February 9, 2015 - I've Lost 10 lbs. on my Mission

This is a little commi shop on the way to the library.  Basically they're all like this, decked out with New Years decorations.  Remember that I mentioned to Abby a while back that one of the colors of Hong Kong is Red?  Yeah.

This is the entrance to our apartment.  They made a decent effort for Christmas but Chinese New Year is where they really shine.  The year of the Goat has come in force to our apartment.

This is the market under our house.  That furry thing is a goat leg.  They hang them up to prove that the meat they're selling is actually goat.  You know, as opposed to dog meat or something.  Under the goat is some random cow organs.  I'm not sure who buys them, honestly.  Some of them seem a bit, ehem, personal.  Sorry for the blur, these were both taken on the way to the Library.

These two are some more super Chinese things.  The brown mess is called Ngau Jaahp, which really defies translation but could be called assorted cow.  Basically tons of organs boiled in their own juices for a century.  My companion is eating one of those kebab things off shot.

Hello me dear family. I will try really hard to stay awake for this email writing time, though the lady next to me is setting a very poor example. She's been there for about 20 minutes ostensibly (not sure if that's the right word, looking for synonym of supposedly) writing down some numbers from some website but just keeps nodding and nodding and nodding. Very funny. Oh, she wrote another one down. Annnnnnnnnd, nodding again.

This week was super cool for me. We had a really fun P-Day last week, playing pool. That's pool, with a capital P, that rhymes with T...

I thought that I'd be horrible but since none of us really knew what we were doing I did okay in the comparison. And at the center where we played there was a scale. Turns out that with clothes on I am now 141 lb. Somehow I thought that I had been getting fatter, but I've lost like 10 pounds.

We had an amazing zone conference this week. Our zone leaders and sister training leaders had some really cool trainings, which mostly focused on being more consecrated or focused. They brought up a very good point about how we often claim to be full time volunteers, yet often will 'clock out" during finding, or studies, or before P-Study, or after evening planning, and how we really need to maintain that desire and focus throughout the day every day. President Hawks also had some great trainings about how to teach prayer, which has been very useful in our recent proselyting, and looking Towards the Mark.

At the end of the conference he announced that we were going to have a chance to watch the movie "Meet the Mormons" which looked really cool, but Elder Tse and I had made a goal to go finding at least 2 hours every day. On that day, because of the conference, English class, and 2 lessons, we had basically only 30 minutes. So we left early and taught a cool kid on the street. He stood us up the next day, but we know that he felt the spirit during our lesson, and I really enjoyed it. That's sort of been the story for the rest of the week. We haven't necessarily had the most productive finding in terms of numbers, but it's been good on the side of the spirit and I've honestly been loving it.

I'm really hoping I don't leave this area.

Mom,

One of the missionaries in our apartment held a ward activity that we had some people at that was making curry Malaysian style, and it was super good. I think curry's great because it's easy to make and it uses rice, which is cheap. But it's really hard to make it well with curry powder, I think that pre-made sauces are easier and better. Good luck. Honestly sometimes I eat stuff and just think "Man, no one back home'd eat this" because it's too spicy or weird.

I just barely sent in my weekly report to President Hawks and mentioned the Ecclesiastical Endorsement thing, so it's rolling. I really feel like it'd be fun to live with Elder Bennett. I'd be fine living with him, though I obviously can't speak for him. If he or his family prefers the apartments then that'd be great. As I said before, living with Joseph'd also be really cool. Basically I think I could live with about anyone. The hard part is finding someone willing to live with me.

I don't feel 20 at all. I keep forgetting I have my birthday soon. I won't be able to get to Kowloon Tong till next Monday at the earliest, so we'll see, but I'm not too rushed.

Dad,

That's a bit rough, but it is cool that now you get to work on your own stuff at least. It'd be sort of bitter to have some super cool breakthroughs for someone else's idea before your own. I remember you mentioned before that it was harder for you because you really only get half as much time as most of the people who work on research. I think that you've always been blessed with a good perspective on things in life. You've always shown me that the little temporal things we do are just that; little and temporal. And I think that you've given me an example about how to focus more on the things that are actually of value. Obviously your job is a big part of your life but it's not everything, and it goes away in the end.

Yesterday on the street we started talking to some little family. There were a few kids playing badminton (because everyone here plays badminton), an older sister, and a dad with his daughter, and we stopped to talk to the dad. We talked for at least 20 minutes. He is originally from Guong Dung, which is in Mainland, and since coming to Hong Kong his life has just been super busy and stressful. But he understood something that few people in Hong Kong do, which is that it's all for the family. All the work and stuff was just for his kids. He was holding his 5 year old daughter for most of the time we talked to him, and it was just so obvious that he loves her and that he wanted her to be happy. We had a good sharing about the reality of God and what it means to us and our families, and though he didn't have interest to pray or meet again, it was cool.

Joseph,

Once again sleep's importance marks up there with the bonds of blood. I'm touched by your sacrifice.

There's a giant amusement park here called Ocean Park that is a sort of mix of aquarium, Sea World, and Disneyland. But I've never been...

I think in retrospect the service aspect of the National Honor Society is really good. That is one of the many priorities that I realized were off when I started my mission, the lack of focus on service, and NHS does trick people into serving, if only for the sake of future higher education. But the fundraising, I must agree, is what killed me off of it. Well, keep it up. Use your research period for something better than I did. I basically just played Starcraft or read. If you use it to do homework, your life is really relaxed.

Abby,

Right now we have Mr. Lo, who is still doing okay, but we haven't been able to meet with him for a while and he's still struggling to quit smoking. We also have really been able to see the difference the spirit makes with people who have been meeting us and reading and those who don't keep commitments. We also have Stephy and Ivy, and many others, but sorry everyone I just spent like 15 minutes helping an old lady set up a Yahoo account and now I'm out of time. It's not that I don't love you. Usually, Abby, people think that you look the cutest. Where are you reading in the Book of Mormon recently?