Cleaned for 4 hours. Nice!

大家好! Hey everybody!

I hope this past week has been full of wonderful fun for everyone. As for me, it's been a lot more of being inside, but 唔緊要。Just normal procedure for a covid mission 👍

On Monday for pday Sister Bohman and I got takeout from a nice little Vietnamese restaurant in Mong Kok. We had to eat it in a random little park and a lot of people stared at us but the food was great so no biggie. After that we went to a giant mall and got lost in Ikea for a good 45 minutes, looking for pillows and then rounded off the day by getting groceries and carrying them for the whole 20 minute walk home. Definitely more swole after that endeavor.

On Tuesday some guys came and worked on our toilet for a few hours so it was pretty noisy in our apartment. That's okay though beause it was an excuse to go outside for a bit :D. We got my favorite Korean fried chicken for lunch so that was pretty epic but we also had to stop teaching our friend Tom so that was...less epic. But it's okay because I know that Heavenly Father has a plan for him and that even though we won't be teaching him anymore, we will have opportunities to teach other people 😊 Other than that we also had LPOs and I passed off Plan of Salvation, yay! Next will be Gospel of Jesus Christ 💪That night we also had a dance activity over zoom and it was so fun! We watched a video of an aerobic workout with a guy speaking Mandarin as the instructor and it was pretty cool. Hopefully next time some of our friends can come and dance with us too!

On Wednesday we had the first zone conference of 2022! It was so fun and so inspirational! President Chan talked a lot about the power and authority that comes from our calling and then we had some awesome trainings about teaching powerful 5 minute lessons to people and asking "golden questions" that will help them think more about the gospel! Also President Chan taught us about Chinese New Year and how to do this cool calligraphy thing called fai cheun. I thought that was so sick because you don't get that kind of stuff in other missions. We left that zoom meeting so pumped up and motivated! We didn't do too much else that day but we did get to talk to our bishop for the first time (he's a busy guy) and do some weekly planning which was great! Oh and I forgot to mention the best part! We were able to talk with our new friend Leslie for the first time!! We called her in the evening and got to get to know her a bit better which was so good! She's very excited to learn more about the church, she just doesn't have too much time right now so we'll have to find a time that's good for her. So hyped for that though!

On Thursday we got to leave the apartment which was ~awesome~. We went to the Kowloon Tong chapel to record some muscial numbers that we could send our ward members. It took us a lot of takes and retakes but we finally got it after an hour and a half haha. Once we finished that, we went home, finished our weekly planning (four days later, yes I know), and did some sweet Facebook finding. I got called by a random guy in the Philippines but thankfully that was the craziest thing to happen that day.

Now Friday was fun because it was deep clean day!!!🤠💪🧼🪥🧹 Basically the mission was like, "you must clean your apartment for four hours straight and if you don't pass the inspection then you'll have to clean for all of pday" so we scrubbed this baby good. We each took a room and got going and the time flew by honestly. There's something so therapeutic about cleaning. Even though we were pretty dead by the end of it, it definitely felt good. After that we celebrated with some Mcdonalds for dinner and then finished the night with some member calls. One of our less actives, Lam jimuih, actually picked up the phone and we got to talk to her about prayer which was so awesome!! It was a good day.

Saturday was the best though. We got to finally see Chan jimuih!! She's been in the hospital for the past few weeks and had surgery on her stomach but is home now so we went and paid her a visit! We got to talk to her about the Book of Mormon and she said that she believes it's true!! 🥳 Then we asked if she wants to follow Jesus Christ's example and be baptized and she said YES!! I'm soooo excited!! I've been working with Chan jimuih since the beginning and seeing how strong her faith is is so amazing! Teaching her has truly been a testimony to me that even if my Cantonese is 唔太好 and her Cantonese is really hard to understand, the Spirit is still able to testify of the truthfulness of the gospel and people can feel that! We didn't set a date for Chan jimuih yet because she kinda has a feeding tube attached attached to her right now, but we're going to keep meeting with her and then as soon as she's recovered, we'll get it done! That wasn't all from that day though, we also got to have our first lesson with a new friend! Her name is Leonora and she was actually referred to us by a member from the Peninsula branch! She had a bit of trouble understanding us because she was in a kind of noisy place but she said she's super excited to learn more! Such a good day!!

Sunday was pretty busy as usual. We actually went to Chan jimuih's house and watched the church zoom with her because she doesn't really know how to use zoom herself, and it was really good! I think she enjoyed it. Then we went home and had lunch before our peninsula sacrament meeting which was also so good! The talks were about the importance of making and keeping covenants and they reminded me of just how special it really is that we get to make covenants with God! I love my covenants and how they bring me closer to Him and I really just hope that I can help others have that experience as well. After that we were able to have another first time lesson with another member referral named Jocelyn! She was so sweet. We talked about the Restoration and she said that she could really feel the Spirit 😊 We also had a few of the members join in the call and they were wonderful support. Such a cool experience! We also got to meet with our friend Leslie again today and although there were a lot of technical difficulties, we were able to teach her about the Restoration and she's super excited to start reading the Book of Mormon! I'm so grateful to get all of these new friends that we can share the gospel with ❤ I know it has strengthened my testimony even more that this gospel is so true and so good!

That's pretty much it for the events of this week! There were so many miracles and wonderful things that happened so I'm really glad. Now for my spiriitual thought I'd like to share something I read from one of President Nelson's talks back in 1997 called Endure and Be Lifted Up.

He talked about enduring to the end and how sometimes people will find it really hard to do so. To follow Christ your whole life and not give up is a committment that has to continue to be re-established every day. But I love what President Nelson said in this talk.

"When we know without a doubt that Jesus is the Christ, we will want to stay with Him. When we are surely converted, the power to endure is ours."

I know that this is true. As I've continued to develop my relationship with Jesus Christ, I've been strengthened beyond belief. I know that life is hard and you all may face challenges that shake you to the core, but I also know that you CAN maintain faith through all of it! It comes as you continue to gain that knowledge that Jesus really is the Christ. That He is the Savior and He is the way back home to our Heavenly Father. If you feel like your faith in this isn't as strong as it could be, then I invite you to pray. Ask Heavenly Father if Jesus Christ really is the Savior and if He does love you and I know that you will get the answer.

You are all amazing children of God and I love you so much! I hope you have a fantastic week and continue being amazing!

Happy Chinese New Year!! 🐉🧨🧧

丁姊妹

Sister DelHoyo

First lesson with our new friend Jocelyn! (The left one in the bottom right) plus Sister Lou (on the right of her), Sister Alice (bottom left), and Sister Gerlyn (top right)