June 15, 2015 - Gospel is True for All People; English, Cantonese, or Sign Language Speaking Alike

Hello Family!
...

Well, I thought something'd happen...

Anyway, this week was pretty great; though I'm sure you could have guessed that. If I suddenly started an email saying this week was awful I'd be interested to see what the response was. This week started out a little bit slow because we just couldn't get any of our investigators scheduled for the first half of the week. In Hong Kong we usually only meet about once or twice a week, which is tough. As we did weekly planning on Thursday I was feeling that we had no chance for our goals for member presents or full lessons, but in the last 3 days we pulled through.

But I wasn't there for part of it because I went on exchanges with Elder Shipp in Yuen Long, which is about the most rural part of Hong Kong (though still more densely populated than Utah in most parts). That exchange was really cool because Elder Shipp and Elder Buss are specially assigned to cover the deaf investigators in this half of Hong Kong, and they speak sign language. Yes, I learned much sign language. There originally weren't any deaf lessons scheduled, but we sent out a mass text at 10:00 PM and got 2 people scheduled. They were such interesting lessons. Hong Kong sign language is not ASL, it is based off Cantonese words, but there's basically no grammar. Actually a pretty intuitive language, so I was able to pick up a tiny bit and participate in a good part of the last lesson. I love watching deaf people tell stories. It's so much better than speaking, and it's loud because they tend to make little noises without realizing it and a lot of signs involve fist punching and smacking, which gets super awesome if you have an intense story. In conclusion, the gospel is true and the way of living for all people, English, Cantonese, or sign language speaking alike.

Saturday I went back to the world of the hearing, which was fine. We had a good day, taught some lessons, and went LA finding. Sunday was great; we had a really powerful church meeting. A returned missionary spoke and made me all nervous because everyone will be expecting a really good homecoming talk which I may or may not give. Our Bishop was getting pretty intense as well, calling people to repentance Book of Mormon style. We taught a lot of lessons on Sunday, which helped us achieve our goals and really helped some people work towards baptism, and had some great chances to do numbers in the evening. I've really been impressed recently with the importance of love in teaching and leading, and the power that it brings. The Missionary Handbook has a great section on leadership that really inspired me to do a better job during my numbers reports.

David,

I went to EFY once and OYA twice, because OYA is in my mind superior to EFY, but both are good. Sort of like a microcosm for a mission, which is in turn a microcosm of life. It sounds like you may really have found a good direction for your efforts. I like your comment on it taking time, which is very true. President Hawks talked about that in our last MLC, about how the most important and meaningful achievements in our lives cannot be done quickly, it takes a lot of time. Honestly, would you want to be able to learn it all in one day? It'd be easy, but not very meaningful. I'm trying to read through the Book of Mormon in Chinese and it's extremely difficult, because it takes a lot of time and effort. But I have a vision and a really strong desire to achieve that goal. And I'm going to do it no matter how hard it is, even if I have to spend 10 hours on the plane ride home (I will not take that long, hopefully.)

One of the big lesson that my mission has taught me is that with time, you can accomplish really great things. Like Joseph with the film festival, or Rebecca with Dance, or Abby with her end of school party planning, or you with the Mod. In the summer, you've got lots of time and there are a lot of really cool things that you can just do, if you decide to do it. So learn how those codes work, learn it until you are an expert in them, and you'll be able to do a job you love for the rest of your life.

Along with that lesson comes the lesson of what things are really worth spending that time and doing. Scripture study, really applying yourself to prayer, temple worship (see President Monson's address, I just re-read it this morning and it's cool) and service are goals that will make your life so much more rich than you can even imagine it being, if you are willing to apply the time and effort necessary to it.

Dad,

Our investigators are doing okay this week. Brother Chi is still in Mainland, but we taught Sister Chi before church. It was cool, because recently we feel that she's not been developing the kind of desire for remission of her sins that she needs to really progress. We did a role play with some junior missionaries during language pass offs this week, and I pretended to be her, and had a thought about a possible concern she might be having. Then in the lesson, I was just really really hoping that we could show her that we care about her more and listen, and she shared some really great stuff about how she's feeling about the message, etc. Big progress.

We are teaching a kid Riis who is sort of arrogant, and had a really intense lesson about humbling why we are obedient to God's commandments. He at one point proudly declared that he was not a child and was a "Hong Kong young generation person (sorry, bad translation, it didn't sound so odd when he said it). We'd been reading King Benjamin's address, and so I told him to re-read Mosiah 3:19, which seemed too perfect for the situation. The scriptures really came alive in that lesson.

Kelvin is doing okay; we had another pretty good lesson with him. He has some problems still because his faith still isn't great enough that he's willing to trust God in keeping commandments. It's interesting because you can see a sort of struggle, where part of him wants to find justification and be lazy, and part of him really wants to be a better person and change his life. Two quotes from the lesson, about 5 minutes apart "I think just smoking less and drinking less coffee is probably enough, right?" "My biggest desire is to quit smoking". But he really got the idea that he needs to start reading every day, so I have high hopes for him,

We're teaching a 9 year old named Jacky, who's a bit yaaih (like naughty but less formal) but really clever. I taught him plan of salvation on Sunday, and despite lots of discussion about what color spirits are and the details of outer darkness, he understood really well. He doesn't want to be baptized though, because he's afraid of water.

We had a newish investigator named Andrew at church; he was turned over from the Tuen Mun Elders, and seems really good. He came despite serious family disapproval. I haven't taught him a lesson yet, though, so don't know much else.

Justin is another really cool new investigator. We taught him on Monday, and I felt impressed to ask him to be baptized and give him a date, both of which he accepted. It strengthened my testimony that our purpose is to help these people be baptized, not just teach and find them.

The feeling that I've gained about finding is just how related our faith and our finding are. I really feel in CPB I learned a lot that by really exercising faith when we find, we can see miracles, and help a lot of really needy people. It's changed how I feel about finding. And maybe it helps that we only find for 13 or 14 hours a week instead of 40-50, like at the beginning of my mission.

Abby,

A diet based of eating vegetables defeated you. I do find that believable, but I've got to say I really enjoy vegetables here. Remember Chard, that weird green stuff that Dad said he really liked eating as a kid? We have a lot of stuff like that here and it's delicious! When we go to cross roads on Wednesday they feed us dinner, and my favorite part is always the vegetables. I'll cook some for you when I get back and you'll love them. Oh, by the way, at cross roads this week I replaced another air conditioner, and in the process drilled holes through a steel bar and a concrete wall. i don't know why they trust us so much there.

I am so happy to hear about the temple trip! Don't let anything stop you from going! And make your brothers go as well. Who are the missionaries in the ward right now? And what was it like having them over? Honestly I feel that when we visit people who have family out on missions they always brag to us about how much better their children are than us, but that might just be insecurity.

Mom,

The diet reminded me of an interesting experience this week. We were waiting for an investigator, who didn't end up showing up, but we talked to some skinny guy on a bench. He turned out to be from Vietnam. He didn't speak much Chinese or English, but we figured out that he came here to work, but couldn't get a job because he doesn't have an i.d. card, and has no home, no money, hadn't eaten in 3 days, couldn't find his friend because his phone had no power. I don't know if he was exaggerating, but I think he was telling the truth. He said there was a place where you could get free food over in Sham Shui Po but he didn't have any money to get over there. It sounds like he was begging, but we sort of pulled all this information out of him. He was just sitting on a bench, and honestly he seemed like he was just waiting to die. No will, no hope. We're not supposed to give away much money but I gave him some personal money so he could get to Sham Shui Po.

Last week they invited me to play the piano, and I was quite nervous because my practice has been sparse, but I said a prayer and played not flawlessly, but acceptably. So I feel you, Mom.

Rebecca,

I'm just going to say, that whole process sounds an awful lot like how we used to play RISK... But you should start in Australia or Germany, not the US.

Why do you throw up so much? Just keep it in, girl! Food belongs in the stomach and the bowels, not the toilet!

But in all seriousness congratulations on the dancing. Like I mentioned in David's email, it's an example of what can happen when you are willing to put in serious time and effort. And have the attitude "First I become a very respected and loved politician, I know that’s going to be hard but I can do it."

Church will always have something new if you look for it.

Joseph,

I like the Martial Arts class, though I fear it will become a regularly scheduled forum where you can beat me and not be punished.

Hopefully that elicited a chuckle.

I think the real principle of the credit hours thing is that every hour there precludes more than an hour of homework later, and the intensity is measurably higher than in High School. So 18 hours sound quite nice to me. Are you doing a language there at all? In fact I'm curious what differences your and my schedules have. Math together should be fun, you can help me out. I feel university is going to be a great period of humbling for me. Especially if we learn Judo in the martial arts class.

The film contest sounds really cool. I've never heard of a "buddy movie" before but I guess it's a bit self explanatory.

How's the study of Preach my Gospel going? Recently I've been researching really in depth about what the real purpose or goal behind each principle in the chapter 3 lessons is, so that I can better understand how to teach them. I just finished lesson 3 today. Teaching the gospel is so interesting; it's such a deep and amazing topic to learn about. Becoming a powerful gospel teacher is the coolest skill to have and the most demanding subject to study. It's so fascinating. You and Dad would really like the Elder Bednar teaching videos I mentioned last week. And you can even watch them on Sunday!

P.S. Props for the Sabbath observance, bro.

June 8, 2015 - The Revelation Train

Happy Birthday Mom!

We had a really great week this week. There were a couple reasons, but most aspects of our missionary work were really good.

1. Mission Leadership Council and our subsequent zone training meeting. In MLC, as you may remember from last month, we give a report of our zone's numbers and our upcoming goals and actions. We always struggle to think of what we're going to do until we get on the train towards Kowloon Tong, so we call it the Revelation Train. This was President and Sister Hawks' last MLC with us. Elder Little and I will have one more meeting with him there, when we meet with the stake president this month, but it's really weird to think of him being almost done. In true President Hawks style, there was no real difference on the meeting, until the very end when he pointed out that next month as we're meeting with President Lam they'll be getting on the plane. Everyone got a bit choked up.

The following Friday our Zone Training went way better than the first one, which was a real blessing to me, I felt that last time my training and the overall meeting weren't that good, and I was really afraid, honestly, that I'd start my training to the junior companions and choke or fail or something. But it was really good, and I really feel that God answered my (fervent desperate constant) prayers about it. I feel like I'm becoming a lot more comfortable being Zone Leader recently, though there's still a lot to learn.

2. This week was really great in terms of missionary work, specifically in terms of finding new investigators. We had a lot of people who we contacted a while ago and couldn't teach find us again, and had a lot of really cool finding experiences. For example, Saturday evening. We went finding and right at the beginning saw a blind guy in a mall and helped walk him home, which put us in the path of a cool 20ish year old guy who'd met missionaries before and agreed to sit down for 15 minutes and talk. In 15 minutes we were able to really feel that he wants to be more wise in his life and change, shared a scripture from Mosiah 4 (see if you can figure out which one) and felt the spirit strongly. He didn't reschedule, but it was a sweet moment, and literally 1 minute after standing up from the bench we taught on we met Mr. K, who's from Mainland (speaks Cantonese) and is really lonely, stressed, and worried about his family and son in Mainland. Another really sweet, simple lesson to an incredibly humble man, that really helped him. He rescheduled, thus achieving the goal we set for finding that day.

3. Recently I've been spending time during my journal writing each night writing down 10 things I'm thankful for that day, which I've tried before, but not as sincerely as this time, and it's an amazing blessing. I really recommend and invite everyone to try it, do it for a week, and really put some thought into finding something relevant to that day that you're truly grateful for. It's so worth it.

Mom,

Last week we also had this Sabbath Day meeting, though ours was just held in the combined 3rd hour class. It was a really productive conversation for us as well, and I really like that our bishop did it that way because it gave a good place for everyone to think about what they could be doing better without feeling too condemnatory. Honestly there's a lot that could improve in that aspect in Hong Kong sacrament meetings. Phones go off regularly, and for some reason the culture here is to answer your phone and half whisper to the person "Hey, I can't talk. Yeah, I'm at church. No, I'll get it later. I can't talk, really."

It is definitely something that I've learned about during my mission. If I really concentrate and work hard, I can always get some really important and precious revelation out of church services.

Those classes at BYU sound just about right. I still can't really decide for the Civ class, I think I'd really enjoy both. I've also been thinking recently about a creative writing class, though I'll probably do that later rather than this semester. I'm glad that you're so willing to help me pick these so that I don't have to think too much about them.

Dad,

Somehow it's hard for me to imagine you and mom on a diet, let alone a wacky one. I usually just imagine you biking or something. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I continue to fake as a bike expert, thanks to my brief stint at mountain biking and my knowledge of the word 'fixie".

The Chi family is still doing okay, but it's really hard to help Brother Chi because he goes to Mainland for so long each month. He's got some complicated questions or misunderstandings about why we have commandments and sometimes we fall into the trap of trying to answer them for him, rather than helping him get his own answer. Sister Chi is doing okay, she hasn't been reading a ton, but she loves church and has a lot of friends, and already wants to be baptized. We're just trying to help her move from a social/practicality reason to a real faith in the atonement and testimony of repentance reason.

Kelvin is doing pretty well, though he didn't come to church yesterday because he woke up late or felt lazy. That's really his only weakness, is keeping his willpower up when things get inconvenient. But he's progressing well, and now has a baptismal date again.

Then there are the tons of new people, but there are too many and I'll just wait till they're really progressing before I say more.

I remember you mentioned a while ago about how you discovered how to ask questions to teach people. That's something that I sort of trained on in Zone Training meeting. I taught all the junior companions how to ask more questions, give the investigator some significant time to speak, and by listening and follow-up questions discover what their real need for the doctrine is so you can promise them blessings and give commitments that are really inspired, from the spirit. There're some really cool videos about gospel teaching on the Mormon channel by Elder Bednar, I think you'd like them a lot.

David,

Which game was this again. the one where you are invisible or the map with an office and courtyard? I hope you have a good time at EFY. President Hawks always juxtaposes (see I still speak English good) a mission with EFY, in regards to intensity and difficulty.

I think the only other thing that you need to know from this week is that on the way to the library I met a mom and her 6 or so year old son, the mom was named Psyche (pronounced psych-ee) and the kid was named Bulgy (after the orange bus in Thomas the train engine). So there.

Joseph,

It's weird to think that I'll have living expenses that I have to work for. I'm sort of used to just doing stuff and having money come to me when I need it, without any real correlation. Though we figured the average hourly wage that we're making once, and it's pretty small. At least I've learned to live and work very very cheaply. This week my grocery bill was about $12.

Honestly I don't think I'll even need a T.V. and I won't need too much of a computer. The list that I told you guys to keep will probably go mostly un-used.

Rebecca,

That must be so tough. I do get your reasoning, though. It is important to choose what friends you hang out with because you can't choose to not be influenced by the friends you choose to associate with. I'm glad that at least your standards are high. But here's a cool thought; maybe it wouldn't be good to go with them to their parties, but you could invite them to some things with your friends. That way you can one-by-one give them a better atmosphere and better influence, while simultaneously increasing your circle of influence and preparing yourself for world domination. I imagine that though they may be gold digging, they do really look up to you and care about your opinion and reaction to what they share with you, and maybe they’re secretly disappointed when you decline. I don't know, I was never that popular, but I think it's interesting to think of what you could get done. There's a book by a guy named Clay Christensen called "The Power of Everyday Missionaries" or something like that and it's really interesting.

Abby,

Stop saying see you soon, it freaks me out. I assume you mean on Minecraft. It's funny to think that you still play Minecraft. I haven't seen it in a while. There's a cool guy who's from the UK and is here every Monday doing something on the computer and walks around in the library without shoes on. He knows how to live. I bet you're looking forward to running around without shoes on. Are you going to try Mom and Dad's wacky diet? Did you go to the temple again? Love you!

Love you all!

June 1, 2015 - The Book of Mormon's Got an Answer for Everything

Sorry it's not much, but this is what I love to eat.  Grapes and fried rice.  The fried rice is delicious, I'll make it when I get back.  You don't need any seasoning powder, that's a lie.  grapes are a bit expensive but so good.  I was totally out of money this month, which is not like me.  But some random couple bought us lunch one day so I was saved.

I want to clarify the one sentence thing last week was pretty funny, I was just a bit surprised.

Well, there's really not a ton that I can report on since last Wednesday. We had a great trip to the temple, as always. I think I've mentioned this to Abby before, but I love the feeling that you have as you leave the temple, like you just have no desire to do anything bad...Mosiah 5:2. The Book of Mormon's got an answer for about everything.

One of the more fun responsibilities that we have as Zone Leaders is language evaluations. I may have mentioned before, but Language Evaluations are when we meet with the newer missionaries and role play with them, and they pass off a sheet with 13 different lessons from Preach My Gospel to ensure that their language and teaching skills are up to snuff. It's been really cool to do because as a Zone Leader, there are a lot of people that we are responsible for, and we don't have a ton of chances to train everyone one by one. But in language pass-offs we can see how all the junior or younger missionaries are teaching and speaking and give some good training. I've really enjoyed that aspect of being a Zone Leader recently, because I don't think I was good at it when I started. In fact, it was a bit terrifying because I felt like I didn't know how to help or train them. But now it's becoming better.

Our Mission Leadership Council and Zone Training are coming up again, so lots of things to plan for. It's tricky sometimes, because I have to learn which ideas are just me wanting to do them, and which are really what the zone needs. There’s a big lesson to be learned in humility and real leadership. Yeah. Translation: there's an idea that I really want to do but I think it'll be replaced so I have to let it go.

The Chi family is still about where they were last week, though we had two pretty good lessons with Brother Chi. He just has a lot of topics where he's confused on or has some misunderstanding, so we've been practicing really listening to him and trying to find ways to resolve his real concerns. This Sunday after church we had a cool lesson with him and a returning less active, and answered some questions about the Book of Mormon, and the whole idea of forgiveness after repentance. I was impressed by two things, 1) the Book of Mormon has soooo many important answers in it, and 2) God is really merciful and will forgive all who will accept the Atonement with real intent. Kelvin is still doing pretty well. We had a lesson with him and he had learned so much from the scriptures that we gave him to read beforehand that we didn't really need to even teach. He seems in a position to really change and be baptized. Found a couple new people, but had a lot of people not show up or cancel for appointments. Such is life.

Dad,

I think you may be right. I don't think that one Zone Leader would really be able to do it alone. Or if they did they wouldn't get much else done. We started a goal last week of having 5 days a week where we plan out 2 hours of consecrated finding time, and treat it as a non-negotiable appointment, and it's been really cool to see some miracles happen from it. On Saturday we found a guy in the last 10 minutes or so, which is often the case. The biggest things that it's done have been 1) it makes us keep doing finding, which is sometimes hard with zone leader things, and 2) it really makes you work and focus absolutely on the goal you set for that time. Really cool.

Mom

The weather has been quite nice recently, about 33 degrees Celsius, and above 70% humidity. It's been funny because the train stations all have sign for when the train will arrive, and if there are weather emergencies like heavy rain or what have you, they will display them. On Thursday it started saying "Very hot weather warning". So Chinese. Honestly it's not even that hot. You have to drink a lot of water and you'll sweat a lot, but in short sleeves it's very bearable. In the apartment it's sometimes rough, but we have AC in the evenings. Chinese people are just very afraid of the weather. Today we're going to Kowloon to get our temple recommends renewed.

That would be nice to be able to hear Stanford Cline’s talk. If it's convenient we could change, but if not I don't care too much. The only sad thing is that he won't be able to hear mine. Ha ha.

I feel like you always get guilt-ed in to things like this.

Joseph,

I recall being less than enthusiastic about Graduation as well. Honestly looking back I think seminary graduation is much more meaningful than high school graduation. At this the end of your illustrious secondary academic career I am confident accolades are being showered upon you by adulatory fans school and state wide.

What classes are you going to be taking? You are generally more expert in this sort of data acquisition and analysis, so your perspective may be of value to me.

Don't say the word crap, we'll be roommates before too long and it won't go down well.

David,

That's a finely written talk, my boy. My favorite part is the line "If you feel unhappy about a commandment, pray for a change of heart to help you obey." That’s a real deep insight on the real reason that we pray, I think. In a talk that I gave in our sacrament meeting a couple weeks ago, I mentioned something similar along the lines of "You can always have faith that a prayer to overcome temptation is a righteous desire, and as the Savior taught in 3 Nephi 18 if you ask for that in faith, and are willing to do your part on it (e.g. pray with real intent) you will see miracles occur."

The jokes, of course, are the real meat of the talk.

I think that's a great insight about half-hearted obedience as well. I can testify as a missionary (and D&C 4 is a great missionary scripture) that if you serve your mission half-heartedly you will miss so many precious blessings. There is so much happiness in store for us if we can but learn to obey and truly seek to do the Lord's will. I know that I was definitely not perfect in this aspect before. I recall my attitude towards collecting fast offerings on summer days as being rather less than inspiring. But all the same I'm really grateful that at that time I was given a chance to serve, and I'm glad I chose to obey then because it helped me prepare to learn the spirit of obedience on my mission.

I don't want to be preachy, but I think a sincere reflection over our own lives, our duties, our motives, the rules we've been given (whether they be from heaven or from parents) and our level of obedience and devotion to them, would be a real valuable chance to be taught by the spirit. If we do it prayerfully and with a real desire to follow Christ more fully, I know that God will help us see how we could more fully obey his law. The sign of a great talk is real growth in the hearers (or the speaker nudge nudge wink wink). Thank you for the taih sing (I don't know how to translate that, it means like reminder but also a sort of recommitting or taih sing-ing of ourselves, leveling up?), David.

Rebecca,

Honestly I never thought our family could be considered rich enough to have people gold-dig around us. That’s an odd thought. Oh the trials of being popular and pursued by the many, your life must be so hard, Rebecca.

Just remember that those people all have fears and worries of their own, and though some may be very fake, some might really need a good friend or a good example. Hyrum Smith has a cool quote that goes something like "Charity is separating the man from his actions." Or in other words being able to love people despite what they do. I don't mean to sound judgmental or preachy, it's just I remember feeling the same way as you do towards some people. Sometimes while finding you'll talk to people who seem really sarcastic or cynical or uninterested, and then for some reason, maybe because we're missionaries or maybe the spirit, they just break down into tears and share some really heavy burdens with you. You’re a great example to your peers, Becca. Don't forget or underestimate the good you can do with your example. This last week of school may not be academically productive but I'm sure if you ask God's got some things that you could do.

Abby,

Thank you for ever detailed exposition of the current events back home. The stalling added nicely to the suspense. Well done. It's really funny to meet 12 year olds, because every time I talk to a kid who's 12 I think of how you are the same age. Very very odd. Usually they don't play violin as well as you or write with nearly the same descriptive power. Also kids in China are really really small, usually. They don't eat enough, sweat too much in the summer, and spend too much time taking tutorial classes, so they all look scrawny and bony. I swear you could take on two average 12 year olds from here in a fight and win.

By the way, now that the summers coming and you're more free, you should use your considerable planning skills and plan a trip to the temple again...

Love you all!

May 27, 2015 - I Was Spit Upon!

Well, that was a pretty anticlimactic email. I don't know exactly why you all sent me one sentence emails (I assume time was short? Or you don't love me?), but I would have thought in the next 2 or 3 days you would have reconsidered and sent more ( Or you don't love me?). It's fine. I'm not bitter.

This has been a pretty cool week. We were really busy last week with some Zone Leader stuff. We meet with the Stake Presidency every month or so, and discuss all the ward's needs and all the recent converts (RC) and such. Lots of paperwork to fill out from every ward. Let me explain why paperwork is so hard here. Everyone has a Chinese name, which we missionaries usually know as a sound nice and neatly coded in our Romanization system. But for official purposes, that Romanization is 不得 (not allowed). There is a specific British ping yam or Romanization that the government uses that doesn't actually describe the sound at all (just like Kowloon Tong is not close at all to the Chinese name) but is basically randomly decided at birth and can usually be guessed, unless the person is from Mainland originally in which case it reflects the Mandarin pronunciation which will be totally unfamiliar to us. Difficulty one.

Difficulty two is that we need not only the English name but the Chinese characters, which many missionaries don't know how to write, which are difficult to look up, and which may have multiple different characters for the same sound. There's a little girl who's an RC in our ward with the name 靜 Ching, but there are 3 Chings with the same sound and the same meaning.

Then add in that we need to find confirmation dates and priesthood ordination dates and home teachers and ages for each one, and that Elder Little and I have to collect all of them from a whole zone of very young missionaries, and it gets tricky. But honestly I love it; it's oddly fun to struggle through.

Our tri-panionship is now broken up; Elder Busby is training a native named Elder Chan, who is hilariously paranoid about eating left-over food because he's sure it will make us sick.

Other news, we had an awesome day on Monday. It was Buddha's birthday, so everyone was free, we met with two kids to eat lunch together and they opened up with "So what's the difference between your church and other churches?". We found them because I had bumped into one of them on 3 different occasions, and he felt like there was some real fate working there.

We've been planning our next Zone Training recently, which is going much smoother than last time, though we still take a long time to plan. Honestly our Zone is struggling with new investigators, so we're working on how to fix it.

And last but not least, I was spit upon! Yes, just like it says in the scriptures! I walked up to talk to an old man in a train station and he shouted something (probably profanity) and then spit upon me (though luckily it was blocked by my umbrella). He probably meant to insult me; I was rather honored by it. The scriptures take on a whole new meaning. I just need to be stoned now.

Mom,

The weather this week has been pretty crazy. It has rained more than Utah will in a whole year, I can guarantee. I don't know why, but people here are really scared of rain. And everyone always just says, "Hey, it's raining!" even when it's really obvious. So we do as well. It rained "Black Rain" on Tuesday, which means that it's big enough to flood things and close businesses. But the warning got canceled pretty quickly and we weren't where the action was.

Dad,

So our investigator A Chung who changed his name to A Lai just keeps standing us up and being flaky, so we're not scheduling him this week to see if he'll find us on his own or not. The Chi family is doing okay, but Brother Chi was feeling pretty stressed out because of how many commandments there are, and by the pace we were teaching. We had a really good lesson where we just listened, understood him, answered some questions, and resolved his concerns. Really sweet lesson.

This week we also taught a cool part member family, and last week one of our RC's, A Yung, brought both her kids to church, and we taught one of them last night. So things are going well, but we definitely need some more people progressing towards baptism.

Joseph,

Your comment reminds me of Omni 1:9.

David,

Make a water feature in the court yard and call it de_water.feature.SUPERBOSS

Rebecca,

Congratulations on making Dance Company. I don't know exactly what that entails but I do know that I saw them perform in many an assembly Though I don't understand dance, I do understand hard work And excellence It's a habit, not an event This is one sentence because there are no periods!

Abby,

I suppose the birthday party planning you sent me last time was so accurate and complete that there was no need for the typical detail rich Abby report.

One last message for 大家, which being translated is big family, or everyone.

We're about to go to the temple. I'm not the best example of temple worship because before my mission when I had lots of opportunities to go, I squandered them. And I feel there is still a lot I can do to recognize and receive all the blessing of the temple now. But I do know that it is a great blessing to have a temple on the earth. I look forward today to taking my questions and concerns and having a place to meditate and ponder about them. It's just a chance to put down my problems, serve another, and have spiritual rest. Go to the temple often and together if you can, and just enjoy the atmosphere. It's a free gift to us.

Elder Morrell

May 18, 2015 - Man, I Wish I Had More Time! 我愛你們! (I love you all!)

Hello, dear family. I've written a lot of email to you over the course of my mission; do I really need to keep sending them? You could re-read some of my old ones. I'm sure that there's lots of good stuff there. I used to complain a lot more consistently about you guys reading scriptures and going to the temple.

This week was super awesome, or, as we say in China, chiu kap sai leih. Obviously it was nice to talk to all of you on the phone, and later that day we had a miracle member present lesson that scheduled itself at the end of our P-Day. On Tuesday we had 6 lessons scheduled, though they didn't all come through. 6 lessons in one day is a lot of lessons. Recently we've not had a lot of time to go finding, which stands in stark contrast to the start of my mission. I remember back then most of our days were just finding, for at least 3 or 4 hours. If we get 2 hours straight now we count it long and blessed. Honestly if we actually spend an hour for lunch and an hour for dinner we call it a slow day. On Wednesday, for example, we did language evaluations for every new missionary in our zone, which took about 3 hours. I feel super weird doing language pass offs because I don't really look at myself as being qualified. It’s interesting.

This Thursday we had our Zone Conference, where President and Sister Hawks train us. It is President Hawks’ last Zone Conference. He's an amazing guy. I've never met anyone so passionate about obedience. To call him strict is really not an accurate description. He's not nitpicky, he's not Pharisaical, he's just really really passionate about obedience and powerful teaching. I think it's really been a blessing being in this tri-panionship, because there's a lot of power in Elder Busby and Little, and we're really able to teach powerfully, though there's obviously still room to improve.

Saturday we had a really cool experience. We went to visit a member, and on the way out suddenly decided to go to a restaurant called Tuen Mun Curry House (a delicious Indian curry house, I got the ox tongue. Yum.) Then on the way out, while walking home, Elder Little suddenly turned off the sidewalk and talked to some guy. We spoke for a moment and in 10-15 minutes taught about the Restoration and got a new investigator. The Spirit really is active, especially if you are willing to set high goals and let them be the focus of your day.

On Sunday that principle was again demonstrated. We had a goal to have 2 member present lessons and 1 new investigator, which we had all scheduled. We went to the Lord and promised we would do this if he would help us. If you recall we have two wards to attend right now, so we had absolutely no time to go finding. Well, at 9:00 the first lesson fell through, and at 12:40 the second one did as well. But we were doing what we were supposed to be doing that day, you could say perfect in our Sunday morning sphere. Randomly a member brought a referral to church who we taught between our ward correlation and sacrament, and Mr. Chi (who's been in mainland) felt impressed (or as he said "called by God") to come back to Hong Kong a day early on the high speed rail and attend church so that he could be baptized on his date. We started teaching them after church and couldn't find a member, and suddenly I felt prompted to ask a certain guy who was still there after church ended. We achieved the goal.

Mom,

It's interesting to think of you and Dad doing companionship inventory. In this tripanionship we have pretty good ones. I think I mentioned it before but the nicest thing about being will relatively experienced missionaries is that meetings, study time, comp inventories are all very edifying. I imagine you and Dad are the same, seeing as you’re a lot more experienced than the 3 of us in my companionship put together. By the way, we found out at Zone Conference that Elder Busby will train a native on Wednesday, so we will be split up again. Very sad.

We had a recently returned missionary speak in both our wards this Sunday. He was really good, the thing that impressed me the most about him was that he seemed to have really figured out how to effectively research and study out questions, and from that had a lot of really cool insights. I learned over the past couple Sundays the importance of being willing to learn, grateful, and humble, especially in church. Because we had to listen to so many talks and lessons, sometimes it would seem a bit boring. I've also noticed that I have a bad tendency to think that as a missionary I am more spiritually mature or knowledgeable than others, which obviously is false. It's hard to learn from Church if you're mentally criticizing others for poor speaking skills or other defects. But this last Sunday I did my best to humble myself and learn, and had an amazing Sunday. I got 2 full pages of notes from it.

Our Bishop called us up in the middle of sacrament meeting to speak, which was unexpected, but actually sort of fun. I hope my talk was okay, it felt decent. Maybe I just won't prepare anything for my homecoming talk, I'll just wing it.

Abby,

That sounds like a well planned out party. We have an activity coming up in August that I'm partially responsible for planning. I think you're better at planning than I am. It's a weakness of mine. Our P-days are usually pretty boring as well, because we just never do anything. We wanted to go get suits today, but couldn't because we're going to tea (ha ha, that's how they say dim sum in Chinese, it's literal translation is "drink tea") with a less active member.

2 questions. Would something go wrong if all the people went out to see the chickens at once? Would they be panicked or something? Also, I don't remember what “Minute to Win It” is.

Because you play violin I pretend to be a violin expert as a way to get people to start talking to me. Anytime I see anyone with a violin I tell them that my little sister plays violin. This week I stopped some guy and his daughter in the middle of the sidewalk, totally randomly, by saying that.

Rebecca,

How the heck did school finish so quickly? That's weird. Do you know that your voice literally sounded the most different on the phone? Not only the pitch of voice but the inflections, speech patterns, everything. It must have something to do with all the dancing. No one else's voice changed that much, and no one else dances as much as you do.

I remember Abby said you went to the temple recently. Have you gone again? Will you? Why wouldn't you? Hmm? Hmm?

I have to agree, I don't think you can explain ballet in writing.

David,

I do feel that a solid hour of piano is a lot more useful and productive than 5 12 minute slots. I did the same thing before, but in retrospect, and especially now that I've spent some time learning a new language, it's clear that learning for at least 30 or 40 minutes at a time is a lot more useful. How's the German going? I feel a lot more empowered in regard to learning languages now, I'm excited to learn me some German when I get a chance. This Wednesday on the way back from Zone Conference I talked to a guy from Mainland. My Mandarin is almost good enough to hold a real conversation with a reasonably patient person. It's super fun.

and as to the question about the smiley face, yes.

Joseph,

Recently because Elder Busby's knee has some problems we haven't gone running at all, aside from the many many times that we seem to run out of time in the evening and have to sprint back home to make it in on time. I have an odd proclivity to schedule things just close enough together that we have to rush, or manage to talk to one too many people while finding and almost be late. There's a hill under our apartment called the hill of dreams. We ran it 2 or 3 times this week. I love it.

The Hong Kong DSE test is finally done, so lots of people your age just don't have to go to school at all anymore. Today in companion study we were studying how to teach Lesson 5 with more power, because it often becomes a sort of rote presentation of information. But today as we practiced teaching about priesthood, I could really feel the power of it. The priesthood is an amazing gift. It is a chance to stand in the Lord's place and do what he would do. I really believe that it has power to do miracles, but that doesn't happen without preparation.

Dad,

As I said, an awesome week this week. Our investigator who mystically came to church is Mr. C, who, with his wife, is super awesome and they are preparing to be baptized. I'm just worried because he feels really strongly about his baptismal date, and we might have to move it back because he hasn't quite quit smoking yet. But he's got such amazing faith that I'm not too worried. Kelvin, from a while back, randomly called us and said that he wanted to meet again. He seems to have really changed a lot and is way more humble, is preparing much more intently than last time we met him. We have an investigator, A Lai, who used to be named A Chung but randomly changed his name. He's great, and every time we teach him I feel the spirit, and he seems really willing and ready to learn, but he stands us up consistently 50% of the time. I don't know if you ever had anyone like that. It’s annoying, but he's cool.

Love you all. Be grateful for all you have. You have a lot. I am so grateful I get to be a missionary. It's so worth it. Man, I wish I had more time.

May 11, 2015 - Happy Mother's Day

(We just got to talk to John on Sunday for Mother’s Day. Even all four grandparents were here. It was great to hear his voice and to think he’ll be home in just over 3 months. He’s working really hard until the end!)

Thank you guys. You are all so awesome. I really feel blessed to have such an amazing family. And thank you Mom and Dad for the advice. Not just about the suits. You guys are the best.

I don't have much to add, our investigators are doing pretty well. We're really busy so it's hard to meet them sometimes. Mrs. C was at church with her kids and we should meet them again this week, her husband is still in Mainland. We found a potential new family on Tuesday, the Chan family, who seem really cool. We originally had the husband scheduled for Church but he had to cancel, and we haven't gotten him again yet.

This is a copy of part of my weekly report to President Hawks:

"We had an amazing experience on Saturday evening. We had more finding that day and some lessons scheduled and we set some very high goals, but all our lessons fell through and by the evening we had about 1 hour of finding left and only one mediocre street lesson. So we decided that if we were going to reach our goal we needed to find a family. We went out and in about 15 minutes met a couple from Ukraine and Israel, brought them to the chapel and toured them around. It seemed perfect but they were too rushed to teach at that moment. I felt really bad because it seemed that we had failed our chance, but then on the way home we found another mom and her son, toured the chapel again, and scheduled them for church the next day. Then, on the way home (still 1 lesson short of our OL goal) we met a guy who turned out to live in our building and taught him in his house. It was amazing, and we felt like we could succeed and miracles would happen in a way that I've never felt before.

It was awesome. There was a certain feeling there that we could do things that we'd never done before. The last guy we taught was an older man, the type I'd usually try a bit and maybe pass over for time's sake. Elder Busby actually told him that we were rushed and asked if we could walk and teach at the same time. And he said yes. And Chinese people never let you into their homes; it's just not the culture. So the fact that we got that to happen was just amazing. There have been a few times like that this week where I just felt like faith was doing the work for us. I set a goal one day to talk to 10 people outside of finding, and I prayed intently that I would do my part talking to everyone if the Lord would help me succeed, and there were times when it seemed like people couldn't not talk to me.

That's what I wish I could have started to learn earlier in my mission, because 1 I know that if I can really do missionary work this way people will get baptized, and 2 it's extremely difficult and we need to prepare ourselves as a companionship to do it. Honestly working with that kind of faith is almost terrifying, because you have to commit yourself to a high goal. You can't set low goals and do it, because it won't exercise your faith, and you have to really care about and commit to the goal, because if you don't you won't exercise faith. But that's terrifying to do, and it forces a lot more introspection than I really want to have. But if I could do it..."

Anyway, that's just what we've been mulling over as a companionship. It's been great being in this trio. I've really enjoyed it. Love you all! Really, I really truly love you all. And Happy Mother's Day, Mom. You don't need to be perfect to be the best mom in the world. I love you.

May 4, 2015 - Why the Restoration Matters!

Elder Barker's Last PDay

Ida Chau gave the missionaries this meal in honor of Elder Barker

Dim Sum

Well, this week was pretty goodly, but strange. I had my last 3 days with Elder Black on Monday to Wednesday. We visited a super rich family in our ward. Their house had 2 stories, which might not sound like much, but believe me, there are probably more old ladies above the age of 95 than homes with 2 stories within a 15 mile radius of this library. So that was fun. Tuesday we had a very interesting district meeting because we announced our moves, which I'll get to in a moment. Wednesday we went to Crossroads, and helped them remodel the free trade shop in there. Crossroads is cool because they all love the Mormons and they fight over who gets to use us when we come to volunteer. Some guy treated us to this crazy good chocolate ice drink randomly. Honestly I would go even if there was a moderate fee to serve there. It's crazy fun. Did you know I know how to open a shipping container now? Yeah, there's a special way to open them.

Then Thursday. We went down to Kowloon Tong to the mission office to drop off Elder Black, who is speaking sign language on the island now, and Elder Loderup, who is finishing (Elder Loderup is a really cool missionary. He's by no means perfect, but I looked up to him since he served in Shatin and I was in Tai Wai. And he managed to pack all his earthly belongings into one 50 lb suitcase, so that was impressive.). Then I, and Elder Little, and Elder Busby headed home.

I am still in Castle Peak Bay, but now in a tripanionship with Elder Busby and Little (Elder Little served on the Island when I was at Chai Wan, so I know him a bit, Elder Busby's the previous Zone Leader with Elder Loderup, and from my group in the MTC!) and Elder Little and I are the Zone Leaders, Elder Busby is the District Leader. That was pretty unexpected. But it's been really fun so far. Because all three of us are relatively experienced, we've been able to have some really great lessons and set some awesome plans. It's going to be a powerful 3 weeks before we split up again. But we're ridiculously busy, because of Zone Leader things and serving 2 wards. We were at the chapel for about 10 hours yesterday. Went to church twice, had 2 ward correlation meetings, and gave a training in a stake mission leadership meeting. And we've been preparing our Zone training meeting like mad, because neither of us have been Zone Leader before. I haven't gone finding with them yet.

I'd like to share something that we have taught several members recently, and which I love to testify of, which is the apostasy. Everyone knows what it is, and most know why it happened, and many can tell you in great depth exactly how and when and where it happened, much more clearly and persuasively than I ever could. So I won't try to teach about the history. But when I teach investigators the apostasy, I'm honestly not too worried about the history either. Sure, I want them to understand that other churches are false, and that is very difficult to teach sometimes, but that's really not enough. For an investigator to care about the Restoration, they need to know really WHAT WAS LOST IN THE APOSTASY. So, what do you think?

Usually members will answer; prophets were lost, or scriptures, the organization of the church, priesthood authority. It's really true. All those things were lost. Have you ever thought of what that would mean to you? Mom and Dad, if you had no chance to be missionaries, if you knew you weren't sealed to your parents, or each other, or us kids, would you have made it through medical school or other challenges in your lives? Joseph and David, if you had no chance to repent, to come unto Christ and change, if you didn't know about the plan of salvation, who would you be right now? Where'd you be going? Rebecca, Abby, if you didn't know that you had a Father in Heaven, who loves you, and listens to your prayers even in the toughest and darkest times, could you be truly happy? I think if I didn't have a chance to know Jesus, to be a missionary, or to have hope for my future, I really don't know what I'd tell myself when things went wrong. I can't put it into words, and I'm no great writer or speaker to illuminate this idea, but I just want you to feel for a moment, and let the spirit tell you what it'd be like to live in the apostasy.

That is why the Restoration matters. And when people understand that (which is not often) they really understand the need for the Restoration, and they feel a need to know if it's true. I testify that Joseph Smith saw God. Through him the Gospel was restored. I know that God lives, and that families can be forever, and that forgiveness is possible, and that prayers will be answered. And though I'm a missionary, I say that as a normal person, just like you guys or anyone of your friends. It matters to me; I hope it matters to you and to everyone else.

And you all have those friends who are living in the apostasy right now. Their restoration hasn't happened yet. So I invite you to remember the blessings the Lord has given us, rejoice, and tell someone else. I know I'm not a great writer, but listen to the spirit of what I'm trying to say and do it, please.

Dad,

I never thought I'd be Zone Leader, and now that I am I don't know how you'd do it alone. Especially since we at least have Elder Busby to answer our questions. You were alone. It's been super stressful but really fun. We had time for only 30- minutes of personal study yesterday. I've also noticed I lie awake at night for a long time thinking...We'll see how this all pans out. We may be fired in a month or two.

Brother Chi and his family are doing great. He's getting ready for his baptismal date, but he's going to mainland soon, and we won’t be able to see him for a bit. His biggest challenge is quitting smoking, but he's got such great faith and is so teachable, I think he can do it much more easily than my previous investigators. Oh, by the way, Rachel from NTK got baptized! I heard that a few weeks ago.

The only other guy from CPB ward that we taught this week was A Chung but he changed his name to A Lai just to mess with me. He came to the last 2 hours of church on Sunday and was really interested in Temples. He's a bit flaky sometimes, but he's got really great, pure desire. Hopefully this coming week will be good for him.

I feel like you do in the sense of not being able to keep track of things to fix. We already have so little free time and now it's full of Zone Leader stuff. I have a big goal to read the Book of Mormon in Chinese, I'm now in Words of Mormon, but my time is seriously limited now.

Mom,

Our Mother's Day call should be on Monday, the 11th, 8:30 am my time. If that doesn't work than find a way, because I'm calling then. It should be about 35-40 minutes long. This will be my last call home. Super weird.

The weather’s finally been getting hot again. Summer is on its way. It's been really humid recently as well. The deodorant you sent last time is actually super effective. You wouldn’t' think it, but Chinese deodorant is really pathetic. It just doesn't work at all. So thank you. I spent like $200 (HKD don't worry) on a wart freezing thing because I've got a couple warts on my hand and I feel like it's awkward to shake hands. Sorry your email is so random, that's just what I had to say. I'll be more sincere on Mother's Day. But I really do love you.

Joseph,

I feel like I started to learn that only a little bit senior year and mostly on my mission, so that will serve you really well if you can really apply that in your life. I think you're a lot more mature than I was when I was your age...

You say you're my equal as if that was a good thing. Odd.

David,

First off, I want to say that I'm glad you weren't hurt in the car crash. I do mean the advice I gave last time, but as I was leaving the library I realized that my little brother (Chinese sai lou) was uninjured in a car crash and I didn't really even express any care. I really am glad you're safe. Keep limping on. Good on the German, keep up the legacy. Leaf blowers? Lawn trimmers? etc?

I can only imagine your exhaustion.

Rebecca,

I like how your victory at the tournament is such an expected thing. "Oh, by the way, we got first in everything, so that was nice." Have you ever heard my line of reasoning for why dance is not a sport? It's really not offensive, don't worry. The family we visited on Monday had a young girl, 12 year old, who loved ballet and jazz, so I told her you were better in every way. Just kidding. gong siu je! But it really was like being at home because she kept doing stretches everywhere and randomly standing up during dinner to do pirouettes and jumps.

Abby,

That was my bread you ate. Mine.

Our area near our house.

 Frozen yogurt place (expensive).

The Yau family (Rebecca, the girl is like you).

 Elder Little is super huge.  I feel very safe with him in our companionship)

Elder Busby