MTC is over

 Léihdeih hóu! 

This week has been super busy and super emotional haha, but we finally made it! Week 9 of my 9 week missionary training is over and I will be departing this week into the field!

First I need to address the info we have as of now. My visa is indeed approved, but they can't ship it from Hong Kong directly to me. It needs to go from Hong Kong to Salt Lake City and then from there to me. We called the travel department to clarify a few things and they honestly don't know when exactly they will get my visa. It could take a week or it could take four, but since we don't know, they can't make plans yet for me to go to Hong Kong. Instead, I've received flight plans to Denver and will be leaving this Tuesday and arriving at around 3pm. The good news is, however, Sister Johnson will be arriving just one minute after me so we will be able to meet in the airport and go to the mission home together. I have no idea who my companion will be or which ward I will be serving in, but I guess I will know when I get there.

As for everyone else, other than Elder Ng, they are all still going to Hong Kong on Thursday. They got their hotel reservations and it was a bit sad because they were all talking to each other in class about who they're assigned to quarantine with or sit next to on the plane. Apparently there's a Mandarin speaking district going the same day as them and they are sitting next to, or rooming with some of them. It was just a little sad because they will already be in Hong Kong and be able to experience it while I will be in the great expanse of Colorado. I know I'll get there too soon but it's still a little sad to not be able to be there with them.

I'm not sure exactly how long Sister Johnson and I will be in Colorado. The travel department wasn't very clear about that. There's a possibility that we'll be there 6 weeks until the next district leaves, or maybe they'll just send us whenever we get our visas. We'll just have to wait it out and see. As for the mission itself, Sister Johnson and I will be getting english name tags and in Colorado we might have the opportunity to drive so we have to bring driving forms. Sister Johnson also found out that we have to wash the car every Pday and hot wax it every other Pday. That'll be interesting. She also said that currently they're doing transfers every two weeks so if we do stay for 6 weeks then we'd end up having 3 transfers. That's pretty crazy. I don't know what the future hold for me in Colorado, but you're all on this ride with me so I suppose we'll find out together.

My goal for these next few days leading up to when I leave will just be to get everything I need and figure out how to pack it all without having any excess weight and in a way that I can actually move it all by myself. Fun times of tetris-like packing ahead of me.

But anyways, that's what's going on in the future, let's talk about what we did this week.

For the most part it was review, but we did some fun activities as well. One of the activities we did was where we each went in order, saying a sentence that applied a grammar principle we learned, and we had to connect them into a big story. We did this twice and it was pretty funny. The first story was about Sister Yamane (Má jímuih) poisoning all the bōlòh baau (pineapple buns) that Sister Decker (Daaih jímuih) had made, killing all of us. But then it turned out to all be a dream👀. Our second story was about me giving Sister Peterson (Chàhn jímuih) a haircut and cutting all her hair off. She got really mad at me but then Elder Ng (Ngh jéunglóuh) stole her dog. She ran after them and then her dog who was trained to escape, bit Ngh jéunglóuh and ran away! Chàhn jímuih found her dog but the dog was so shocked by how she looked that it just "accepted death" (jipsauh séimòhng). It was pretty wild haha and we did it all in Cantonese!

Another we did this week was in Brother Ng's class. He challenged us in groups to come up with a short 3-4 minute devotional. He said "you can show a video or sing a song or share a scripture, just whatever you think would be good". When I got into my group, I was with Sister Johnson, Sister Yamane, and Elder Ng, aka what I like to call No Visa Gang (except Sister Yamane got her visa so she doesn't count anymore 🙄). Sister Johnson has a hymn book that's in Cantonese and has the pingyam in it so we decided to use it to sing a song. She took a picture of the I Am a Child of God lyrics and practiced singing it a little bit and then came up with things we could say about how we're God's children. The other group shared a video about a Deaf girl who learned that she was a child of God and then they all kind of said something about it and I knew ours was going to be similar haha. We said our little bits, then Sister Johnson counted down from 3 and we sang. It was a little hard over zoom, but it was still fun haha. Everyone thought it was cool so I was happy with it.

Another thing we did this week was play battleship but our ships were grammar principles and instead of doing numbers and letters down the sides, we got to pick words. We were in partnerships and me and my partner, Sister Decker, decided to do food across the top and colors down the side. We faced off against Sister Korth (gwok jímuih) and Elder Ng who did food down the side and weather across the top. It was really funny because gwok jímuih went into it all confident and then the two of them kept on missing on like every turn haha. In the end we both missed a lot though. Our team hit four of their ships and their team only hit two of ours, but we both had so many misses haha. If we missed on our turn, we had to compliment the other team, and if we hit, then that team had to use the grammar principle we hit in a sentence. It was really fun and we laughed a lot at some of the compliments like, "I like the stuffed animals in your background." 

As for more serious things, Sister Richardson and I taught our last two TRC lessons this week, one in Cantonese and one in English. The Cantonese one was probably the best we've had! We were able to talk in pretty much all Cantonese and understand each other. We taught about the Book of Mormon and the Restoration and then at the end of the lesson we invited her to read the Book of Mormon and gave her a link to the pdf of it that had english and cantonese. She was very accepting and excited. As for our English TRC, it was pretty weird. She was mostly interested in just chatting and not necessarily learning a specific lesson. We were trying to teach about our relationship with God as well as the Book of Mormon but she was kind of confused about it. Then she cut us short about ten minutes before our time was up. It was okay, it just wasn't great.

The hardest day was definitely the last day of MTC. In our morning class we shared scriptures of our choice and our testimonies and it was so powerful. I cried a lot. Then in our afternoon class we just talked about what we were most grateful for over MTC. Brother Ng talked about how thankful he was that we've been a good support group for his brother and that he knows that we're great missionaries. He cried a bit and that made us all cry. It was really just sad to have to say goodbye for the last time. I just hope I can meet them all in Hong Kong very soon.

I'm just so grateful for my entire MTC experience. I've grown so close to my district and I love them all so much. I know I'd love nothing more than to eat bō lòh baau with them in Hong Kong.

I'm not sure what my Pday will be now that I will be in Colorado, but I will be sure to continue to email you guys about my adventures on each Pday. I'm so grateful for all your love and support and for my journey so far as a whole and the amazing things that are still yet to come.

Alma 5:14

14 And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?

I know that our Father in Heaven is looking out for us! As we continually work to be the best we can be, He will bless us.

Much love,

丁姊妹

(Sister DelHoyo)

We all decided to go into class with towels on our heads and make Brother Ng and Brother Lau do it with us haha

Last picture of last morning class :(

Last picture of last afternoon class :(