Well, I don't have too much to say, honestly. The phone call was very fun, so I don't know what to say beyond that. I just spent a while and deleted all the old messages and emails from the beginning of my mission to now, because I don't like the little box on the bottom of gmail saying 4% full. I feel right now I may have been a bit hasty in doing that, but honestly I'll never have time to read them all again.
Christmas was really great. I honestly really enjoyed talking to you all, it was awesome. Really, David and Becca's voices have changed a ton. I can only imagine that Abby's voice has too. David and Joseph sound very similar now.
After we talked we went to Sai Kung for a ward activity. Because I spent the morning opening presents and my lunch time talking with y'all I didn't actually eat anything, so some members gave me fruit and granola bars. Our activity went from about 2 to about 8;30 pm. We got on a ferry and went over to some little island in the middle of the harbor where Sai Kung is. The island was quite beautiful. I have photos but this computer can't send stuff, so I'll get them next week. It was largish, for a little island, I would guess about 1 mile diameter. The beach was sandy and rocky, but the majority of the island was covered in a dense and fairly low jungle. The center was a hill, maybe 200 feet or higher, and there were some beautiful mangroves around parts of the island.
It is been being used as a sort of YMCA boys camp thing, and (you won't believe this) the Boy Scouts in our ward had organized a campout there from Christmas Eve to the 26th. Yes, they scheduled a sleepover campout for Christmas, because you can do that here. They weren't really roughing it, there were cabins and everything, and the Boy Scouts had organized some games for us to play while we were there. The most fun by far was an archery range thing. Some random member from some other ward had made these sort of toy bows out of steel rebar, and a bunch of arrows out of rolled up paper, which I wouldn't think would work but turned out fantastic. I must confess, I found it too fun. I had to leave after about 15 minutes because 1)I was afraid I would hog it 2) I was afraid the members would see me obsessing over it and 3) there were non-members there to talk to. But while I played, my slight archery experience paid off. I was pretty accurate.
Then we had a dinner. My Christmas dinner was very traditional Chinese: soup made from boiling pork bones, carrots, potatoes, and some other vegetables for a couple hours, rice (of course), chicken wings (also of course, it's like the most classic Chinese food) some Chinese red sausage thing, some other Chinese fish patty thing, choi sam, which I think is some sort of kale?, and fried pork chops. Delicious.
Then we had a weird sort of devotional thing, some nice sharings and testimony, and some weird music video things showing pictures of the savior and EFY music (of which I am not a fan). Also one weird music video which was clips from some bizarre movie about the Nativity, which according to some other Elder is called "The Nativity Story". That video was odd because it began suddenly with Mary going into labor and screaming. Kept us awake, I guess.
Then we went home. I felt really good about that Christmas, because the whole activity long Elder Tse and I worked our hardest to get to know the ward better and invite the non-members to investigate, and in the end we had some success.
Sunday was also good. Sister Lai, who had finally gotten a friend to church last week, got another friend and her son to church this week. She's scheduled to meet with us again on Saturday after our English class (which is not a shabby production now a days, if I say so myself). Really happy for her.
That's basically all. I know that the church is true; I'm loving being a missionary, because this is the work of God.
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