• On Tuesday we left home a little later because we had to do our apartment home meeting and so we left at around 12-ish and walked to the church. When we arrived at church there were 2 different people from Mainland who wanted a chapel tour, that made me really glad after being at home the whole morning. I get really excited when people tell me they're from Chengdu because I get to connect with them and tell them I've visited their place. One of them was from Chengdu and I wanted to tell them I saw your pandas hahahahahaha and Mandarin is crazy hard because of its tones. Panda in Mandarin is xióngmāo and I accidentally said xiōngmáo lol and then she was like what and I was like what and then I looked it up and it meant chest hair 
anyway I learned how to say it right because of that ahahahah anyway we met another girl Judy from Shanghai and she's so cute. She is a CEO of an embroidery company and came to Hong Kong to look for inspiration and new ideas to create and stumbled upon the church and thought it was pretty. Then we got to share with her a little bit about the book of Mormon. She said she was searching for light because people look at her and admire her for helping so many people. She said she feels pressure having to have to share her light because what if she runs out. She said she wants to learn and become smarter and so we told her that the book of Mormon will help her find ideas and share light with the people she works with. Right after that we did our studies and had a lesson with Megan who is so cute. We're preparing her for baptism and her mom wants to prepare her as much. She had a fun idea of playing hangman to guess church terms and she's so funny cause she is so easy to read and guess. We had a really chaotic art activity and Judy and another friend Beverly came to join and we planned to teach them both separately. Toto was there during the activity which was perfect timing. I asked him to join our lesson and we had a really really good experience/lesson. She started sharing again about how she's seeking for light and then kept going and going but we couldn't keep chatting so Toto and I taught her about God's role in her life. We first asked her what she thinks and then shared our testimony. We taught her that God is our Heavenly Father. Then it got to a point where she shared about how her early father passed away 4 years ago and her mom died last year. She said that ever since, she's felt like no one has understood her and that she couldn't share her burdens with anyone. We taught her about prayer. I took a prayer card and then read it together with her. I shared a very simple principle about how she has a perfect Heavenly Father who has perfect love for her and then she felt really moved. We taught her that God knows her circumstance perfectly and we taught her how to pray. It was a really good lesson and I'm so happy Toto got to be in that lesson.
anyway I learned how to say it right because of that ahahahah anyway we met another girl Judy from Shanghai and she's so cute. She is a CEO of an embroidery company and came to Hong Kong to look for inspiration and new ideas to create and stumbled upon the church and thought it was pretty. Then we got to share with her a little bit about the book of Mormon. She said she was searching for light because people look at her and admire her for helping so many people. She said she feels pressure having to have to share her light because what if she runs out. She said she wants to learn and become smarter and so we told her that the book of Mormon will help her find ideas and share light with the people she works with. Right after that we did our studies and had a lesson with Megan who is so cute. We're preparing her for baptism and her mom wants to prepare her as much. She had a fun idea of playing hangman to guess church terms and she's so funny cause she is so easy to read and guess. We had a really chaotic art activity and Judy and another friend Beverly came to join and we planned to teach them both separately. Toto was there during the activity which was perfect timing. I asked him to join our lesson and we had a really really good experience/lesson. She started sharing again about how she's seeking for light and then kept going and going but we couldn't keep chatting so Toto and I taught her about God's role in her life. We first asked her what she thinks and then shared our testimony. We taught her that God is our Heavenly Father. Then it got to a point where she shared about how her early father passed away 4 years ago and her mom died last year. She said that ever since, she's felt like no one has understood her and that she couldn't share her burdens with anyone. We taught her about prayer. I took a prayer card and then read it together with her. I shared a very simple principle about how she has a perfect Heavenly Father who has perfect love for her and then she felt really moved. We taught her that God knows her circumstance perfectly and we taught her how to pray. It was a really good lesson and I'm so happy Toto got to be in that lesson. • Wednesday was crazy busy! We had 5 lessons and I've never had that much lessons in 1 day I don't think. We had another lesson with Judy in the morning before she left for Shanghai and read Enos together with her. She shared how she felt like she was Enos and had the same circumstance. Then we had a lesson with our friend June and taught her about the book of Mormon and she said she will! We got to share about the different Christian churches and so we told her that we share a message about why there are so many different Christian churches. Then we ran to North Point and met with our less active sister A-min. She treated us to KFC. I'm simply amazed by how much I understand her accent and the way she speaks now haha. She's such a sweet person, she treats us like we're her own daughters. Then we had a good lesson with Candice about keeping commandments and we had our member come join. She shared how she's in Jacob now. She's such a golden friend. She does everything we invite her to do, it's amazing. She's also really smart. Then we had another chaotic lesson with Hanna and we just cancelled her baptismal date cause her mom wouldn't allow her to be baptized because of their religious background. Then she told us that she still wants to take the missionary lessons which melts my heart cause I'm glad she wants to stay. Then we got to go to sports night with Lorainne and she's back from Nanjing. She shared so many updates about her work experience in Nanjing and taught us Mandarin haha it was so fun.
• on Thursday we had a really good District Council and we had President Roper come join our meeting to teach us about working with members. It was really good and made me reflect a lot about my work. He asked "are you gonna go home with regrets?" I think that was a really good question to start with that allowed me to think about what I lack and how I can improve. I definitely don't want to go home with a lot of regrets wishing I could've done this or that. Then we had a visitors center shift and I prayed that 4 people would stop and do a Chapel tour. That didn't happen but during our shift we got to talk to brother De Vega who shared his conversion story. He was born devoted Catholic in Mexico and he moved to California to study and had a roommate who was a member of the the church and invited him to meet with the missionaries. He didn't mind meeting with them and so he started taking lessons and had a lot of questions he didn't agree with and they invited him to make commitments like reading the book of Mormon and getting baptized but he didn't do any of them. He still continued to meet with them and in his own words he said "Yeah I didn't really know what was going on in my mind. I agreed to meet them but I didn't believe anything they said." and then one day a new missionary in the field, a greenie, bore his simple testimony about Jesus Christ and then he felt something different. Then they invited him to watch the tabernacle choir and he felt something different during the songs. Then he told the missionaries he wanted to be baptized and then he got a job offering to come to Hong Kong and he didn't have a testimony about anything but he wanted to be baptized and he read the whole book of Mormon during his flight from California to Hong Kong and then he had a testimony that it was true. It took him 20 sets of missionaries. It's amazing. He said he felt so bad but we told him that everyone has their own time. Such a wonderful conversion story. Then we met this guy Evans during the last 30 minutes of our shift, I invited him to come see our chapel and he went up and then started saying he only believes in himself and that there was no God and then we took him inside the chapel and sat with him and I asked him to look around and outside, did he really believe that there was no God. Then we gave him a few moments to think and then he said okay yes I believe in God now. It was so interesting haha it felt a King Lamoni story. Then he asked how he could join the church. 
We called Sophie and read the book of Mormon with her and she asked lots of good questions. She asked about Joseph Smith, she asked about how she can know if the church is the only true church and so we invited her to pray about it. She's awesome! Then we had a lesson with Lilly and man my Mandarin nor my English was not going out the whole time. I felt like I didn't find the words to say and it made me so sad. I wanted to teach my friend something really important and special but I couldn't teach to my ability. Man...
We called Sophie and read the book of Mormon with her and she asked lots of good questions. She asked about Joseph Smith, she asked about how she can know if the church is the only true church and so we invited her to pray about it. She's awesome! Then we had a lesson with Lilly and man my Mandarin nor my English was not going out the whole time. I felt like I didn't find the words to say and it made me so sad. I wanted to teach my friend something really important and special but I couldn't teach to my ability. Man...• we visited a less active whose pregnant and her mom whose super active in the Philippines. They're a super cute family and super funny too. After doing a 3 hour block of trying to visit less actives, we had our game night and got to meet a family of 3 from Beijing! They were so cute and we played werewolf in Mandarin haha it was so cool! They asked a lot about missionary work and was surprised that we weren't paid. They came to church on Sunday too! I hope this family can feel welcomed at church. They don't have any religious background at all.
• on Sunday something really special was one of the members in Wan Chai came up to me in the ground floor and she said "薛姐妹！今天没有机会看到你。可多说你是很好的姐妹。
XUE JIEMEI
薛姐妹
SISTER SY
PICTURES:
• dimsum
• judy + toto 可多
• a-min
• some hong kong bug o wuteva
• lorainne! i braided her hair
• bolongans filipino family
• amanda, kenny and ronnie
• my favorite chaotic kids who are super sweet
• our great mission leader huang dx
• groot
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