S7:E1 The One Where I'm Back to Mando 😇

 

大家早安！

It has been a good first week living here in Kwun Tong back in the Mando work!  

We did a bunch of findings in Baptist University and it has been another weird adjustment doing Mandarin work even though I've literally been doing it forever haha. It has been fun to get rolling on in the Chinese work, definitely a shift in teaching more about prayer and simple things.

Sunday was a really special day, we were able to recognize at least 10 miracles that happened that day!

First, sister Wright thought we could take a different route going to Wan Chai as we travelled to our district conference. 

☆ Our first miracle was meeting this cute little Hong Kong family who was taking their baby to a crawling competition lol, it was super natural cause they brought the topic up when they saw our tags. They were super sweet and wanted to stay in touch as well.

☆ Our second miracle was our friend Abbie who came to church and she was listening really well and was asking questions about the talks during the conference. Also a funny story, before we met, we texted her introducing myself and she responded "wow we have the same skin color, I just feel so close to this girl already" 

☆ Third miracle was a different set of sisters passed off a lady to us from Bangladesh and we got to give her a Book of Mormon in her language, Bengali

☆ Our fourth miracle was asking President Holyoak how to study our patriarchal blessing. He taught us an important lesson. When I asked him that question, he asked if he could grab juice before giving us an answer and then he started setting up some chairs. He then asked us how we studied the scriptures! Then he said to do the same and treat our blessings as scripture. Here are some notes I took when we had a mini one on one session with him. He's so full of wisdom! Then he asked us if we knew the reason why he had to grab juice before answering us and then he said because he needed time to receive revelation because no one has ever asked him that question and as he was answering us he was also receiving revelation. So cool!

Some ways to study it:

Annotations 

Use the scriptures and cross reference

Treat it like scripture

Read patriarchal blessing everyday

Split it into 2 also 13 articles of faith: (1) love God (2) love your neighbor

Put like footnotes on it

You define it, only you are allowed to interpret it so it can mean anything!

Study it in context

☆ Our fifth miracle was walking out and then a member stopped us and he asked us how missionary work was going and then he shared his experiences when he served a mission long time ago in Scotland and it was super neat he pulled a missionary on us and still had it with him! He gave us a lot of tips and advices but those were definitely the old ways of missionary work, there is new revelation now and the work is a lot more different but we learned a lot and we felt more pumped to start applying his thoughts. 

☆ Our 6th miracle was meeting a semi active member and we put her on temple date. She's preparing herself to go to the temple again and really understand it better this time. 

☆ Our 7th miracle was when we saw President Wu (mission president counselor) he asked us if we needed anything or want to tell him anything so we started thinking and sister Wright and I were jokingly talking about going to Macau to become the Mandarin sisters and we didn't say anything but we smiled and then he asked if we wanted to go to Macau for pday  that was so funny 

☆ Our 8th miracle was 杜姐妹 we originally planned to go over to read the book of Mormon with a friend that she is fellowshipping but she 方'd us like 30 minutes before but she said to still come. It was my first time over and it was such a cute little home! She cooked for us and I felt bad cause we couldn't finish everything but she is so pure and so full of love!! As she cooked I offered to play the piano for her and then she said she really likes the song Fur Elise and then took it out and asked me to play. She was so happy!!!! And it made me so happy to serve her that way, after she finished cooking she said "I enjoyed listening to the music as I cooked, now this food is full of love and happiness" AAAAA my heart. I love 杜姐妹 she's such an angel, she is one of the reasons why leaving makes it so hard

☆ Our 9th miracle was meeting Zayn in the MTR. No not one direction Zayn. As we entered, I said a prayer that I could talk to someone who was willing to talk to me or to send someone to me. I asked this girl how she was and she said "oh! You are a latter day saint! My husband and his family are members but I'm not" and we got talking and she was so nice, she initiated the whole conversation and it was so cool. She said she would come to church her next day off. 

☆ The 10th miracle is recognizing these miracles. We need to pay attention to the miracles that happen everyday. 

XUE JIEMEI

薛姐妹

SISTER SY

PICTURES:

• 1st visitors centre shift with 文

• 杜姐妹做的食物

• 杜姐妹

• lion rock hike

• abbie chu

• i hope sister 文 is happy hahaha

• me in lion rock #survived

                                                

S6:E11 The One Where I Move to Kwun Tong

早上好！

On Tuesday we went to Whampoa and met with our friend Merlyn, she came prepared... prepared to give back the Book of Mormon. It was my first time to have it returned to me and I was a little sad and she started explaining why she gave it back. We had a powerful lesson about how Heavenly Father has always called a prophet so he can communicate to us. We testified of living prophets and we know she felt something, even if she may not recognize it or accept it, we know she felt something. 

We went and explored a new area this week in Lam Tin! It was so cool and breezy, winter is starting! We tried to find some Filipinas and wasn't super lucky until we found 1!!!! And she was willing to talk to us. God really does prepare people who will talk and not reject us. Just like how preach my gospel has said.. find them that will receive you.

Javis and Gavin came to the after school activity again and I told them I was getting transferred. I was so sad to say goodbye!!!! But I trust that Heavenly Father has prepared a wonderful plan for those 2 little boys, it has been a pleasure to witness some seeds get planted. The light of Christ is in every child of God. I asked them if they'll miss me and they said they would and it was so funny cause I asked Gavin if he loved me and he said he loved the 2 elders. He said "I love Messi and Ronaldo" since he calls the 2 elders that name. And I asked "what about me?" and then he said "I love you, Messi and Ronaldo"  it was soooo cute. People. I love people!

We had a fun surprise for Sister Iranga's advanced birthday celebration. Since we knew we were all leaving, we decided to have a special apartment home evening. We got the transfer boards and sister Alvez announced it this time. Sister Olongayo was called to be a trainer, sister Iranga was moved to the everyday branch, sister Cuyan was called to be the new STL of our zone (that's my comp laaa), I was moved back to Mandarin work. 

On Sunday the peninsula branch did a little bye-bye party for the sisters who were leaving and saying goodbye to the sisters was hard but I know I'll get to see them again. I've developed some good relationships with the members and I was happy that leaving was hard cause I know I've done some good here. 

My new companion is sister Wright, wow finally! We were both trained at the same time and I now have a chance to work with her and get to know her a little bit better! We also moved to a new apartment together in Kwun Tong. It's a little bit like the province, it's quiet, not a lot of people, lots of Cantonese people so it's been fun! We talked to a bunch of Mandarin speaking ladies and it was nice to see the tender miracles of getting to move to a new place and meeting our neighbors. 

XUE JIEMEI

薛姐妹

SISTER SY

PICTURES:

• brother tsang our wanchai security guard

• javis + gavin! SAD TO SAY GOODBYE

• happy birthday sister iranga!

• happy birthday daryl!

• byebye sister hei and sister ro

• cute doggo

• byebye party from members

• packing tingz

• zone

• sister wright! new companion from canada

• the new frozenland in Disney YAY

                                                

S6:E10 The One Where Donna Makes A Promise

 

14 months out! The time is far spent, there is little remaining. 

On Tuesday we went to the temple and one of the temple workers asked me if I was Taiwanese. Identity/culture crises moment. It's hard to know where I belong. Being mixed can be a little interesting. I don't blend in well with Filipinos here and it can be hard. 

Having a sense of belonging is so important. 

One of the happier stories this week is a miracle continuation from last week! I shared about a little boy named Javis! He came back to the after school activity and that made us so happy cause that meant that he loved and enjoyed it. I can't believe this 5 year old will bring his family the gospel. Then he left and he came back after 5 minutes and brought his little brother and he was the cutest little boy ever!!!!! Javis started naming all the elders these cute little names and it was so precious haha

Donna started her covenant path and it was a happy day for her! 

Something really cool that someone shared with me is to read the general conference of the year you were born! And it's been super fun reading it cause it makes so much sense!! I know the prophets are called of God and receive revelation for each one of us.

We are losing some missionaries in our zone and it makes me so sad! I've gotten so close with them and I wonder if we'll ever get to see each other again. 

One night we were working on some things for our branch and a thought came, "I wish I could start my mission over again", another one replied, "There are no second chances, this is it". I would do it all over again. If I could.

XUE JIEMEI

薛姐妹

SISTER SY

PICTURES:

• sisters pday last week

• zone pday this week

• donna's baptism

• javis + gavon ♡♡♡

• epic picture HAHAH

                                              

S6:E9 The One Where We Bid the Whatcotts Goodbye

 

This week was soooo great!! ♡♡ 

We have been strengthening our relationship with the members a lot and we have been receiving friends and referrals from them yay.

After our district council meeting we had our zone find and we got to start our mini visitors Centre in our chapel which was such a success! In under an hour we got to pass out 15 Book of Mormons together with the other sisters. We had so much gospel conversations and honestly such a big miracle for us standing outside our chapel and inviting people to come get a free Book of Mormon! We met a cute little boy named Javis from doing that and he's seriously so cute! He loves Jesus so much! When he saw our pamphlets he asked what it was about and so we gave him a restoration pamphlet and he saw the plan of salvation pamphlet and he asked what it was about and we told him it was about where we came from and he immediately said "well I want that one!" He's only 5 years old! It's so cute! We got to invite him to the after-school activity in which he joined the next day cause he begged his parents to go. I don't know what this is going to lead to but I know we just planted some big BIG BIG FAT SEED. He's going to be the next mission president I'm feeling it! Haha.

On Friday, I had exchanges with sister Bigtas and sister Santos. We met someone from Bohol who used to work in Cebu. And she said she worked in La Vie Parisienne which meant that she worked right beside the temple! When I heard that I was so surprised!!  She said she passed by the temple everyday haha :) we got ice cream twice during the exchange. It was so fun! Got to learn so much from these sisters, one who is finishing her mission and one whose just starting.

On Saturday we met Gina in a place we've never been to before! When we started talking to her we introduced ourselves after and she was like "yea yea yea I know you guys are missionaries. For some reason, everytime I go out the missionaries always find and talk to me. I have no idea why they always choose to talk to me." So we shared the restoration with her and she wasn't paying much attention looking to us, she was doing her cross-stitch but as we started sharing about Joseph Smith her body language changed and we felt that she felt the spirit and we pointed it out. We felt the spirit. Which meant that she also felt the spirit. 

One thing I'd like to highlight is that people will feel the spirit but sometimes they will not acknowledge that it is, they will deny it. But it doesn't change the fact that they felt it and so you need to point it out so they will know. 

Our friend Donna passed her interview yahoo! Dunkin' time!

XUE JIEMEI

薛姐妹

SISTER SY

PICTURES:

• we taught her how to do a 0.5

• byebye whatcotts

• peninsula branch

• exchanges + ice cream