This week marks 9 months of me being a missionary and 6 months since I got out of quarantine! The time has honestly sped by, it's so crazy! I'm so grateful for what a blessing this experience has been so far and I'm so hyped to see what the next 9 months will bring!
Now onto my normally scheduled, weekly update. This week felt like it went by so fast! The days can be slow, since we're mostly inside, but then before I know it, it's already Sunday again!
Last Monday for pday we had another very chill day so nothing really to report other than some fun game playing and dumpling eating.
Tuesday was pretty chill as well. Sister Ho and I went down by the pier where we saw another GIANT jellyfish so we were pretty excited about that. We did some finding hours as well but didn't really have too much success. We DID get to call and talk to a member we haven't met before though which was pretty cool. He's 16 so he was very chill and we were able to convince him to share a spiritual thought at the game night activity on Saturday so that's awesome!
Wednesday was my ~9 month mark~ yay! It was also ~zone conference~ double yay! We had a great zone conference over zoom with lots of good wisom given by President Chan. We talked about how to have more meaningful prayers, how to develop more hope, and how to maintain happiness even in difficult times. Other than zone conference, we had some good studies and then we wanted to get dumplings for dinner but when we walked to the dumpling place we saw that it was closed
Instead, Sister Ho and I got some pho from a Vietnamese place and it was pretty good. Then that night we had our ECG where we taught about careers and school stuff. I never realized how similar the words "celery" and "salary" are until that day.
On Thursday we found out that there's another dumpling place of the same company that's closer to us and is still open so y'already know we went there for lunch
We did three hours of finding that day and we actually had some good success! Two different guys wanted to learn more about our church. We haven't been able to set anything up with them yet but I'm crossing my fingers that we'll be able to soon. Other than that, we also got to have another lesson with Gwok Sin saang which went pretty well! He still forgets to pray a lot but we talked some more about it with him and I hope that it inspired him to try more this week. We also got to have a member lesson with a family named the Laus and they were soooo sweet! I got to lead the lesson and I think it was the best one I've done and they really enjoyed it. It's moments like that which remind me I really am doing well as a missionary.
On Friday we had another little exchange!! This time I went with Sister Myers and Sister Ho went with Sister Robison. Sister Myers and I had a lot of fun together doing roleplays in part Mandarin part Cantonese, eating Thai food for lunch, and talking about the joys of Facebook finding. It was a party. After we exchanged back, Sister Ho and I taught our friend Leih SS (Sin saang) again and we've decided that it's time for us to drop him. Some people just aren't ready to receive the restored gospel into their lives and right now, he doesn't have the humility to. We will continue to pray for him and stay in touch but we'll let God take care of him for now. I know that even though it's sad, having to stop teaching someone, God will use it as an opportunity for us to find even more people to teach
. Other than that, we also had our first stake wide FHE activity over zoom which was pretty interesting. Sister Ho and I had created games in advance that we could play, but once we got there, we saw that it was all adults and there were no kids like we had prepared for
So we tried to do a game of pictionary with them but even then, barely anyone wanted to participate. It's fine :').
On Saturday I had my LPO which was really scary because I'm getting into the commandment lessons now! I taught Follow the Prophet and the Word of Wisdom and I actually did better than I thought I would. I feel like I always teach better in LPOs than I do in real lessons
You can't pass on the first try so I have to do it again this week but I should be able to pass it pretty quickly I think. After that, we had a lesson with our friend Olina and that went pretty well. She hasn't really been praying recently, because she keeps forgetting, but we talked more about prayer and how it's a way for God to be able to hear us directly and help us and I hope that now she'll want to pray more this week. That day we also got to have a fun dance activity and game activity. Sister Ho and I led the dance activity where we taught two dances and it was really fun, even if there were only like two people there
There weren't many people at the game activity either but we played two truths and a lie, pictionary, and werewolf which was pretty cool. And then one of the members from our ward was nice enough to cheng (treat) us for dinner! She got us so much food it was so sweet and we definitely ate a lot since fast Sunday was the next day! Speaking of fasting, we were also able to have another lesson with Sunny, his brothers, and Thomas where we talked about fasting and tithing. We asked if they wanted to try fasting the next day and they said yes! And then Sunny actually did it! He was like "it wasn't too hard
". Sunny is so golden it makes me so happy. He just has such great faith and willingness to keep our invitations and continue learning more.
Sunday was a pretty normal day. We had our normal church meetings and studies which were great, and then we got to do a little finding as well. We didn't have any immediate success but we did talk to one guy who seemed very sad. He said that he hasn't been happy in a long time and that things with his family and the pandemic have been very hard recently. We testified to him about the gospel and God's love for him and he didn't really express a lot of interest but he said we could text him so that's something. It's people like this who I really wish would give the gospel a chance! I can testify that no matter what your problem is in life, peace, happiness, and resolution can be found through Jesus Christ and His church! After that, since we all had fasted that day, we decided to put our lunch and dinner hour together to have a two hour apartment dinner! I made one of my staples, teriyaki chicken on rice, and everyone loved it. We also got to play more D&D which was awesome. I'm really bringing out the nerd in these sisters
Other than that, we taught our young friend, Jens, another English lesson where we read a story from the Friend magazine. The story had some Spanish in it which might've confused him but I think it was okay. It was fun to put on my figurative Spanish-missionary-tag for a while there (insert sombrero emoji)
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That's pretty much it for this week in West Point! Things in general have still been pretty crazy here in Hong Kong. The first missionary in our mission tested positive this week and we found out that the water in our area has also tested positive with covid so that's comforting :D They're going to make our whole area do mandatory testing soon and we might go into a ten day kockdown starting in two weeks so we're having a grand old time. But regardless of the situation, I truly do know that the Lord is at the head of this work and that as we continue to have faith and do what we can, He will help us.
Now for a spiritual thought!
I've been reading in Ether recently and in the past, it's been kind of hard to understand, but this time around I'm really getting it. It's about this constant battle between faith and apostasy. You can see how quickly people will go from being humble and faithful, to becoming prideful and wicked. I know that this pattern still exists in our world today which is why we need to be especially careful to continue to strengthen our faith. The verse I'd like to share today is Moroni's own thoughts about faith.
Ether 12:6 says,
6 And now, I, Moroni, would speak somewhat concerning these things; I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.
In a world where we live primarily through sight, it can be hard to really comprehend things that we can't see. Some people won't believe anything they can't see, but for us who choose to, we must learn how to have faith. Just like Moroni said, you won't receive any witness that something is true until after you first choose to have faith. So choose to have faith!! Through men with faith, God has been able to bring to pass incredible miracles. You too can be a tool in His hands. So why not let Him use you? My invitation to you this week is to grow your faith. Think of what you still need to improve on and do it so that when God needs you, you will be ready.
I love you all so much! I'm praying for you from afar and I hope you're doing well!
Have a great week :)
丁姊妹
Sister DelHoyo
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