S8:E2 The One Where We Play Dress Up

                                                      

                                             

早

This week we met a Filipino couple. It makes me super excited, I badly want to teach a family haha :) 

Not a lot of things happened this week but there's one thing that I've learned!

As my time as a missionary is wrapping up, I've gained more confidence and strength in facing rejections. There has been something so sweet and powerful in getting to say thank you to every person on the street who rejects us. There's power in knowing those no's that we receive to a sweet yes.

I'm grateful I got to learn that here on my mission.

I wasn't expecting to have a sit-in family home evening with the Hydes. They are so sweet and wonderful. We got to play dress up with them, this is a tradition they do with missionaries that come over. But only with the missionaries that they like haha. It's been a great week!

See you in 4 weeks! 

PICTURES:

♡ family home evening with the hyde

♡ 摩尔门经

♡ hong kong skies

♡ sister santos and meee

♡ sister sevilla and me

♡ more hong kong pics

薛姐妹

XUE JIEMEI

SISTER SY

    

                                                  

S8:E1 The One Where I Start My Last Transfer

 

早

I only have to make 5 more emails!!!! WOHOO!!!!  I'm joking. I'm going to change the theme of my emails now. I'll share 1 miracle and 1 important thing I learned. 

They say your last transfer is the hardest but also the most fulfilling. It has only been a few days and it has already been hard, sorry not hard, but challenging! Not a lot of people want to talk but one miracle I want to share with everyone is when we were walking to the chapel on Sunday, I started greeting everyone in Cantonese of course. So many people smiled back. I want to have more enthusiasm as my mission ends soon. And then one particular lady stopped us, she walked a little slow but said 早安 and then in Cantonese she called us beautiful. So we stopped and talked to her, she had a cute smile. And then she asked if we were Christians so we asked her if she was too! We had a short conversation about who we were and what we were doing in Hong Kong. We asked her phone number but she didn't have one but then she gave us her address instead. I know.... its a little suspicious, I would never give my address to someone I just met 3 minutes ago but hahaha hey! It might lead somewhere! 

One thing I learned this week: we invited this lady named Margaret. She lives right next to the border so she lives FAR. She's also Nigerian. We invited her to church and the self reliance class which made her more interested to come. She kept saying "okay, I'm not gonna promise you that I'll go but I'm determined to go. I have no money, I don't have a job right now but if there's a will there's a way" lol I love talking to her, her accent is so fun. Anyway we told her very clearly which station to exit but she's not very good with directions so she called and sounded a little angry. And then she arrived a few minutes late to the chapel and did not look happy. I felt SO bad, she traveled at least 2 hours and then chose to take a taxi because she was lost. The next half of the sacrament meeting I felt so bad and I didn't know how to face her after that. Goodness, it was my first time meeting her and now it'll be hard to build trust and friendship. As I was reflecting the whole sacrament meeting, Elder Teh got up and shared his talk. He talked about making sacrifices, he said "it's all about making sacrifices" and then I remembered what one missionary shared how as missionaries we need not to be so hard on ourselves when we make a mistake. We don't need to be so hard on ourselves when we say something not right during a lesson or forgetting to invite someone to something when we find them on the street, or other human mistakes that we make. When we beat ourselves too much, we forget the Atonement of Christ. We forget that Christ makes up the difference. He will finish what we have lacked to do or accomplish and so I wrote myself a word of encouragement on a piece of paper saying "Jesus Christ will thank you for the sacrifice it took for you to come all the way here. Don't feel bad that it took a journey for her to get here instead be happy she made the sacrifice to be here. Your sacrifice and her sacrifice is so little compared to what Christ has offered & done for you". So next time you are too hard on yourself, remember why we have the Atonement. He will make up the difference, always.

See you in 5 weeks :)

PICTURES:

• my new compy, my last compy!! sister helen joy santos

• glad i have a bike accident story to share from my mission lol + i couldn't walk for 2 days without it haha my knees are so bruised and dry!!

薛姐妹

XUE JIEMEI

SISTER SY

                                                    

                                                

S7:E12 The One Where I Say See You Soon to 文

 

From the title.... yes! Sister Wright just left  we ended the transfer and her mission strong. She was so busy these last 2 weeks and I was happy to see her lose herself in the service of others. I'm so so so grateful I had the wonderful opportunity to be her last companion, I learned a lot from her and have seen all of the miracles happen because she chose to come on a mission and chose to be a missionary. The mission and the people of Hong Kong have been blessed including my own life because of a single decision she made. It was a bittersweet goodbye, I was crying during the sacrament yesterday as she bore her powerful testimony both in English and in Mandarin. As we prayed to end the meeting, I cried even harder because I realized it wasn't just her saying goodbye to people but me too.

I'm approaching the end of my mission, this is my last transfer. I only have 6 weeks more! I will still be STL but I will be leaving the Mandarin work once again haha. Every time a new mandarin missionary comes, I always get kicked out  but no worries! I'm going back to my old area again haha, Peninsula. My last area. I'm thrilled and have been thinking of many different ideas on how to strengthen the ward and area. AH!!!!! My last area!!!!! The time is coming so soon. 

Some things that happened this week:

♡ We had a member meal with Huang Jingjing. We started talking about her experience as a mother. I love how she shared that at first it was hard to raise kids and love them but she shared how through time she's developed more love for her kids and said "I think my children's love for me surpasses my love for them". I love that! Mom and dad, I probably love both of you more than you love me. I am grateful for you both everyday :)

♡ We also had a Cantonese cheng and we tried some interesting food. They wanted to feed us pig skin and pig feet. No, I didn't try it, I was too scared!! The whole time they were speaking in Cantonese and we didn't understand a whole lot but it was fun hahaha felt like I was in training all over again.

♡ We had a Cantonese lesson and we tried sharing our testimonies in Cantonese. It wasn't too bad! It was super fun and our temporary companion sister Davis gave us a wonderful opportunity to try bearing our testimony in Cantonese. SO FUN!! So lost and confused but so FUN!!

♡ Sunday morning, sister Wright's mom and dad were at church and it was so fun seeing her seeing her family after so long. She was SOOOO happy!!

Ahhh. My last Sunday in Mandarin. So bittersweet, I couldn't control my tears saying goodbye to some members. I hadn't told anyone I was leaving the branch for my last transfer so that was so hard for me. I wish I stayed for my last transfer but I don't feel bad! I felt peace when I found out I was going back. But my heart belongs to Wanchai forever ♡ there's no going back anymore haha.

Oh also..... I have a fun experience to share on my mission now. I fell really hard while biking in Tai Po haha

薛姐妹

XUE JIEMEI

SISTER SY

PICTURES: 

♡ Sister Xiong's parents

♡ Averie, ahhh I will miss her!

♡ Zhu Mei Zhen + Judy

♡ Comps/trio for a week!

♡ Cutest pohpoh ever, she grabs on to our arms so tight lol

♡ Might be my last meet with the Huang family

♡ Huang Jingjing

♡ Kiko + Kathy 

♡ Near to death experience

                                              

S7:E11 The One Where We Have Nonstop 请's

 

Having a departing companion is so fun, you get to hop on all the 请's from the members haha but also you get to see all the members everyday and be with them which is special! I learned from them everyday this week

☆ Monday: Furness Fam! We went and visited them in their apartment and had hotpot together. It was fun getting to know them better and their teenage life. They shared some of the fun activities they used to do when they were younger. We shared a message about starting the new year with more goals that help and challenge us to "become". Something I liked from their sharing was when Nephi was bound with cords: he asked to shake off the bands when he was tied but instead God loosed it. He was expecting to have this big manifestation of God's power but God had a different plan on how He wanted to show His power. That was cool!

☆ Tuesday we went to the temple and I had a really cool experience! I came with a question and as I was pondering I picked up the scriptures and tried the trick that other missionaries try: to open a random page and read it. I did it and it didn't work on me but I had a thought to open Doctrine and Covenants 31:11. So I read the whole chapter and it was so meaningful and an answer to my prayers. The chapter was directed to a missionary and blessed him and his family. I felt that it was for me too! A very timely message. We then had a meal with Nancy from our branch and got to hear some of her mission experiences when she was younger. She was one of the pioneer sister missionaries in the Taiwan mission. I love how the mission stays forever, the memories may not be as clear but the feelings will always be strong and unforgettable. 

☆ Wednesday we met a couple from Mainland, they were so cute hahaha. They're from Jiangshu. We tried teaching them about prayer and Jesus Christ, it was a little hard because they were old. Their kids and grandkids were really hoping that they could get baptized but didn't really see it coming. I just loved their smiles so much, it was so contagious hahaha. I love every single Mainlander we meet. At night, we visited the Lee family and had a sweet family home evening, I got to teach Seona how to play the ukulele. We all sang I am a Child of God. President Lee shared some funny experiences learning English in Utah. He shared how one night this little girl knocked on their door, she didn't speak a lot of English and so did he, so he asked her in his broken English "what's your name?" and she didn't understand but she was holding a tortilla and so she said "tortilla!" and because he didn't know what a tortilla was he said "nice to meet you, tortilla!" Haha that was so funny! The spiritual thought was super cool, we talked about how we need to humble ourselves even to the dust and the kids shared a really cool thought that I never thought of. They asked why we had to be humble even to the dust and she said "because the dust doesn't really have any worth or it's kind of useless but if we humble ourselves even to the most little things then we can humble ourselves to bigger things."

☆ Thursday we had our zone conference, wah! My second to the last conference. Crazy! We went to the Tai family's apartment and prepared a message. I was so nervous beforehand knowing what would the perfect message be for them, so I did a lot of praying and thinking about what message we could share. We shared about spiritual gifts and how we can seek earnestly for more spiritual gifts that we may not have right now but we can develop if we do things that will help us develop it.

☆ Friday the mainland baptism happened with the old couple hahaha we didn't expect they would get baptized but they did!

☆ Sunday, we had an awesome friend come to church for the first time. Her name is Ella! She came to break the fast and met the members. She had a really spiritual experience during the lunch. She got to hear more about Christianity and her eyes just sparked wanting to learn more. It almost seemed like she was craving to know everything for a long time but only knew more about it now. It was awesome, you could just see her eyes change. Sister Wright shared her last talk in her departing devotional which was very special!

大家新年快乐！Happy Chinese New Year! 

PICTURES:

☆ jia 弟兄

☆ 杜姐妹

☆ anne + kari

☆ philippines group

☆ second language zone

☆ ella + new year decorations

☆ devotional with elder renlund

☆ break the fast

薛姐妹

XUE JIEMEI

SISTER SY