November 23, 2015: My Date with the Dirt

Reporting after temple day is always is always interesting. Sometimes I feel like there ins't much to say, not much has changed since Wednesday. But this time there's actually stuff to report on and not just fluff, so that's awesome.

To start off my letter, I'd like to 1) say MOM DON'T PANIC I'M FINE. and B) explain why my title is what it is. haha.

Seriously. So funny. So when my shoes wore out, Mom sent me some new shoes which happen to be a size too big. From day one I've always had this fear that I'm going to trip and die in them. Amazingly, it hadn't happened yet. Till last week. After temple day, we were walking to the temple and the crosswalk light was blinking (meaning almost red) and we knew we'd have to wait for eternity before it turned green again so we started to run to make it across the street so we could get to the temple earlier. Well, my big shoes finally got the best of my and I tripped and literally ATE the sidewalk. Like, I'm surprised it's not dead. I stood up and was a bit shaken up, because literally, I have not wiped out that hard at least since before I was ten years old. my palm was bleeding, and I lifted my skirt to find that the top of my left foot and both knees were sliced open and bleeding. GAH. so gross. so of course I half walk, half limp over to the temple where I proceeded to clean myself up. Turns out other than brick dust (I tripped and fell on a brick sidewalk) I'm fine. haha. One knee is just super bruised now (lovely, really) and my other knee is just gross looking. Everything is healing fine. I think it's a miracle that I happened to make it nearly my entire mission without any kind of accident. thank goodness it's just a scraped knee and nothing to be worried about! I just think it's so funny. I haven't scraped my knee in over ten years. so that was the exciting point of my week this week. Mom, I'm fine. don't worry. haha. To be honest, I think the thing that got the worst of it was my sock. somehow the brick destroyed my sock.

Wednesday evening we met with some members and it was a really great experience. getting there was another story. they live very close to us, so that was fine. But trying to get into their building was hard, because usually we just follow the last guy who walks in (since we don't have the passcode) and then check in with the guards. We tried to do that and the lady just about slammed us in the door and very rudely asked what business we had to be in the building. Even though I've been a missionary a long time and experience people yelling crude things at us all the time, this time it just really hit me. I don't like mean people. But instead of snapping back at her (which, honestly, is what I wanted to do) we just stepped back and kindly explained that we were there to visit a member and she knew we were coming. She slammed the door on us and told us that if it was true we'd just call the member to come get us and let us in. Which we did. Most of the time that stuff doesn't bug me, but for some reason it just really hit me that loving people as Christ did is really, really hard sometimes. Thank goodness for the power of prayer to give me patience and not let me explode!

Thursday was interesting. Our Welcome Center shift was pretty funny, because my knee was pretty stiff from taking a nasty fall on the way to the temple and we had to use athletic tape to get my bandaid to stay on, and it was just an adventure. We didn't actually teach any lessons, though we met and talked with some nice people. That evening we went to our ward's institue class (it took the place of the former scripture class) and WOW. We went there with the intent of learning what it was like so we could talk it up to our less actives, and dang. I have nothing but good things to say. It was amazing. There were already so many less actives there- actively participating in the discussions! Ah, it was so good. I still didn't 100% understand everything that was said but I walked away having learned things, as did my companion. We are going to strive our very best to get every less active that we're working with to that class, because it is amazing.

Friday was pretty good, and also pretty crazy. After interviews in the morning (which were great, thanks!) we did Welcome Center in which we saw a great miracle. I was thinking the other day how there are some people from my first area that I'd love to see again before I left but not sure if I had time to see them or not- one of them being a less active that I worked with for nearly 8 months. I pushed the thought aside and just kept working. Then, out of nowhere, a woman walks up to the chapel who looked vaguely familiar. As I took a closer look, lo and behold it was Sister Chan from Tsing Yi! The very less active that I, just days ago, was thinking about. She didn't recognize me at first but after I told her who I was she got all excited and pulled out old pictures of us from her phone. So cute! It was such a miracle. She has interest in coming to the Christmas activities in Wan Chai, and we gave her a tour of the chapel because she'd never been there before. It really was a testimony builder. Now we can call the Tsing Yi elders and let them know that she's still willing to meet missionaries, because I think no one has visited her since the sisters closed the area a few months ago. Friday evening our member brought his friend, a young mom and her son, to English class which they LOVED. We had the opportunity to meet her once really quick on Monday but she was a little shy because she was afraid to speak English to us. So we invited her to come to English class and she did!

Saturday was insane. It was one of those days where you come home at night and finish your planning prayer and just crash because you're exhausted. We watched part of 17 miracles with a less active and discussed how faith helps us to endure our trials, whatever they may be. She seemed to enjoy it. Then we helped wtih our ward' Thanksgiving party! It was really fun. Lots of members brought their friends and we got to meet and talk wtih them. They put on a musical performance and we even sang "My Heavenly Father Loves Me" with the RM's from our ward. It was a great chance to help those new friends feel the spirit, which I'm sure they did! The friend of our member (her name is Mandy) from English class even came to the entire activity and loved it! I'm sure she'll be back. She's pretty traditional Chinese and is very Buddhist but I think the more time she spends in the chapel, the more she will be able to feel the spirit.

Sunday was a typical Sunday, with wonderful church meetings and then some members invited us over for dinner.

Well, that's all for now. love you all and thanks for your support! (:

-曲姊妹
Sister Crook