November 24, 2014

It's only been a couple of days since my last email, but miracles have happened. I hope that as I continue to rely on the Savior we can be better focused as a companionship and continue to work towards 65 in December.

After English class on Friday, we had the opportunity to do splits. Sister Lubeck taught Cammy the second half of her practice baptismal interview. Cammy is doing wonderfully and is working quickly towards her December baptismal date. I had the opportunity to teach Cherry one last time before her baptism. Sister Lai (member) and I shared about the Book of Mormon. The spirit was really strong in that lesson and I was really grateful to share my testimony about the Book of Mormon with her. We watched a Mormon Message about it with her from Elder Holland. One can never go wrong with Elder Holland. We taught Sister Ng, a "less active". Apparently she just goes to the wrong ward. She was grateful we stopped by to get to know her but was really defensive about her going to the Tsuen Wan ward... guess she feels a little bit guilty? We didn't say anything about it- just that we wanted to meet her. We're hoping when Tsuen Wan ward moves over to Tsing Yi in a couple of weeks she'll have the faith and desire to come back.

And now for the subject- daaih yatchi sailaihwuih... The First baptismal service!! (: Cherry was baptized on Saturday! It was such a miracle and such a wonderful meeting. She brought her friend from Mainland with her. He came with us as we showed Cherry a baptism from the Preach My Gospel DVDs. Then Cherry was baptized. She shared a beautiful testimony afterwards about her experience. She said that she felt like God was knocking on her door for a long time, and she finally decided to open it to him. We decided we're going to buy her a copy of the picture of Christ knocking on the door with no handle, because that's exactly how she felt. She's so cute- as we were walking home together after her baptism, she turned to me and asked if she was a member yet, and if she had a "member card". She's really excited to be able to go to the temple. I mean, really really excited. When we asked her about her friend that she brought to her baptism, she was kind of sad and said something along the lines of he's nice, but she can't marry him in the temple. I am so glad that she has such a wonderful, eternal perspective. She wants to have an eternal family and is willing to do everything she can so she can be worthy to go to the temple. She's even taking the marriage and family prep class at Institute!

Sunday Cherry was confirmed a member of the church. I am so privileged to have been one of the missionaries to help her come closer to Christ. She has such a wonderful spirit and is so prepared. I know she has such a strong testimony already of the love her Savior has for her and I am excited to see her progress towards the temple. A family in the ward, the Lau family, invited her to come to Family Home Evening. She has a good support system in the ward. We had a woman we met on the street about a month ago come to church with her kids too. She found out that one of her son's schoolmates is also a member of our ward, so she was more willing to bring them. She's had some good exposure to the church and has a lot of interest. We rescheduled to teach her this coming Friday.

This week (or four days, I guess?) has been short but crammed full of miracles. God is mindful of his missionaries, and I'm glad to be one of them.

Brother Lau and Li On Ki (Cherry)

Cherry, Penelope, Victor, Sister Lai

Cherry

Fong Gwok Wai Cammy and kids Ivan and Natalie

Special day for Cherry

Looking up from bottom of Cheung Ching Tsuen (apartment building)

Penelope Stewart and Cherry

view from the top of cheung ching tsuen, apartment building

November 20, 2014

Wow, what a whirlwind of a couple of weeks. It's been so crazy busy and stuffed with miracles.

Cammy- Cammy is truly doing amazing. She exercises so much faith in all that she does. I've seen such an amazing change in her since we first met her. Sister Lubeck had the opportunity to start her baptismal practice interview this week. I know she is progressing so well. She's reading with her kids, and they are even starting to remind her to pray with them before bed each night. I'm amazed at their faith. Her mom won't let her be baptized on the 30th like we hoped, but that's okay because we still have some things we wanted to work through with her. We changed her date for December 28th. I'm grateful she still has such a strong desire to be baptized.

Cherry- Cherry will be baptized this week!! She passed her interview with flying colors. She experienced some anti Sunday night, so when we called her Monday she was really worried and had a ton of questions. She's willing to ask whatever is on her mind though, so I'm glad she has the courage to ask us about that stuff. We talked with her on the phone for a good thirty minutes and have kept close close daily contact. She is looking forward to her baptism so so so much and even goes to institute with two of the YSA girls in the ward. God really does give us prepared investigators! She's adorable. Cherry told us her favorite commandment is the Law of Chastity because it means she can go to the temple and have an eternal family someday... WOW. Amazing.

Janda- Janda came to church again last week! That's two times now, and she said she's planning to come on Sunday. What a miracle! We aren't sure if we'll have the chance to see her today or not, but when we told her that she said it'd be no problem since she will see us at church on Sunday. She said she has started to recognize God's hand in her life and is starting to see answers to her prayers. We are planning to give her a new baptismal date for December 28th- since she has started to come to church we know we can help her be prepared for that date.

Sister Hung (LA)- We went LA finding and visited a sister that wasn't home last time we tried. We had marked in our little LA book that her dad answered the door, but it turns out it was her husband...and she's like, 75. She's a really sweet old lady and when she opened the door to us, she said "Missionaries!!! come in, come in!!" We've met with her once more since then. She's really busy but still prays daily and reads sometimes. What a miracle.

Sister Tsang (LA)- We have been working with her for about a month now. She's really socially awkward, but we're finally starting to get her to open up to us. It's going to be a long process but so far we've reviewed the first three missionary lessons. She's progressing really well.

Kelly- Kelly taught us about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Having her reteach us the missionary lessons is really good and she seems to learn a lot from that. I hope that we can keep working closely with her to prepare her for her December 14th baptismal date. We really need to focus on getting her to church though since she hasn't been coming. This last week, her parents wouldn't let her come, so we'll continue to pray that the Lord will soften their hearts.

I'm so grateful to be a missionary. Despite our many challenges, we've had some amazing experiences. I've been on two exchanges this week (to Tsim Sha Tsui and Kwai Chung) and have witnessed miracles around every corner.

We also met this crazy guy out in Mawan... so that was fun. And this week I ate the NASTIEST thing ever. Grass Jelly. It's like...herbal jello in a sugar-water soup... yep, super disgusting. Last P-Day we went to Hong Kong's first baptismal site and took some pretty silly pictures. It was really pretty. We also taught A-Ting (RC) how to floss her teeth. totally hilarious. Also decided that being old in Hong Kong would rock. You look at a bench with a pohpo (old lady) on it, and you blink and all of a sudden there are ten of them sitting on the bench gossiping. So funny. and the SukSuks (old men) all go out and gamble in the parks... if you're old in Hong Kong, it wouldn't be hard to find friends. hahaha.

Love you all. Thanks for your prayers. Pray for Cherry! (:

-Sister Kuk

P.S.
Just outside of the train station is this MASSIVE Chinese temple, and across the street is this big, beautiful park. So it's all jsut up there in Diamond Hill. Asian missionary companion is Sister Yong (pronounced yerng, kind of) and she is from Malaysia. She's Sister Tu'Avao's companion. The little Asian lady with us is a member of their ward, Cheung Sha Wan. Her name is Sister Gwok. Super cute.

Diamond Hill:  Site of the first baptism in Hong Kong

Sister TuAveo

Adorable Sister Missionaries

Missionary Selfie

Nasty Grass Jelly

Learning to floss

Mastering flossing

Roasting marshmallows on a hot plate

SMORES!

At the temple

Crazies

Sisters TuAveo, Lubeck, Crook and Yong

Sister Gwok