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
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.
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，
"
" ☆ 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.
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
No comments:
Post a Comment