聖誕快樂!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS! Singdaan Faailohk! 聖誕快樂!!

First of all, I'm STOKED to talk to you on Christmas! Yippeeeeeeeee! It will be so fun! Everyone else is calling their families on the 26th, but I'm happy I get to talk to you on actual Christmas. What a great present! :)

Mom. I have to tell you how much we all LOVED and DIED over your package. Cutest thing ever! I was feeling pretty bad last week and then I went home from emailing and opened up your package, and it was like the Christmas spirit just flew out of the package and into my heart. Instantly. It was pretty cool :) Everything in there was wrapped up SO CUTE and you made everything so happy! I LOVE those mints, and they made our office smell deliciously like Christmas! It was the best thing ever. I decorated our apartment, I remembered what Christmas is really about, and I felt so much better. Ah, I love you. You are incredible.

This week was so great! Christmas is Christmas, be it China or Utah or Antarctica! It's so happy. Everyone is sooooo happy! Everyone has been giving us SO MANY PRESENTS! It's been fun. We have a good pile going around the Christmas tree you sent, Mom. So fun :)

Okay gosh I'm like already out of time... but that's okay cause I get to talk to you soon! :)

This week:

F thought that Heavenly Father was a demon because he punished her for not coming to church last Sunday (she had a bunch of problems at work). We helped resolve her concern, read the BOM with her, and gave her a Christmas card we had written for her. The next day, she had posted a picture of the card on Facebook {hey, did you know I use Facebook now? :)} and she told us she knows Heavenly Father loves her. CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!

W called us on Friday night freaking out about every problem in the book -- fasting, tithing, drinking tea, going to church for 3 hours, on and on and on. I talked to her for a long time but at the end of the conversation, she said she was going to go back to her old church and never come back to ours. I was so frustrated and sad and overwhelmed and devastated that I just started bawling when I got off the phone. But right when I hit "end", I hit my knees and prayed so hard that Heavenly Father would soften her heart. Right after I got done with my prayer, our elders sent us a scripture text and it was PERFECT for W. I sent it to her, and she showed up at church on Sunday. She walked into Sunday School and Sister Tidwell and I were like grabbing each other like we couldn't believe it. CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!

Sorry I only have time to share two. But those are the miracles that make up my days lately. Every day there are more and more, and I am amazed and humbled by the things my Father is giving me for Christmas. He's already given me the most wonderful opportunity, to be here in China and be learning and growing so much! I love it SO much!

I know that Jesus Christ lives. Sometimes it randomly hits me in the middle of personal study or out in the street or during a lesson. He LIVES. Which means He didn't just come to earth and perform the Atonement and say it was done. He lives, right now, and in our hardest moments, I know He is there. That knowledge gets me through the tough times. I am so incredibly grateful to have the chance to serve Him -- really, truly serve Him, with all that I am and all that I have. It's the most sacred privilege. He was born so that He could save us all. It really is Joy to the World!

Glory to God in the HIGHEST! I love you all! Merry Christmas!

Love,
Sister Gwok (so apparently in British pingyam it's spelled Kwok... but I like Gwok better. And you pronounce it Gwok... soooo. Yeah. and stuff ;)
xoxo

Surprise!!

HEY FAM!

So... you know how Sister Aldana and I got called to be Sister Training Leaders? And we thought we were staying together for another transfer and we were stoked out of our minds? Yup.

Surprise!!

Sister Aldana moved away to the New Territories... and they decided to make me SENIOR COMPANION with Sister Tidwell! Yes, Sister Tidwell! The same one that lived with us 2 months ago and the same one that I was in the MTC with. So now we are here in Cheung Sha Wan together! Crazy! I will miss Sister Aldana and the awesome missionary she is, but I'm happy I get to stay here. I love this area and this ward. It's weird and crazy being senior... I'm still getting used to it and it's stretching me a lot... but hey. With the Lord, we can't fail. I feel His help and I know that without it, I would have failed miserably already. So this will be a fun new adventure!

I'm getting really lazy/I don't have ANY time.... so I'm stealing this part of Sister Aldana's letter to tell you about a gigantic miracle that happened to us this week!

"I was really torn up that I wouldnt get a chance to see Yip JM again. {This is me now... Remember Yip JM and her son King? She had like 2 baptismal dates a few months ago and we LOVE her to death, but she went to mainland and disappeared! Haven't been able to contact her for months!} She should have been back from Mainland by then, but hadnt been answering her phone and everytime we went to stalk her and King, she didnt come by. As soon as District meeting was over, we decided to go out and stalk them one last time in hopes that she would come by. 3:30 came and passed. I was super bummed. I had been praying in my heart with all my might that I might be able to see her one last time. We sat down for a second and Sister Wilcox made some calls while I just sat there for a sec. ...... and then......

there she was. with King. walking down the path. I jumped up and ran over and gave her a gigantic bear hug. She was so surprized! I was crying again. This time out of happyness that my prayers were answered. She was like, "Why are you crying?!" I just said how much I missed her and how I was afraid that I wouldnt ever see her again. She was so touched. She said no one has ever missed her so much. Apparently her phone had gotten stolen and she hasnt felt like calling us cause she has been really sad lately. She looked sad. Her hair got darker and longer. Before she was quick to smile and laugh. But by the time we left she was happier and we were able to schedule her to see her the next day.

It was one of the BIGGEST miracles of my life. Heavenly father MUST hear and answer our prayers. I dont think that I will ever forget that day. It made me feel SO much better about leaving the area. Now that I know she wont be forgotten about I feel so much better."

It was one of the most incredible things of my life :) It was so amazing. We're so excited about her! She came to church yesterday with King and loved it, and she's coming to the Primary activity on Saturday.... ahhhh. So so so so good :)

So the rest of our investigators:

We met with Fantasy this week after not seeing her for 2. It was really good because we found out that she's been avoiding us because she heard that once she gets baptized, she can't drink or drink tea or "have any fun." She said that she's young and wants to have fun! We told her that, it's true, after baptism you can't do any of those things, but really, it's a blessing. We do it because we love Heavenly Father. She told us she doesn't even know if He exists yet, so we told her she needs to find out if He exists first. She's progressing but she has a lot of things that will need to change about her first. I'm happy I get to be a part of her changing process :)

Jeung JM is our BEST investigator.... but she can't come to church!! Her daughter has dance every Sunday morning. We're working on her though.... we want to tell her that she needs to decide which means more... the gospel or Hoi Yee going to dance. She is amazing. She has so many friends in the ward already (because our ward is AMAZING) and she loves everything we teach her. She loves the BOM, she loves the MoTab CD we gave her (thanks, Mom!).... she's so good. So prepared.

Chan JM is leaving for the rest of the month to go back to mainland for Christmas :( darn it mainland!! It's like a giant black hole that sucks people away.... where we can't call/contact them/see how they're doing/keep teaching them the gospel. It's rough. But when she gets back, we'll pick up right where we left off. I hope she keeps praying and reading. She needs it. Her cute little family needs it.

Yesterday we went to a Christmas devo that reminded me of the Handel's Messiah thing they do in Heber. But it was different. It was AWESOME. There was a choir that was dressed up in suits and red MoTab dresses and they sang a bajillion different Christmas songs. It was awesome and sometimes it was funny. Because they sang like some gospel soul music and clapped and danced. I love Christmas :)

I wish I had time to write everything about everything. But I don't. I love this work. Right now it's kinda hard, but I can do hard things. There is no doubt about it. The Lord helps us in every single way... when we're discouraged, stressed, lonely, sad, scared, tired, feeling inadequate, forgetful... He makes up for all of these things. I'm so incredibly grateful for Him. This Christmas season is THE BEST. I love it so much! Merry merry Christmas! Send me lots of pictures! I miss seeing your faces! :)

Love you always,
Shay
xoxo

Learning so much!!

My dearest family and friends,

This week has been crazy and I feel like I've learned SO much. So instead of giving you a play-by-play of what we've done, I'm giving you a play-by-play of my feelings/the many things I've learned.

On Wednesday, Sis Aldana and I went to our first ever Mission Leadership Council. I learned a TON. I loved it. I love being around President and Sister Hawks. They are so wonderfully wise... and also so wonderfully strict. {I know what you're thinking... wonderfully strict?} That was one of the biggest things I learned while at that meeting. There are a lot of rules and I honestly think this mission is one of the strictest out there. But at MLC this week, I received a hugely strong spiritual confirmation that President Hawks is called of God. He receives revelation on how to best direct the work here. And I'm so thankful to be in this mission with him. I'm thankful to have had strict parents growing up :) M&D, you really helped me realize what's THE most important. And I'm learning it more and more here.... it's soooo wonderful! I'm here to bring people unto Christ. That's it. That is my purpose. And i want it forever rooted in my heart.

On Sunday, I felt soooo spiritually uplifted. Our bishop's son came home from his mission in San Fran this past week so Sunday he gave his talk. He did such a great job! He also sang a song and had his sister accompany him on the piano, and then at the end bore a powerful testimony. He took his nametag out of his pocket... and right then, it hit me in the face:

This mission means everything to me.

I sat there, bawling, as he was testifying of how amazing it was to wear Jesus Christ's name for 2 years. I realized right then -- more than ever before -- how much I love what I'm doing and how much I don't ever want to stop. I didn't realize before, when other missionaries talked about how hard it was to "take off the tag", that it really will be hard. I don't want to ever do it. This is such a short period of time we have to be our best and represent Him well. I want to wear His name for others to see forever and always. And then I realized, I still can. I can wear His name on my heart for the rest of my life. But right now is going wayyyy too fast! I don't want it to end!

We had a "my conversion fireside" last night. Basically all the missionaries that are going home ask their recent converts to come and bear their testimonies. And we invite our investigators! :) So we invited J JM and her 8 year old daughter H Y. I hope they liked it as much as I did. It was so good. President Hawks bore his testimony in Cantonese at the end.... ahhhhh I got the chillllls. He is a powerful speaker. Even in Canto! He was saying that, in his opinion, everyone there has a "conversion story." even if you're just starting to investigate the church. It was really cool and it made me reflect a lot about how I came to know this church is true.

I'm so thankful for the chance to serve a mission. Sorry you get to just read all about my feelings this week ;) but I want you all to learn and grow as much as I am! There's no other place in the WORLD I'd rather be right now. Not even in Heber where it's -17 degrees ;) I'd rather be spreading the gospel over here in Hong Kong. I'd rather be a missionary, wearing the name of my Savior over my heart. I LOVE what I'm doing. I don't think I could adequately express how meaningful it is.

I love you all so much! Have a great week! Remember the reason for the season: our Savior, Jesus Christ, and His infinite love for us. It's because of Him that I'm even worthy to represent Him. What a blessing.

Love always,
Shay
xoxo

Sister Training Leader, COLD WEATHER WHAT?!, and more miracles :)

Leih hou my favorite gatihng and pahngyauh! How were all of your weeks? :) I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! But there's no way it was as good as mine! :)

But let's back up:

Monday: We taught L JM. It was actually her birthday so she made us dinner. It was.... pretty gross.... but we choked it down ;) we bought her a cake so we sang and then our message was from general conference. We watched Elder Holland's talk because we felt like that was what she needed. It was pretty disappointing because afterwards, we asked, "so what was he talking about?" and she said, "I don't know. I don't remember." We pushed and pushed and she still wouldn't say anything. She needs bigger desire....

Tuesday: EXCHANGES! Sister Foong and Sister Ainge aren't even in our zone anymore, they're the sister training leaders of the other zone, but we don't have any STLs so we still go on exchanges with them. I went to Sister Ainge's area, Tsim Sha Tsui, and it was CRAZY. Coolest thing happened. She was telling me about this potential investigator she found that works in Tsim Sha Tsui but lives in our area -- her name is C. So C is a jeweler, and Sister Ainge had a ring she wanted resized so she took it in to C. They ended up getting her number and everything and she was super nice. So Sister Ainge is like, "let's go pick up my ring and then you can meet C, since you'll be the one teaching her because she lives in your area." So we go to the jewelry shop. We walk in, and this lady from my ward, C JM is there! She's like, "Gwok JM!" and I'm like, "C JM!" ..... haha so come to find out, C is a LA! She's been LA for like 40 years and she's super good friends with C JM! It was just SO AMAZING. Heavenly Father has a plan for all of these LA to come back. It just so happened to be on the day we were doing exchanges that C JM visited her friend C, and we went by the shop too. It was so cool. I love seeing the little miracles and the way Heavenly Father guides us to certain people. It's awesome.

Wednesday: We taught English class. It was really fun! We watched "Create" mormon message beforehand and picked out some vocabulary they should know. Then during class we gave them the new vocab words and watched the mormon message a few times so that they could practice listening for the words. Played some games, had them create something with just a piece of paper.... it was fun and I felt very creative :)

Thursday: THANKSGIVING! Such a great day! W took us out for yam chah (dim sum) that morning. It was delicious and expensive and there was SO MUCH FOOD. {Then on Sunday she was telling us we needed to lose weight. Well if you want us to lose weight, stop taking us out to eat! haha Side note: people here are soooo blunt about the world "fat." they say it all the time. In Chinese, it's "feih." And I'm called feih on a regular basis. I want to say "I'm not that fat in America!" but they just think all Americans are really fat. haha} anyway, right after that we went to the church to teach C JM. It was SUCH A GOOD LESSON. Okay okay, back up. Gosh there's too much to write! So she was a little late. So before the lesson we decided to watch some mormon messages. The first one on the DVD was "mountains to climb." Have you seen it? It's SO GOOD. Sis Aldana and I started BAWLING. After it was over, we looked at each other and said, "Why did we do that??!" with tears streaming down our faces haha. But I know why we did it. We had a great lesson, and then felt prompted to show C JM that same mormon message. Afterwards, she started crying and opened up. She said she has breast cancer! It was so sad but also so good. She said she's so thankful to be learning about these things because at the church she really feels peace. It's the one thing in her life that brings peace. It was SO GOOD. Our member there was amazing too. Again, such a testimony that Heavenly Father cares! It was no coincidence we found C JM and C C and Y Y in the park that day! I'm so glad we can help them learn of Christ and come unto Him. It's such a humbling privilege.

Thanksgiving dinner was a blast. Everyone was assigned something (by Sister Pearl, she got put in charge of it because she likes to cook ha) and we had EVERYTHING American! It was awesome! Turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy and corn and stuffing and jello and somebody even found a can of cranberry sauce in the cupboard from last Thanksgiving haha! Plus Sister Pearl made apple and pumpkin pie for dessert. It was awesome and delicious and we played thankful games and it was probably one of the best Thanksgivings I've ever had :) it was hilarious to see elders make mashed potatoes. Ah, missions. Oh how I love them :)

Friday: YES. We got called to be the Kowloon West Sister Training Leaders! Sister Aldana and I both. WHICH MEANS WE ARE STAYING TOGETHER FOR THE NEXT TRANSFER! (we're pretty sure) WHOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! That'll be 6 months of us being together! Obviously we still have things to learn together :) so happy and excited! But also feeling very inadequate about being STL. I haven't even been a senior companion yet! Haven't trained! Barely been in HK 6 months! But the Lord makes weak things strong. I'm so thankful for the opportunity to serve. I hope I can do it well and help the other sisters in our zone.

GAH. There's like a bajillion more things to tell you but I'm out of time. I've gotta send pics still! It's been COLD lately! Weiiiiird!!!

I love you all with everything I am. I love Hong Kong with everything I am. I get on my knees every single night with the biggest smile on my face and my heart overflowing with gratitude that I am a missionary in Hong Kong. I absolutely love what I'm doing. It's hard, but nothing in my life has ever been more worth it.

Until next week! Merry Christmas month! Remember the Savior -- it's because He came into the world that we have hope and happiness. One of my favorite quotes from Elder Marcus B. Nash, "My life has color and meaning and light and flavor and hope because of Jesus Christ." Mine does, too.

I love you so much!

Love always,
Gwok Jimuih :)
xoxoxo

Gamyanjit Faailohk! (Happy Thanksgiving!)

HEYYY! Guess what?! This last week was THE BEST WEEK OF MY LIFE! BEST WEEK OF MY MISSION!!!!

oh my goodness I don't even think I could type everything fast enough!! Seriously though, I've never been happier in my entire life. I said that in the MTC. I said it in Macau. But now here in Cheung Sha Wan, I really mean it :) LIFE COULDN'T GET BETTER!!!

F: is a literal fantasy. And yeah, that's her name :) isn't it great?! People here just give themselves English names. And then if they don't like them, they change them. Right now we're working on naming Sister Yeung :) anyway, F. She is AMAZING. She went to mainland all week for work and so we couldn't contact her at all, which was a bummer. But then she showed up for church! On time! And brought her BOM! And LOVED it! She joined the ward choir afterwards! haha! How amazing is that?! And in our lesson, she started crying and said, "i don't know why I feel so good right now!" THAT'S THE SPIRIT! i wanted to shout it because i was grinning from ear to ear. AND she accepted a baptismal date :) December 29! WHOOOO!

C JM, C C, and Y Y: GREAT. So great :) I'm pretty sure she's a single mom... but they are awesome! They love church. They came again yesterday and loved it. C JM says such great prayers and I can really tell she wants to keep learning more. She's a miracle. She just fell right into our laps. Ahh I love them.

J JM: ALSO a complete MIRACLE. Last week's FHE at our member C's house with her COULD NOT HAVE GONE BETTER! C and J JM became best friends right off the bat, and later in the week C invited J JM over so their daughters could do homework together. BEST FELLOWSHIPPER AWARD! It makes me so happy when that happens. Those are the kinds of investigators that get baptized and stay active. :)

W: Did I write about W? She calls herself W but spells her name "W" it's great :) She was going to get baptized in Jehovah's Witness church but then we snagged her :) she's awesome! Also so prepared. Also has a baptismal date for January 26. Also has been to church twice. Also cried her eyes out when we watched The Testaments at our ward party :)

......Do you understand what this is? This, my friends and family, is INVESTIGATORS. Real ones. Progressing ones, in fact. Real, progressing, wonderfully prepared INVESTIGATORS. I don't think you can possibly understand how happy we are. Sister Aldana and I have worked through WEEKS of trying to help people progress, trying to help them come to church, trying to help them have interest, and NOW.... the blessings are coming in faster than we can count. We don't have room enough to receive them all :)

5 INVESTIGATORS AT CHURCH.
8 INVESTIGATORS AT THE WARD THANKSGIVING DINNER.

Complete happiness :) The work is moving! The Lord is blessing us SO much! I am so humbled by the many, many things we've been given this week. Heavenly Father truly is mindful of us. This work is HIS. There's no way we could do it on our own. Ahh, I love it SO much!

Also, Sister Y in our ward (the one that gives us fruit every week!) had us over for Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday night. BEST MEAL OF MY LIFE. It was so delicious. She made the most beautiful delicious turkey I've ever seen/eaten. It was on a big platter surrounded by roasted pineapple, broccoli, and cherry tomatoes. I should've taken a picture. But my camera died :( there were mashed potatoes and gravy, pumpkin choc chip bread, that broccoli/onion/bacon salad that's MY FAVORITE!!! (Mom, isn't that great?! i thought of you! :)), corn, carrots, and pumpkin pie for dessert. Plus she made us our own loaves of pumpkin choc chip bread. She's an angel. She's so American. We LOVE it :) I don't realize how much I miss American food till I eat it.

Annnnd... our ward also had our ward Thanksgiving party last night! BEST WARD ACTIVITY. There were so many referrals there, so many investigators there, and basically the whole time we felt like chickens with our heads cut off. We ate food, watched The Testaments, had a great testimony meeting, took our investigators to the MTR, waved goodbye with big smiles, and then when they were gone, we took a deep breath and both said at the same time, "Oh my gosh that was so stressful." But the BEST kind of stress! The kind of stress that means we had TOO MANY PEOPLE THERE!

Ahh. I LOVE this work. I'm so THANKful to be here as a missionary. I'm so THANKful to be in Cheung Sha Wan with Sister Aldana. We're scared that the 2nd week in December, one of us will move. Things can't be this good for this long ;) LIfe is wonderful. I have never been happier. The work is hard, but worth it. We'll "carry on, carry on, carry on!" You too! Have the best Thanksgiving ever! And eat a LOT of American food for me!

I LOVE YOU ALL WITH ALL MY HEART! I'm so thankful to know all of you! I'm so thankful for all the love and support!

Happy, happy, happy Thanksgiving!

Love always,
Gwok Jimuih :)
xoxo

I Believe in Miracles!!!

LEIH HOU!

First things first: Dad! Happy birthday on Wednesday! I'll be thinking of you! You're getting so old!! ;) jk... you're still the youngest dad out of everyone i meet. So no worries :) Spence, happy birthday on Sunday!

Okay, this week was AMAZING. Absolutely amazing. Miracles are real. Prayer and inspiration... they're real! Sister Aldana and I said several times, "Oh my goodness! PRAYER WORKS!!!" Who woulda thought!? ;)

MONDAY: We had FHE over at a member's house with us and the elders. It was fun! They have a baby and a 3 year old son named L so it was a great time. We had Elder Allen be the "tree of life" and had him hold a bunch of Chips Ahoy cookies as the fruit. Then we had some floss (we couldn't find any regular string) as the Iron Rod. It was fun :) I played the piano for the opening song and oh wow... my piano skills are sooooooooooooooooo rusty. It's so sad! I can't play anything anymore because I NEVER ever have time to play the piano. I hope that skill comes back to me fast after my mission. I'm trying to find all the opportunities to play that i can... but they are few. I played at zone conference though. So that was good.

TUESDAY: We taught our investigator J JM at her house. HER HOUSE IS SO NICE. Oh man. It was beautiful and it had the BEST view of HK! I love this city!!! We went with our bishop's wife and she helped out so much! Love good lessons!

WEDNESDAY: The miracles! So we went finding... for like a really long time.... and we were not having any success. We go to the park. We see this mom. She rejects us. We move onto the next mom. And she's really nice! Her name was C JM. So we invited her to English class that night. She said yes she would for sure come! Yay! So we brought her to English class with her two daughters, C C and Y Y. It was great! Afterwards we gave them a tour of the church and then we sat in the chapel and taught them how to pray. It was AMAZING! THEN... we invited them to church. And they said yes right off the bat! 9 am? No problem. 3 hours long? Also no problem. WHEN DOES THAT HAPPEN??!! never, i tell you. It was great :)

THURSDAY: Zone conference. Best one yet. Nah, idk. They're all absolutely phenomenal. I absolutely LOVE my mission president and his wife. They are wonderful. Have you seen that new mormon message with Elder Holland talking? about taking the right road? It's SO GOOD. Go watch it. President Hawks showed us that and said really powerfully, "Elders and Sisters, you're on the right road." I felt the Spirit testify that it is true. I am on the right road. I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be right now. Hong Kong, China. It's wonderful. I love being a missionary here.

President Hawks emphasized a lot in zone conf that we need to learn how to be better missionaries, but more importantly, we need to learn how to be better people. He talked a lot about when we go home and what we will have changed, what we will have accomplished, who we will BE. He talked about finding a future spouse that is as good as Sister Hawks :) He talked about the things we were learning and how we will apply them in the near future as mothers and fathers and teachers. It was powerful. I thought a lot about the ways i'm learning. I thought a little bit about when I come home. Before, when I used to think about home, I thought of it as the same. Home is familiar. You are all familiar to me. But I realized this week..... it's not going to be the same. Because I am not the same. I am different. I see things differently, I view things differently, I have a different, stronger, better relationship with my Father in Heaven and my Savior, and I will have had so many life changing experiences. I love it. I love this mission. I love the ways I'm changing. I love who I am becoming through Jesus Christ.

SATURDAY: Okay. So a few weeks ago Sis Aldana and I had this inspiration that we needed to go visit C, a member in our ward. Did i tell you about C? She is AMAZING. Anyway, she had no referrals that night to give us but then on Friday night she called us and invited us to her son L-L's birthday birthday. {PS: I'm in LOVE with L-L. And he's 4. He's the cutest little kid EVERRRRRRR!} anyway, her friend was there with her two little girls! REFERRAL!!!!!!!! We never get referrals. It was the most happy exciting thing ever. This lady is super nice too! We thought it was so cool that we were prompted to go see C and then she gave us a referral. :) So then after the birthday party we went out finding. It was soooo hot. I was so pooped. We both were. And we were having noooo success. But then the office elders called us. They were like, "Get back to the church right now! We have a member referral for you!" So we go back to the church. And this member from mainland is there with her friend! Her name is F :) I know, right? It's like a f :) And she was AMAZING!!!!! Seriously. so, so prepared. Referrals are always so much more prepared. SO SO exciting!

SUNDAY: I'm running out of time... arrrghhhh.... but C JM and her two daughters came to church! And they LOVED it! :) Yay yay yay! :)

Ah poop. I wish I could write everything down. This is like little glimpses of the many, many miracles we were given this week. I'm so happy to be here and to witness so many tender mercies of the Lord. I LOVE WHAT I'M DOING!!!!! It's the best thing in the world :)

I love you all so much! Have a great week! :) I know I will!!

Love love love love love,
Sister Gwok
xoxoxxoxoxox

a MIRACLE and 2 drunks...

Hey hou, leih hou! :) Family and friends, how are you?! I hope you know how much you mean to me and how much I love you all. Thank you so much for the wonderful support and love. I feel it so much out here! :) You're the greatest!

So, here are some highlights from the past 4 days since I last emailed!

SATURDAY: The COOLEST thing happened! Ahh, it was so, so neat! It's kind of a long story.... so a few weeks ago during weekly planning, Sis Aldana and I went through our book of former investigators and prayerfully picked a few we would focus on this past week. So there's one named F. She was investigating like 7 years ago. Her mom is a LA, who actually used to be in a different ward but moved here to CSW. anyway... that's not even the story (i hope this makes sense!) So. This record has: a wrong cell number, a bad address, a home number that no one picks up, and a Brother S that used to help them fellowship. So Saturday night I'm totally DETERMINED to find out more information. So I call Brother S. He was no help at all and was actually pretty rude to me. He kept saying, "I don't know her! She's not in this ward! I live in Causeway Bay, you're in Cheung Sha Wan!" I kept trying to explain and he would have none of it. So I got off the phone pretty discouraged, told Sister Aldana about it, and then we both just shrugged our shoulders and said, "oh well, what do you do." And then I was like..... wait. Where's our FAITH?! So I called the home number again. A guy answered and when I asked for F or W JM (her LA mom), he was like "Wrong number!" and hung up. Again, I was like, okay oh well. And then I thought again... NO. Where's my faith?! So I said a quick prayer and called the home number again. It rang and rang and rang.... and then a girl picked it up. IT WAS F!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was probably the coolest thing that's happened to me on my misison. Well, idk, i've seen a lot of miracles. But it was so amazing! I was able to talk to her and get some correct information for her record. At first she was super skeptical, but I kept chatting with her and little by little she warmed up! At the end of the conversation, she gave me her cell phone number and said, "Keep in contact, Gwok JM!" :D i WAS STOKED!!!!!!!! New investigator/LA/part member family right there! I'm so excited! Straight up miracle :)

In other news....
-We had 2 investigators at church yesterday! Yay! But.... not yay. Because they were both COMPLETELY drunk. It was so bizarre.... I felt so bad for them and so stressed the whole time they were at church. Babysitting drunks is now part of missionary life...

-Zone Conference is this week.... yay! I LOVE LOVE LOVE zone conference and hearing from our leaders.

-We visited a LA yesterday and she gave us some salad.... apples, corn, and cucumbers drenched in mayo. Weirdest thing. Sis Aldana and I couldn't decide if it was delicious or if it was the grossest thing we've ever tasted.

-Anyway, I've got to be going now. Sorry so short. Next week will be better! I love you all SO much! Have the best week ever! :)

All my love,
Sista Shay
xoxoxo

Cheng Outs!!

Helloooo there all of my favorite people in the world! (If you're reading this, you count! :))

How was this week for you?! Actually, this past week and a half? I hope it was awesome. I loved seeing Halloween pictures and hearing all about it. And I LOVED getting mail! Mom, your card was the cutest. Michelle, I LOVED all your pictures and your letter made my day! Gigi, thank you so much! Whit, your letters were THE best. I read parts of them out loud and we all died laughing :) Ah, I just have the best fam/friends EVER! I love you all!

So oh my goodness this week was crazy. First off, YJ! We happened to RUN INTO HER when we were finding! ( i don't even remember what day it was... i forgot my planner today and my planner is my brain...) But it was crazy. We were talking to someone else and then all of a sudden Sister Aldana just screams, "YJ!!!!" And I turn around and there she is! It was the craziest thing EVER! We met with her the next day and she is so insanely busy. It's definitely our biggest struggle right now. Everyone is so busy with school, work, school, work, school, work...... AHHH JUST LISTEN TO THE GOSPEL PEOPLE!!!!!!!!! Yeah. But we're working on helping YJ come to church. This Sunday, we're crossing our fingers! Cross yours too!

We've been teaching LJ, she's our referral from our recent convert. She's great! We're going REALLY slow because she has no previous knowledge about religion at all. But she has a really special place in my heart. She just seems like a lost soul, and I know the gospel can really bless her life. We're actually eating dinner over at our recent convert's house with her tonight! so stoked!!!

Who else.... we started teaching a JJ (does everyone know that JM means ji muih which means sister? so like sister j in english). She's also GOLDEN. We got an awesome fellowshipper for her that really helps out a lot with our crappy chinese. She's also being a real friend for her. Sometimes it feels like fellowshippers come because they feel like they have to, but GJ (our fellowshipper) is really being a great friend. I love it when that happens :)

We're full up on cheng outs this week! (people inviting us over to their house to eat dinner) which NEVER NEVER NEVER happens. especially with investigators. But this week we're having one tonight with L JM, one tomorrow with a ward member that will give us so many referrals!!, and one on Sunday with J JM! We're so excited! Cheng outs are a big deal. If people trust you enough to invite you over to their house, they're golden :)

Randoms:

-Mom, trash day? I have no idea haha. When our trash can gets full, we take it out to the landing on the stairs where there is a bigger trash can.

-We don't know our neighbors.... A) because one of the apartments next to ours is being renovated right now, and B) because we don't live in our area. We live in Kwai Fong. We have to go over 2 MTR stops to even get into our area!

-Next holiday? No clue.... no clue at all. Thanksgiving? Y JM in our ward, the one who gives us fruit every week, is having us over for Thanksgiving dinner on the 17th! So excited! And our ward is having a Thanksgiving party on the 23rd. But regular non-members don't even know what Thanksgiving is. We tried to explain it to someone. They didn't really get it. "So you just eat food? And do what?" us: "um....give thanks! and eat! a lot!"

-The weather is soooo bipolar. One day I can wear a sweater and be comfortable, and the next day I'm hot again and getting a little bit sweaty. It's the weirdest thing to hear about snow and cold weather. Like whit, your date in the snow? Yeah. Can't imagine it.

-We have started doing finding with this display... basically like this big poster... idk how to describe it. But we set it up in Sham Shui Po, which is like CRAZY busy with people, and it was great! We got some numbers and emails to work with, which is always good!

-Today in the temple was absolutely amazing. I've been struggling lately, feeling like I'm not good enough and I'm not doing enough to further the work. But today in the temple was so needed. I sat in the Celestial Room and just felt Heavenly Father's approval so tangibly. I know He is pleased with me. Yes, I am so far from perfect. I mess up every day! But that's why we have the Atonement. That's why we have the Savior. With Him, all things are possible. We can wake up every day and try a little harder to be a little better. I know that Heavenly Father is so merciful. He is our perfect, loving, endlessly patient Father. I'm so grateful to have felt His love and presence today in the temple. It was a special, sacred time. I'm so thankful for the temple!

FAM. The house is BEAUTIFUL. I'm so excited to see it :) Keep sending pics! I LOVE seeing them. You guys are awesome! I miss and love you so much! Thanks for the incredible love and support. I love, love, love, love, love you ALL!

Love always and forever,
Sister Shay
xoxoxoxo

No more AC, miracles, and Korean BBQ!

HELLO!! You know what's sad? That all of you are not in Hong Kong. That all of you don't get to do this every single day.... preach the gospel and speak Chinese and laugh so hard and work so hard and love the Lord..... I hope one day you can all know what it feels like to be doing what I'm doing :) I LOVE IT!!!

So yes, as the email says, this week was the beginning of no more AC! The zone leaders texted us saying that we can't use it anymore. We haven't been using it during the day - only at night - but we were all dreading turning it off for the night. We opened up our windows and the first night wasn't bad. The second night was pretty comfortable! And the third night, when we woke up, we were all COLD! after exercising and getting ready for the day, we were sitting in our study doing personal study with our window open. So I'm sitting there and I'm like, "hmm... i feel weird... what is this feeling.... I WANT A SWEATER." So I went to my suitcase and dug a sweater out and put it on! It was the weirdest thing ever and I LOVED IT. I can't wait for the weather to really start cooling down! I WANT WINTER. During the day it's still pretty hot here, but it's starting cooling down in the mornings and nights! yay!!!!!

This week started out slow and hard again. Lots of finding time. LOTS. We were also kinda sore because last Monday I led us in an exercise routine that killed our legs for the rest of the week ;) haha whoopsies! But yeah. Soooo much finding time. There were a couple days when I had to take a deep breath and remember why I'm out here doing this. But the Lord gives us trials, and then He gives us blessings.....

Like Friday. We went finding (surprise, surprise) and we got to this park and there was almost no one there. But I was like, "Hey, i have this feeling that we need to say here until we teach a lesson." So we stayed. We talked to everyone and no one was interested. We still stayed. 10 minutes before we were going to head back to the church, we ran into an investigator Sister Aldana had had before I came to this area! WE JUST BUMPED INTO HER! Her name is LJ. She was so happy to see us! Her phone broke and so that's why she stopped having contact with Sister Aldana before. It was a straight up miracle. Who bumps into people that they know in HONG KONG?! Heavenly Father definitely wanted us to see her again. We scheduled her for the next day!!

Or Saturday. Saturday morning we taught LJ again. We met her in the park, and her daughter, S, was so sad. She was just crying and crying and we couldn't have a lesson. So finally I said, "S I'll go play with you!" and we went and played on the playground together so Sis Aldana could talk to her mom! It was fun :) these little Chinese kids! They're the CUTEST! After that we taught A at the church. It was so good! We taught her the Restoration and at the end, committed her to pray about Joseph Smith's experience. She said, "I can't pray and get an answer. There's no way I could get an answer from God." so i said, "Let's kneel down right now and see if God answers our prayers." She said the prayer and it was SO GOOD! After the prayer we asked her how she felt. She said warm and comfortable and good. We testified that is the spirit. It was just such a good feeling! After the lesson we went outside (we were going to go eat lunch) but then she was looking at the temple across the street, so we asked her if she wanted to go over there and she said yes! Who needs lunch?! We went over to the temple with her and walked around the courtyard and sat in the waiting room and felt the spirit of the temple. It was soooo good. She's definitely getting baptized someday :)

Or Sunday! Sunday we had 3 investigators at church! One of our members brought her friend and we got to teach her! Someone in our ward's little 2 year old daughter had a birthday so they brought birthday cake and SO MANY egg salad sandwiches for everyone and after church we had a party! haha i love this ward. I love this place.

I am aboslutely LOVING this mission. I love everything about Hong Kong!! I'm so, incredibly, wonderfully, fantastically happy to be here!!!!!! Keep praying for us, but don't worry. We're learning loads. The Lord knows what He's doing :) and I trust Him completely!

I love you all so very, very much!
加泅! 夫父愛你們!

Love always,
Shay Bay
xoxoxxo

PICS!

French Toast, Noodle Soup, and Ovaltine...Random!!

 Sweet pants we bought!

 Fun with grapes...this is ward FHE

 Korean BBQ!

LEIH HOUUUUU!

I couldn't think of a more creative subject than "leih hou!" haha sometimes my brain doesn't want to work...

GUESS WHAT?!!!! Elder Holland is now over the Asia Area! HE'S IN CHARGE OVER HERE!!!! I freaked out when I heard! Seriously! I hope he visits us next year! That would make my entire LIFE if I got to meet Elder Holland as a missionary. Ahhhhhh!!!!!! And the Asia Area Headquarters is here in HK! So we have a pretty good chance! whoohooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Missionaries get excited about the weirdest things.

ANYWAY. Hello!!!!!!!!! How are all of my favorite people this week!? :) I hope you are all doing well! This week was crazy... so many miracles. I've gotta tell you about it all!

But first the bad news. YJ hasn't answered the phone since last Thursday. Over a week. We're bummed... looks like her baptism next week can't happen because she missed 2 weeks of church and no contact with us. We're not really sure what's going on. We've been praying for her like crazy. I won't lose faith in her. Keep praying for you, will you?

So. Our investigator pool has been rapidly shrinking and we're not really sure why. We've been trying our hardest to keep all of these awesome people, but everyone in HK makes themselves so BUSY all the time. It's frustrating! Needless to say we've been doing a TON of finding.

Tuesday finding: We took J and A-K, two youth in our ward. A-K is getting ready to leave on his mission in Texas in January and Jacqueline is 20 and is just working right now because she wants to go to BYU-H. They're both awesome and we had so much fun finding with them. We went to a park and it was so cool to have so many of us there! A-K went and started shooting hoops with some other guys and then I saw him giving them fliers and talking about church! J helped us find 2 girls named V and V that wanted to come to English class! After finding with them for hours, they came back to the church and had dinner with us. They're great :) I LOVE our ward here!!!

Wednesday finding: We were not looking forward to it. We had nothing planned for the entire day and when you're looking at your planner and all it says is "finding" from 12:30--7:00, it gets a little discouraging. But we decided to really pray about where we should go and what time we should be there. We took 20 minutes before we went out and each knelt down and said our own personal prayers and then wrote down 5 places on a piece of paper. When we compared, we had 2 that were the same. We felt like we should go to Mei Foo first. And let me tell you, it was AMAZING!! Literally the first people we talked to gave us were 2 ladies named A-L and they both gave us their numbers! THAT NEVER HAPPENS! Then we turned around and there was this guy named S that said hi to us and told us about his 2 little daughters and wife that would love to learn more! WHAT?! It was incredible! The whole finding block was that way! Then that night we went to English class and E came and V and V came.... so we were so busy we had to go on SPLITS after English class to teach them all! THAT NEVER HAPPENS EITHER! It was so amazing! I taught E (with C from our ward who is so awesome) and we gave her a baptismal date! WOW! I just can't even tell you how happy we were this day. Ahhh the church is true! And I get to be a part of telling people about it! :D I LOVE IT!

I'm running out of time so I'll tell you about a hard thing we went through:

One night we were so bummed. Haven't heard from YJ, no success that day really, we were just wiped out and really discouraged. We got ready to do our planning session. Before every evening planning, we always sing a hymn. I chose "How Great Thou Art". By the end of the song, we were both in tears. We knelt down to say our prayer to begin planning and I said the prayer and just cried. Then we both just sat there on the floor of our office and cried together for a long time. (Okay, so I cried a lot and Sister Aldana cried a little and watched me cry for a while) We had a really good talk about the Atonement and how we know that Jesus Christ helps us in our trials, even small ones like having a bad day. It was a really good experience. I'll remember it forever, sitting there on the hard tile, crying, and feeling the power of the Atonement and knowing everything would be okay.

I am so thankful to be a missionary. I'm thankful for the downs because they make the ups sweeter. I'm thankful for the ups because they strengthen my testimony. I'm thankful for my Savior, Jesus Christ, and for the strengthening, enabling power of His Atonement. I'm thankful to be here in China, where the missionary work is hard, but it's so jihk dak ge (worth it). I LOVE this mission so much. I love the changes that are happening in my life. I love the Lord. I LOVE these people. I love all of you so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you for EVERYTHING! Keep the faith! Ga Yauh!!!!!

Love always,
Sista Shay
xoxoxoxoxoxox

BBQ...Chinese Style!

Leih hou wonderful family and friends!

I have SO MANY THINGS TO SAY THIS WEEK. I don't think I'll be able to say them all. I can't type fast enough!!!!!

First of all, TODAY was awesome! Our ward had a BBQ up in Sai Kung (like an hour bus ride away) and oh my goodness it was gorgeous and so much fun. I'm serving in the most beautiful, amazing, wonderful, fun place in the entire world, just in case you guys didn't already know!!!!! And riding a bus was one of the best parts hahaha. Because we always ride the MTR and we're in the middle of the city, we don't get to see the beautiful parts of Hong Kong very often. BUT HOLY COW. It's amazing. I really want to tour HK on a bus one day. The bbq was a blast. The way these Chinese peeps do it is the BEST. It's just a weenie roast basically, but they bbq whatever. Chicken wings, hot dogs, fish balls, bread, and whole fish are among the most popular ones. And THEN. They smother it in honey before they roast it. MOST INGENIUS IDEA EVER! We gotta try it when I get back!!! It was delicious. And so much fun! Cheung Sha Wan Ward is the greatest in the entire world. Everyone is just one big happy family! I love it SO much!

This whole week I was looking forward to conference like Christmas. And it didn't disappoint! Wasn't it amazing?! I had too many favorites.... Elder Holland (of course!), President Uchtdorf, President Eyring, Elder McConkie, Elder Bednar...... okay pretty much all of them. They were all so good. It was the most wonderful spiritual refresher! I literally can't wait for April! We got to watch it in English upstairs in the church while all the Chinese speakers watched it downstairs. Technology is the biggest blessing.

I saw Deonn Stott in the choir and freaked out a few times :) It was fun to see a face from home!

This week...

We helped YJ resolve her concerns about baptism! Still heading for October 27 as her baptismal date! She was worried that she'd just barely started believing in Christ and felt like she needed years of time to prepare herself. It was cool to be able to testify to her that if she had enough faith in herself, she could be ready by the 27th. She is so amazing. I wish we had more time to meet with her. She's got a pretty stressful and crazy life. I love her so much, though. I know she'll get baptized!

We met a girl named R a few weeks ago and contacted her. She was obsessed that we were foreigners and so we thought she'd have no gospel interest. She agreed to meet with us, and we thought it was because she had English class interest. NOPE! When we met with her she said she wanted to meet with us to learn more about religion because she wanted to be religious! WHAT!? who says that?? It was awesome. We're a little bummed because she doesn't live in our area :( We're the queens of finding investigators for other areas. But still happy to be furthering the work somehow!

We heart attacked a LA this week. That was fun! (pictures to come!) Some lady that walked by kept saying "wow hou leng!" (so pretty!) and we tried to contact her but she wasn't too interested. Maybe just by seeing us doing a good deed (like heart attacking the door of a LA!) she will want to meet with missionaries in the future. There is so much of that here.... planting seeds. I just have to continue to have faith that people will see my Christlike acts and want to know Christ because they know me. I've decided that's my mission motto. I want to live my whole life in such a way that when people know me, they will want to know Christ because they know me.

We met with A this week! I contacted her a week or so ago, and found out her sister is a member living in AZ and she met with missionaries 20 years ago! I just randomly met her on the street. DEFINITELY not a coincidence. I'm thankful that the Lord led me to her and hope that she'll continue to have interest in the gospel. Something really cool happened. She was pretty quiet the first part of our lesson, and then we shared Alma 32:27 with her. She read it and then said, "How did you know this would touch my heart?" in English. It was so sweet. I love following the Spirit and seeing the fruits of doing so!

I absolutely love what I'm doing. I was thinking today about how much I love this place and love these people. I don't ever want to leave. If I could stay in a time warp and be 20 and a missionary in HK forever, I would do it in a heartbeat. I LOVE what I'm doing. Every single day brings so many new adventures and surprises and miracles.

I loved in Elder Bednar's talk when he said that sometimes, when we ask the Lord for specific blessings, he withholds those blessings and blesses us with something else. In my journal that night, I went through and wrote some specific times in my life when I prayed for something to happen and instead got something else. Not the least of which was this wonderful mission. I think about where I was a year and a half ago and am SO INCREDIBLY thankful that I am here right now. The Lord knows what He's doing with our lives. We just have to trust Him. I do. I trust Him. Mom, I loved your email. "I'm a believer." I am, too. Completely and 100% believing and trusting in my Heavenly Father and my Savior, Jesus Christ. I hope you all are, too.

I love you all more than I could say! Thank you for your wonderful examples and your wonderful support! You really are the best family and friends in the world!

Love forever and always,
Sista Gwokamole
xoxoxoxoxxoxo

Another Transfer Gone!

Hey howdy hey! (I'm just getting my Heber Hick fix in, okay? there are NO cowboys here and.... I actually kinda miss it :)

ANYWAY.... How is everyone?! I loved getting all your emails/pictures/news of home from conference. I wish I could have been there! We actually didn't watch conference this past weekend. Due to translation, we are watching it this coming weekend! I'm not sure how the Chinese/English thing is going to work, but Sis Aldana was here for conference last time and she watched it in Eng. So I'm hoping for that :) my language is getting better, but it's FAR from that good yet.

This week was great! Again! What am i saying, every week is great as a missionary. Let me give you a little rundown:

Tuesday: We did companion exchanges! I was with Sister Foong from Malaysia. She speaks perfect Canto, Malay, Mandarin... probably some other langauges too. She's amazing. We went finding all day but it was so much fun. I like seeing how other missionaries do finding and get some new ideas and some new insights!

Wednesday: One of our members, YJ (she's like our mom) invited us over for lunch with 3 of the YM in our ward who are leaving on their missions soon. It was fun! We shared a part of "The District" with them about the purpose of missionary work and I cried. I get so emotional all the time. I just think this is the greatest thing I could be doing in the world. I'm so happy to have such a significant part in helping the Lord's work go forward. Wednesday we also met E! I had contacted her last week on the street and invited her to English class. She came and she's AWESOME! She's 25 and she's adorable. We taught her afterwards about God and how much He loves us and she has interest! So excited to meet with her again! She couldn't come to church this week, but hoping for next week!

Thursday: We helped a LA member clean her apartment. She has this teeny tiny little apartment... it made me feel SO incredibly spoiled, thinking about our beautiful enormous house in America that has a backyard and a shed and three cars. We are so blessed, it's ridiculous. Anyway, her house was really.... horrible. It was really dirty. I was glad we helped her out. I hope it can stay clean! I love doing service. It always makes me feel like I'm doing what the Savior would be doing. Sometimes it's hard to imagine the Savior on the streets, chasing people down and handing out fliers and trying to contact them. But it's never hard to imagine Him helping someone clean or taking someone to the doctor or just seeing a need and fulfilling it. It makes me feel closer to Him and I love it.

Friday: We had Zone Training! Doesn't it feel like we just had it? It does to me. I can't believe how time flies! I love being with other missionaries. It reminds me that I'm not alone in Hong Kong. There are lots of us, having similar ups and downs, and we get to help these people come unto Christ! Anyway, then we went and visited LJ (a LA) and then straight over to see HJ and S! S is so cute. He was trying to teach me Mandarin. So I know a little bit more now :) I wonder if I'll take Mandarin when I get back from my mission.... anyway, the lesson was great. HJ is so prepared and so wonderful! She said she'd come to church on Sunday, but then she slept in :( we were bummed, but not losing faith in her! She doesn't have any Christian background at all, so it's been interesting to teach her. A lot of the people we teach when to a Christian primary school so they know about Christ at least a little bit. HJ is from Mainland and has no idea.

Saturday: We tried to schedule YJ, but she's so busy! These people fill their lives with SO MUCH. It makes me so frustrated sometimes. YJ and K were even too busy to come to church :( I was reading in Moses today about his experience with the burning bush and it made me think of Becca Wilhite's essay she wrote about seeing the burning bushes in our lives. Moses spoke to the Lord because he paused, noticed the burning bush, and then investigated. Do each of us notice the "burning bushes" in our lives? Do we let the small, sacred moments of each day pass by because we're too busy? Definitely something to think about. It made me think. Sometimes I get so caught up in the day-to-day. I want to have more slow moments where I am still and know that God is there and He is guiding this work. He wants a relationship with each one of us. We just have to be willing to be still enough to listen to Him.

Sunday: Church! Mouh mat dahkbiht. (Nothing special)

Today: SISTER TRANSFERS! Sister Aldana and I are staying here! Sad thing is, Sister Tidwell is leaving. But happy thing is, Sister Yeung is coming here to be Sister Pearl's companion! They were companions together in Macau! How crazy is that?! I'm so excited to be living with Sister Yeung again! And to have a bundeih (native) here to help us with our language! YAY! :D

Okay, Dad! I wanted to answer your questions!

The language is coming! Slowly but surely! One step at a time. I feel like my understanding is pretty good... most days. Sometimes I still feel lost, but I can communicate pretty well and I feel really comfortable with most gospel words!

President Hawks in my interview asked me if I had any questions. I asked him how we could better not seem like salespeople. He told us to follow the Spirit more in our finding and teaching. We talked about it for a while. It was really good. He also told me to humble myself and remember that I am junior companion, and follow the counsel of my senior companion. That was also really good for me to hear. I love him so much. He is so wise and awesome!

Weather? Still REALLY hot. But it's cooling down! It's hot now like, bearable hot. You still sweat if you walk fast or if you're out in the sun for too long, but we're not dripping anymore. Yippee! The mornings are really pleasant, but I still sweat WAY more when I run that when I'm at home.

Being in the city is crazy. I'm used to it now! Riding the MTR, being with a bazillion other people all the time, living in a high rise... it's fun! I would never want to live here for real though. Never want to raise a family here. It would be so hard! But the shopping here is AMAZING. Whitney and Melina would go INSANE. Seriously, there are so many things. I'm thinking about slowly getting rid of all the clothes I brought and getting a bunch of new stuff here! Maahn maahn maaih... (slow slow buy...it's a saying. hard to explain)

Welll..... looks like I'm out of time. Hate that. I love emailing you all and telling you all about the adventures I'm having here. I love this mission so much. I love what changes I am making in myself. I wish I could do this forever. I love the Savior. I love the neat opportunity I have to represent Him. I hope I am doing a good job.

I love you all. Did you know that? I think the world of ALL of you. You're the best family and friends in the entire world.

Love always,
Sista Gwok
xoxoxoxo

I LOVE THIS WORK!!

HELLOOOOOO!!! I loved hearing about all your weeks! I love getting your emails and your letters! I really have the best family and friends on earth. Hands DOWN.

This week was FULL of miracles. They came all at once and I feel so humbled that the Lord is pouring His blessings upon us right now. Ah, so many good things to tell you! I hope I have time to write them all!!

Monday: After P-day we went to see one of our members, J. We had pizza over at her house... pizza with octopus legs and shrimp. Mmm ;) ha. We were hoping her parents (who are non members) would be there too but they weren't. Oh well. It was still good to get to know our members. This ward is amazing. Have I said that yet? I absolutely LOVE it. They are so willing to work with missionaries here and soooo amazing. It feels like a big family, literally. I love love love it!! I never want to leave!

Tuesday: We had district meeting as usal and talked all about finding and having faith to find. After the meeting I was SO PUMPED UP! I just wanted to get out there and FIND these prepared people! So we did! We went out and found an 89 year old less active named C Popo. She's really sweet! After that we went out finding and let me tell you, it was amazing. I don't even know why... this week EVERYONE has been so prepared. It's like the two weeks previous to this one there was something holding everyone back. Seriously on Tuesday we had people giving us their numbers.... giving US their numbers! Usually we have to drag numbers out of people! At one point, we were street contacting, and I saw this lady and said, "Leih hou!" and she walked past me and said in Cantonese, "Sorry I don't know English!" so I let her get like 10 steps away and half-heartedly called after her in Cantonese, "But I know Cantonese!" Well, then she stopped and turned around and came back to talk to me! Biggest miracle!!! Her name is L....

Wednesday: We went with C Popo to the doctor, just because she asked us to. She wanted us to help her get a taxi. It felt good to just SERVE. Serve as the Savior would serve, not out of obligation or out of a desire to get their number or to teach them a lesson. I need to be better about looking for opportunities to do service out of love and a desire just to serve people. And in the waiting room, all the little popos were asking us about the church and stuff! It was great! They were all blown away by our Cantonese :) I love when that happens. Anyway, after the doctor, we ran back to the church to have interviews with President Hawks! BEST THING OF MY LIFE. I wish I could have talked to him for hours, but we only had 15 minutes. I learned SO much though. I felt like I was instructed, edified, comforted.... everything I needed to hear. And then while Sis Aldana was in her interview, I got to chat with Sister Hawks. I love them so much. I feel so blessed to have them as mission president/mission mom. They are incredible! After our interviews we went and had a lesson with C. C has been seeing missionaries for a long time.... it's hard to help her progress. We watched "The Testaments" with her and then bore our testimonies of Christ. It was a really good lesson. The Spirit was so strong. She said she feels bad seeing Christ crucified, and can't believe He did all those things for HER. It was an awesome lesson! So good!

Thursday: We went finding alllllll day with one of our YW. Actually, she's not even a member yet! Her name is A-P and she is incredible. She's 16 and she's been coming to church for like 2 years but her parents won't let her get baptized yet. So sad. She is amazing though. She's such a good little missionary and fellowshipper. She got pretty tired going finding with us, but she was so upbeat and positive about it! We love her! After that we were able to see L!!! The one I contacted on Tuesday! She's great! We went to her Herbal Life store. She helps people lose weight or gain weight (gain weight?? only in CHina....) and she made us a health smoothie! I TOTALLY thought of you, Mom haha. It had aloe vera and oatmeal and celery in it... it wasn't as good as your green smoothies. Not even close. But it was a little taste of home for me :) then we taught her the Restoration right there in her tiny little store. I hope we can teach her again soon!

Friday: We went finding again.... kept on finding the most amazingly prepared people... one lady and her cute 7 year old son named S said they would try to come to church on Sunday!! AND!! Y J came back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! When our phone rang and it said "Y J" we both freaked out. Jumping up and down in our office and hugging. She said she wanted to take us out to breakfast the next morning!

Saturday: BREAKFAST WITH Y J!! It was so awesome. I wish I could express how much I love her. She met us in the MTR station and right when she saw us, she ran up to us and gave us the biggest hugs and said, "I missed you so much!" Ahh and her son King is SO cute. We had such a good time with them! Even though breakfast was yam chaah (like dim sum... you know what that is??) like appetizers... but Chinese ones. and like a bazillion of them. Shrimp, dumplings, all this other stuff I have no idea what the names are in english.... sorry. :) After breakfast Y J gave us the biggest hugs again and said, "I love you." AHHHH she's so amazing!!

Sunday: SUCH A GREAT DAY AT CHURCH! Y J and K were there, along with H J and S. K and S became friends, it was the cutest thing ever :) And C Popo came! She's 89!!!! It was great! AND the elders investigator, SL, got baptized yesterday! I love him. He's going to be a bishop someday, I swear. His testimony after his baptism was incredible. He really gets it. He bore his testimony on the Atonement and I about cried. Funny story. He's never worn a white shirt and tie to church before. But after his baptism, he came back in wearing a SUIT! and a white shirt and tie! Awesome!! :)

Okay that's like maybe an eighth of the miracles that happened this week. I can't type fast enough dang it! I absolutely, postively, 300% LOVE THIS WORK!!! I love love love what I'm doing. The Lord loves me, I'm positive of that. He is blessing us with so many miracles. I LOVE this area. I LOVE this ward. I LOVE this mission. I LOVE my companion, the sisters I live with, my mission president, EVERYTHING!! I love the ways I've changed. I feel like a whole different person. I love everything about being a missionary. I love you all so much!! Thank you for everything you do for me! I feel your prayers!

Check this out! I'm writing this on a touch pad:

加 油! 我愛你門!

With ALL my love,
Shay Bay Bay
xoxoxoxoxo

The biggest typhoon in 30 years.....?

Well HEY! How is everyone this week?? I have to start out by saying... I'm really, really glad that I got on my email and heard you were all happy and healthy. I had the scariest dream the other night after we spent all day with one of our less actives whose leg was amputated. Okay here's the dream:

So there was this giant snake that was going to attack. And for some reason I knew about it but no one else did. So I grabbed Mom and Jaren and we ran for shelter. Couldn't find Whit. Then after a while we were like "oh no! Where's Dad and Park?!!" so I ran back by myself to see if I could find them and..... they were laying there with no legs. It was horrible. Dad didn't remember who we were either :( it was the worst dream ever and I couldn't shake the feeling that Dad and Park were legless. So, I'm glad to hear that Parker had a XC meet and he did just fine with both of his legs :) haha.

ANYWAY! today was going to be exciting! We had been hearing about some GIGANTIC typhoon that was headed straight for Hong Kong. It was supposed to be equal to the biggest hurricane.... we kept getting texts from President Hawks: "Stay inside. Stay away from the windows. Follow the safety procedures for typhoons. You may not be able to email on Monday" etc. And our neighbors across from us taped their windows. So we're thinking, man this is gonna be HUGE! Yesterday we had to come inside at 6:30 pm. We had to cancel an appointment with a less active, closed all our windows, battened down the hatches... we were getting ready. We were all kind of excited to see a huge typhoon. So we keep waiting for cool stuff to happen.... it rained a little bit... yep. Nothing exciting AT ALL. What a bummer ;)

Here's a Y JM update! (since she's basically our only investigator right now).... she's in Mainland for 2 weeks. :(  Mainland is like a black hole that sucks people away. It's terrible. But she's SO good still. She's excited about baptism. We wish we could call her and do lessons over the phone... or even just chat! But it's too risky in Mainland. Boooo. Oh well. We know when she gets back she'll still be GOLDEN!

Oh yeah! so this week was mission tour! Mission tour is when one of the members of the 70 comes and goes around to different areas of the mission. So that was on Wednesday from 9-5. It was SO GOOD! I looooooove being spiritually fed. The Seventy was Elder Larry Y. Wilson and his wife. It was so awesome! It was all about the Fall and the Atonement. I learned so much. I love being fed at the feet of great men and women, like Elder and Sister Wilson and President and Sister Hawks. I love President and Sister Hawks. They are so wise and have so much love for the missionaries and for each other and for the Lord. Anyway, we had to travel up to the New Territories for mission tour and I GOT TO SEE SISTER MORGAN again! We had a great time :) I love that girl to death. So glad she was my first comp :) It was such a good day. And then at the end of the day, President and Sister Hawks gave us a ride back to Kowloon Tong in their CAR! That was cool. :)

Hmm... what else. Oh Mid-Autumn festival was a BLAST! There were sooooooooooooooooo many families out! It was a finding-dream-come-true! We contacted some really good families! Yay! :) And then on Friday night this family in our ward had us and the elders over for dinner. It was fun :) and we had A TON of mooncakes. Mooncakes are gross.

At mission tour, one part of it was a sisters' meeting where we all went around and said one thing we'd learned since being a missionary. I said that of all the tings I've learned, maybe one of the biggest ones is that the Lord gives us trials because He trusts us. He loves us and He wants us to grow. So, when a trial comes my way, I should look at it as a blessing. When I had lice, my first thought was "why me?" But I've come to realize that I've learned SO much from that trial. I'm so thankful for the things the Lord teaches me through my trials. I love this mission! I love what I'm doing :)

Thank you for all the support. I love you all SO much. Keep us in your prayers! We could use some more investigators! :) I love you I love you I love you!

Love always,
Shay
Gwok
xoxo

Up to our Knees in Moon Cakes!

HAPPY AUTUMN FESTIVAL everyone!!

Okay it's technically not till Thursday but holy cow everyone and their mother has been giving us moon cakes these days. Our fridge is stuffed full of them! And for those of you who aren't sure what a moon cake is...... it's not that great. It's got like a salted egg yolk in the middle surrounded by lotus paste. It's sweet, but I'm not a huge fan of them. Everyone is obsessed with them though! Not sure what else autumn festival entails besides moon cakes and lanterns everywhere..... guess we'll see!

ANYWAY. How is everyone this week?! I miss you all like crazy but this week's been amazing. It didn't really start out that way, though....

On Monday after P-day, we went finding. We had NO success. Everyone we talked to rejected us. After a while, rejection starts to hurt. We have the truth and no one in interested?! Whyyyyy??? Anyway, we got on the train to go home. (Everytime we get on the train, we split up and talk to different people.) So anyway, I start talking to this lady. She doesn't respond at all. Doesn't say a word. So after a while of me talking to her and her saying nothing, I asked her if she spoke Cantonese. She said she did. So then I started asking her more questions about religion and such. No response. Then a man came up behind me and said in English, "She doesn't understand you." I responded back in Cantonese, "Well, I'm speaking Cantonese, and she said she understands Cantonese. I'm sharing about Jesus Christ." He said back in Cantonese, "Don't talk about Him! Nobody in China believes these things! No one will believe you! Why are you doing this? What are you doing? STOP trying to talk to us. We don't believe those things. We believe Buddha. Go back to America!" He was really mean. And it was the last straw. They got off the train and I started crying. I don't even know what was wrong with me. Usually I shake it off like it's nothing and move on to the next person. But he was really mean. We got off the train and Sis Aldana had to comfort me for a minute and then I was fine. But man. Talk about discouragement!!!

But that is when Heavenly Father stepped in. After we got home that night, we were making some calls and we tried Y JM. SHE ANSWERED. Oh my goodness, you guys, she is the most golden investigator of all golden investigators. I feel so incredibly humbled to be teaching her! She is sooo wonderful. She'd been in mainland last week! that's why she hadn't responded to our calls/texts! Of course! Why did we even doubt?! I was so grateful. Heavenly Father truly has things in control. Why do I allow myself to doubt Him and His plan?

A few days later, we got another call from Y JM. She told us the most amazing story. One of her friends that she hasn't had contact with for 10+ years called her up. They were chatting and catching up and then her friend randomly started talking about Christ and how she'd come to Christ in the past few years. Y JM said, "She didn't even know I'd been looking into religion!" She thought it was the biggest miracle. She just kept saying how "sahn keih" (miraculous) she thought it was. When Sister Aldana got off the phone with her and told me the story, I just started crying. We dropped down right there and said a thank you prayer.... Heavenly Father, thank you for giving us Y JM. She is so wonderful! She is so prepared! Amidst the other uninterested people, there ARE people that God has prepared for us to teach. We just have to keep having faith that we can find them. And we can. I know we can. Heavenly Father is on our side. He goes before our faces, on our right hand and on our left, and His angels bear us up. I feel His support every single day.

On Sunday Y JM came to church and we were THRILLED. Sunday was the best day of my entire life. She was the only investigator we had at church, but she's so good she counts for like 50. Ahhh I love her SO much!! After church she stayed for a baptism and she loved it. The baptism was amazing. She kept asking if that's how her baptism would be and we said yes. She's so wonderful. I feel sooo grateful I have the chance to know her. She's taught me so much about faith and trusting in God. We want to get her baptized in the next few weeks!!!

um hello WHITNEY!!! Where are you?! are you alive? I'm sitting over here in China thinking about you in college!! Can't believe it. How is it? how are the roomies? how is BYU-I? what classes are you taking? SEND ME YOUR ADDRESS! i wrote you a letter but don't have your address. i miss you and love you sooo much!

Well fam. I have to get off. My hour is up. I love you more than I could say. Thank you for your continued love and support and prayers! I absolutely LOVE what I'm doing. I'm learning and growing so much, and I get to help other people come unto our Savior, Jesus Christ. There couldn't be anything better in the entire world. I love it. I love this mission. I love my Savior. I love my life. I LOVE all of you!!

Keep the faith! Love you always!

Love,
Shay
Gwok
xoxoxoxo

Monkeys and Faith

FAMILY! and FRIENDS!

4 days later and you get to hear from me again! Yay! It's been a great 4 days since the last time I emailed you! So much has happened! I'll give you the rundown:

Friday was our Zone Training Meeting. It was a lot different here because in Macau, our district is our zone and there are only 10 missionaries, so ZTM feels exactly like district meeting. But here, our zone is really big! I am in the Kowloon zone and we have the biggest zone in the mission. It's awesome! Elders Nestman and Howell from my district in the MTC are in my zone too, so that's cool. It's always fun to see people from the MTC and know that we are all doing this for real now!

Saturday nothing really cool to report. We have been doing turnover lessons like nobody's business these days. Since we live out of our area and our church is out of our area, we find a TON of people that we can't teach because they live in different areas. So we do a lot of turnover lessons, which kind of stinks. We're working on finding new investigators, but it's hard. This big city has so many uninterested people!

I have been thinking about faith lately and how it works. I have an assignment for all of you reading this letter. I want you to write me what you think faith is and how it works. How do we use faith to make miracles happen in our lives? Some of the ways I've been implementing in my life are:

Sacrifice. I'm giving up sugar and praying in my bed so that Yip JM can get baptized. She hasn't responded to our calls and texts for a week now :( I'm really hoping that sacrificing will show the Lord my willingness to have these blessings.

Obedience. Self evaluating my obedience has been really great. Ever since Zone Training, I've looked at the little things I'm doing that haven't been exactly obedient. I really want to be 100% exact so that the Lord will see I'm willing to do what He asks.

What do you think? :)

This week I saw a MONKEY! A real live monkey! We were in our apartment doing studies and we looked out the window (we live on the 7th floor) and we saw a monkey running on the railing of the highway! It was the coolest thing EVER! We were like freaking out and I wanted to take a picture but my camera was dead! Dang it. Next time. I hope I see another one!!

Whit, I can't believe you're going to COLLEGE this week. I literally can't believe it. Send me your address first thing so I can get a letter sent to you. Mail is so fun to get when you're away from home :) I love you so much! Don't be scared. The Lord goes with you! I wish I was there so bad! I love you sooooooooooo much!

I've got to get off already :( poo. I love you all with all of my heart. I was reading in the BOM in Jacob this week and I read these words:

"For, for this intent have we written thse things, that they may know that we knew of Christ."

That's why I'm writing these emails. So that you can know that I know of Christ. He is my brother, my Savior, my best friend. He lifts me up in times of discouragement and trial. He is the "author and finisher of my faith" and my reason for this mission. I love Him and want to make Him proud.

I love you all so much. Write me good emails for next week on FAITH! ;) I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you!

From China to Utah, love always,
Shay
Gwok
xoxo

C..., Colds, and Purple Polka Dotted Panties

Dearest best family and friends in the world,

Wow, it seems like every week I hear someone new that reads my blog and then emails me. I feel SO MUCH love and support from back home! I am seriously so blessed. Thank you thank you thank you! I love you all!

ALSO.. oh my goodness Michael and Kacie! You guys sent me the best package EVER! Thank you so, so much! Wow! Whit, thanks for helping :) haha. I loved everything! That was so nice and you spoiled me! And your baby is BEAUTIFUL! ahhhh :)

Okay so it's Thursday today... gahhh it's been a loooong week and a half without a P-day. Haha P-day is seriously inspired. So glad we have them once a week :) But oh my goodness! Today the temple made everything worth it! The temple is BEAUTIFUL. And you know? It's the same :) Different languages, different faces, but the same feeling, the same gospel, the same Heavenly Father. It's so neat that even clear over here across the world, the Church is true. We worship in the same way. It's so wonderful :) btw if you were wondering, the session was in English and they had translating headphones for everyone that needed it in Cantonese, or Thai, or Mandarin, or Tagalog, or whatever. So many different languages, it's crazy!

I'm trying to think what happened this week... so many things, I don't know what to write! I do have a cold... boo. How does that happen in the heat?! I'm not sure. Right now I can't breathe AT ALL. Hoping to get better soon! One of our less actives that we always visit gave me this huge thing of ginger and a lemon and told me to roast the ginger over the burner, and then boil the roasted ginger and lemon slices in Coke. Maybe I'll try it! It's worth a shot!

Mom and Dad, you'll appreciate this one. We went LA finding last Friday. We were looking for a lady named C... yes, she's from Japan! But she married a man from Hong Kong. Anyway, we usually don't have very much success LA finding because the guards for the building hardly ever let us in. But this time, he did! So we go up to C's apartment and we can hear a bunch of little dogs barking inside. Ring the doorbell, blah blah.... k she actually invites us IN. When does that happen?! Never, I tell you. Never. It was great! So we were sitting there talking to her, and then she said, "Why don't you stay for dinner?" so we stayed for dinner. The greatest part was that her sister-in-law was there, her non-member husband, and her husband's friend. That's 3 CONTACTED REFERRALS IN ONE DAY! Can't tell you how excited we were. Her husband was so funny. He spoke pretty fluent English but he was just hilarious. He told us about 10 times, "I'm a retired policeman! Retired!" I mean what are you supposed to say to that after the 10th time. "Wow, that's so great! Good for you!"? It was awesome. It was the best LA visit ever. We stayed like 2 hours. When C said the closing prayer at the end, she cried and we almost cried. Then she gave us each a box of crackers and said, "Come back anytime!" The only thing is, she can't come to church because she works. So we'll be working pretty closely with her. Stay tuned!

Some things you should all know about Chinese culture:

1. Talking with your mouth full is TOTALLY appropriate. Everyone does it. And if you don't do it, you're weird.

2. However acceptable talking with your mouth full is, picking your teeth with a toothpick without covering your mouth with your hand is NOT. I'm not really sure why, but it's very rude to just pick your teeth without covering it up.

3. Burping. ALL. THE. TIME. Like, in the middle of a conversation, when you're giving a talk in church, literally all the time. It's so gross. haha, I'm used to it now though. But at first I thought it was sick.

4. You HAVE to eat what people give you. So if they make too much food, there's no saving it. Eat it. Even if it's nasty.

5. Stand on the right side of the escalator if you just want to stand. If you want to run up the escalator, go up the left side. If you want to walk.... that's just not an option. Everyone is in too big a hurry.

Okay I can't think of anymore right now. There are some good ones :)

Sister Aldana and I are getting along great! We laugh A LOT, which is so good. I'm so happy that all of my companions and I can laugh together. We had the funniest thing happen. We were paak muhning (knocking doors... we have a few places where we can do that here!) and we knocked on this one door and this little bald Chinese man answered... wearing NOTHING but purple polka dotted panties. Panties. Not boxers. Panties. He saw us, screamed bloody murder and then yelled, "Dang a dang!" (wait a second!) and slammed the door. OH MY GOSH. Sis Aldana and I couldn't hold it in. We busted up laughing sooooo hard. It was so funny! We barely got it together by the time he answered the door wearing clothes. Anyway, he is so great! He came to ward FHE the other night, we turned him over to the elders to teach, and now he wants to get baptized! What a miracle! Yay! :)

OH YEAH! I SAW MY OLD TUHNGBUHN! I saw Sister Morgan, my comp from the MTC! It was like the greatest reunion ever. We were walking up the road to the church and they were coming out of the church and we saw each other and ran to each other screaming. Probably all the Chinese people thought we were nuts :) Soooo happy! I love being able to see all my old friends! I love being here!!

In English class last week, a new older man came. He spoke NO Engish at all. His name was Gwok too, so he was like "Yatyeuhng! Yatyeuhng!" (same! same!) ha. So I sat by him to help him with his English. The whole time, he was being really creepy and scooting closer to me. At one point, he says in Chinese, "Are you married yet?" I was like, "Um, no, let's listen to Elder Allen! Let's learn some English!" A little later he says, "Have you eaten dinner yet? Want to go together after?" I was like, "No, I don't." and then he writes down his number on a piece of paper and gives it to me. hahahahahaha soooo creepy. Gotta love it.

In my personal study this week, I read this scripture, "In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." (John 16:33). That made me think about the hard things we've endured this week. SO MUCH finding time with very few people interested. People not showing up to appointments. People not answering our phone calls anymore. Hours of being on the street, sweating like crazy. But you know? Jesus Christ overcame ALL of these things so He would know how it felt for us. He has lifted me up in the times when I thought I couldn't make it. He has brought me comfort and peace when I feel discouraged and doubtful. I am so thankful for His infinite sacrifice that makes it possible for Him to help me like this. I love Him. I want to be more like Him.

Well, I have to get off now. I will be back on Monday (Sunday night for all of you!) Thank you all for your ever present support. I feel it! I feel your prayers! Keep them coming! I love being a missionary. It's the greatest thing ever!

Love always,
Shay
xoxo

My New Area - Love It!!

Leih hou all you people!

First off, I got the postcards you all sent from the family reunion! I LOVED them so much! I am always so amazed at how much my family loves me and how awesome they are. Man. I just love you guys. I died laughing at Mikell's postcard ;) and all of you! I just LOVED them! Thank you!

I have soooo many things I want to say about my new area! I absolutely love it here. It's awesome being back in the middle of everything. I didn't realize just how isolated it was in Macau until now, when I get to see other missionaries every single day! It's awesome!

On Monday while we were at the mission office, I saw Elder Barker from the MTC. It was hilarious to see him because he acted like I'd died. He was like, "Hey! What are you doing here?!" haha he also thought it was really funny that I had a British companion as my trainer because of how often I did a British accent in the MTC. hahaha. Then we went to the church on Tuesday for district meeting and I saw Elder Nestman from the MTC! He also acted like I died. He was like, "Wow! I haven't seen you in forever!!" And also Elder Beal from the MTC is in my district now! it's so great! I've missed my MTC friends! :)

I absolutely love living with Sister Pearl, Tidwell, and Aldana. We have a lot of fun together. It's a little bit weird because we're in two different areas (in Macau we all went to the same branch together and saw each other a lot more). It's pretty different here. We live in Kwai Fong, but our area is Cheung Sha Wan, which is like 15 minutes away. And the church for our area is like 45 minutes away. We're on the MTR sooooo much every single day. We spend a TON of money on traveling. Like $550/month. But that's in HK dollars. Anyway, as far as both Sister Aldana and I know, we are the only companionship that doesn't live in our area OR have the church in our area. Weird. Super different from Macau.

Anyway, this area is awesome! We are in a ward now instead of a branch! Yippee! We work really closely with our elders, something we didn't really do in Macau. That's been really fun! I like our elders, Elder Allen and Elder Liu. They're also the zone leaders. They're super funny and both from America (AZ and UT).

Sister Aldana and her comp just barely opened this area last transfer! So we've been doing a TON of finding. I haven't done finding like this in awhile. And it's WAY DIFFERENT HERE. In Macau, people were way more laid back. They were way more willing to talk to you. It's been pretty hard, hot, and discouraging. One day this week, no one would listen. I mean NO one. And when it's already 7:30 at night and you've been finding since 12:30 and you still have an hour to go before you can go home, sometimes it's all you can do to keep going. I had to stop Sis Aldana and say, "Can we pray?" Prayer is so powerful. I know that's what keeps me going through all of the hard days. It's amazing to see what miracles Heavenly Father gives us when we humble ourselves enough to ask for His help.

We do have one investigator that is pure gold. Her name is YJ and she has a seven year old son named K. They are AMAZING. They started out with absolutely no gospel interest, but because of English class, they started having interest. and now she has a baptismal date for the end of September! Okay I wanted to die yesterday, they are so awesome. They came to 3 hours of church and then later last night we called them to schedule them for this week. Sister Aldana talked to her for a while, then K wanted to talk, so she talked to K, then YJ asked if she could talk to me! So then I chatted with her for a while and then K wanted to talk to me, so I talked to him for a while. Oh my goodness I wanted to cry. I love them so much. I LOVE being able to love so quickly and so fully! When I hung up the phone, Sister Aldana and I just looked at each other and were like freaking out because they're so AWESOME! Gosh. I wish I could describe it.

This week we did an English fast (only speaking cantonese. obviously.) from 12:30--6:30 on Wed and Fri. It was SO good! Seriously. We never did that in Macau and I felt like it helped my Chinese a lot! It gave me more confidence too. Like I can actually do this! It's gonna be okay! Haha, at one point we were by this mall around dinner time. We went inside to see if there was a food court, but we didn't see one, so we walked up to the Information Desk. The lady behind the desk watched us approach with a terrified look on her face, like, "Don't come over here, I don't know English!" So I walked right up to her and said, "Leih hou!" and immediately her face totally relaxed and she asked how she could help me. Then we had a full on conversation in CANTONESE! And I did allllll the talking. I was soooo happy! I LOVE when people don't expect us to be speaking Cantonese but then we are anyway. Ahhhh :) love it!

So, there you have it. The challenges and good times of this week. I absolutely LOVE being a missionary. Struggling through the hard times to experience the joy of bringing people unto Christ is the best feeling in all the world. I can't get over it. I love this so much! I love all of you! Thank you so much for everything you do for me. I feel all your prayers. TM, 1st ward, I love you! Thanks for your prayers! :) I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you!

Until next week!!

Love forever and always,

Shay Bay Bay
Gwok
xoxoxo

I forgot! Next week we get to go to the temple! YAY! But that means that our P-day isn't till Thursday. So you won't get an email till Wednesday night. Just didn't want you to worry ;) I love you all! xoxo