Mango mochi for life

大家好! Hey hey everybody!!

So sorry that this email came later than usual again, this week was super busy! 😅 Let's get right into it.

Tuesday was a pretty cool day. At the start of it, we got to join the Chinese sign language class over zoom and that was epic. Chinese sign language has a lot of differences from American sign language (which I took 3 years of in high school) but it's really interesting. Then later that afternoon we got to go to Cheung Chau to do finding which was sooo cool! Basically, Hong Kong has these small neighboring islands that you have to take a ferry to get to and most of them are in Sister Ho's and my area so we can literally go over there to do finding if we want 😂 This week we decided to go to Cheung Chau because it's the most popular tourist spot and we figured we'd be able to find more people there. It was sooo beautiful and had a much different vibe than the rest of Hong Kong. We walked around to explore and we were able to talk to a good amount of people. We even gave someone an ECG card 🤠. Cheung Chau also has fantastic mango mochi for pretty cheap so of course we got some to take home with us. Unfortunately, after about an hour of being there, it started to rain and then everyone started leaving. Thankfully we were able to hop on a ship and go without having to wait for too long. Then that night we were able to have a lesson with Sunny, Tom, and Thomas which was great. We shared about faith and watched the video of Jesus healing the woman with a blood disease. The boys are doing pretty well! The elders have started playing basketball with them once a week which I think will be good to help them spend more time with missionaries. Unfortunately, after Sister Ho finishes her mission next week, I'll be leaving this ward so I probably won't be able to work with them much longer :'(. I continue to pray that they will have faith and keep progressing on the covenant path. We also had a lesson with Jasmine which was sweet. We talked about faith too. We read Alma 32 together and shared the story from Mark 9 of when Jesus healed the boy who was possesed. I think Jasmine has lot of faith and is really progressing well, her only challenge is still being able to go to church. Currently she has to work on Sundays because of her job but we're hoping that she might get a better job soon that will make going to church more possible.

On Wednesday it was raining really hard all day so we stayed mostly inside to do some finding and studies but we did get to go out once. We met up with a member from the international branch named Cindy Ansah and she was so cool! She spoke Cantonese with us for the whole two hours and my brain was basically jelly afterwards but I was able to follow along haha. She told us lots of stories from when she was a missionary in Hong Kong and how the church has helped her in her life. She's a really awesome person and we had fun getting to know her. In the end we were able to share a message about God guiding us through our challenges and she shared some great stuff with us :). As we were walking her to the MTR station we actually met this guy passing out flyers who talked to us. He asked us if we were Jehovah's Witness to which we said no. Then he said that he had gotten a flyer from some missionaries a while ago but lost it so we gave him a new one. We wanted to exchange numbers with him too but he declined. I don't know if he'll actually contact us but he has our number on the flyer if he needs it. That night, we also taught our ECG class which was pretty fun. We taught about families and practiced how to talk about your family. Then in the end we shared a short spiritual thought about families and God's plan.

On Thursday we had district council and LPOs as usual so we went to the Wan Chai chapel again. I brought the game Unstable Unicorns and we got to play as a district which was really fun. Then we had some good trainings about patience which I really loved. For lunch, Sister Ho and I got food at one of the big chain restaurants in Hong Kong called Cafe de Coral which was pretty good except they gave me some really hot water to drink. (You've never been to Hong Kong until you've drank hot water at a restaurant). When we got back from lunch, I had my LPO going over the baptismal interview questions and I passed!! 🤩🤩 Now I only have two left!! Just lesson 5 part 1 and lesson 5 part 2. I'm super hyped to be done because then I won't have to worry about them anymore and instead can just help other people pass theirs. Once we got home after that, we joined the drawing activity over zoom and this time we learned to draw Dumbo and Stitch which was so fun. That night, we had lessons with Alice and Gwok Sinsaang which were both pretty good. With Alice we talked about priesthood and prophets a bit and basically emphasized how important it is to have God's power on the earth today. Gwok Sinsaang is technically supposed to be being taught by the elders but apparently last time when they tried to call him, he said they had the wrong person 🤔 So we tried to call him to see what was up and everything was fine. We taught him a lesson about God's love and it was great. I felt really good about it and I hope that it helped him. We'll keep praying for him though and hopefully things will work out okay with him and the elders in the future.

On Friday we had exchanges which was soooo fun! I went with Sister Myers to her area and Sister Hinton came to ours with Sister Ho. Sister Myers and I had a great time and some really cool experiences! We did some outside finding together and we were able to talk to one guy for a solid 15 minutes about the gospel! It was amazing. I totally thought that we were going to give him a Book of Mormon but he declined :/. It's sad that he didn't show interest at that time but I have hope that he'll remember us and maybe in the future he'll change his mind. We also got to talk to a Mandarin lady and we gave her an ECG card which was cool. Then I got to go with Sister Myers to the Mandarin district's language study which was pretty fun. We learned some commonly used characters and played a fun game where we competed to see who could recognize the characters the fastest. After that, we exchanged back and at home, Sister Ho and I tried out some no bake cookie recipes that we could teach at a cookie activity we have coming up. Unfortunately, they turned out terrible so that's a bust. Then we had a ward storytelling activity for the youth which was pretty cool. Basically these kindergarten teachers taught us how to tell stories in a more interesting way for kids.

On Saturday, we helped out with a chapel tour of the Wan Chai chapel which was actually really cool. Basically there's a tour group called Hong Kong Free Tours and they have a religious culture tour that takes people to see and learn about different churches. So this group of 28 people came to our chapel and we got to show them around and talk about what we believe. They had a lot of really interesting questions and I think it's really awesome to have been able to help more of the Hong Kong people understand our religion. After the chapel tour was over, Sister Ho and I met up with some other sisters for lunch and then we went home and did our studies and some finding. We haven't had too much success with finding recently but we'll keep trying :D. In the evening, we joined on the game activity but no one else except our district members joined so it was kind of sad.

Sunday was good as usual. We went to our sacrament meeting in person but none of our friends came this week :/ The area president, President Tai came and spake though which was really cool. He talked a lot about strengthening your spiritual foundation and I love that. After church, we had our correlation meeting and then went home to do some studies and finding. In the evening we had our lesson with Jens where we read a short story from the Friend together and then shared a bit about prophets.

And that's it for this week! Lots of good stuff I'd say.

For my spiritual thought I wanted to share something that Sister Ansah shared with me. She said that there's a Chinese saying which, when translated, means "in life you have 10 doors and 8 of them will be closed". Which is to say, in life we will have many different experiences. 80% of them will be bad but 20% will be good. When you hear this you might think, wait, but that's not fair. However what would happen if the numbers were the opposite? With life being good almost 100% of the time, we'd never grow. We'd never learn and develop. And when hard things WOULD come, they'd probably be a lot more difficult to handle. Our lives are going to be filled with challenges principally because this life's purpose is for us to learn and grow, not to sit back and relax. BUT we are still given those 20% of blissful times becuase that's what's going to give us strength to keep going and keep trying. Consider these scripture verses from 2 Nephi 2:1-2,

1 And now, Jacob, I speak unto you: Thou art my firstborn in the days of my tribulation in the wilderness. And behold, in thy childhood thou hast suffered afflictions and much sorrow, because of the rudeness of thy brethren

2 Nevertheless, Jacob, my firstborn in the wilderness, thou knowest the greatness of God; and he shall consecrate thine afflictions for thy gain.

Jacob, Lehi's son, went through a lot of different challenges as he grew up, but he was always able to find strength through God. He promises us that all of our afflictions will be consecrated for our own gain. Now, when you're right smack dab in the middle of a difficult challenge or situation, it's probably really hard to see it helping you in the long run, but I promise you, just as this verse does, that God will consecrate those challenges for your gain. So take courage, keep moving forward. Ask God for the strength you need to face each day and I know you will have it.

丁姊妹

Sister DelHoyo