S5:E3 The One Where I Have Such A Stressful Week

 

Hello

This transfer might be the busiest I have ever been and the most stressed I've ever been. President Chan has given me lots of assignments and responsibilities. First, I was called to train and at the same time double cover two branches, and become apartment leader. It does sound like it's so little but there's so much on my plate right now. The only thing that's keeping me sane is remembering that this the Lord's work, whatever happens happens. 

This week was crazy just because!

Zone conference has given me lots of personal revelation on how to further this work. One of the revelations I have received was about using my personal talents in this work. I have been learning the kalimba for awhile but haven't been practicing it a lot but I know a few songs! So this week we decided to do kalimba finding, we would ask people if we could play for them and ask them if they knew the song that I would play which was of course a song about Christ!!! A good way to direct the conversation haha

☆ We went to Kennedy Town and tried kalimba finding for the first time. We thought this was a good time to just serve people. Because it's summer, everyone is leaving Hong Kong and everyone is also coming to tour. We can't really recognize who actually lives here or not. But we went to the harbor and there weren't a lot of people which was kind of good? Cause we knew that we should approach people. So we first approach this man who was already playing music. And as we start playing, he sees our tag and kind of mocks us for being Christians. It was sad because there was another guy who came and he was interested cause he saw that we were playing and probably didn't know what a kalimba was. When he heard the other guy mock us, and so he also did the same. It was so sadddd but its okay may they find peace in their lives 

☆ We went to COCO ICHIBANYAAAAA to have dinner with Cindy. This was kind of our drop dinner for her. She isn't progressing anymore. She's awesome but she already told us very clearly that she didn't want to make commitments and promises. It's so sad but one day we pray that it will change. We know it just takes time. 

☆ We went and visited the Sambalod's and taught them the word of wisdom. We had a really fun idea on how to teach it  we wrote the word WOW and drew eyes on top of the O so it would like like a face with its mouth wide open and inside we drew some food that we were allowed to eat and not allowed to eat. It was so fun! So many different ways we can teach the gospel simply and in a creative way. The kids are just so smart and so willing to learn the gospel.

☆ We went to the harbor for the second time to do kalimba finding just before our lesson with Candice. We met this girl from Sri Lanka and idk she was a little sues but we talked to her using Google translate haha and we got to play the kalimba for her. Then we kept finding for other people and played for this group of 3 people. After playing the kalimba they asked us to sing for them lol it was the most random thing but it was so cute haha then we told them that we were volunteers and are here for church and so we got to share a little bit. 

☆ We had an AMAZINGGGG lesson with our friend Candice. She's just so prepared. She was a media referral. She signed up to learn more about our church and she has a goal to be baptized too. Hopefully her daughter will start taking lessons soon too. We also invited Ella, a young women to our lesson and she did absolutely amazing it was crazy how good she did! And it was just the perfect lesson for her to join. The lesson went too smooth, the friend asked questions and not just any kind of question, she asked a question that wasn't normally asked. She asked why the Jews and Gentiles were separated into 2 groups and what it meant. We have never had that question asked to us before and we gave her an answer and also told her we would research and study so we could give her a better answer. I hope Ella now knows that as missionaries you don't need to know the answer to everything. All we needed was a camera so someone could film us and put it on Tall Embark lol. It really was so so good. She is a golden friend!!!!

☆ after our lesson we had to RUN to Sheung Wan and we climbed lots of stairs so we wouldn't be late for our appointment with Sara hahahaha and we arrived and knocked on their door and she wasn't home. She forgot about our appointment. So we called her but didn't pick up. We went back to Wan Chai and decided to eat dinner in my favorite Taiwan restaurant and after all that running and sweat the dinner tasted like 5x better. Then we went to the church and played the piano for awhile and then Sara called us and was apologizing for like 30 minutes haha but she shared to us how she's grateful we can be sisters and that she has never been so close to a pair of sisters. We were glad to hear that and just made our hearts swell :)

☆ on Saturday we went to DISCOVERY BAY!! It was our first time over there and it was gorgeous!! It felt like a resort tbh haha and everyone was from a foreign country and everyone was just riding their golf carts. Saturday was the most miraculous day ever oh my goodness. We went over to discovery bay and had made plans to do some finding and visit some less actives. We knew nothing about the place and our goal was just to explore the area and see what it was like so we could know whether or not we should go back next time. We started with a prayer that Heavenly Father would bless our efforts and lead us even if we didn't know anything about the area. As we were walking we came across this girl, it looked like she was a resident over in DB and it looked like she just finished working out so we said HI! How are you doing today? And she was so friendly and started chatting us up. We told her it was our first time in DB and that we didn't know anything about the place so we told her we were from HK Island but we're originally from different countries and have come here to become missionary volunteers. She shared with us that the day before she talked to her friends telling them that she was finding for the right church and recently stopped going to church on Sundays because she didn't like the church she was attending. She shared how she fell in love with the bible and asked if we did bible study together with people. We told her that we did something similar to that and asked her if she would like for us to give her a call sometime and she said "of course! You guys are the representatives of God right? Get my number and contact me" and it was so nice to hear that she recognized us as servants of God and respected our call. Her name is Joji and we are so excited to get to know her better and learn with her! She's planning to come to our church once she comes back from Phuket. Aaaa miracles! After a few minutes we were just walking around the area and saw her again with her husband it seemed like on a golf cart and gave us a big wave. It was so cute!! And then we saw her for a second time again after that haha. The rest of the day for like 2 hours we spoke to people and visited LAs but no success in either haha we said a prayer because we had reached our goals for the day but we wanted to have more goals of having at least 1 more contact and a good person we could speak with but nothing happened but we had a dinner appointment with the Lau family and got to know their stories in joining the church. Brother Lau shared how he grew up in church because his grandma was the only member, he went to BYU but never became a member of the church until 4 years ago in his late 50s isn't that crazy? He said everyone has their own time. It took some time but so glad he decided to finally do it. They have a cute little daughter named Megan and she's the funniest little girl. We were supposed to take the ferry at 8pm because we needed time to go home and not be late but the family home evening took longer than expected. So we took the next ferry at 8:30 and at that point we told ourselves oh goodness we're just going to have to clutch it going back home. We knew we were going to be either a few minutes late or on time but as soon as we landed in HK island, the bus to our apartment came and we were the only people on the bus BUT few minutes later a foreign family came and we were praying and hoping they would sit in front of us and not go up AND WE PROMISED WE'D SPEAK TO THEM. And we did, one of the family members looked really familiar but I couldn't tell!! They told us they visited an island and we told them we did too. We asked them where they were originally from and they said Armenia and that sparked something to me. As soon as they said Armenia I screamed and told them that I've met them before!!!!! I saw the dad and the little boy in front of church months ago and told them we'd already met and they asked if we were from the church of Jesus Christ in Wan Chai and it was so cool that we got to meet them again and we just got to talk to them and invite them to our summer art festival and they were so willing to come yayyy. Our prayers were answered after like 5 hours :))

☆ Sunday was CRAZYYYYY busy we went and had exchanges so we could both go to our 2 branches and then Lori from Shenzhen came back to Hong Kong to meet with us and we went to break the fast together. We were able to chat a lot and just see how she was. We also went back to the church and on our way we helped a drunk girl on the street and her boyfriend was clearly abusing her. So glad that the people around called the cops. After that we went to the church and taught Lori a little about the book of Mormon and taught her how to pray. She had a lot of good questions and hopefully she continues to pray. I know it wasn't an accident that we met her that day. 

☆ We also taught Yang Yang and she's going to be baptized next Sunday yayyy can't believe its happening. Yesterday we were barely able to do any of our studies. We were just crazy busy busy but we were able to accomplish most of our key indicators which was the happiest thing ever!

XUE JIEMEI

薛姐妹

SISTER SY

PICTURES:

• sambalod kids

• sl zoneee

• sri lanka girl

• discovery bay!

• lesson with Jessica, Lori and Sophie

• key indicators smashed! well.. almost