The Sisters of Zion

Leih hou! Ngoh ngoi leihdeih!! (Hello! I love you all!)

First things first, Mommy! I hope you had a great Mother's Day! I really wish I could have called. But I hope you got my card and know how much I was thinking about you yesterday. I was thinking about the stripling warriors and how they were taught by their mothers. They did not doubt their mothers knew it. And neither do I :) I love you more than I could say!

Dad, I hope you are not too overwhelmed with everything you're doing! You sound so busy all the time. But I am so glad you're my dad. Thanks for supporting me and loving me and being such a great teacher. I love you! Whit, thanks for your dear elder I ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT SO MUCH! I'll write ya back today :) Park, 7 days! How do you feel?!! I wish I could be there for your birthday. Jaren Kincade, I haven't heard from you in a while! I love you so much and hope you're doing great! School's almost out! Hooray!!

This week was a really, really great one. I love the MTC so very much. I'm going to be SO sad when we leave to Hong Kong. But I'm also excited... excited to be able to teach real people. Excited to be very, very sweaty all the time. Excited to serve the Lord with all of my heart, might, mind and strength for the next 17 months! Missionary life is a wonderful life. I am so thankful to be a missionary!

(FYI my mind is so scattered right now, so this email will be all over the place. Oops.)

Best Moments of this week:
- We got a new "teacher". He's training to be a teacher so he sits in on our classes with Jeung Jimuih. His name is Yeung Hing Daih. He's SO GREAT!! Love him. He has a kangaroo scripture case (he served his mission in Australia, Cantonese speaking) and he calls it his dog. Haha. He gave us some advice this week that I absolutely loved: SMILE! This is a happy thing we're sharing! We've got to be happy about it! :)

- Jeung Jimuih showed us her wedding dress and her engagement pics!!! Did I tell you she's getting married in June? She is THE BEST. We love her so much.

- We committed Zoe to baptism! YAY!!! We were so happy! Now we just have to figure out how to teach her the word of wisdom and the law of chastity. We don't know those words yet. Ha... that should be interesting.

- Elder Barker and Elder Nestman have been quoting Brian Regan a lot this week. Their favorite: "K-A-T I'm outta here.... I knew there were two T's." hahahahaha we die every time.

- Sand volleyball is still the best thing EVERRRRR. It's so funny because none of us are very good. So I don't even feel that stupid. :)

- All the Cantos ask me to say Nacho Libre's "Ramses! How are you??" all the time. They say I do it the best. I tell them they should hear how Park says it. And Dad of course, with his "It's the BEST" quote that doesn't even sound like Nacho haha :) anyway, I say that all the time. So during sand volleyball we made a rule that you had to say a Cantonese word every time you hit the ball. We had a lot of hits and you couldn't say the same word as someone else. One of the jimuihs went for a hit, paused, and yelled, "RAMSES!" We all laughed so hard. I almost peed my pants. Ramses? That's not Cantonese! Hahahaha time to cut back on Nachooooo.

- We got our first names in Cantonese! My name is Gwok Sam Hiu. So "Gwok" is my last name. It means "the outer part of anything." OKay, random. My first name is Sam Hiu. "Sam" means "to affect others deeply" and "Hiu" means "daybreak; dawn; to know; to understand." Cool huh? When I write you I'll write it in characters! I learned how :)

- Sister Morgan's mom sent her a CHEESECAKE. Not even kidding. An entire cheesecake. I'll send pics later!!

I had a lot of neat experiences with music this week! We were singing "I Believe in Christ" to open our district meeting on Tuesday night. Of course we sing everything in Gwong Dung Wa (Cantonese). Every hymn starts off with "I Believe in Christ..." right. Well in Cantonese it's "Ngoh seunlaaih Gei Duk." Which actually directly translates to I TRUST CHRIST. How cool is that? After we were done singing I pointed it out to my district. We all sat there, letting that sink in. I believe in Christ. I TRUST Christ. It was a really neat moment. The direct translations of Cantonse to English are beautiful. I love that about this language! Another cool moment with music was that yesterday our speaker in Relief Society was Janice Kapp Perry. Remember when she came and spoke at Youth Conference and it was amazing? Yeah. It was probably 500x more amazing in the MTC. I didn't even make it 5 minutes into her talk without bawling. We sang a medley of all the different Primary songs she has written - A Child's Prayer, Love is Spoken Here, Armies of Helaman, I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus, I Belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It was so powerful. I wish I could have actually sang them, though. I was trying! But I was crying too hard. Haha. (Yes, Parker, I know. I cry ALL THE TIME. Don't make fun. ;) I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus reminded me SO MUCH of Dad and how he always used to sing that to us when we were little going to sleep. Those are fond, fond memories. I love you Dad. At the end of Sister Perry's comments, she told us that she had written new words to "As Sisters in Zion" for missionaries. She called it "The Sisters of Zion". WE ARE THE FIRST ONES EVER TO SING IT! And let me tell you, it was the most powerful thing in the world. One verse goes:

We go forth, enlisted with Helaman's Army
In numbers much greater than ever before!
We'll preach to all nations, to all who will listen
The heavens have spoken and truth is restored!!
(sing that to the tune of As Sisters in Zion)

Pretty sure there wasn't a dry eye in the room. Sister Morgan doesn't usually cry and she lost it. And me, the crybaby, I was a mess. The MTC presidency's wives up on the stand were all blowing their noses at the same time and wiping their eyes. Can you picture it? The huge auditorium - FULL of sisters - singing that we are enlisted as the army of God! We are in numbers much greater than EVER before! We are going to nations ALL OVER THE EARTH to preach this gospel! To preach THE WORD OF GOD! It was incredible! I wish I could put that into words better. Oh man, missionary work is so amazing. This is God's work. I feel so blessed to be a part of it at 20 years old!

I feel like I always just tell you about Sundays in my emails. Mostly because Sundays are THE best days at the MTC. Hands down. It's like the biggest spiritual feast ever. Sacrament meeting yesterday was phenomenal. So, I don't know if I told you this or not, but we have to prepare a talk for Sunday every week. Then after the sacrament President Capik (our branch pres) just chooses an elder and a sister to give their talk. Yesterday, a Canto elder spoke. Elder Dorman from Rexburg, ID. He did an incredible job. The topic was repentance, and he spoke about 1 Nephi 8 - Lehi's vision of the tree of life. He said that the fruit of the tree is the Atonement, and that all of us need to partake of this sweet, wonderful fruit through repentance. He said that he has been at all stages of repentance during his life - in the mists of darkness, unsure of where to start and unable to see the end goal; letting go of the iron rod before he had partaken of the fruit; and then ultimately, the one that caught hold of the end of the iron rod, not skipping any steps of repentance, and falling down (1 Nephi 8:30) at the Savior's feet to beg for forgiveness. But the really neat thing is, Jesus Christ has already paid the price for our sins. When we repent honestly and fully and fall down at the Savior's feet and beg for His forgiveness, we can feel assured that our brother and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, will scoop us up into His arms and tell us, "Thy sins are forgiven thee. Go thy way, and sin no more." Elder Dorman just sobbed when he was speaking. It was so humbling. I felt at that moment SO much gratitude for my Savior. I studied 1 Nephi 8 in my personal study this morning and cried. Elder Nestman sitting next to me asked if I was okay. I just told him I was having a GREAT personal study. Jesus Christ is MY Savior. He has paid the price for MY sins. Everything I do wrong, every sorrow I feel, every disappointment. He loves me so much that He died for me, and He loves me so much that He now lives for me. Go read D&C 6:33-on. It's my favorite. The Savior loves us. He wants us to repent. I think sometimes we think of repentance in a negative light, but it is not so. Repentance is beautiful and wonderful and magnificent. It is such a great gift. I am so thankful to my Savior for what He did and does for me. I want to be more like Him.

I can't imagine not being here on a mission. I already feel like I have grown in leaps and bounds! I LOVE everyone here. I LOVE the Lord. EVERYONE WHO MIGHT BE CONSIDERING A MISSION -- do it! You won't regret it. It is the greatest, most rewarding, wonderful, joyful thing I have experienced. Ever. Ever. EVER. I love being a servant of the Lord. I love putting my nametag on in the morning, knowing that I represent Jesus Christ Himself. I have to do everything I can to prepare to be the best missionary I can be for Hong Kong.

I love you all so much!! The Lord has given me SO MUCH! I have the greatest family on the face of the earth. I have the best, most wonderfully loyal friends. I have a strong healthy body. I have the most amazing opportunity to be serving a mission and going to HONG KONG!!! I have the best companion and the BEST district in the MTC and the BEST teachers. I was born into this glorious gospel and have the sacred privilege to share it with others! I have a miraculous life! Since He has given me so much, I am trying to give back everything that I have for Him. I know I can do it. Through Christ, I can do all things.

I LOVE YOU! Group hug with me right in the middle! xoxo

Love always,
Sister Shay