HELLO FAMILY! AND FRIENDS! all you people! i LOVE you!
I hope your weeks were amazing! Mine was! I wasn't on earlier because we went to MGM for buffet lunch today! It was so much fun. Haha one of the brothers in the international branch is from Vegas and he works there so he got us buffet half off... which is like $6 American dollars. We took advantage of that! It was so much fun! I'll send all our cool pictures later. We had a blast :) Macau is like Vegas, but it's cleaner, and there's no moral filth, and it's Asian. So it's basically way cooler than Vegas (sorry, Haley). It was awesome!
I wrote another very, very, very long list of things to tell you in my planner. I hope I get through them all haha.
MOM! I GOT YOUR PACKAGES! Oh my goodness you are the best mom ever! it was the best day of my life when I got them. Sister Yeung and Sister Pearl went down to the church and Sister Lau and I were staying at home to do our studies. When the other sisters came back for lunch, they came in the door and said, "It's going to be the best day of your mission so far." And they had my packages! Mom, you are so awesome! You sent me so much! I'm so happy! Seriously, thank you so much. Everything you sent has been SO helpful. Sister Lau and I were like stoked to have new "lice toys." We've been using them every night. Sister Lau says it's like a treasure hunt to find the eggs. Mmm. So, THANK YOU. That was such a blessing. I love you so much Mommy!!!!!!!!
Funny story about that "mmm" in the previous paragraph. Asians do this ALL the time. Us American sisters call it a grunt, but the Asian sisters were like "No! It's like.... a murmur of assent." Anyway, all of us have picked it up. I say "mmm" to EVERYTHING. I'm sure it'll be a habit throughout my mission. So funny. I'm slowly becoming Asian :)
This week we found a new investigator, a little popo named L Popo. We accidentally rang her doorbell when we were looking for the light in the staircase of the apartment building we were in. We taught her a little lesson on her doorstep and said a prayer with her and she invited us back the next day. So the next day, we went and talked to her about God and prayer and the Holy Ghost. It was a great lesson! At the end, we invited her to say the closing prayer. We taught her how to pray like 3x so she would be sure to do it right, then we all folded our arms and closed our eyes. She didn't say anything. After like 30 seconds, I peeked at her. She was sitting there with her arms folded, head bowed, eyes closed. I looked at Sister Lau. She was looking at me. We both didn't want to interrupt her in case she was saying a silent prayer, so we just waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. I looked at Sister Lau again -- her face was red from trying not to laugh. I suddenly had THE BIGGEST URGE TO GIGGLE. I had to look away, pinch my arms, and think of something sad so I didn't laugh out loud. You know when you get the giggles and nothing you do can make them go away? Yeah. It was like that. We waited. And waited. And waited. Past the time it would have been okay to interrupt her, so we just had to keep waiting. It was HILARIOUS. We were both sitting there holding our breath trying SO hard not to laugh. After like 4 solid minutes of just sitting there, Sister Lau said, "Amen" really loud and Lahm Popo jumped. HAHAHA SHE FELL ASLEEP. Oh my gosh it was so funny. We were dying the second we walked out of her apartment building :)
This week we got a new sister in our apartment! A surprise exchange happened and Sister Jamison went to HK and Sister Capucion came here! She is from the Philippines and is Sister Cutler's companion (they're wokring the international ward.) Sis Capucion got called here Tagalog speaking. Crazy right? Anyway, she's awesome! We love her a lot. So many changes in a mission!
You'll get a kick out of this one. I started playing our "game": whenever we hear someone's keys jingling outside the apartment door, I go, "What are we going to do??" We've pretended to be asleep a few times. {Reminds me of the billions of times we've done it with the Belchers :) Kerry and Brad, miss you guys!!} The other sisters thought I was crazy and weird at first but now they all do it too :) hahaha. One time Sister Cutler and I yelled, "That's rubbish!!" off Harry Potter in our British accents. But the best was when we decided to turn off the lights and hide. We heard Sister Yeung/Sister Pearl's keys jingling and Sister Cutler dived over to the light switch. We barely got it off before they opened the door and we were all crouched behind our desks almost peeing our pants laughing. It was so fun! :) I just thought I'd let you know, I'm bringing a little bit of the Wilcox family traditions to our apartment in China!
This week I feel like I've learned so much about humility. A lot of our investigators couldn't see us this week, and OL still hasn't answered any of our phone calls or texts :( it breaks my heart. I called her last night and left her a message: "OL, it's Gwok Jimuih and Lau Jimuih. We miss you! We love you! Please call us back!" that's all I knew how to say, but I really hope she knows how much we love her. It's crazy that I feel SO much love for her and I haven't known her that long. This work is helping me have a greater capacity to love. It's amazing. Anyway, with so many investigators not being able to see us, it really made us take a step back and remember that without the Lord, we can't do anything. We are His missionaries, but He is in control. He can give us harder weeks where we don't have as much success because He wants to teach us humility.
I was reading in my personal study one day in 3 Nephi and I wasn't getting much out of it. It was chapter 16 and it was hard to understand and I was tired. But then in verse 2 of chapter 17, Jesus says to the Nephites, "I perceive that ye are weak, and ye cannot understand my words." Wow. It felt like Jesus was speaking right to me. Yes, Lord, I am weak. I cannot understand so much of this. It reminded me of Elder Holland's talk from this last conference, "Lord, I Believe." So I pulled out the Ensign and read that talk. What started out as a not so great personal study turned out to be AMAZING. I was really humbled. Isn't it amazing that if we believe, if we simply have the desire to believe and then start to act, the Lord makes up the rest for us? It's such a blessing. I sat there almost in tears, thinking, "Wow. Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief. Strengthen my weaknesses. I have so many. I fall short every single hour of every single day. But through thee, I know all things are possible." They truly are. I testify that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer. He is also my best and closest friend. Here in Macau, when I'm too tired and too hot and too discouraged and ready to give up, He strengthens me. He lifts me up. He is there to make up the difference in all of our lives, if we are willing to repent and come unto Him. I know this is true with everything that I am. I feel so blessed to testify of these things every single moment of every single day. Being a missionary is the greatest thing in the world!
Elder Welling (senior missionary) shared a quote with us this week: "All that I am and hope to be I owe to my angel mother." I feel the same way. Mom, I owe you everything I am and everything I want to become. You are so amazing! I feel so blessed to have such great parents and such a wonderful eternal family. You all mean EVERYTHING to me! Also Elder Welling knows how to play the piano and the other day he was playing my FAVORITE SONG EVER. It's an arrangement of "Savior, Redeemer of my Soul." You guys HAVE to look it up. It's on spiremusic.org. PLEASE GET THE MUSIC and then please learn it! Whit, Park. Oh my goodness it's beautiful. Park, why don't you learn it and then Whit can sing it. It's aboslutely gorgeous. Makes me cry every time.
Well, I guess that's all the time I have this week :) I love you so much! I'm so happy you are my family and we are so close. I LOVE your letters. Thank you so much for loving and supporting me like you do. You are all awesome! I pray for you every single night. Have a great week! I love you, I love you, I love you!
Love,
Shaylee K
Gwok
xoxoxo
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