March 16, 2015 - Mong Kok and all the Tall Buildings

The tall building is well over 100 stories tall, taller than batman tower.  it costs $20 to get up to the observation deck, so maybe later.

The big arch is a residential place called, you guessed it, The Arch.

The place where we're standing is just labeled "public space".  It's gorgeous.

These picutres were made by panoramic mode with a tilted camera to get tops of the buildings, looks like something from Inception.

These are sheep that were in the mall.  Because it's the year of the sheep.

Hello glorious family! How are you doing? I literally ask that question at least 400 times a day. Usually the answer is "

Sometimes they say "mh dak haahn"

But sometimes they stop and we baptize them.

This week has been pretty good, but it doesn't really show in terms of numbers. Our street finding has been decent, and we've been able to teach a lesson each day at least, but we still don't have a lot of new investigators and honestly not a ton of people really progressing, or being taught for that matter. There are a few investigators who I mentioned last week, but most of them are busy, or uninterested, or both. It's a very frustrating feeling, because every week at planning we look at who we have, we look at what can get done, we set plans and goals, but by next week nothing's happened and we just say "well, let's keep last week’s plan and try again." So that's been a bit annoying.

But there have also been some really great things happening this week. There are, currently, 5 or 6 Recent Converts in our ward, a few of which are less active. Our new ward correlator is the most awesome ward correlator I've ever worked with, and he and the rest of the ward council are just determined to teach these people's ABL lessons and get them active. So we've been teaching a lot of ABL's with some really powerful ward members, and as a result there are now 4 or 5 people who, though not yet referred to us, have a lot of potential.

In addition, I had my first district meeting. I made everyone sing "Jesus, Lover of my Soul" which I've literally never heard before. Also I've forced Elder Black to sing # 96 in the Chinese hymn book (sorry, don't know the name, it's only two lines, one verse, and very strange) every night. Unrighteous dominion? Perhaps...

So I'm feeling excited for this next week of work. I'm really starting to wish I didn't have to go home.

Abby,

As you are the designated trip reportess, I shall report my last P-Day's trip to you. After emails, we went down to Jordan, which is by Mong Kok (the busy place) and went to a crazy tall building. You can look it up, it's the tallest building in Hong Kong (no, Joseph, not the batman tower. That used to be the tallest). There's a giant mall there called Elements, and some crazy residential places in a circle around a super fancy "public space" I'll send some photos. Then we walked over to some store that sells the classic Chinese silk shirts. I have an important question to ask you and all the rest of the family; should I buy a cheap fake silk shirt for 150HKD on Lady Street, or a real, beautiful, double sided authentic Chinese silk shirt for 3000 HKD? These are my options. Also, you should know that they have some super cool ones for girls. Like really cool. If you want to look like Mulan, I can hook you up. Like I said, the fake ones are about 150, the real ones from 700-3000 HKD. Ask Rebecca, Mom, etc. Also, we went to some store with beautiful jade, metal, wood, and stone antiques, and they only cost 20,000 HKD. So if you or anyone wants them, I'll get it. I can probably bargain the price down too.

Have fun with the birthday sleep over!

David,

What engine does Civ V use? I know it takes forever to load but I always figured that was just the size and graphics.

Also you never respond to any of my questions of real value, like where are you reading in the Book of Mormon, did you go to the temple, etc. So repent, lest I smite you by the rod of the shirkenslayer.

Everyone invisible: Broken Glass (because glass is transparent, and kills things)

Control Points: This one honestly I'd like some more detail, you could name it anything. Choke, chokepoint, Squeeze. Module. The Terrariam. Carnage Box.

Speed of Light=walking: Ripple Step. I'm not clear, do you mean that light moves slowly or people move quickly? Ripple Step'd work for the first. Echo step.

Rebecca,

I got totally Zizzed the last two days.

SO, apparently there was some super strong Australian guy named Zizz who had some workout plans that don't require any equipment, and we've been doing them in our apartment. I literally could hardly walk on Sunday. We did tons of squats and burpies and high knees and divebombers and other oddly named but very painful work outs. So I will soon be huge. Maybe even as huge as Joseph. Though my hopes are not that high.

I think a short talk is better than a long talk in 9 times out of 10. It is so easy to bury the message that the spirit has given us with fluff that we sort of come up with on our own. I think that a lot of times when we do that it's really because 1) we're afraid to be too bold or too powerful in our message, or 2) we want people to think that we can speak well, we want to have a good sounding talk, so we make ourselves look impressive.

If you do want to speak longer, obviously the best way is to speak slower (which is in direct opposition to the style of debate). I also really think that taking the time to share and expound on stories or verses of scripture brings a power into gospel teaching that is irreplaceable. And I also think that in the end, all gospel teaching is designed to lead to action (because faith is a principle of action and of power, it does things, or helps us do things) so having an invitation, a question, or something like that can really improve your teaching. And giving a talk is teaching, really. What was the topic, by the way?

Joseph,

One of the work outs was called a V up which is like a sit up but with your legs moving up in a V as well, and the first time I tried I found my spine to be so bony that I was unable to do it until I removed my shoes and laid on them. So I feel you with the bruises.

What do you mean strip your room bare? On my mission I've come to really enjoy not having stuff. At the beginning of my mission I had tons of stuff on my desk, and now I have almost none. Having stuff that I don't need but can't throw away really stresses me out, so I throw away lots of useful things. Same questions apply to you as to David.

Mom,

Sounds like you've been putting in a Herculean effort on the remodel. It will all be worth it (maybe?).

I read a bit of one of Stan's papers that he emailed to me. It was really interesting. I have learned a ton of things like that on my mission that really make it hard to understand how the Book of Mormon could not be true. But I think it's really interesting. Even when people have a knowledge like that they often still won't act in accordance with it. If they did, there'd be tons of converts every year. I've noticed that a intellectual knowledge that something is true rarely leads to action, while a spiritual knowledge (e.g testimony) can lead people to do remarkable and miraculous things, and sometimes lead other things to happen. Intellectual knowledge often softens people's hearts, but when it comes down to it only a testimony, an answer from God, can make people willing to go to church, be baptized, or even lay down their lives for a cause.

I don't miss the shopping in my old area, you know me. I love it out here in my new area. There are way more families and the scenery is amazing. The only downside is that we're far away from everything. But I don't mind too much.

Dad,

I'm really starting to understand what you meant by feeling like time is going too fast. If I could extend 6 months at this point, it'd be a no brainer.

We have an investigator Kelvin who we talk a quit smoking plan to. The plan is pretty professional, seems like the sort of thing developed in the U.S. by a team of motivational speakers, psychiatrists, addiction counselors, and missionary's parents. My first time teaching it was to Kelvin, and I have to say it went pretty well. The plan is pretty good, it actually predicted and described most of his reactions, but the cool thing was that I'd been praying a ton for that lesson to go well, and I really felt like the Lord helped me a ton. I translated a motivational quit smoking plan thing into Chinese on the spot and mostly from memory.

Then he smoked that day, so that was annoying, but he came to Stake Conference this Sunday, and he's doing okay. The others, have not yet been seen by us. At Stake Conference the Temple President and his wife had awesome talks, and in the evening session on Saturday, President Hawks spoke, in Chinese, which was impressive. His Chinese is really not bad. Was President Klein German?

I really respect President Hawks more than I can express. He's an amazing man.

I feel like the longer I'm out the more I understand how you feel about stuff. The tall building I told Abby about was amazing, but honestly I'd rather live in the refugee shelter that we volunteer at on Wednesdays. The people there are so much nicer, and there's this huge empty bottomless hunger that you feel at those super rich places. The insatiable need for more, better, bigger, richer, prettier, more ridiculous. It's not what any of us need.

Love you all!

March 9, 2015 - Hanging out with Apple from Bangladesh

So, this week was super fun, but I have a ridiculous story to tell before anything else.

It started on Friday. We were on the hing tit, which is the light rail system (like TRAX) that they have out here (and is super awesomely convenient, especially since we don't live in our area), and I started talking to some guy from Bangladesh. He is named Apple. He doesn't really speak much English, but he's super nice, and obviously I'm super nice, so we got along nicely, and since it turned out that he was going to the same place as we were, we talked for a while. He had to leave Bangladesh because of some political things, so he's lived in Hong Kong for many years. Randomly (really, randomly,) he said that he would feed us curry. So we exchanged numbers and scheduled for Saturday at 6 at the Jockey Club near our house in Hung Shui Kiu (if you want to understand how weird this story is, you'll need to look a map of Hong Kong, and remember that we live in HSK, and work in Tuen Moon). So on Saturday we met him there.

He was a bit late, arrived at about 6:20, then stood there smoking and looking at the horse races for a moment, then said "We go!" and got on the Hing tit. Somehow I had imagined that either he would bring the food or we would eat at a nearby restaurant, but no. We got on the train to Yuen Long. At this point I called the Zone leaders for permission, which they gave. On the train ride Elder Black was trying to talk to some guy, who went off about nuclear proliferation, which Elder Black did not understand and made me laugh.

We arrived in Yuen Long, which I've never been to before, with basically a stranger named Apple, and wandered around for a bit, before ending up in some ghetto apartment building whose second floor was not clearly commercial restaurant or residential. But there were lots of people from other countries there, who looked at us oddly. This is when I began to pretend to be very comfortable and amused to set Elder Black at ease while simultaneously thinking "Oh man, what have I done, this isn't even my second week as senior and I've brought us here". Apply bought us some super cool Napolese food and some dumplings, very tasty. I want to reemphasize, we can't really communicate very much. Yeah.

After that we left and wandered outside for a while, at least 30 minutes. We sat down and Apple smoked a bit, then he won $200 at a horse race, and we just kept following and smiling and fearing. At this point he asked "you busy?" "No, not really" "9 o'clock okay?" I'd been expecting like 6:45, so I said "uh, 8?" "okay!". We kept walking, smiling, and fearing.

Then we met up with Apple's friend, Current, (like the electrical unit) and his 5 year old daughter Olivia, also from somewhere else. They brought us to some building, where another guy (whose name I still don't know) was waiting. Current told Olivia to go with him, then Apple said "You go, go!" So we followed a random Indian guy into a random house with a 5 year old without the guy who brought us there in a random city I'd never been to. I think I did a good job keeping cool, even asked some names, chatted it up, but like the rest of them the guy didn't really speak English, and Olivia only speaks some weird pidgin English.

We arrive at the house, where we find 2 or three more guys cooking food, all from different places around India. They didn't seem too phased by our presence, which is baffling to me, but I suppose Apple warned them in advance. At this point it's already about 7:45, so I readjusted my goal for leaving to 8:15. Apple arrived later with Current, but before they got there we were just sitting on this sofa, which one of the guys says "you go in room, watch Indian Movie, Indian Music." My pulse doubled. I tried to explain that we didn't watch movies, but he thought I was asking if there were any English ones. So we sat down in a tiny room on a bed as Olivia starts watching some movies and the guy is setting something up. The movies were weird, and I don't think I could watch them even if I wasn't a missionary. So eventually we convinced the guy we had to go back to the main room sofa. Crisis averted.

This was the longest segment of the adventure, sittiing on the sofa while they made dinner. Some highlights. Olivia started watching Donald Duck movies, which added bizarre to baffling. She found them very amusing. I found, of all things, a Jehovah's Witness's pamphlet, which I compared with my pocket KJV bible that I always carry and found to be strange. Not sure how it got there. I kept trying to say that we would leave at 8:15, 8:30, 8:45 in turn, to which I would always get a positive response, but still no food. Our curfew if we have no lesson is 9:30, so I finally entrenched myself at 9:00 and prepared to die. Then the food finished!

It really was very good, shrimp and chicken curry, some cucumber salad, really nice rice. I was shoveling it in because we had to leave ASAP, when I looked to my left and realized that they were all eating with their hands. Then Apple told me that "spoons, not good. Taste not good. Hand, very good!". So I did. There's an idiom in Chinese, when in someone's hometown, eat the hometown congee. When in Rome, do as the Romans. So I shoveled curry into my mouth with my hands. It was good but there was a ton and they kept giving us more and more and it was spicy. Poor Elder Black almost died. 9:15 we left, made it home at 9:40, which was lamentable. Would I do it again? No. Am I glad I have the story? Yes.

Other than that we had a very good week. We volunteered at some place called Crossroads, which is a refugee center. We basically help with the maintenance, some Mongolian guy named Ooyoo told us to replace an air conditioning unit, and though I have no experience doing such I think we did a decent job. Lots of pidgin English this week.

We had a super cool lesson with a new investigator. We found him on Monday, and had a simple but spiritual lesson. He said his family had some arguing or unhappiness, so I shared Moroni 8:25-26 (I think) about baptism bringing the spirit and meekness. We met again on Wednesday, and he said that on Monday, his family felt a lot happier after the lesson. We taught the Restoration, really well I think, and in the end invited him to be baptized. I don't say this often, but the spirit really was strong there. Baptism always does that.

Church was okay, we had some recent converts get callings (as ward missionary, so that's cool) and I stayed at the church for literally 7 hours straight. PEC and correlation before, numbers after. Long time. All in all an awesome week.

Dad,

We have the guy I just mentioned, A Chung, who didn't come to church but is scheduled for tomorrow and has been reading. There’s some investigator they've had a while named Kelvin who's quitting smoking. And another new guy, who was a former investigator then got turned over to us by the Butterfly Ward Elders, Justin, who's 14 and doing good, but also not at church. His lesson was really spiritual.

I guess it's interesting, because in terms of language and teaching, there's a lot I want to teach Elder Black, but I know that if I just throw it at him, it's not going to help him, it'll just annoy him. And there are, of course, many things that we don't agree on how to do, that I really think we should do a certain way for a real reason, but I don't want him to feel that I'm controlling him. I'm his second companion, I remember when Elder Tong came it was a bit rough at first. But we do get along well, and he's a super brave guy when it comes to talking to people.

Mom,

Really, thanks for the college help. Elder Black is from Texas, same as our Zone leader Elder Loderup, but neither have a strong accent. We live with 2 other elders, and our apartment is really way bigger than the Kwun Tong one. But it's not nearly as clean...

Being District Leader is super fun. I often complain about how busy I am, but I love it. And I really love being in a position to help other areas and set plans to help us all improve. It's cool.

Could you send a new family picture? Mine's falling apart because I brag about you guys to EVERYONE!

Abby,

I'll try to write you a letter, if I can stand it. If I don't die. You will be able to go to the temple with Rebecca soon! That'll be so cool. The temple is awesome because it just has a sort of feeling there of peace and happiness. Everyone is nice to each other there. It makes you slow down a bit and think. And when you leave you just want to help everyone around you, you don't want to do anything bad, you just want to go out and serve people. I love the temple. And the sound of people getting baptized is super relaxing. So go.

Mosiah 5: See if you can figure out which verse I'm referencing.

Rebecca,

I just want you to know that I sacrificed the brothers in order to write to you. I think that's what I always do in Risk, turn you all against each other. By giving good advice. I read books a lot because I'm addicted, and once I start I can't stop. It's a curse, but at least it's good for car rides. What is a hip flexor? I'm guessing it's the muscle on the outside of your hip, pulls the leg outwards. Elder Black has a work out where we do tons of calisthenics, and it's exhausting.

David,

I can plan out a Starcraft game from start to finish, and it's still a tactics based game. There is no unit creation in this game, there is no resource management, and the whole thing is contained into one round. I'll get back to you on the names of the games.

March 2, 2015 - Transferred to Castle Peak Bay

This is an amazing Garden in NTK area call Nan Lian garden, which is designed in the Tang Dynasty style art of landscaping, and is literally one of the most beautiful, peaceful places I've been in.  We went there my last P-Day.

Elder Black, my new companion.

A cool community garden under our house.

Hello, family, friends, devoted enemies, and all.

I am no longer in NTK! I really had been hoping to stay but instead was sent to literally the farthest away place in the mission, a new ward called Castle Peak Bay, Ching Saan Wan. The name is a bit unfortunate, because there is a famous (or should I say, infamous?) mental hospital called Ching Saan, Castle Peak. It is next to our area, but you have to be really careful emphasizing the bay part of the name, or you'll tell people that you serve the mental hospital. But it’s okay, because this area is amazing! The ward, when it split, basically stole all the awesome members, so the leadership here is really really good. And the area here is so beautiful. I don't know if it's just that I've become accustomed to the dull drab of Kwun Tong, but every time I look out a window I have to stop and tell everyone, woh, jan haih hou leng wo! My new companion Elder Black is probably getting sick of hearing that.

More on Elder Black, he is a relatively new missionary of 6 months, he is incredibly positive and humble, and though his Chinese is not amazing and his teaching skills still need polishing, I am often impressed by how positive he is. There are a lot of families here in our area (the whole feel is much more relaxed, comfortable, and wholesome) and it takes some courage to try to stop a whole family, never mind share the gospel with them, but Elder Black takes it all in stride.

As you may have guessed, I am his senior companion, which has been slightly weird but super fun. I feel a lot of hope right now for getting both of us teaching really powerfully, and I feel that now I can really put those desires into action. I am not the best missionary, nor am I the most diligent, but I would say that my tolerance for laziness, inefficiency, or disobedience is very low. So it is fun to be senior and sort of enforce that. Not that I'm totally controlling everything...

Beyond being senior, I am also now District Leader over one of the largest districts in our mission, 10 people (though 2 are the Zone Leaders, so that's a bit different). That has actually been super stressful but very fun. I had to schedule 4 people to do numbers on Sunday as well as a baptismal interview (who passed!), and our church here starts at 1:30, and we had Ward Council before church, so I literally did not have any time scheduled for meals the whole day. Luckily it was Fast Sunday, and my companion made me some dinner that I ate during numbers. While you were all eating ham and au gratin potatoes, I was eating rice with a ramen pack mixed in, hot dogs, and a cold can of Chickapees. I tell no lie.

So it's been cool! And even cooler was that Elder Ballard came and visited Hong Kong, and we had 2 chances to hear him speak, once to us as missionaries, once in an all member meeting. It was amazing. He actually sort of censured our mission for being a bit too shy and not powerful enough teachers, and gave a ton of amazing instruction. His member meeting was also amazing, he basically taught PMG lesson one and two in the most natural way I've seen it done. It's cool, because it’s almost like there are 2 Elder Ballards. There is the 86 year old man who's nice and funny and likes cracking jokes at people but may get a bit confused at times, and then there's the Apostle, the power of the Holy Ghost, and the prophetic mantle shining through him giving us the Lord's message. I can sincerely testify, I know that that man is an Apostle of the Lord.

Rebecca,

I have two questions about your future. 1) When are you going to run for president? 2) If dance is a minor, what are you considering for a major? I know you love reading and writing and speaking, so you could do something related to literature or debate or politics (nudge nudge wink wink) or English. Lots of options for one who gets straight A's. I'm still not used to you having Trimesters.

Have you had any chance to go to the temple recently? I know that you had a super good goal a couple months ago, just not sure if you kept it up. I mean, if you want to find a pretty lady for me you need the promptings of the spirit, and reading, prayer, church, temple, and being righteous are how you get them. Hey, you can almost start taking Abby with you! That'd be super cool.

I've been reading the Book of Mormon over again recently, I'm now in Mosiah, but I just read about Jacob. In chapter 7 he confronts an Anti-Christ, and basically destroys him with a) the scriptures b) personal testimony and c) the power of God. I think that it was a good reminder for me that we can't wait till then to get those things, you need to prepare.

Mom,

Thanks for the housing arrangements. I may be used to living on my own but I'm also used to having you here to deal with all my financial and legal needs. I'll have to hire a personal secretary to replace you when I grow up. But they won't make lunch for me or send me loving packages...

So as I said I moved. Here's a funny thing that you can tell Eva. In our apartment is Elder Black and Elder White, and they are both named 白長老. She'll get it.

I will try to get President Hawks on it today. Sorry I don't have any pictures, I forgot my camera cord back home. If I have time I'll try to send some. Love you, and thank you for your amazing example to me!

Abby,

As I said my food for the past couple days has not been impressive. I have been eating a lot of butter cookies because that's what we have at our apartment. I also had some ramen, which I haven't had in months, because it's the only thing here. Our ward gives us TONS of food but none of it is very healthy. We ate some weird orange peal stuff a bit ago, fermented with salt. It's nasty. Have you ever eaten Chick Peas? They taste good if you're starving and doing numbers.

David,

To be totally frank, in the individual battles, Moroni was using strategy. Coordinating multiple units around to fight guys is the perfect example of tactics. Moroni building cities on the borders or pushing the Lamanites out of the Nephite lands and stopping them from getting cut off is strategy, while concealing his men in a valley and cutting off the Lamanite spies is tactics. And to say that fatigue comes into play and makes it strategy is to imply that soccer or football are strategy games. Frozen Synapse is the perfect example of complete tactics. As is chess.

Sounds like your creativity is still going strong. I'd really love for you to develop some sort of Rome Total War game based on the Book of Mormon. I think we all know that that would be the best game ever. Where are you reading in the Book of Mormon recently? Also, I've been studying the lessons really in depth out of Preach My Gospel right now. Have you ever read that? If not I'd recommend reading chapter 3 and 4. They are super cool. Honestly, every chapter in there is good.

Joseph,

The lap of luxury. He sits at the computer clicking buttons, and thousands of dollars roll towards him. He is the demon Nauda from the Bartimaeous books.

I think based off our combined college test credit we'll both be halfway through sophomore year by the time we start. What I said to Rebecca and David applies to you as well.

Dad,

Your prediction that I'll become District Leader finally came true. I really have been super busy with stuff, but it's really fun. My first District Meeting isn't until next week, but I'm planning on making everyone sing super obscure songs. Unrighteous Dominion!

When I left NTK, Rachel was basically ready to get baptized, (March 8th), We had the 2 older guys Ken and Mr. Chau who really love church and English class, we finally found Brother Lo again. He's had some trials in his family recently but there’s still hope. The 14 year old and her older sister were doing okay, just trying to get them to read, and it's really hard to meet the younger sister because you definitely have to have a fellowshipper there.

In this new ward they just had 2 baptisms, Nicole and A Yung, both of whom are doing pretty well (though I've noticed they all really really really like the former missionary here...), and that's about it. It seems every area I go to has no active investigators when I get there. There are a couple people who are probably good but haven't been to church or in contact since New Year’s, so we'll see. In the meantime, it's been a while since I had some long finding, I'm excited.

I hope we get a chance to go to the cabin together when I get back. I've been praying for your work, I'm sure it'll work out just how the Lord wants it to. I had a chance to share in testimony meeting about my testimony of the Book of Mormon and the story of the king in Alma 22, which is probably my favorite scripture, especially v.15. As I mentioned, I've been really studying what it is the lessons are trying to teach people, and I think that Ammon and Aaron's investigators are great examples of people who learned what they had to, which was that God was real, they could pray with faith, and that God would have mercy on us through Christ. That's what I've been trying to teach people recently.

Yesterday some new investigator named Fong Fong stood us up. The funny thing is that the slang for to stand someone up or not show up is fong fei gei, release airplane. So, Fong Fong Fong ngoh deih Fei Gei. It's funny, I promise.

Love you all, literally, all 6 of you. Seriously, I don't hate even one of you. No, not even Joseph.

February 23, 2015 - Happy Chinese New Year! Gong Hai Fat Choi!

Hello family! This week was a bit slow in the missionary work department because of Chinese New Year’s, but it was still pretty good. I can explain some of the traditions for New Year’s here.

As you already saw, there is a lot of red. Red is lucky, so there are red things everywhere. All the stores have tons of decorations hanging. Everything has a sort of Chinese Empire feel, if that makes sense. Many people, especially the old and the young, will dress up for Chinese New Year’s. There are these super cool or super silly looking Chinese silk vest things that are either super awesome or ridiculous. Usually the very young, old, feeble, and otherwise undefended are given the vest. The babies are super cute. Old people will also bust out moth balled suits and weird homemade clothes which have the appearance of being made of curtains. Fun is had all around.

They have a sort of Chinese equivalent of the Christmas tree, which is called the "Gat jai, or Gam Jai", which is basically a little bush with tiny fruits resembling sour clementines all over it. Everyone has them. Every business puts them up. Literally every one. The people will also buy tons of flowers, and reminiscent of our Christmas tree lots, they have beautiful flower and gat jai markets that get set up in soccer courts, and also include tons of random high school students or other people setting up booths and selling knick knacks.

Before New Year’s, the people will have a deep clean. We have ours on the first day of New Year because there's no real use in trying to proselyte that day. The deep clean was one of the funnest things that I've done in a while. At the very beginning, Elder Walter entered the bathroom to wage war with the mold, and didn't emerge for almost 4 hours. I went at the kitchen, which included cleaning all the cabinets, the stove, the vents above the stove hold (which took gallons of boiling water before the grease finally seeped out) and the ominous darkness under the sink. We got McDonalds for lunch and Pizza for dinner. We didn't finish until 10:55 (for all you other missionaries our mission's time is 30 minutes later, don't freak out), and honestly there's still more that could be done. Despite that, it is impressively clean. It really is true, cleanliness is close to Godliness. You feel the spirit more in a clean apartment.

The main celebration of Chinese New Year’s is getting together with family. People will go and eat with their extended family on both sides. The holiday is actually really righteous, basically family and new beginnings. I said happy New Year at least 1000 times these last couple days, but our street finding was still slow. Still, it was a cool week, and I have nowhere I'd rather be for Chinese New Year than in NTK.

Mom,

I had a pretty busy church week as well. Spent 30 hours wandering around on the streets talking to people about church. I don't know why but I never feel that busy, even though we are the least available people, in some ways. If you remember, can you send me Eva's full Chinese name? I think that there'll be people who know her, but there are hundreds of Sister Chans.

We visited some family who had a very nice looking house, sort of western on the inside. But even the super expensive houses here are way smaller than ours; usually you could fit the whole thing into you and Dad's bedroom and bathroom. Utah houses are what the Chinese would call yauh leng yauh pehng, is both pretty and cheap.

I can really appreciate now how important what you're doing is, and I can promise you the missionaries in our stake love you. I do too, but I still wish I had more time.

Dad,

Maybe all the job thing needs is a wall of unyielding faith. I was just talking today with one of the senior missionaries at Wan Chai about how she really wanted to learn Cantonese, and felt that she really had the gift of tongues, but was being required to sacrifice that dream because there were other more important things that the Lord wanted her to do. We also discussed your job, and I literally said that same President Klein quote to her.

I never really know what to say back to you because you just talk about everyone else all the time. I've been junior companion for all but one move so far in my mission, but honestly I don't mind. The only thing that bothers me is that I really want to get a companionship excelling, as in really exercising massive faith, really totally obedient, totally hard working, working smart, etc, but it's not the calling of a junior companion to cause that to happen. I still try to put out that influence, but I've really learned that I have a bad tendency to control things, and I've learned to be led more than lead. But I want to get out and really push into that level of performance, especially since time is short.

Joseph,

You know you want to live with Elder Bennett and me. We'd have the most epic game days.

I like the mayor now. She sees through you. But English Sterling Scholar is essentially charm, right? I mean, what else are they really going to judge on besides the charm of your writing or speaking?

That's good advice. I'm still running at least a mile a morning, though it's not as long as I'd like. Elder Tse, who is a super intense football player, has also commented that my running form is not the fastest. Last time I tried sprints, I hurt myself, though.

David,

Did you ever finish the map of our house? That's the thing that I'd be most excited to mess around on. The actual game is comprised of controlling one unit and coordinating a team of 4 or 5 in a small map, where the individual people's position and accuracy are the largest determining factors. While the rounds may carry over, the game is totally driven off of tactics and individual combat, not strategy. Admitted, there may be an aspect of the game that involves tactics, but that'd be like calling Spore a strategy game, or Civ 5 a tactics game because your unit placement matters in a small scale. Admit it, you lose.

Lifeguarding must run in the family. Not sure why, I recall mom's journals not exactly enjoying swimming. Full AP is probably the smartest choice.

Rebecca,

Sounds like dance has become a much bigger part of your life than it was when I left. When I left you were still the mouse in the Nutcracker. Now you're. SOMETHING ELSE...

Improvisation is an essential skill for the future president of the United States. You've heard about the debates, right? You have to be able to come up with stuff on the spot and sound like you know what you're saying, like Joseph in the English thing. Perhaps by the time you're running for president there will be a talent section in the campaign and they'll require people to perform, Napoleon Dynamite style.

The thing that I'm the most proud of is the Young Women part, however. We have an investigator right now who is 14, and the main thing helping her progress is that she's got some awesome friends and examples in Young Womens. Make sure you're ready to do that too.

Abby,

I know what I geo cache is, just ask Dad. I've gone out finding with him before. You should look it up and find which one it is. Dad's got some GPS thing, you can put the geocache back where it says it goes. Did it get burned at all in the fire 2 years ago? That's a pretty big fort. I'll tell you what you should do. Buy a pool table and put it in, then play pool. That'd be pretty cool.

You'd love the vests here. And there was a ton of random jade stuff being sold under our apartment yesterday. I think that it's a tradition; all the streets just turn into markets. There were some really cool things there.

Love you all, Happy New Year!

Feb. 16, 2015 - Interest in the Sheer Abnormality of Missionaries

Well, after that letter from Abby, I'm not sure what to say.

This has been another pretty good week. Because of some complications I don't really have any time to write emails. It is the Chinese New Year’s break so the Library is extra full and we only got 1 hour total. Chinese New Year is becoming a bigger and bigger part of our lives. Our apartment has been decked out for the last couple weeks, but now we're at the stage where everywhere you go you see people with suitcases going down the street. See, most Hong Kong people, even if they were born in Hong Kong, will identify with a particular Heung Ha, or village/town in Mainland where either they or their ancestors live. If they still have a lot of family there, come New Years they all pack up and ship out to mainland (because the houses here are ridiculously small). I recall last year on the first day of New Years there were only about a third of the lights on in some buildings.

Because of this, many people on the street will just say "after New Year’s" when you try to reschedule them. We got invited to a family's house on Saturday to be there for their New Year's feast thingy. The Mom is a super cool member, the kids are baptized, the rest were all non-members. The husband knows a lot about missionaries and the church, but the rest of them didn't, and it turned into a hilarious sort of interrogation/exhibition, with the mom and dad bragging about who we were, how odd we were, what strange rules we had to keep, how smart we were, how dedicated we were, how much we ate, etc, and the rest of the family just baffled and asking tons of questions. It was cool, I didn't even need to try to speak about doctrine, I just was blatant about our purpose and testimonies and let our extremity speak for us. There are few things that get more people to investigate the church more than the sheer abnormality of us missionaries. I am literally not kidding.

I also got you guy's package, which was awesome! I think you're trying to get me back up to my original weight. The Brussels cookies were especially appreciated. The watch is also very comfortable, and the ear plugs were definitely an inspired send. I'm a little confused about the ibuprofen, but I guess it's better to have than to not have. And the journal was excellent too. Hopefully it'll last the rest of my mission.

Two things to tell; 1, my recent convert Ben gave a talk in our ward conference, and it was awesome. He is seriously an amazing kid. I really hope he serves a mission. We've just got to convert his mom first. 2. I want to know what Eva's full name is, because honestly about 15% of people here are named Chan.

Dad,

I really loved your letter. I would not buy the sofa, unless it's going to be as good as the ones at the cabin. But you must remember that the more money you put in now the more you lose when we all destroy it a week later.

Brother Lo is having some trouble, nothing specific, just some family arguments and not enough reading or meeting us.

Rachel has quit smoking and is now about ready to be baptized on the 8th.

Our investigator Ken is doing well, we taught him Word of Wisdom (of which word he has a habit of drinking coffee, smoking, and drinking wine) but he's still determined to accept it all. Super nice guy.

We have a new investigator named Mr. H, who has a ton of issues but is very interested and very available to be taught, so I’m really excited for him.

We have a newish guy named Mr Chau, who is hilarious, old, fat, and just says everything we mention or show him is "very amazing!'

Stephy and her sister Ivy are doing okay, but don't yet have big enough desire.

Mom

I am actually not moving yet. I thought I was this week, but the moves aren't until next Tuesday, so I won't know until the week after next. I could feel your hand in most of the gifts. It's really nice to get stuff from home. I realized that I haven't had any real desserts for a while. It's been warming up over here recently. Sorry, no time, but I love you!

Joseph,

I would consider BYU, not mainly because of educational reasons but because of the gospel reasons. Honestly, any university besides BYU is going to be hard to be a very active member, and very hard to avoid temptation. Obviously this is entirely your choice, but there are things more important than careers.

Congrats on the English acclamation, though I maintain that any recognition for science is innately superior to any recognition for English Subjective mess that it is. Still that's coming from the guy who didn't win Sterling Scholar.

David,

I applaud your digging.

I maintain that the game CS is still one battle, even if split into multiple rounds.

What are you doing with programming recently?

Rebecca,

That's a tough question. I think that a 6 week Ballet Camp is a pretty long time. It would be a cool experience, but you need to remember how much you would miss out because of it. Still, it sounds like you've gotten a lot more serious about dancing, so maybe it'll be good. How are you earning money for it? Still selling lemonade?

Abby

Your birthday card was definitely the most impressive. It really brought home to me. And the length thereof was exceedingly exceeding, yea even to exceed all other cards heretofore seen. And I get the feeling that you love me. Where is the fort? Try to describe the exact location using words. How did you build it? Love you!

Sorry no pictures, I lost my camera and only found it an hour ago. The work rolls on. Be true to the faith. I know that the Savior lives, and because He lives we will all be able to live together forever. GO to the temple more.

莫鑄謙長老愛你門!

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?

February 2, 2015 - Doing What the Lord Wants No Matter What the Cost

I bought some stuff at the store today.  It's a bit weird.  Here's the picture.

As far as I can tell, it's ground cereal grains and vegetable powder.  I think it may be the healthiest thing I've ever seen.  The question is, would you eat it?  Rest assured that it is food.

A cool view of the contrast of old and new stuff in Hong Kong

This is my name.

Well, my dear family, this week had its ups and downs. But honestly, as I've said before, as long as you're working hard basically every week is amazing. One of the many perks that comes from being on a mission. All you need to do is use all your effort every day, and you feel great every night when you go to bed no matter what happened.

The downs first. We lost several of our baptismal dates, and our church attendance, though still far above the average for our zone, is still frustratingly down to 3, when there should be at least 6. The reason? Honestly there is no one real reason. I've definitely noticed a pattern in missionary work. It is this; take the number of people strongly scheduled for church and cut it in half. Despite the repeated realization of this, I still have faith that this area can go crazy and we will have one Sunday with 8 people at church. That is faith.

Our finding this week has been super cool. We were out finding sometimes with no success for several hours, but we have met some really cool people as well this week. We met one woman on the street who said she had no religion, and then we just sort of talked and managed to share a good lesson just by being weird people and prompting gospel related questions by our weirdness. Then we rescheduled for the next night and taught an awesome lesson. We met with Ben's family, and while they haven't been to church yet his mom is super humble and has a good desire to learn. It's just that her understanding of things like this is not great, she already attends a church that is much closer, and she doesn't read Chinese. You'd be surprised how much more acceptable illiteracy is here. It's not the schools, it's just that characters are so hard to learn that anyone who is from a rural background in Mainland China who moves here might not read, and many people who quit school young (because you can do that here) won't read super well. But I can read. A bit. He he. The teacher of our Gospel Essentials class thinks that me and Elder Walter are super talented.

The thing that I think that I learned this week was about consecration, not just in terms of using all our time or money, but in terms of not fearing anything and not putting anything above the Lord's will. I have really gained a testimony this week of the hope that comes when you know that you are going to do whatever the Lord wants no matter what it costs. There are a lot of things that make us afraid. Sin, death, sickness, work, financial things, etc. We fear not having enough money, the things we love, we fear embarrassment, shame, pain. etc. The gospel can give us peace in these situations because though we may know these things will happen, when we have faith we know that if we do the Lord's will unequivocally, we will not only be okay but we will truly be blessed.

Dad,

So, the saddest thing in terms of investigators is that we still haven't found Mr. Wong. He was one of the most well prepared investigators that I've had on my mission, and also just a really great guy. He called us once but it was in the morning and our phone was on silent. After that I convinced Elder Tse to never put our phone on silent. Pray for him.

Rachel and Brother Lo are still struggling to quit smoking. It's annoying, because they need to develop the faith and desire to please God if they are going to quit in the most faith-promoting way, but it's not easy to just give that to people. Something cool this week was our new investigator Ken, who is in his 60's and doesn't understand the gospel too well, was nonetheless able to very accurately explain what the apostasy was and what it meant. And he feels the spirit so strongly at church. He really loves it.

Our investigator Stephy, who is about 24 ish, was busy with a Korean test so she couldn't come to church, but her 14 year old sister Ivy came on her own, which was amazing. We only started teaching her 2 weeks ago, and her family has absolutely no religion, so for her to come to church on her own was really incredible.

The other cool thing at church was Brother Wong, who is the husband of a former less active, came for the first time in a month, and we had a decent lesson. His main issue is that he really hasn't felt the spirit really strongly yet, and he feels like Buddhism gives him more feelings than Christianity. I think the problem is that he's not getting into the Book of Mormon, but any advice'd be appreciated.

I feel so happy to be serving here. We had more people come to church than many areas have people scheduled to come ,and more people scheduled than most areas have investigators, period. This is a really amazing area.

Keep it up with the job thing. You know that hard work pays off eventually. Thanks for your example, Dad. I'm reading in Moroni right now, and I always think of you because you always seemed to emphasis those chapters when we'd read together, and it's about a father and son missionary team. You just need to get a bit more active in the missionary side of things and it'll be perfect.

Joseph,

I must be quick. May I suggest that magnifying your calling might include not waiting for people to find you but finding ways to help them? They might have seen the presentation but I'm sure that most of them are used to not using it, and maybe they need some real experience before they'll see what it means for them.

Good old Mr. B. Yeah, I always felt bad for him because I felt like he didn't know how to teach the class too well. I mostly just did water colors in my spare time, after finishing the rather boring assignments. Don't feel too much contempt, he's a person too.

I don't know what a dead lift is.

David,

Why is it that man is so bent on safety that he destroys everything worth protecting? The trees have no tongues, and no Lorax to speak for them. (David told John they were chopping down trees in the park across from us.)

IT IS A TACTICS BASED GAME

Abby,

You sound like quite the busy bee. And it sound like your letter will arrive before my birthday. Much appreciated. But you shouldn't make valentines; you should do what the Chinese do and just give money to people on Chinese New Year’s. Did you know that Chinese people don't know what fortune cookies are? Pretty sad. But they have a bunch of other New Year’s traditions. Lots of noodles with abalone sauce, organ meat, preserved sausages, candies, weird glutinous rice cookies, etc. And gaak jai beng. Gaak Jai Beng are like waffles but they put peanut butter, sweetened condensed milk, and sugar on them.

Rebecca,

Sounds like you have a busy life. Why does everyone keep asking me to come home? Leave me be! I need not your books and games!

I've been a bit sick this week, but nothing too bad. Mostly just a runny nose, which is a bit annoying sometimes, especially when you want people to have a desire to talk to you. My companion bought 15 boxes of Mac and Cheese at the international store today, because they were on sale for about 50 cents US for a box. Because they expire on Wednesday. He's crazy.

Keep it up, can do blond.

Mom,

Sum seung see sing. Try to tell Eva that,

Elder Tse's family is from Tai Wo, they are all members. They live in Fanling. He will be going home at the same time as me, he will maybe go to school, but he was working before his mission so he might keep doing that.

We get tons of lucky money but we're not allowed to keep it, so we donate it all to the missionary fund. There are also people who want to feed us dinner, namely grandpa's friend Brother Norris Cheung, but we have something called deep clean on the first day of New Year’s, so I don't know if we will. Our transfer should be on the 17th of February, if I'm correct. I will get on the Ecclesiastical Endorsement. Thanks for being such an awesome mom! Sorry, I'm out of time.

Love you All!