S5:E2 The One Where We Do a Zone Conference Training

 

大家好！

Another little crazy fun week. So let's start with the crazy...

☆ A previous friend from Mainland who now lives in Japan came back to Hong Kong because his mother passed away. His little brother was ready frustrated and confused and just heartbroken. They came to Hong Kong so he could tour around and have fun. Winnie invited them to meet with the missionaries so we could help share the plan of salvation message with them. And so we met them and then Winnie tells them everything about the church and what she knows and then puts them on bap date.....  I'm just gonna leave that there

☆ Because we're double covering we have more friends and more opportunities for finding. We went to Sai Ying Pun and Sheung Wan to try finding some 外国人's and 内地人's. We also wanted to explore more of the area and just get to know where the best places to find were. So we arrive there and saw lots of foreign people but as we tried approaching them not all of them were very interested in talking to us. So we said another prayer because we wanted to go home having a good conversation with at least 1 person. And as we started walking around we saw this 1 girl sitting down in a dog park. Of course we had to speak to her and so we did!! And we got what we prayed for. We were able to find someone for our area, and we found out she was Christian too. Forever grateful for PRAYERS  

☆ We had our zone conference !! Me and sister Liu gave a training about our experiences in purpose driven weekly and daily planning. When the APs called us to do a training we were so surprised because normally just the leaders do it but it was such a great opportunity and experience to do it. It was so scary to be up there in front but it was a fun experience at the same time. YAY first zone conference training !! It was so spirit filled and I am so glad to be working with President Chan, he really does receive revelation for this mission and is such a wonderful president and example to all of us

☆ We met this cutie named Sophie. She was a referral given to us and she's awesome. She wants to start reading the book of Mormon, she just needs someone to push her to read the book of Mormon. And we just had such a cool lesson with her, she said she wanted to try reading the book of Mormon because she doesn't really connect with the Bible. And she is literally so funny too. She asked us to pray that her pastor at church wouldn't find out that she was meeting with us and learning about our church ahaha

☆ We had a visitors centre shift and we were inviting everyone to our chapel open house. Then there was this one guy named Ryan who came back and talked to me. He said the Spirit prompted him to come back and speak to me. He was really nice and very uplifting. He shared Romans 8:32 with me and told me to read and study it. It was such so cool and sweet with just him coming back and sharing that verse. He was so so nice and was just telling me that I didn't have to worry so much about lots of things and I really needed to hear that! It was such a cool experience that I'm always going to remember

☆ Church was so busy!!! The whole time we had to do something and Sophie came to church so we went to sacrament twice. We also taught the young women and young men and it was so much fun. I'm so excited to work with them and get to know the youth. They are all so cute and sweet :> 

☆ Today for PDAY we went to the Peak woohoo that's finally off of my bucket list. The view was so pretty and the weather was perfect for us to go today thankfully it did not rain!!

This week I studied the general conference talks of the year I was born in. Sister Hernandez gave us that idea and it was super cool just seeing how those messages prepared a few years ago were made for us and it's so personal. The simple truths and messages shared have strengthened my testimony that Christ does lead this church and calls a prophet.

PICTURES:

• winnie :-)

• anele!! she's so sweet

• yay zone conference

• sophie!! she came to church woohoo

• causeway babes are now just 4

• the peakkkkk

XUE JIEMEI

薛姐妹

SISTER SY

                                                             

S5:E1 The One Where We're Assigned to Double Cover.

 

早安！

I only have 3 exciting news for this week 

☆ As you can read from the title of my email, we're now double covering the only 2 areas I've been assigned to hahaha. We are now Victoria 1st and Wan Chai Sisters! So crazy! But that was the dream lol I'm pretty sure we're going to be super busy and stressed this transfer trying to figure out how to double cover but I'm excited to work with more people and teach more! I'm grateful that I can go back and serve again in Victoria 1st and work with the members especially the youth and YSAs. I feel like I'm more ready and more courageous to face the foreigners and teach them. I also want to share how Heavenly Father does listen to our prayers and knows our circumstances. This whole transfer one of the things I've been struggling with was being in this area for too long that I run out of ideas on how to help and strengthen this difficult branch and area. And so Heavenly Father has answered my prayers in a way I didn't think He would haha I'm now going to back to the only other branch I've served in haha but this time serving both branches. I'm excited for all that I'm about to learn from the members and friends and I'm also excited for the growth! I feel like I'm going to learn lots about patience and diligence. It's gonna get crazy busy and soooo 

☆ This week we were really busy preparing for our friend's baptism. We had to work with so many people including senior missionaries which was really stressful trying to make both the Mandarin members and the senior missionaries happy. We had to coordinate with all 3 of them which was so stressful because they all wanted different outcomes for the baptism program and we had to figure out what to do. One thing that I kept repeating this week out loud was that "Sunday will come", and that "This is the Lord's work, not mine". These 2 statements that I've repeatedly been saying this week has really helped me! Knowing that I'm only the Lord's servant and that He already knows the outcome of whatever was going to happen helped me calm down so much. But I've done my best and gave my ALL literally. I woke up everyday this week more purposeful and more driven to get the work going. This really is the Lord's work and not mine, and Sunday really did come and everything went successful. Cindy's reaction and testimony was so precious. Her mom came to Hong Kong to visit her and her wish was to have her come to church and join her baptism but as soon as she came to Hong Kong and learned about her baptism she wasn't very happy about her decision and went back to China. It was so sad to hear that but also amazed that Cindy still continued on with the baptism. She is just so awesome and I'm sure it wasn't an easy decision for her because family relationship is so important to her. She got into the waters of baptism in the most graceful way ever. It was the most beautiful baptism I've ever seen. She exclaimed for joy when she got baptized haha I love her and her energy. She later received the gift of the Holy Ghost and shared her testimony which was so wonderful. She shared that the first time she met the missionaries she was very unhappy and wondered why they were so happy. She shared how yesterday was such a happy day for her and that her excitement was replaced with peace. She said she wishes she could always have that peaceful feeling everyday. It was such a sweet testimony. She is a powerful spirit and such a sweet spirit.

☆ This week our friend Grace went to the temple for the first time!!! She was able to perform baptisms for the dead for her grandma. It was the happiest day ever. I'm just so grateful we were able to meet her. Crazy how one simple "hello!" changed the course and direction of her life. I know this doesn't only apply to missionary work but that this applies to everyone. We all carry that responsibility to invite people to receive the blessings of the gospel. It can be as simple as "hey do you want to come sit by us in church this week?" There are many different normal and natural ways to share the gospel. Grace is so so cute :> she tells us all the time how grateful she is for the first interaction we had. Oh my goodness I saw her paying her tithing and I just felt in awe. She is the only one working for her family and she isn't just helping her husband and daughter, she's also helping her siblings go to school. She said "it's hard but I need to do it"

☆ We met with Baran and had a super cool time together! We shared similarities about Muslim and Christianity. She thought all Christian churches were the same. We taught her the Great Apostasy and she didn't entirely understand and so we had to use objects and draw it on paper and then she kind of understood it. We forget that English isn't her first language too! But it was so cool that she was actually interested to learn more and she knew our purpose, she knew why we were meeting. As we were sharing about each others religion she asked what happens when we break the commandments and we told her that we could repent and she didn't know what that word was and so we searched it in Persian (her native language) and she was like "oh return to God!" We do that too. I think that definition of repentance is so nice. Returning to God.

Well that was it for my week! Yay! I'd love to hear from you too. Here are some pictures that can better describe my week haha.

XUE JIEMEI

薛姐妹

SISTER SY

PICTURES:

• I drew that.. just saying  HAHAHA the Cantonese kids literally said "差不多" 

• Cindy's baptism woohoo!

• The cutest flowers evah

• Baran ☆☆ she's from IRAN :)

• Grace's temple day!

• Dropping a watermelon at a member's house

                                                     

S4:E25 The One Where I Turn 20 😶‍🌫️

 

早上好！

BEST BIRTHDAY WEEK EVER!!

☆ My birthday was so so special and so memorable. So on the morning of my birthday we went to the chapel to teach a lesson to these 3 cute sisters from the Cantonese branch. One of them was a long time member another was a recent convert and the other one was a friend. The elders asked us to help us teach these sisters the 3rd lesson. We were reading from the book of Mormon and just asked them questions to see what they already knew. The whole time was such a unique experience because the friend didn't speak Mandarin and so the Cantonese sister was translating for her. She also said that her Mandarin isn't that good but on that day she prayed for the gift of tongues and said she understood what we said completely. The whole time the spirit was so strong, despite the differences of languages for some reason, I could understand most of the things she would say. We both shared experiences about repentance and the sweet gift of the spirit.  We invited her to be baptized on August 20th. And she said she wants to learn more still and doesn't want to rush anything. We encouraged her and assured her that those were good desires but that God would want her to set a goal. She said yes and said 愿意! What a birthday! A great start of the day!  

☆ then we had an online family home evening with Kiko, Kathy and their other friends from a different branch. The whole time was so hard cause the kids were so disrespectful and naughty haha. We told them that they should respect people when they talk by listening. That immediately made them keep quiet lol. 

☆ We went to Zhao JM to visit her and her family and also have family home evening. We got there and she wasn't feeling very well and her head was aching so bad. Her husband is atheist and the whole time as we tried to share a message he was cleaning the house and was just distracting us and then he literally frees his aggressive bird out and it starts flying everywhere lol at this point he probably wanted us to just leave their home  anyway I'm going to send pictures for evidence

☆ On Wednesday we got to go to the temple!! A happy birthday gift ♡♡ there were some members from Mongolia who joined the session and it was so special. They got to listen to the endowment session in their own language. Love languages!! So special in their own way. We were in the chapel the whole afternoon after that. We got to meet 2 people and give them chapel tours. We realized that we could just stay in the church and the people would come haha. Then we joined sports night with Lorraine. I got to see Megan and SHE IS THE ABSOLUTE SWEETEST. She made me a mochi cake for my birthday and it just melts my heart when she calls me her favourite missionary. It's the purest thing ever. We also had a fun lesson with Cindy and read the testimony of Joseph Smith. She is so close to her baptism day!! SO CLOSE. KEEP PRAYING FOR HER!! AAAAAA

☆ On Thursday we had a plan to stay in the chapel after the 2 chapel tours we had the other day. We told the security guard to let us know and then as we were praying in for our personal study, he knocks on our door and tells us there's a visitor. We met Vivian from Guangzhou, she was a Mandarin teacher in Utah for 3 years. She said the students would be so surprised that she didn't go to church every week hahaha and she was also surprised that they went every week. Her friend then introduced her to church. Super cool! We went back to doing our studies and I fell asleep doing language study. I told myself I was only going to close my eyes for a minute and then I woke up and saw like the APs and other elders surrounding me. MAN I FELT SO BAD HAHAHA! It was so embarrassing lol. Then my companion started praying in for comp study and then I fell asleep again during her prayer.  then we got a SUPER AWESOME CHAPEL TOUR!! I need to make another bullet point for this because this is super special to me. 

☆ There were 2 guys from Beijing and they were visiting Hong Kong for a few days. It was their first time in church and they wanted to learn more about Christianity. They could barely speak English and my companion is still learning the language too. It was so special to me knowing that I was actually able to hold a conversation with these 2 boys, helping them learn more about God. They asked how they could join the church and asked for a bible. It was so awkward not having a bible but having a whole shelf of book of Mormons. They had almost 0 knowledge about God. And so we promised to give them a bible the day after. One guy did come back and took the bible, he also asked for 2 copies cause his friend wanted to learn more too. And he sent us a message thanking us and it was so heartwarming and also so sad that people from China come to Hong Kong to learn so much more. I'm so grateful for this call to serve in Hong Kong as a Mandarin missionary. Giving people a chance to hear truth and learn about God. And then they go home and will probably not have as much opportunity to learn it here. They even asked "what if I'm in Beijing and want to learn more?" AAAAA that breaks my heart. I wish we could teach them. I wish it was allowed. This was the message he sent:

"能和你们交朋友我真的非常非常开心！我认为这是我的荣幸，真的有一种相见恨晚的感觉！首先真的十分感谢你们热情的接待我们并为我们答疑解惑，让我了解到了许多在大陆不太容易知道的事情，使我对基督教产生了强烈的敬畏之心。在之后的学习过程中希望咱们还可以通过短信或者Whats app多多交流，随着学习的深入我可能还会有一些问题，到时候还要麻烦你们多多指教" 

☆ We had a wonderful lesson with Lilly and got to invite the Huangs to join. We finally talked to her and invite her to start taking the missionary lessons. She is so ready!! She was telling us about how she wanted to take these 3 lessons and she was just asking about all the details. Then she told us that her only problem is time management and then she started looking at her super busy schedule and was just telling us all of her free times. She actually is so sincere and is so willing to learn. I'm so excited for her. I know God did not allow me to leave this branch because of her. He knew I had to finally tell her HEY IT'S TIME TO TAKE THE MISSIONARY LESSONS! And it took us so long to ask her because of her busyness and we didn't want to straight up just tell her. But I also know that this was the right time to ask her, if we asked her sooner she probably would've not agreed. But I'm so so excited for Lilly and just so excited to walk with her and grow alongside with her. She talked so much about the energy that she feels in church and the temple. During the call she was saying that she wasn't ever a church goer but had been to multiple churches but she feels a different energy in our church. We told her that it was the spirit, I love how she was just recognizing the spirit in her life and she didn't even know. Then she came to church last Sunday and then told us that she would be gone for 2 weeks to go to China so please pray for her!!! 2 weeks without feeling the spirit can be hard. But after church she messaged us and said:

"I am so relieved that no typhoon today and I was able to go to church.

when doing the study session today, I felt the Spirit. so wonderful

I. Shall miss church for the next two weeks, but I will be back"

SHE IS FEELING THE SPIRIT AND SHE KNOWS IT!!!! AAAAAA THE JOY OF MISSIONARY WORK!!!!

☆ On Saturday we went to Stanley to clean the beach and do a service project. We started cleaning the beach and we were just throwing all the plastic and trash and let me tell you of a sacred experience I had. I saw something that looked like a huge rock but then it hit me. The smell hit me. It was like a dogs poop that had dried up. It was huge guys. And the smell continued to follow me. It was a whole experience that yes.. that I wanted to include in my email so that I'll never forget this day and moment  anywayyyy I have a darker tan now! I'm so dark and my watch tan is even more visible than it already was. 

☆ We were in the harbour finding and talking to people and then the APs called!! I thought they were going to ask us whether our area book was having problems and so I immediately just started talking about how funny our area book was becoming. But he called for different reasons!! He said that president Chan has been checking everyone's area book and saw that we were doing so good so he invited us to give a training in zone conference AAAAAA crazy la!! So excited and so nervous to be doing a training but I'm glad Sister Liu and I are doing it together!! That's the coolest thing ever. 

☆ On Sunday we were talking to horse girl Cindy and we asked her what she feels about church. She said it's very peaceful and we talked about how she's been to church so many times. Then we told her like hey you know there's a next step right? Are you ready to take that next step? And she was like haha that's a scary question and so we asked her if she knew what the next step was and she said baptism. And so we invited her to be baptized and she said no immediately and so we asked her why and she said it was too big of a promise. We asked her why she thought it was a big promise and she said it's just a big promise. Then we told her to pray about it and to open her heart and counsel with the Lord. We shared Alma 37:37 with her. We told her not to make a decision on her own. We told her that God will tell you if this is right thing to do and you will know his answer because you've been recognizing his answers to you. Please pray for her that she will open her heart and accept the blessings. We wish she should receive the blessings but if she says no then we can't help her unlock those blessings :(

☆ Our other Cindy girl though is doing so well. She might be getting baptized this Sunday! Her mom will be here and so we told her hey let's do your baptism next Sunday when your mom is here and she was like okay let's do it! We're going to be busy the next few days and so pray for Cindy and pray for us! We are so excited for her and for the blessings she's about to receive. Woohoo! Go Cindy! 

I realized how long this email is and realized wow there were so many wonderful things that happened this week. Sometimes I forget to count my blessings. Reading this whole email and seeing the length of it makes me see the hand of the Lord in my life! What a joyful work to be in. So many wonderful miracles and tender mercies from the Lord. Keep writing in your journals. Just like the pattern we see in the book of Mormon, people forgot so quickly. Laman and Lemuel saw an angel but then quickly forgot. Writing down on your journal isn't just for your future children or generations to know what you did or who you were. Your journal will help you remember how merciful God is and how wonderful his plan is. He is in the details of our lives and if we choose to open our eyes we will be able to see how wonderful his works are that we are unable to comprehend it and be left in awe. Bye! See you next week ♡

XUE JIEMEI

薛姐妹

SISTER SY

PICTURES:

• the cutest Cantonese Sisters

• the aggressive bird landed on me.. he either wished to attack me or read the book of Mormon together:)

• Megan's mochi cake!!

• new members of the Lehi district

• Daniel!! Our miracle

• TANNED. SO TAN.

• yay service projects! save the turtles

• our cute returning member hahaha we followed her pose lol

                                                      

S4:E24 The One Where We Have Transfer News!

 

早安！

It's the summertime and everything feels so SLOW. I feel like people in Hong Kong are running faster to be away from the heat and maybe us too. It's been so so hot but the work continues, even if it causes heatstroke :)

☆ On Tuesday morning we went to Victoria Park before starting our studies.  We met 2 Glaiza's! Both from the Philippines. The 2nd Glaiza we met was from Davao and we invited her to sports night and she was so so interested about it and told us that she recently got terminated which was so sad. After we told her we could help her she was interested haha at first she wouldn't really give her number but then later found us sitting down and asked for our number. Anyway she came to church the day after! We were sitting down in the park and doing our studies. I pulled out my umbrella because MAN was it hot but we needed to be community missionaries. We were getting bug bites and sunburnt but hey there was this guy who noticed us and asked us if we were Mormons so we invited him to church! Yay community missionaries! Then we went to Tai Koo to try visiting a less active member and lo and behold the 保安's wouldn't let us in heeeeeeheeeee so we couldn't visit her but the spirit called us another way and so we went to the park closest to her house and got to talk to another Filipina and got to invite her to church too! But then it gets better, we met another Filipina who was pregnant and was due like on that day. We got to talk about how the gospel blesses families and she messaged us the next day informing us that she just gave birth. Her name is Adona so please keep her in your prayers. Hopefully she will be interested in hearing a gospel message! After a day just meeting lots of Filipinas we were able to go to HKU and meet our friend Joey. We had a lesson with her and Anson and the lesson didn't go so well.... her mind was everywhere and she didn't seem as interested anymore. Hopefully she replies to us again soon but hey! Slow progress is still progress!

☆ Wednesday interviews!!! Nothing too much to talk about for interviews, it was pretty chill. President Chan was just asking me about training and how my area is doing. We aren't affected by the change but we just removed one zone in the mission. There is huge change coming to the mission!! In the evening we got to go to sports night with Lorraine. Oh my goodness it was a miracle!!! She told us that she wasn't really interested in being affiliated with religion but we told her about sports night and she was really interested so she did come. Hopefully her heart will slowly open to learn more

☆ On Thursday, I went on exchanges with Sister Hernandez and we went to Sheung Wan to find people. We set a very specific goal of finding a Filipina wearing workout leggings. And we actually did!! We had a really good conversation about families. Such a fun exchange with her. Then Thursday evening we went to Zhang Jun Hua's house with Huang DX. We got to talk about conversion stories and it prolonged like until 9:30  I definitely got roasted on because we arrived so late lol. As we were on our way home it was already like 10:15 and we just arrived to our station. We hear people say "你也想要做传教士吗？" and we face back and say hey! And they were the members from Shanghai

☆ Friday we were able to go to Friday church with Glaiza and hang out with all the Filipina sisters who got terminated. It was so sad to hear their stories and just all their hardships. 

☆ On Sunday there were lots of people from Shanghai who came and there were some changes that were made for our mission!

XUE JIEMEI

薛姐妹

SISTER SY

PICTURES:

• vanilla ice cream~

• lorainne came to sports night!

• sistah cox

• sandwiched by my stls

• oh hk

• chocolateeeeee!!

• zhang jun hua & viola

• meeting malou!!

                                                 

S4:E23 The One Where We Do Some Whiteboard Finding

 

大家好！

☆ We went to HKU to do some surveys! We got there and the escalator was broken so we had to take another way and route. We didn't know another way so we started following this random student. We climbed up some stairs in the parking lot  but God blessed us as we started our surveys  cause we got to talk to 2 girls who were interested in learning more about Christianity! And they were both from Mainland YAY friends for our area #miracles and one of them came to church yesterday. So fun!

☆ A testimony about prayer: as we were doing our visitors centre shift there wasn't a lot of success but we went back inside to say a specific prayer and we went out and got to have really good gospel conversations. :))

☆ We called Rose this week and got to hear her conversion story, we also invited her to share it with other people. During fast and testimony Sunday we got to hear a bunch of conversion stories from our members. And they all had a light in their eyes remembering how they first met the missionaries or were introduced to the church. And they had so much joy talking about their children and families. 

☆ Had a chance to do an exchange with Sister Rodriguez and learn from her. It's interesting to see someone from a different branch of work see what Mandarin work looks like because the strategies and the skills we use in Mandarin work are different from Filipino work! But she was such a bold missionary just asking these super big straightforward questions haha. We got to meet a few students and talk about how religion helps them or how they're interested in learning about how religion can help them. 

☆ Sister Liu and I got to do a training on whiteboard finding using her drawing skills. It's been super fun using the whiteboard as we find people. It's so much easier to approach people and start a conversation with them. And so we went out finding and Sister Liu drew this AMAZING drawing of the Wan Chai Chapel and we asked people if they wanted to do a Chapel tour. It was pretty cool!! As we were finding people I wanted to challenge Sister Liu by choosing which direction to take and I see myself in her a lot. A new missionary who is scared of making decisions and a new missionary who is scared of not knowing whether the spirit is talking to them or not. It's so cool to see her grow in confidence and more trust in herself and the spirit as she goes on this work. And the little happy face she made when we got to talk to someone because she trusted the spirit on which direction to take. 

☆ We got to meet Lorainne again after a long time. Although she has no interest in learning about the gospel yet I'm glad she still wants to keep the friendship we've already built. Please continue praying for her that she'll slowly open her heart and that someday she will accept the gospel message. 

☆ We got to go to Cheung Chau to visit Huang DX and his family!! The boat ride going there was okay and then the next one was so bad haha but we got to hear their conversion stories and had a discussion about how the book of Mormon has helped our lives. Toto has been preparing himself to go on a mission and he's so shy about it haha. So nice to see that he'll probably be receiving his call soon. Hopefully we can be here to witness it!

☆ We went to the harbour with Joey after we did break the fast. ALSO WE HAD ADOBO AND REALLY GOOD BROWNIES. Anyway we leave break the fast and she literally tells us she wants to say bye to someone haha and so she said bye to this guy named Oscar who speaks Spanish she probably has a little crush on him lol and so we asked her "你觉得他是帅哥吗" and she starts laughing. It was so funny cause she didn't even talk to him the whole time but wanted to say bye to him hahaha its cute. We went to the harbour and asked her if she wanted to learn more and she said yes!! So we taught her half of the restoration and taught her how to pray. We took the cutest picture but then we got the picture an hour later and she completely edited our faces IT WAS SO FUNNY LOL HAHAHA

☆ Me and Sister Liu went to this garden AND IT WAS THE CUTEST PLACE EVER!!! I felt like I was in a Korean drama. I would love to live in a place like what we visited. It was so so so pretty!! We are also having some really good hotpot right now.

XUE JIEMEI

薛姐妹

SISTER SY

PICTURES:

• cheung chau trip!! it was raininggg

• recreating a picture from 7 years ago with the filipina members

• THE AMAZING EPIC PICTURE WITH JOEY it doesn't even look like us anymore

• cheung chau with liuuuu

• sister liu and her amazing art skills

• garden pday

• exchanges with ro

• rainy day with liu

• me drawing sister Diaz :>