Okay, so starting with a story that I forgot last week! We went to the temple last P-Day and I ran into my oboe teacher from Snow! So that was basically the coolest thing ever. Totally love her. I knew she worked in the Provo temple early Monday mornings, so when we went to the 8:20 session I wondered if I'd see her, but I hadn't in past weeks so I kinda gave up hope that I would. but after our session I got to see her and we had a nice talk for a few minutes. It was awesome.
Tuesday was pretty good. The first few days of the week go by really really fast (probably because we only go to class once on those days) but it was good. Stanley G Ellis of the 70 came to speak to us. He actually had all of his 9 children speak to us about their testimony of a mission. One just emailed hers from her mission, and the other 8 were there with us. It was pretty cool and each one had a different really short message, so it was cool. I think it was Elder Ellis that spoke to us and told us a cool C.S. Lewis quote. "If you haven't chosen the kingdom of God, at the end of the day it will not matter what you have chosen instead." That's a pretty powerful reminder that in the end, we will be judged according to our works, whether they be good or bad. Why not do good? One of his daughters spoke about how we needed to have hope in Jesus Christ, and how he will never fail us. His wife spoke about how faith=power, obedience=price we pay, love=motive, the spirit=key, and Christ=the reason. All of that relates to our purpose as missionaries and I was touched by her testimony.
Wednesday was fun because we got to host again! I had the opportunity to host like... 4 more sisters. it's exhausting work and it is FREAKIN HOT. but it's worth it. I love being the person that stands on the curb and smiles and waves at all the new missionaries!!! All the sisters I hosted except one were going English speaking to the states. one sister was going to Taiwan so I told her everything she needs to know to survive this place for 9 weeks. Haha. It's definitely a skill. We've got it all down to a science for sure. Sometimes it seems like the stay will never end! Also on Wednesday, I auditioned for two musical numbers as an accompanist- one with Sister Nuttall from my district (she's got a beautiful voice- trained in opera, actually. way cool) and a cellist who I didn't know, but plays very well. Wednesday night I got a letter from Sister Nally saying she wanted this Elder and I to play at the departure devotional Sunday. I was super excited. Sister Nally is hard to impress. She has perfect pitch and is pretty critical of what you play, but she was amazing and I guess she liked Elder Jones' piece. We talked with one of our investigators about her baptism, and we helped her pick a date to prepare for. Jyu Jimuih is now on the calendar for her baptism on August 11th! We'll see if it really happens, but we are praying for her every day.
Thursday was pretty cool. Happy Pioneer Day! haha. I have such a love and respect for my pioneer ancestry. Actually, cool story about that. Because it was Pioneer Day and we couldn't actually do anything to celebrate, we decided to look up some pioneer stories about our ancestors on the interwebs during personal study. I knew the story of my grandmother Amanda Barnes Smith, so I wasn't really wanting to read that one again. I decided to read about my other grandmother, Drusilla Dorris Hendricks. I vaguely remember my mom telling me a little bit about her before, since she's buried in Richmond, Utah, but I couldn't remember exactly what she had said. So I looked her up. FamilySearch.org is the bomb, by the way. Use it. It's great. I found her entire life story, written by her, on that website, so I spent some time and read it all. Near the end, she bears her testimony on the Word of Wisdom. It just so happened that I was going to be teaching that to Jyu Jimuih the next day, so I took her testimony of the Word of Wisdom and translated it to Cantonese so I could share it. Chinese people are very into their ancestors, so I knew that sharing a story about mine would help her understand better. I did share that story in Friday's lesson and it was amazing. the spirit was so strong and she was happy to accept our invitation to live the Word of Wisdom. Also on Thursday, we invited Suki to be baptized. Her situation is really kind of a tough one and we were totally afraid to invite her to baptism. She lives with her boyfriend and she didn't want to kick him out because (in my words) he's a bum and plays video games all day and doesn't have a job. But they've lived together for 8 years... so we were just slowly working toward it. We taught her about the law of Chastity and she's doing her best to live it, but wanted some time to figure out what she was going to do about her boyfriend. She wanted to know what happens at baptism. Not like, the spiritual stuff. But literally what happens. She told us she didn't swim so she was wary, but she accepted! her biggest question was who was going to baptize her.
Okay. Friday. TOTALLY CRAZY. our district made a new goal to do "Fast Friday" where we fast from English. Literally. If you had something to say, you said it in Cantonese or you didn't say it at all. I have to admit we got a little lazy towards the end of the night, but everything before that was AWESOME. I didn't know how well it would go over, but it was way fun and I actually really enjoyed it. I learned a ton of new words and it helped with my grammar, and I was just really excited about it. Friday was also awesome because we gave a pretty powerful lesson with Suki. We started out explaining that she would be baptized by a "strong Elder" (so she won't drown! haha.) and she just laughed. Like really hard. Partly because our teacher who plays Suki told us that that was one of the real Suki's fears (The real Suki was one of our teachers' investigators in HK when she was there). Then we taught her about the Word of Wisdom as well. I again used my grandma Hendricks' story about the word of wisdom and Suki just looked at me. She got really quiet and said "Wow. That's really cool." She immediately accepted our invitation. She asked about if it was okay or not to drink tea with her boyfriend, and we told her it wasn't. She got a sad look on her face, but all three of us bore testimony to her about how sometimes the things God asks us to do are hard, but He'll bless us more in the end. We asked her to go to church and pray about her situation, and God will help her know what to do.
Saturday was pretty uneventful, except our Comp study. We went into the "hotbox" which is basically a 5 1/2x8 foot room with no windows, desks, or chairs. Sister Robinson pointed out the fact that "3 teenage girls are lying on the floor in here" and we were so tired that we just totally busted up. It was so funny. and it really wasn't, but it was funny to us, so whatever. we had some pretty funny conversations that are not allowed to leave the walls of that room...hahahaha. I guess it just makes us realize that we're still teenage girls that laugh over really stupid things and it's the best.
SUNDAY. I heart Sundays. SO MUCH. So Sheri Dew came to speak to us...yeah, that happened. Way awesome. She gave an incredible message to us in Relief Society about priesthood power, authority, and keys and what the difference between the three is. It was really fantastic. Then at the devotional, Stephen B Allen spoke to us about our purpose as a missionary. The film we watched after the devotional was a talk by President Uchtdorf before he was "president". He talked about how missionaries are what brought his wife to the church and he wouldn't be where he was without her. it was really sweet and definitely a testimony builder. I played in the departure devotional with Elder Jones and he did such a great job. I'm blessed to meet some seriously wonderful people while I'm here.
Today's been pretty uneventful. We went to the temple early early to do initiatories and I again saw Sister Reed (my oboe teacher) though this time it was just in passing super quick. love her. Now I'm emailing as I wait for my laundry to be done. It's weird to think that I have 3 more times of doing laundry here, and then I'M IN HONG KONG. BOOYAH. So excited. For shizzle.
Love you all!!!!!!!! Ngoh ngoi leih (: (:
-Kuk Jimuih
P.S. Yeah, tell me about how time flies. The days are long but the weeks are short. Brother Penrod (of our branch presidency) told us that it's that way so we can learn more in the day. Cool thought. Nothing exciting happens here. ever. haha. Except Sheri Dew came to speak to us in relief society, so I guess that was cool. Rumor has it Elder Perry will be here tomorrow, though nothing's been confirmed. LOVE THAT MAN.
P.P.S If you haven't read this already, you should. It's way cool.
https://familysearch.org/photos/stories/1618122?returnLabel=Drusilla%20Dorris%20(KWJD-NMR)&returnUrl=https%3A%2F%2Ffamilysearch.org%2Ftree%2F%23view%3Dancestor%26person%3DKWJD-NMR%26section%3Dmemories
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