Just like the angles 📐👼

 大家好！

It has been another eventful week here in the China, Hong Kong mission! This week we had some exciting exchanges, some delicious food eaten, and some buses almost missed so lets dive in shall we?

Comp Pic

For pday last week Sister Bohman and I had a very chill day. We just called our families, went grocery shopping, and hung out at the apartment. I even got to take a nap so a pretty good day I'd say.

On Tuesday it was district council day per usual so Sister Bohman and I had lunch at Kowloon Tong with our zone and then separated into our districts for council. Our council was pretty uneventful honestly, we just listened to a talk together for the whole time. But the good news is that Elder Lam, our DL, brought us all loh maih chih! (Mochi with stuff inside of them) We had mango mochi with mango inside and then peanut butter mochi with like coconut and stuff inside.

Hong Kong Skies

They're both honestly so good. We played some hot seat too but no one asked any really spicy questions so it was quite chill overall. After that it was LPO time and it was my first time teaching about the Book of Mormon so I wasn't really sure how to act going into it. I felt pretty okay about my performance but I think I definitely have areas for improvement. Sister Santos (my LPO partner/evaluator) liked what I did and said it was pretty good overall and just gave me a few corrections. I want to try again though so I will be doing the same one next week. Then that night when Sister Bohman and I were doing some weekly planning, we got a call from our branch president and I was hoping he was calling to invite us to dinner but instead he just invited us to both speak on Sunday haha. I was just glad that it would be in English and not Chinese. Other than that, we had an apartment dinner where we made homemade Mexican food which was so yummy! I'm going to miss my apartment mates when they're gone :')

Me!

On Wednesday we had a pretty chill day of talk writing and studying but we also got to go out for some finding which was good. Then we had our last apartment FHE before Sister Wong and Sister Chan would leave/move. Sister Wong was finishing her mission and going home and Sister Chan was moving apartments to be with her new trainer now that she's officially out of MTC. We played a fun homemade version of headbands together while listening to music and it was great!

Lunch on exchanges with Sis. Santos    

Thursday we had choir practice so we headed to Kowloon Tong for that and Sister Bohman and I also started practicing an arrangement of O Holy Night that some of the sisters in Peninsula want to do with us. The sad part of the day was we had to say goodbye to Sister Wong. She will be dearly missed but I know she will do great as she goes home and heads to school. Sister Bohman and I went home after that but I realized I forgot my phone so that was annoying haha. Thankfully Sister Peterson and Sister Evans who were still at the chapel were able to bring it back home with them. Sister Bohman and I also got to go finding that day and we ended up joining two high school girls in passing around a volleyball! They were both quite nice and we gave them our number but didn't get theirs in return. I hope that they might reach out to us sometime!

Me and Sis Bohman on video call

That night, Sister Bohman and I were supposed to teach our English class which the elders in our ward and Sister Jenkins (the last sister left in quarantine) joined us for, but no one ended up showing up! So all of us just chatted with each other and played a game of 2 truths and a lie. It was a good time.

On Friday Sister Bohman, as the choir director, needed to travel to Hung Shui Kiu (an hour and 20 minutes away) for the other choir's choir practice but I'm not in that choir so we ended up having a little exchange with Sister Santos and her companion Sister Morris who also had to go to the practice. It was kind of weird because Sister Morris was Sister Bohman's last companion and Sister Santos was my last companion but it was honestly super fun. Sister Santos and I got lunch together and then traveled to her area in Kwun Tong where we did a long 2 hour straight walk finding. I definitely burned all my calories there. But then we found a gaak jai beng place (gaak jai beng is a waffle folded in half with peanut butter, sugar, and condensed milk inside aka my favorite thing here) so I gained them all back haha. We had some interesting conversations during that finding. We met one guy that stopped us because he saw I was American and he said his son was in America.

ECG Zoon full of Missionaries

He started talking about American politics (mind you this was in Chinese so it was very hard for me to understand) and that was a little weird to be hearing about that stuff while I'm in a foreign country. But he was also Christian and so we were able to interest him in coming to one of our activities and gave him our phone number as well :D. Finding here is funny because right when someone finds out you're a missionary or sees your tag, 80% of the time they'll be like "no thanks, I'm good" or "I'm not Christian" or they'll just walk away very fast :'). I think the walk finding was pretty good overall though. We went to find the bus stop after that and as we were walking to it I saw our bus drive by. I pointed at it and looked at Sister Santos and all she said was "run". We booked it to the bus stop and thankfully we were able to make it as people were getting on. It was exhilarating to say the least. After that we met Sister Morris and Sister Bohman at the Ho Man Tin chapel so we could exchange back for sports night and we had a lot of fun there! It was Sister Bohman's first time and she loved it. One of the girls that always comes, Carrie, was a bit sad to find out that Sister Santos moved but I tried to spend lots of time with her so she knows I'm here for her too. Her and I played a fun game of 2 on 2 basketball against Elder Tan and Elder Morgan and they totally smoked us but Carrie held her own because she's a baller 😎 After sports night ended, Sister Bohman and I went to Sister Santos/Sister Morris' apartment and exchanged again to start our full 24 hour exchange. The next night would be their concert and so we thought to just do a full exchange for that.

Finding Selfie

On Saturday Sister Santos and I did some good studies and had lunch with the other sisters in that apartment, Sister Yamane (from my MTC district) and Sister Madson, which was a lot of fun. Then Sister Santos and I traveled to Wan Chai where we got to help out with a super cool chapel tour! They had this local tour group of 30 people come and see the chapel for a religious diversity tour they were doing. It was honestly so amazing because we do finding all the time and never find people even interested to hear what we say but now we had 30 people in the church building who were all there to learn more about the church! They asked a lot of really hard questions about, for example, the word of wisdom,  how adopted kids are sealed to families, why not everyone can go into our temples, etc etc.  It was really interesting and a little tough sometimes but I could tell that these people really wanted to know why we believe what we believe. They were all given folders to take home with different materials like a plan of salvation pamphlet, a cop of the articles of faith, etc. as well as a copy of the Book of Mormon and I don't know if they'll go home and look at it at all but the important thing is that seeds have been planted and these people will be able to think back on the feelings they had that day in the chapel! I even heard that a lot of people wanted the elders' numbers and one of the elders even got someone else's number! I'd say that's a success. Sister Santos and I went home after that and had dinner together and did some call finding before Sister Bohman and Sister Morris came and we exchanged back.

We were on this group call and
got this funny pic where two of
 the elders lined up perfectly to make
themlook line one person.

Sunday was a busy day as usual. Sister Bohman and I had to go early because we were supposed to have a member lesson before church. We remembered that we needed to have a sister sit in with us because the member is a brother so we asked a lady from a different ward if she could and she said yes. Then we looked around for our member brother but couldn't find him anywhere! I looked on my phone contacts to try and call him but couldn't find his number at all. We guessed that he must have forgotted and then went and told the sister that she didn't have to help us anymore and we thanked her for being willing to. I was pretty annoyed after that because we went to church early and did all that for no reason but we just moved on to doing studies after that until it was time for Kowloon City's sacrament meeting. Sister Bohman had to bear her testimony but she did great :) After the meeting ended, we went to the cultural hall and practiced our talks and I practiced some music too and then we went back down for Peninsula's sacrament meeting. Sister Bohman spoke first and she did great! I really loved her talk and it was very personal. It made me feel a bit bad about my talk because I felt like I didn't have as much of a touching experience to share but I think mine went good as well. It was my first time giving a talk by just following some bullet points instead of reading something out and I was kind of nervous about it but I barely even had to look at my points. Lots of members afterwards thanked both Sister Bohman and I for speaking and President Hansen said that our talks were exactly what he had hoped for so I felt good about it after that. Sister Bohman and I then had a lesson with Arnold where we taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ! He had a lot of questions as always but they were good questions and I think we were able to answer them well. We invited him to pray about the importance of baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost but then he started praying right then and there and Sister Bohman and I were kind of like ??? But we just went with it and it still worked out haha. I hope he continues to pray this week and build his faith because I know that life gets hard sometimes but faith is what really will push us through everything that comes. Sister Bohman and I headed home after that but the bus wasn't announcing the stops and so we almost didn't get off in time! Luckily the bus driver didn't leave super fast and we were able to ask him if it was the right stop and he said yes. Blessings! We had a pretty chill night after that other than having correlation with the bishops wife and the elders. That kind of stressed me out because I was worried I wouldn't understand and wouldn't be able to speak enough but it went fine and the elders were able to help out a lot too. 

Gaak jai beng!

As for a quick update on our other friends, we haven't been able to get in contact with Chan jimuih this week which is a little concerning. We called her multiple times but she didn't answer and then she didn't come to church this Sunday. Any prayers for helping us find her would be much appreciated! With Yip Taai things are pretty much the same. We haven't been able to call her much but she's still progressing very slowly and isn't super open with us yet. I really hope she will open up more but I know that it's in the Lord's hands.

It's Christmas Y'all

That's pretty much it for this week! The work is hard and the language is hard but I'm trying to keep a positive attitude and just do what I can each day. I hope you all are enjoying the Christmas season so far! I'd love to hear from you :) You're in my prayers always!

P.S. the reason my subject line is what it is is because President Chan sent a message to our mission chat congratulating the Hung Shui Kiu choir on their performance and said they sound "just like the angles" and I've been laughing about it for the past two days so you're welcome.

Now to end my email, this week I want to share a scripture I feel inspired to share from 

Mosiah 25:22 which says

22 And thus, notwithstanding there being many churches they were all one church, yea, even the church of God; for there was nothing preached in all the churches except it were repentance and faith in God.

In our world today there are many religions with different beliefs and opinions but I know that there is one true church. God is a god of truth and He would not confuse His words as to make many different churches who believe similar but different things. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is God's one church. It is His Son's church. And it is only through following His restored gospel which teaches of repentance and faith that we can not only return back to Him but receive a pure and everlasting happiness that surpasses anything we've ever felt before. This is the testimony which is in me and I plead any and all who question if my words are true to seek for yourself. Read the Book of Mormon and pray to ask God if this really is the church of Jesus Christ and it will be revealed to you. I say these things humbly in the name of the Savior, Jesus Christ, amen.

丁姊妹

Sister DelHoyo