This is Omicron

大家好！

It's been a bit of a stressful week to be honest but we're still moving forward so 加油！

Monday for pday Sister Bohman and I went to the mission office to meet up with a bunch of other missionaries to try and set up a weekly pday D&D campaign! There were so many people interested who have never played before so I was so excited! We spent like 3 hours making characters and I wasn't even able to make mine because I was trying to help everyone else haha. I ended up making mine a few days later but then our zone leader messaged into the chat that he had mentioned it to our mission president and he called it SECRET COMBINATIONS and had it BANNED. Our ZL says that we might still be able to do it as a zone but still that was such a let down :') I hope that all of those first time players will get to play at some point because it's so fun! But anyways now on to real missionary work stuff haha

On Tuesday we had zone lunch together, district council, and LPOs (for the first time again in like a month haha). I did the Book of Mormon LPO (explaining what the Book of Mormon is, where it came from, and how to gain a testimony that it's true) and I think I did pretty well! I made a few small mistakes but Sister Santos still passed me so that's sweet :) I have to teach Plan of Salvation next time so that's a little stresso espresso but it'll be aight. After all of that jazz, Sister Bohman and I went to a member dinner with the Wen family in Tuen Mun which is kinda super far away. We had to take the MTR and then ride a bus for an hour and then take a mini bus to the house. We got a little bit lost but made it in the end (with hungry bellies). Sister Wen was super awesome and fed us lots of great homemade food! I tried adobo (a classic Filipino food) for the first time and it was so good! Definitely a little more bone than I normally like but the meat was amazing. We also got to meet Sister Wen's daughter in law who is Japanese! She doesn't know any Chinese either so she sympathizes with us haha but her English was really good because she served her mission in Arizona. She and her husband also both went to BYU Hawaii so they had fun talking with Sister Bohman about that. We shared a nice little message about missionary work with them and I could already tell that they're awesome missionaries but I hope that our message just increased that drive even more! By the time we finally left, it was already getting kind of late so we got home a little after when we should've but it's okay because it was such a great time :)

On Wednesday we didn't do anything too crazy but we practiced some music in Kowloon Tong for some church stuff and facebook stuff and then did some sweet finding and weekly planning. While finding I got to have a pretty long conversation with someone! He knew some English so thankfully he didn't make it too hard for me to understand him. We didn't really get to talk about the gospel but Sister Bohman got to talk a bit about the Plan of Salvation with someone so that's awesome!

Thursday also wasn't too eventful. We practiced music for two hours in Kowloon Tong (which is the longest I've practiced since I started my mission) and then just did some more weekly planning.

Friday was a little stessful haha. We went to Ho Man Tin and called our friend Emily for a lesson but she was kind of busy at the moment so we had to push the lesson back a bit. When we finally did get to teach her we started going into the time when we were supposed to go and see Chan jimuih so I was a little anxious. The lesson itself with Emily went great though. We helped her download Gospel Library and then were going to teach her about the ten commandments but she started talking about how guilty she feels for not being able to go to church other than the past week. So we decided to switch the lesson to reviewing repentance. We taught her very simply and clearly about it and she thought it was so cool that when we repent we just talk directly to God instead of in the Catholic church where you confess to a priest. She said that she would try repenting that night and she did! She texted us the next morning saying that when she repented she was able to feel instant peace and comfort. She talked about how amazing it was that her guilty feelings were removed right away. I'm so happy that we were able to help Emily have that experience :) Sadly we found out that she lives on Hong Kong Island and so we have to pass her off to the other sisters there but I'm very grateful to have been able to see her progression thus far! After we finished teaching her we went to visit Chan jimuih but she ended up not being home and she wasn't answering her phone. We just recently found out that she's in the hospital and had surgery on her stomach so any prayers towards her quick recovery would be greatly appreciated! 🙏 Sister Bohman and I did some music practice after that and then we got a message from the mission president in our mission chat saying that the Omnicron variant has infected a lot of people and so for at least the next two weeks in person church has been cancelled and we can't do any sports activities either. So sad :'( It 's pretty crazy to have all of this happening at once. I'm praying that it'll be resolved quickly. Other than that we also did some member calls that night and some old people yelled at me and called me a white person so that's great :D

On Saturday we had a lesson with Yip Taai and that was okay. I'm getting the feeling that we might have to drop her because it doesn't seem like she's very willing to keep commitments or put in too much effort into the gospel right now so she just might not be ready. Aside from that though, Sister Bohman and I did some music practice and then went to the store to get our apartment's emergency supply of food. We had to carry so much stuff home it was pretty difficult but we made it out alive.

Now yesterday (Sunday) was definitely the craziest this week. We taught a member a lesson but he seemed kind of stressed and didn't have much time so it was a little rushed. Then he ended up having to leave before we finished so that's a rip. After that we had our two church meetings over zoom and then taught a lesson to our friend Emma. It was awesome to get to meet with her because we haven't been able to for the entire time that I've been in the area. We had a really good lesson reviewing the Restoration and invited her to read the Book of Mormon and pray to ask if it is true. She said she will so I hope she gets an answer! After that Sister Bohman had a language exchange with someone over video call and then we got to have a zoom sacrament meeting with President Chan and all of the sister missionaries so that was cool. After that we started reporting our numbers to our district leader but then realized that the Uchtdorf devotional for the Asia Pacific area was starting so we quickly hung up with him and got onto that. It was SO GOOD. I love hearing from Elder and Sister Uchtdorf. Such good insight and it definitely made me feel so spiritually uplifted. After the devotional was over we did some English evaluations over phone call for some of our ECG students and then had dinner. Thankfully the rest of the night was pretty chill but it was definitely a crazy day.

That's it for the events of this week! As for my spiritual thought I'd like to share three things that Elder Uchtdorf invited us to do.

1. BECOME FIRMLY ANCHORED IN THE ROCK OF JESUS CHRIST

-What can you do now to strengthen your faith in Jesus Christ?

2. KNOW THAT YOU ARE NEEDED

-You make a difference in the world! Don't be afraid to reach out to others and invite them to come and enjoy the blessings of the gospel!

3. TRUST GOD, THAT HE WILL GUIDE YOU

-God has promised us that He will always be with us. As we continue to seek His direction he WILL guide us in every aspect our lives

I invite you to ponder on these things this week. I know that they are true and they can help you :)

I love you all and hope that you are staying healthy! Feel free to shoot me an email anytime 😁

丁姊妹

Sister DelHoyo