FULL of Miracles

Leih hou a! Gamyaht hou ma?

How are you all this week?? It's still weird thinking about it being a different time in Utah. And everywhere else. Most of the people I know in the world are still in Sunday night. But for me, it's Monday already! And so much has happened today! I miss you guys TONS. I hope you know how much I love you and pray for you. Dad, it sounds like you had an INSANE week. I hope stake conference was great! Wasn't the broadcast good?? Yes, we got to watch it :) We're the only missionaries in the mission that got to watch it today! We got up at 5 and went over to our senior couple's apartment here in Macau (Elder and Sister Welling) and Sister Welling made breakfast for us and we all watched it together at6 am! It was fun! Did you think of me here in Hong Kong? :) Did you like how Hong Kong got a shout out? Some of the missionaries I'm serving with knew some of the people that were on the video from HK, so that was cool! :)

Anyway, this week has been amazing. Seriously. Full of so many miracles. It has really helped me to recognize the little miracles and write them down everyday. I've been really good about my journal writing too (much better than when i was in the MTC, i liked my roommates too much in the MTC haha) and so when I have bad days, I go back and reread through my good days. It helps.

Hmm... where to start....

I guess I'll start with the lice. Seems like you guys like hearing about that ;) Thanks for the info, momma. I read all about it. Sounds like they're really hard to get rid of. Great. I've been combing through my hair every night, washing sheets and pillowcase daily.. ahh it's such a pain. It's hard to find time to do that stuff. The shampoo that Sister Hawks tried to find is actually not shampoo :( I was sad to find that out. I know she worked really hard to find something and it came from really far away in Hong Kong so I'm grateful for it. It's actually Lice Defense Spray.. so I'm not sure it really does anything for those of us that already have lice. I don't know. Thank you for sending shampoo! I was actually going to ask if you could try and send some. I'm not sure what else to do besides have faith that the priesthood is real. I know it is. I know that I've been healed before and I can be healed again through that sacred power. I pray that my diligence in trying to get rid of these dumb lice will pay off and I can be healed.. and also that none of the other sisters will get it :/ ugh.

Anyway, things in Macau are going great other than that! I really am starting to love this work. Is it horrible to say that the first week I really didn't? That was enduring through the tough part. Now it is becoming enjoyable and I am seeing that really thrusting in my sickle with my might is working! I am gaining a love for these people and a real love of missionary work! Plus Macau is soooo cool. It's like Europe and HK mixed. I LOVE it. It's so awesome!! I'm slowly trying to find my way through these little narrow streets haha. You guys would love it too!

High points this week:

- Tuesday. We were out park finding. It was boiling hot. I was wearing my glasses and had the biggest headache EVER. My hair was a giant frizz ball. I could understand no one, and no one wanted to talk to us. We still had 2 hours before we could go home. I wanted to die. I stopped my companion right there on the path in the park and said, "I need to pray or I'm not going to make it through today." I offered the prayer, and in my very broken Cantonese said, "Heavenly Father, we are trying to be good missionaries. But we are so tired. Please help us to have strength. Please give us tailihk (it's like.. stamina). Please give us success. Please let us talk to at least one person who is interested in our message." When I closed the prayer, I felt a little bit lighter. We started working again, talking to everyone, and my headache went away almost immediately. It was still hot, but I felt better. We talked to a lot of people and got a few phone numbers and handed out a BOM! On the way home, we bought chah siu baau (delicious meat filled roll type things.. but not really rolls. But sort of. Idk how to explain them). I know prayer is real. Heavenly Father answers our prayers. He gives us what we need. He gives us comfort and strength. I know it!

- Wednesday. We watched "None Were With Him" Mormon Message with our investigator, Bobo. Bobo is awesome!! I really love her. She's been investigating the church for a looooong time. She says she has a testimony of the BOM but won't be baptized because she struggles with homosexuality issues :( It's really sad. I'm not sure how to help her. We pray for her sooo much. Anyway, we watched that mormon message because she wasn't sure if she wanted to keep coming back to church if she wasn't going to be baptized. We talked about how Jesus Christ will never leave us, and if we truly love Him, we will never leave Him either. I know that is true. I cried. (of course i did) and I really hope we touched her heart. SHE WAS AT CHURCH ON SUNDAY! yay! plus she came to Iris' (one of the other sisters' investigators) baptism. How awesome! What a miracle :)

- Thursday one of our investigators, Ha-Jeh, took us to lunch at a BUFFET in a CASINO! Hahahaha oh man it was awesome! She brought two of her friends too, and the whole time we were eating she was teaching them things that she'd learned from us and saying, "Isn't that what we believe, Sis Lau?" so funny. She's the sweetest old lady who believes that red is a lucky color and so she wears it all the time. Except apparently now she's switched to pink. She dyed her hair a BRIGHT pink magenta, and was wearing pink from head to toe. She's hilarious. After the buffet -- which was mostly weird Chinese food (I tried lots! just for the experience!) but they had some good salads and delicious ice cream -- we went to visit a less active with one of the members and it was awesome. Sadly, she did not show up for church on Sunday. We'll keep praying for her. Then we went to a part member family's house for dinner. Two cheng outs (cheng out is like when people feed us) in one day. Whoa. Too much food. We were still stuffed from the buffet, but when we went to the Lai family's house, they were making homemade pizza. I was thinking, oh sweet! Pizza! American food! I love pizza! ............ then I started helping make it.

Sardines.

Some weird things that looked like mini octopus.

Some other weird fishy looking stuff.

Pineapple.

Some weird looking meat.

Ketchup for the sauce.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

I was sitting there thinking, there is no way I can eat this nasty looking pizza. I'll throw up all over their beautiful kitchen table. Oh ewww. Imagine my face when I have to clean up moldy things from the fridge. But I couldn't make that face. So I made it in my head, smiled, and said, "Oh wow, this looks delicious! Thank you so much for feeding us!" and made the disgusting looking pizza. And you know what? When it was cooked, it looked like regular pizza. And it was actually pretty good. But it tasted really fishy. But i ate it! :) Oh Asia.

- Friday was Zone Conference. It was amazing. I wish I could tell you everything but this email is too long already and I'm running out of time and I want to send pictures. I LOVE President and Sister Hawks. They are incredible examples. Our Zone Conference pumped us up so much to get out there and do this fabulous, sacred work of the Lord. We are saving His children! What a great privilege!! Anyway, they stayed in Macau from 9 until 1 and we had lunch with them (just the 10 of us missionaries). It was a really cool opportunity to have it be a more intimate setting. I love Macau :)

- Saturday was the best day!! We helped A-Yen (a recent convert). She wants to serve a mission but has been having a lot of trials getting her papers started. She was telling Sis Lau all about it and I was sitting there not understanding anything feeling like a dead log. Then she started to cry. I felt so bad! I wanted to help SO BAD! But I didn't know what she was saying. I prayed that I would be able to touch her in some way. After a few minutes, I spoke up and I said in Cantonese, "A-Yen, I'm sorry. I don't know what your trial is because I don't understand. But I do know that God loves you. He gives you trials because He knows you are ready to grow. He trusts you so much, A-Yen. He will never leave you. In your greatest trials, He will be right beside you. He will carry you. I know because He has carried me through my greatest trials. He carries me every single day." We were all crying by then. It was really special. I felt so humbled. I didn't know what her problem was, but I was able to help her by relying on the Spirit and saying the things that came to my mind. The Spirit is incredible. I love relying on that power.

- Saturday was also the RS Activity. Our branch has some real problems with unity and we as missionaries are trying to unify the branch more. We decided we would go the RS activity, but also that we would contribute something because it was a cooking competition! But Saturday we ran out of time, so we had like 30 minutes to make something and get to the church on time (church is like 15 min away). I boiled some pasta, cut up some red and green peppers and sauteed them, and looked through the plethera of sauces that have been left in the fridge by other sisters and threw some alfredo sauce on it. Then we went to the cooking competition. GET THIS. I won. hahahaha I was laughing so hard. I won the cooking competition! It was basically a big taste test and apparently they liked my dish! What was even funnier was when I had to stand up in front of everyone and tell them how I made it. They were all taking notes. It was hilarious. And I won a tupperware container. :) haha my first cooking competition... and I won. Wow. Who would have guessed??!! Also funny was that Sis Pearl got 2nd place. And she made cake from a cake mix :)

Well, I love you all so much. I wish I had time to email you for like 8 hours. I would tell you everything. I miss you all. Keep praying for me! I'll keep praying for you. I know this is the work of the Lord. When I let myself "forget myself and go to work", I know I am SO much happier. Life is so good. SO hard, but so good. I wouldn't trade this experience for anything. Best decision I've ever made :) Daddy, Momma, Twit, Park, Jare -- I LOVE YOU MORE THAN ANYTHING. I hope you're having a great summer! Park, I hope Africa is amazing! I can't wait to hear about it!

With all the love I have,
Shay
Gwok

xoxoxo