Sister BriAnna Crook in Hong Kong: September 22, 2014

I cannot express to you all, dear friends and family, how much I love the people of Hong Kong. I love them even when they freak out and run away from us, or tell us they're too busy. It's only been a couple of days since my last P-Day, so this email's gonna be pretty short.

Thursday after emailing, we went out to dinner with a...member? She's like, semi-active. Her name is Kathy. She served her mission in San Fransisco California about...10ish years ago. She said she was really blessed to have people take her out to eat all the time, so she takes us out about once a month. She said it's the least she can do to thank us for sharing the gospel. It was really cool to hear about her missionary experience and how foreign America was to her. She speaks really good English, so the entirety of our conversation was in Chinglish. If you don't believe that is a language, you better change your mindset. People here speak SO much Chinglish. Anyways, she took us to this yummy Vietnamese food place and dang, it was to die for. Sister Lubeck and I shared this amazing soft crab and scallop fried rice with fresh pineapple chunks in it. served in a pineapple. SO good. It was such a blessing to eat really yummy food that wasn't questionable as to what it was.

Friday was pretty fun. We taught a first lesson to our new investigator Lau Siu Je (Miss Lau) and her little 1 year old daughter Ching Ching (English name is Kathy). Then we went to Kwai Fong and did a turnover lesson. We found this girl on the train and taught her a lesson last Sunday and she lives in the Kwai Fong area, so the sisters serving there (Sisters Hadley and Johnson) took over teaching for us. It was an awesome lesson. Then we did an exchange. I went with the Cheung Sha Wan Sisters and our companions took the Tsuen Wan Sisters (Sisters Chan and Robinson) out. Since my companion is a sister training leader and so is the CSW's, it's fun and we get to do this a lot. We had dinner with an awesome family. Sister Lai and Lai Mahmah (her mom, really old.) invited us over to dinner and we shared a message about missionary work with them. Both are in wheelchairs and so they sit at the back of the chapel, and we don't get a big opportunity to talk to them, so it was really wonderful to sit down and be able to get to know them. They fed us some incredible food! Steamed fish, lots of vegetables, and shrimp...with the eyes and everything still intact. We sat and peeled shrimp and tried not to eat their brains out and talked about missionary work. Sister Lai said she wanted to feed us to thank us for our service. A long time ago, some missionaries pot-muhned (knowcke don her door) and she was baptized. She's so sweet and I'm pretty sure I'm just going to adopt her as another grandma. Adorable. That night we taught Kelly, our investigator. She's so cute. We took some selfies together and Friday this week we're going to bake with her. I'm way excited. Her baptism is scheduled for October 5th. Keep her in your prayers!

Also, I found a cockroach in my closet. Ew.

Saturday was...interesting. It started out great. We did another turnover lesson in Kwai Fong and then exchanged companions again. Then Sister Lubeck and I went out finding. It was a rough finding day, and nobody wanted to listen. Eventually I just sat down on a becnh and cried. Missionary work is so hard. Nobody here wants to listen to what you have to say. It doesn't matter what you say. You could offer them a million dollars and they wouldn't care. Everyone is so busy. "mouh sihgaan! mh dakhaan!" meaning "No time, I'm too busy!" People here run from the second they get up to the second they go to bed with no breaks. No vacation, no time for family or friends... it's very sad. So when you ask if they want to be with their families forever, most don't want to be. It breaks my heart. But someday we'll find someone who is prepared to hear the gospel. It may not be tomorrow, and it may not be ever at all. But we're planting seeds all the time and we just have to be okay with that for now.

So Penny just came home from her mission about a month ago and has been a wonderful help with us. No one else in her family is members, but Sunday she brought her 16 year old sister Trisha to church. She doesn't have any interest in the gospel but I am grateful. She likes us and thinks we're good friends, so we're going to keep inviting her to activities and hope one day the Lord softens her heart enough to let us teach her.

Okay, so another member I love... Sister Lau, our coordinator/ward mission leader/s wife. She wanted SO badly yesterday to hang out with us today. It was so funny. After church she was like "Can you leave your area? Let's go do something! I want to hang out with you!" And then we called her because she's helping us fellowship our investigator Lau Siu Je (funny. haha.) and again, for like ten minutes she was trying to convince Sister Lubeck to drop what we're doing today (getting my HK ID) and go hang out with her. She's like.... 45-50ish and I have never seen someone on the face of the earth with more energy. She is so cute. I'll try to get a picture with her this week and send one. Love her. She's taking such good care of us.

It's dang hard, but I love this work. Ga Yauh, gatihng tuhngmaaih pahngyauh! Good luck, family and friends! Ngoh ngoi leihdeih! I love you all!

-Kuk Jimuih 曲必必未 (so those characters aren't totally exactly right, but they're close... the keyboard thing doesn't understand my handwriting...)