I Love My New Area -- Yuen Long (Northern Hong Kong) . . .

October 15, 2009, Thursday

So this week we have temple day. I love it. The lights go down and zzzzzz. You know how it is. You can't help but fall asleep sometimes. Crazy stuff. I'll try not to fall asleep. No promises though. Anyway, this week we had sister's 24's. This is were we change companions for 24 hours, and sometimes we serve in a different area and sometimes a new sister comes to our area. Sister Palmer was my companion for 24's, and she came to Yuen Long, my area. Sister Palmer's companion paired up with someone else, and they are covering Sister Palmer's area. No. worries. Anyway, we had a lot of fun. We bumped into a Canadian man. He is from Winnipeg. Ya, he talked to us for like an hour. At least it seemed that way. He talked to us about a lot of things. He told us about when he was in the military. He even told us he used to coach band at different high schools. He also mentioned how he now runs a English center where he teaches students English. He said that the center is now falling through and that he thought he might so back and live with his family on their farm in Manitoba. Anyway, he was a very nice man and the conversation was an interesting one. We tried to talk to him about religion, however he did not have much of an interest. The point is that we tried.

Ya, so I finally got to watch General Conference. I didn't take any notes because I can't listen and write at the same time. So I just listened and took notes only when I really had to. I really enjoyed all the talks. They were all really good. I did not take notes during Elder Holland's talk about the Book of Mormon. I wanted to listen more than anything. I think conference was super good this time.

So about my investigators. Well...let me tell you about the best and biggest find ever. So Sister Daniels and I were going to find this one person we had on our list. We get the right building, the right floor, and the right door. Just the wrong people were on the other side of the door, or should I say the RIGHT people were on the other side of the door. The person we wanted to find did not live in that apartment, but this family did. It was a small family; husband, wife,and 2 year old son. We asked them if we could come back and teach them. They said yes and yesterday we taught them part of Lesson 1. We talked about why it is important to pray and why families are soooooo important. The father had previously seen the missionaries. The wife had a religious background. The father wants the family to have the same religion and the wife wants to have her family together forever. This is the perfect family. I'm not kidding. They are like golden. I think this family will be amazing. So this is the best investigator we have right now. Everyone else is not really progressing because they don't read their scriptures, pray, or come to Church. I don't know what to do. One of our investigators smokes. We are really trying to help her too. Anyway, that is pretty much it.

Thank you for sharing with me. I enjoy the "sharings" you send me. They help me be better. Anyway,got to go. Tell Jonathan to pick up his e-mails that I write to him. Also ask him if he gets my letters. I hope he does. Thanks mom! Love you sooooooooooooooo much.

Rachel
xxxxxxxooooooo

News for August and September . . .

So for last week's P-day we went to Tung Chung and went hiking up the 2nd biggest mountain in all of Hong Kong, Sunset Peak. We watched the sun go down. We also brought food with us such as P-B-J sandwiches. Mine did not have jelly in it. Still hate jelly. Also I brought a little candy. What fun is a party on top of a mountain, with my district, if you don't bring good nutritious M&M's, it was the peanut M&M's too, sooo good. So this past week we went bowling. After we came out of the MTR station we got lost. We walked around an unfamiliar city with a 2008 map book. My companion had no idea where we were going. Luckily, I was there to save the day. But then my companion got us a taxi. LOL! We took a taxi and drove for 5 minutes. It cost us $18 HK dollars. What a rip off. Chisin. Geez! Anyway, we eventually got to where we needed to be but we then found out the bowling alley only opens at 2 pm. Things open so late here. All the stores in the Kwai Fong mall don't open until 11 am. The later the better, I guess. So we went bowling and I scored 138 my first round, then 101 my second round. My first score wasn't too bad. My second score could have been a bit better. Then after bowling we went back to the Church to watch Mulan. I really love that movie. I can sing to most of the songs. Okay so here is the low down on 2 of the most important things you wanted to know. Okay,in answer to your first question, how do we knock on doors? We don't! Well. . . not exactly. Everyone in Hong Kong except for rich people like Jackie Chan, live in apartment buildings. These are called "chyuhns". The English word means like an apartment complex. Many apartment buildings have security guards and they will not allow us to knock on doors, however, if we discover that a building doesn't have a security guard in front of it, we can knock on those apartment doors. So in order to find people we set up district finds. We have a pretty big board with pictures on it. So we find a spot where we want to set up the board, such as Kwai Hing. We go there a lot. A lot of people go by there. After the board is set up we just go off and start talking to people. We say something like, "Hi, how are you? Where are you going?" Most people say home or work. Then we tell them who we are and ask if they have seen missionaries before. Some people respond with "yes they have seen missionaries" and others say "no". Then we tell them that we teach people about a special message. Either we tell them about why we are here on this earth or we tell them about why there are so many churches or even how to be happy with our families. The idea is to bring these people back to the Church to teach them more gospel information. If they don't want to hear more we give them a pamphlet about either the Restoration or The Plan of Salvation. We commit them to read it, then we see if we can get their phone number. Some people say yes while others say no. It is different each time. If we get their phone number we call them back 24-48 hours later. If we don't get their phone number we hope they will call us. Sometimes people know who we are and tell us to go away. I don't understand yet a whole lot of Cantonese so I don't know when they are telling me to go away. Not understanding sometimes helps.

Okay,now to answer your second question, who are our investigators. Well. . . we have several. We cover two wards so we have quite a few investigators.

In Kwai Fong Ward we have:

Kitty: 49 years old, 2 children (all married). No grandchildren. Dresses like she is 20 years old. Knows the Church is true. Has a rabbit, likes music and comes to FHE. Most of the time she comes to Church. Heavenly Father wants her to get baptized. She and God both know that. Kitty is awesome. I like her a lot.

A-Ring: She is 19 years old and is in her last year of high school (form 5). She is friends with Coco. Coco is a member. A-Ring is waiting till her parents give her permission to get baptized. She and we might be waiting a while. A-Ring comes to English class, FHE and occasionally comes to Church. She is short like me.

Rita: We found her in English class. She is between 17-19 years old. When we first talked to her about the Church she wasn't interested. Now she wants to know more. She has a good memory and can remember a lot about the lessons we taught her.

In the Cheung Sha Wan Ward we have many investigators too:

Apple: She is really funny and likes to wear a dress when we teach her, however when she comes to Church we wears pants. She is 30 something years old. She is learning English from us because our English class is too hard for her.

A-King: She is 40 something and lives with her mother. She is married and has a son. I have seen her husband only once and her son a few times. A-King just needs to come to Church for 3 Sundays in a row and then she can be baptized. She always has to work on Sundays. A-King's mother comes to Church more than she does.

Mable and Rachel: They are 2 friends who come to our English class. They are 14 and 16 years old. The Elders found these girls. These two girls ask a lot of questions and they also hear a lot of anti-Mormon stuff. They don't know yet if the Church is true. They do come to Church though.

Katie (Rachel's sister): The Elders found Katie as well. She is 17 years old and wants to learn so much about the Church. She likes what we are teaching her. She speaks a little English. We would like to teach her more English. She follows through on all the things that we tell her to do. She also comes to Church.

So this is the list of people you wanted to know about. Anyway, hope everything is good for you and the ward.

Love Rachel,
Love ya Mom and Dad
xxxxxxxooooooo