileged to work with while serving here in Hong Kong.
3. Lots and lots of finding. Did I mention that? Haha
4. Surprise! Our cute little investigator Jacky is actually 7, not 8! So he'll be getting baptized in December, not July, haha. He's so cute though and is progressing so well. We'll keep visiting him every week and teaching him. He's my favorite.
This week in personal study I read a talk called "Following Up" by Elder Ballard. Aside from an adorable story about him and his wife (my favorite kinds of stories), it has a lot of good advice on how we, as members, can better do missionary work, and I'd invite each of you to read it. It was so good and I'll be setting some goals based off of the things I learned.
Anyways, life is good and the church is true. I also read another quote this week (I can't remember who by, I'm so sorry) that says something along the lines of "the gospel promises us a rock in the whirlwinds, not an umbrella" and I love that. No matter what we're going through, we've got a solid foundation in Christ and His teachings. Remember that. :)
Love you all! Gayauh!
Sister Wasden
郭姊妹

Pics:
P-day party
MLC desserts (orange rolls, cinnamon rolls, and lemon rolls. We love Elder Roskelley and his baking)
Finding out on the pier with my girl Sister Perry

This Week on: The Island (we should make that a game show)

Leihdeih hou!
It's been a good week! Here's a few highlights:
1, President and Sister Phillips are officially in Hong Kong! I already miss President and Sister Lam already and nothing can replace the spot they have in my heart, but I am really excited to meet President and Sister Phillips! They'll be making a mini tour through the mission this coming week, and between that and MLC, I should be able to see them a couple of times!
2. This week we had lots of meetings and language studies and cheng outs (meals) with the members. This ward is so special and I love each of them so much!
3. July is AMERICA MONTH. Sister Briggs and I love America so much that if we talk too much about it we run the risk of getting emotional, haha. We'll be wearing red, white, or blue every day this month to celebrate. In addition to that, we set a goal of getting rejected 300 times this month (obviously with the hope that 2 or 3 out of those WON'T reject us), and we've dubbed ourselves the All-American Rejects, after the band. Wish us luck.
Okay, time to get spiritual:
So we have a recent convert in our ward (that I LOVE SO MUCH), and he's so hard on himself and is constantly afraid that he'll slip back into old habits (and I'm afraid that he'll just go off and get translated on us). Yesterday in personal study I did some studying for him, but I found out pretty quick that I was actually just studying for me, and I think it might be helpful for you too.
Okay, so pretend for a second like you're Satan. If you were Satan and you wanted to get a strong saint to lose their faith in Christ, what would you do? Your answers may very, but the answer I came up with is that I would personally get them to stop repenting so they'll stop relying on the Savior. And then as I thought of ways to get them to stop repenting, I came up with two options (again, your answers may very depending on your circumstance or whatever):
1. I could get them to be too easy on themselves (complacency). If they have the mindset of "oh, I'm doing okay where I'm at. I don't need to repent of that, that's not a big deal. I don't need to change any more," then they'll stop repenting because they'll feel they don't need it. Goal accomplished.
2. I could also get them to be too hard on themselves. If I can trick them into the mindset of "I can't believe I messed up again. I can't be perfect on my own. Will God still love me? Does the Atonement even work for someone like me?" they'll stop repenting because they'll be afraid that they can't be perfect, so they won't even try (when the reality is that we can only reach perfection WITH the Savior). Goal accomplished.
Okay, so on the other side of the equation, as the saints, what can we do to prevent this from happening?
Here's what I came up with (again, feel free to add or take away from the list):
1. BELIEVE fiercely in Christ and the power of His Atonement. Seek to understand that power through study.
2. USE the Atonement. Repent of every single little thing you can think of, and do so daily.
3. TRUST the Atonement. Once you've repented, move on! Don't dwell on it. Thanks to Christ, every single day is a new day and a new start, and through the sacrament we can be completely clean every single week.
So then I guess the only thing left to ask is:
1. Do you believe that?
2. What are you going to do about it?
I KNOW that the power of the Atonement is real and it changes lives, one day at a time. Don't undervalue it and don't underuse it.
And if you, like me, tend to err on the side of being too hard on yourself, here's a quote from my dear Elder Uchtdorf that's really helped me:
"God loves you this very day and always. He is not waiting to love you until you have overcome your weaknesses and bad habits. He loves you today with a full understanding of your struggles... He knows of your remorse for the times you have fallen short or failed. And still He loves you. And God knows of your successes; though they may seem small to you, He acknowledges and cherishes each one of them."
I know that's true. Everyone breathe a bit; you're doing better than you think you are. :)
Oh, one last thing: Last night for our ward FHE Sister Briggs and I made rice crispy treats and the ward EXPLODED. I think Bishop's wife ate at least five (and snuck two more home in her purse), and at least 3 other people asked us for the recipe. This America month, make a rice crispy treat for a non-American in need. They apparently don't know what they're missing out on.
Love you all so much! Gayauh!
Sister Wasden
郭姊妹

Pics:
1. Cheng out with the deaf members. I always feel like I'm floating after spending time with them, I love these people so much.
2. Sister Briggs and I had extra money this month so we chenged our district to floats (ice cream, and any other dairy product, is a BIG DEAL here). A wonderful district meeting followed.
3. Cheng with the Tangs! I love this family and Kelly just got back from her mission to Temple Square a couple of months ago and it's so fun to talk with her about it!
4. My area, summarized in a picture. Jungle. Apartment buildings. Heat and humidity and mosquitoes (not pictured). Ocean and other islands in the back. All while being situated on a huge island ourselves? Sweet.
5. A pic from finding the other day. Fun fact: thanks to the ocean breezes, Pok Fu Lam is the coolest place to be in the summer time, and boy am I grateful. It's hot enough as is.

This Week Was Crazy

Leihdeih hou!
This week has been crazy! So we're going for another highlights reel. As usual. Sorry.
My apartment is no longer dying. This is a blessing.
I went on splits with each of the West Point sisters this week. I love them both and it was so fun getting to teach and do the Lord's work with them.
So last week we had our apartment inspected and they found out that the concrete outside our window was cracked (and this is a bad thing because we live on the 23rd floor so if it fell we might be in a little bit of trouble). So we had a crew come in to fix it! Three days of men wandering through our house. Construction here is intense though--the scaffolding is made of bamboo and they can take it up and down within an hour and these guys have NO FEAR. We about had heart attacks for them though.
I had my last interview with President Lam before he goes home next week! I'm so grateful for him and Sister Lam and their example of selfless service and complete consecration and I'll miss them SO MUCH.
We had lots and lots of activities this week! Service, a Relief Society activity, and a ward music activity that was for both PFL and ABD wards. Let me tell you, they do NOT mess around here! It was so fun! The missionaries were asked to perform, so we did a sign language thing, and it was pretty fun, although I'd probably prefer to not to it again, haha.
Today we went to a monastery called Kwun Yam for p-day and it was SO COOL. I don't even have the words to describe how beautiful and serene it all was.
We also got move calls this week and... Sister Briggs and I will be staying together! We couldn't be happier. :)
Anyways, that's pretty much it. It doesn't sound that wild but it's been a crazy week!
Last thoughts: I've thought a lot this week about sharing our talents. That's something that's always been kind of hard for me (because piano and violin happen to be my talents and I have awful stagefright), but lately I've been asked to play piano a lot in ward choir, and in primary, and in sacrament meeting, and I've actually been loving it. It's so nice to find different ways to serve, and I'd encourage each of you to do the same. :) Also, I want to be primary pianist for the rest of my life. That's all.
Love you all so much! Gayauh!
Sister Wasden

Pics:
1. Our cute deaf members. So much love.
2. PRES AND SIS LAM
3. These fearless little monkeys, 23 stories up.
4. Rain for daaayyys.
5. Us performing. If you look closely, my skirt has monkeys on it and I'm kind of obsessed with it.
6. Post-performance.
7. Rain makes everything lovely here
8. Kwun Yam :) If your legs aren't covered enough they give you cool wrap things to cover up, so we purposely wore our shortest missionary-appropriate skirts so we could get the wraps, haha.

Not Dead Yet

Leihdeih hou!
This week has been interesting! Here's a shortened version because I'm the worst at weeklies.
So this week we had zone conference! So crazy that it was President and Sister Lam's last. So grateful for them. Anyways, conference was mostly just a huge training on how to use the area book on our phones. I can see how useful and what a big blessing it will be, but it's going to be a rough transition from our paper books to our digital ones. Our poor office elders are finding endless bugs in the system, poor guys. It will be good to use though, and we're all excited about it.
The other really fun thing from this week was that our whole apartment all got sick together! It was kind of miserable, but it would have been way more miserable if we'd all gotten sick one at a time, so we're counting our blessings. We haven't eaten anything except for chicken broth and crackers in four days, which has been pretty fun. This has also led us to be pretty weak, so Sister Briggs and I have almost passed out a few times from trying to go out and visit people and go to church and stuff. President and Sister Lam have recommended that we take it easy, but staying in the apartment is kind of boring. We try to compromise.
Today is a public holiday: the Dragon Boat Festival! Not going to lie, I'm not really sure what this entails, but it sounds cool and the posters of the dragon boat races all look really cool (although all the races happen on not-p-days in not-our-area, which is a bummer). We're celebrating by going to party with our Lion Rock pals at Ikea. :)
All in all, life is good! We're staying positive and we're excited to get back to work, haha. God is good and He's watching out for each of us, don't you even doubt it.
Love you all! Gayauh!
Sister Wasden
郭姊妹

Pics:
1. My West Point girls
2. Sick selfie (Sister Briggs is wearing an ice mask (a very nice commodity for HK summers), don't worry about her)
3. Elevator selfie
4. Rest-on-your-bed-so-you-don't-die selfie

This Weeeeek

Leihdeih hou!
Sorry I never have exciting email subjects. Accepting suggestions.
Anyways. This week was good!
This week I tried white chocolate with pop rocks mixed in! This was a magical experience. At that very same meal, I also tried pig ears for the first time. This was a less magical experience.
Last week for p-day Sister Briggs and the West Point sisters met up with Sister Risenmay and Sister Gaillard (my last comps) for lunch at a slightly sketchy Indian buffet! Good food with good friends, what more could you ask for for a good p-day?
We also had our first typhoon of the season this past week! Lots and lots of rain, but it was only a Level 3, so life continued as usual.
This week we also met with our cute investigator Jacky! I've been reading lots of church talks (seriously, LDS Library is amazing) about the responsibility we have in teaching little children and raising them up with good values, and I've definitely seen that in action with Jacky. I swear, something in my heart explodes every time we visit Jacky and he looks at us (in between throwing various things at us, he is an eight-year-old after all) and says that he knows Jesus loves him. I wish everyone else could know that too.
This week we also had MLC! We were talking a lot about obedience (always a popular topic) and about having a more positive attitude about life and the work (because oh man is serving a mission in Hong Kong (and serving a mission in general) hard, but if that's all you focus on, that's all you'll ever get out of it), and we talked a bit about Abraham and Isaac. Abraham wanted his whole life to have a son, and he finally got Isaac, and then God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. That seems like a really hard, really tough commandment, but it proved Abraham's obedience, and in the end God provided and Isaac was saved (this is President Lam's favorite story about obedience because Isaac was old enough to choose and he needed to be obedient too). Anyways, one of the missionaries asked if we thought that God knew that Abraham would obey, and of course He knew. God knows everything. The question here is not if God knew, but if Abraham knew. That's true in our lives as well. Sometimes things are really really hard, but God already knows how you'll handle it. Sometimes, He wants YOU to know how you'll handle it. To quote President Lam, "God knows you. He's placed you here because He wants you to know what you're made of." So yeah, life is hard, and I'm not going to lie, being a missionary is hard too. But I'm learning so much about myself, and I'm doing things I never even believed I'd be able to do. And you all can too! If you're having a hard time, take a second to ask God what He wants to to learn about yourself (and about Him, and about the Savior, and about life) from this trial. If you're humble and willing, you'll learn a lot, guaranteed.
I love you all! Thanks for all the support. Gayauh!
Sister Wasden
郭姊妹

Pics:
The apartment squad
Indian foooood
The pals
We are the granola queens.
We got caught in the typhoon for, I kid you not, twenty seconds and were completely soaked through.
Trying pig ear! No tears here!

Smartphones are the Best

Leihdeih hou!
This week has been good!
Last week for p-day the sisters from my MTC group went to Cheung Chau (aka my favorite place in HK) to celebrate our one year mark! It was so fun to catch up on our lives and hear how everyone has changed in the past 10 months since we were all in the MTC together. Lots of laughing and story-telling and... sweating. Summer is here, folks. I'm not ready.
Other than that, nothing too crazy has happened this week. We taught cute little Jacky Chan again. He's been to primary a couple of times now, so when we asked him about Jesus he said that he knows that Jesus loves him and that Jesus loves the little kids, so that's definitely some progress! It's so fun to see even the testimonies of little kids growing. I love this work.
In other news, God is really furthering His work here. Since getting our smartphones, the work has been going so much faster. Like, we're no Philippines or Brazil yet, but we may be getting there! Maybe? Anyways, everyone and their dog in Hong Kong uses this texting app called What'sApp, so when you try to call them or text them normally (aka our only options when we had Nokias), it was really really hard to contact people. However, since getting What'sApp, we've made sure to spend some time every day just going through our formers, potentials, and less-active records and What'sApping them, and we've been able to reach so many more people than we ever have before. It's amazing and such a blessing.
So I guess that's my testimony for this week. God is in charge. We got these smartphones at just the right time, and if we always rely on the Lord as much as our mission leaders do, everything else that happens in our lives will happen at just the right time too. Isn't that a comforting thing to know?
Love you all. Thanks for all the love and support, I'm so grateful for each of you! Gayauh!
Sister Wasden
郭姊妹

Pics:
1. Our whole mission with Elder Gong a couple of weeks ago. I love these people.
2. When a band you love is coming to RIGHT BY YOU but it's okay because you love God more
3. MTC pals (sorry @Sis Mak who is stranded in Macau)
4. Us and Jacky! Note Grandma Fu in the background. She's really sweet and always forces fruit on us and also most of the time she just mumbles things in another dialect of Chinese so we mostly just nod and smile.
5. A combined Pok Fu Lam and Aberdeen FHE. I LOVE EVERYONE.
6. More fun at Cheung Chau

Another Week, Another Apostle :)

Leihdeih hou!
So for starters, last week Elder Bednar came to Hong Kong, but the missionaries didn't get a chance to meet with him (he was on a tight schedule), but we DID get the chance to meet with Elder Gong this past Thursday! Hong Kong is getting a lot of attention from the General Authorities lately and the missionaries are definitely not complaining. Elder Gong and his wife are so sweet! Elder Gong spoke to us a lot about loving your companions and making them your eternal friends, which I loved. No problems here because I've really been blessed with stellar companions my whole mission and I am so grateful for each of them.
Elder Gong meeting with the missionaries was also really special because it happened to fall on my ONE YEAR mark! ONE YEAR on the mission! It kind of blows my mind because on the one hand, I feel like I've lived in Hong Kong my whole life, and on the other hand, I feel like I just got here and still don't really know what I'm doing, haha. Regardless, 6 months left sounds like WAY too short of a time and I'm planning on living them out the very best I can. :)
We also had zone conference this week! It was mostly just training on our new smartphones and finding new ways to utilize them. I feel like I could better utilize them if I knew characters, but that's a work in progress. Really though, I'm so grateful for them already and we don't even have data yet! Smartphones were clearly an inspired move and I'm excited to see how the work moves forward with them.
Anyways, I'm doing well. The church is so true and I feel so blessed to be able to be in Hong Kong trying to share it. The work is hard but it's oh so good!
Love you all! Gayauh!
Sister Wasden
郭姊妹

Pictures:
1. MTC reunion at Elder Gong's meeting (minus Elder Bagley who booked it out before we could catch him)
2. My beautiful Sister Low :)
3. Sister Briggs and I and Sister Lee, a sweet old lady in our ward. Have I mentioned yet how much I love each of my comps?