August 17, 2014: Last Week at the MTC

Dang, it's been a long journey. It's been a crazy week with some really crazy emotions...

Monday was good. I got most of my stuff packed.

Tuesday was good. We had our last Tuesday devotional by a member of the 70, so that was cool.

Wednesday was...Wednesday. it was long, and we taught our last lesson with one of our investigators.

Thursday was rough. It was like, the last day of real class and nobody can focus. We're all so excited for Hong Kong. Thursday morning we auditioned for a musical number since Sister Nally told us to come back last week. We did, and made it! I also had a follow up doctor's appointment about my feet. I walked in there and my doctor said "We have two choices. I can send you home to recover. It'll probably be several months." I sat there completely stunned. I seriously haven't even DONE anything here. There's no way in crap I'm going home. But then he looked at me and said "Or you can go to Hong Kong. Your choice." Of course I totally freaked out. I'm either going to be walking around in pain at home or I can walk around in pain in China... so China it is. Flights leave at 11 Monday!

Friday we had in field orientation...learned to work with members and stuff- nothing too exciting.

Saturday we had our last class and lesson with Suki and Gou JImuih. (same person). then we came back, packed some more, and now it's SUNDAY.

Happy last Sunday. One more meal at the MTC cafeteria and I'm OUTTA here. Cafe Rio for breakfast tomorrow, hallelujah! (:

So that's my week in a nutshell. Enjoy.

P.S.  Answer to mom's questions:
Thank you SO MUCH for the food. I can't even explain how much I needed those vegetables. I'll try tomorrow, I guess. but still.
Luggage/weight is okay. I'm cutting it close, with 35, 45, and probably 47 by the time I throw all my bathroom stuff in there... if I have to leave my shampoo I will, just rather not since it's newish. but yeah, I should be okay on all that.
I am totally a bundle of nerves. SO excited, but I know I totally do not speak this language. Oh well. We have to place a book of Mormon by ourselves on our first day (so probably Wednesday) so that'll be sketchy. pretty freaked out because I don't have a clue how to approach people.
My camera is good. I'm trying to upload all my pictures of goodbyes from this week but it isn't going so well... we'll try. these computers have certain blocks on them and they're stupid.
I think you do send packages to the mission home, though i don't think you really need to send me anything before Christmas.
Yeah, totally not gonna be in Provo. Check out Hong Kong street view on Google Maps- then you can see where I'm headed. it's legit, 
I swear, if you come to the airport you will not get to talk to me. I will speak only gwondungwa or something. (Cantonese.) or maybe I'll do that anyways. Umm, I can't guarantee i can call before 10. I will try, but it just depends on when we get there and how fast security is. I got a package sent yesterday. Warning- there's an envelope that says "OPEN LAST". really, open it last. it's the best part. I also threw in a few HK shirts that are way cool. wear them with pride. I love the flag pictures. like a lot. I like that you bought one. It makes me happy.

Love to everyone,

Kuk Jimuih

 Just a little Hong Kong pride at the Crook household

 Mission logo

 Entire Canto district including Elder Li (far right) who is going to San Francisco

 Elder Merrell being...Elder Merrell

I heart Gou Jimuih! She's the best.

 i heart vegetables

 More crazy Elder Merrell

 Gou Jimuih with Sister Crook, Robinson, and Killpack

 My district

 The other district

 Me and My comps

 Sisters Nuttall and Crook and ???

 Farewell Sister Mertens!  Good luck in Vancouver!

 Elders Merrell and Anderson

 Sister Robinson is excited for HK

 as is Sister Crook

 and Sister Nuttall

 and maybe Sister Killpack?

 Comps

 The zone

 Sister Heaton (last lesson with jyu jimuih)

 last lesson with Suki

 Me and Elder Reid...and also his companion and Sis Nuttall being awkward

 me and Kiu Jimuih (companion)

 me and sister penrod, branch presidency wife

 more chopsticks fighting

 My district plus Sister Heaton aka Hahng Jimuih

 selfie. because we can.

 Sis Hadley, Elder Reid, and I sang in Relief Society Sunday. Sis Hatch was our accompanist

 Sister Yardley from Snow and me

 we match!

The family's final farewell photo for Sister Crook!  Good luck!

Random Photos Stolen from FB and other Blogs

*Mom's note:

Thank heavens for social media.  I have been able to view my daughter's mission through the eyes of many other mothers willing to share.  Some of these photos were shared on our private Hong Kong mission mom FB page and a few others came from Sister Robinson's blog (Sister Crook's comp).  

For fear of forgetting to preserve EVERY memory of this experience, I will add all the ones I have collected up to this point.

 #powercompanionship

 Sister Crook and Sister Nuttall

 SE Asia Zone

 Both Canto Districts

 Crazy companionship

Canto District

August 11, 2014: Last P-day in America! Friends Don't Let Friends Miss Leg Day

I promise there is logic to the subject line of my email... but I'll get to that later.

Tuesday was awesome. (Happy Birthday Dad, PS. Sorry I wasn't there to party!!) I got this package in the mail from some old family friends with a cute note in it and some homemade cookies... day=made. To any of you who ever pray for the missionaries in your prayers- thank you. We feel it, and we can feel your love. You're all the best. We also had a really awesome devotional on temples, so that was good too. But the best part about Tuesday was that OUR NEW NAME TAGS CAME. Hong Kong missionaries are really awesome (best mission out there, totally not biased!) and we have double language tags because of how international it is. I'll be sure to attach a picture of my new tag. I just love it. we're not supposed to wear them around campus because other missionaries get jealous of how cool we are...literally. but hey, every mission is awesome. Nobody is better than anybody! I'm just lucky that I can read my tag now... since though I know the characters mean "church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints" I can't actually read it, since I don't know how to read characters. but now it's in English too. I'm so privileged to wear Christ's name on my heart TWICE (:

Wednesday was pretty weird. I had the "privilege" of going off campus. I went to buy some new tennis shoes with a lower drop and better support so I could maybe try not to be in so much pain all the time. It was weird, because my companions ditched me at the front desk until my driver came, and she was my companion. She was a really nice lady who was just a service missionary, probably 50 or so years old. It was nice to talk to someone new, and to talk to some one in English! we talked about her mission to England and it was great. I went to a running store and I have to laugh. the guy who helped me pick out different brands of shoes to try on was a returned missionary from the Philippines. He was talking about a particular brand of shoes and said "I can testify that these...wait. These shoes are good." Ha ha. You know you've been a missionary when you start to bear your testimony about how good certain shoes are. Ha ha. I just died, because I totally understand that. Everyone to me is Elder and Sister, not Mr. or Mrs. Yesterday Sister Nuttall made a comment about a teacher we had together in Jr. High and called her "Sister Champi" instead of Mrs. Champi. so funny.

Thursday was kinda...eh. We were excited to get our travel plans but NOTHING CAME. freaking sucks. but Sister Robinson's mom sent her some vegetables (cucumbers and tomatoes, and peaches) and she was kind enough to share. We literally feasted on incredibly good, fresh vegetables and it was the best food I've eaten in a long time. The food here isn't bad, especially for cafeteria food. But the veggies and fruit are pretty gross and we're all desperate for some real food. We're looking forward to eating Cafe Rio in the SLC airport this week if we have time. WOO. We had a good lesson Thursday with Suki about tithing.

So the subject title. Have you ever seen those really buff guys who are super buff in the arms but have really awkwardly skinny, twiggy legs? Yeah. "Friends don't let friends skip leg day." So everyone thought it would be a great idea to do lunges around the track. So I was like "Yeah, sure! no biggie." Umm...... biggie. ha ha. We literally did lunges around the entire track. 1/10th of a mile may not seem like much, but when you haven't done lunges for a long time....yeah, it was NOT a pleasant feeling. so bad. Literally, we walked around like 112 year old grandmas for three days. I'm still feeling it. it was awful! we literally couldn't sit down, and that's an issue when you have to get up and sit down all day. We figured out if we did ninja slides from the desks to the floor we could be able to kneel. so yeah, it was pretty crazy. Don't skip leg day or you'll end up like all of us!

Friday was AWESOME. I was so stiff. BUT. WE GOT TRAVEL PLANS. I fly out of Salt Lake City at about 11 am next Monday (18th) and fly out from Seattle Washington to Hong Kong at about 2 pm. I land in Hong Kong at about 7:30 pm Tuesday night. SO FREAKING EXCITEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD. and really nervous because none of us can speak this language. but whatever. We can do this. I attached a picture because we were just so excited about going to China FINALLY. longest 9 weeks of my whole life, for real. but they flew so fast! SO Friday during personal study, I traced my family history back to the year 120 A.D. So yeah, that was cool.

So funny moment of Friday. We were teaching our teacher Sister Heaton as a class, and she was pretending to be an investigator. We were practicing teaching her about temples and such. Elder Merrell started to tell this story about his family and he wanted to express how much he loved them...but it ended up coming out like this: "And then I realized, I just love you so much!!" Sister Heaton just totally lost it. She laughed so hard she was literally crying. And the rest of us were too. #CantoProblems for real.

Saturday was awesome. I totally still walked around like an old lady. We taught our English investigator Lance about repentance and it was a truly amazing lesson. I'm bummed we only met him last week, because he really is amazing. I'll try to get  a picture with him Tuesday this week. He's the sweetest and I hope we can stay in contact. He's from Roy and used to do law enforcement stuff, so that's way cool. We had a kinda rough Lesson with Suki because she really really wants to be baptized but still lives with her boyfriend, so she just isn't sure what to do. I pray for her every day and hope that someday she'll realize that God will help her through all things.

Sunday was... eh. We got in a district fight (literally.) over a stupid devotional. some people wanted to go and others were pretty adamant on not going to the departure devotional a week early. Anyways, it was totally stupid and people were just not being nice. I was pretty upset. But whatever. When you literally spend 24/7 with the same group of 8 other people sometimes you do get on each others' nerves and you just deal with it. I will be sad to see these people leave though. We're pretty much all really close and they are my family. Brother Heaton (the guy in charge of the MTC) spoke to us about who God was and that was pretty powerful too. I love our devotionals here... sad that we only have 2 with everybody.

Anyways. I have such a strong testimony of the Savior. This week I'm going to finish Jesus the Christ. It's really helped me understand my Savior more, and has been an amazing thing to read. I love you all and hope everything is going well back home. It's good to hear from you! (: Pray all 17 of us land in China safely!!

Ngoh ngoi leihdeih!
-Kuk Jimuih

P.S.
This email is INCREDIBLY important so please pay attention. Not much time now but I will be back on around 2 (maybe a bit before, maybe a bit after?) this afternoon...long story. But I HAVE TRAVEL PLANS. Please note that this is also my VERY LAST P DAY IN AMERICA. Yeah, basically excited.

I depart on flight 2157 from Salt Lake City at 11:05 AM on Monday, August 18th 2014. Hopefully if it isn't too busy you'll get a phone call that morning. We supposedly leave here at 6 am, so I can't tell you exactly when I will call. but I will! for sure.

We land in Seattle Washington at 12:11pm their time, so 1 pm here. If I have time, I will try to call you again from there. There are 17 of us traveling together, so I can't guarantee I'll have time. But I will do my best to call you again if I can...not sure yet though. For sure in SLC though!

I depart from Seattle to Hong Kong on flight 281 at 2:21 pm Seattle time. I land in Hong Kong at 7:35 pm HK time August 19th!! That's about 5:30 am Tuesday morning for you. I'm not sure yet if I get to email you and tell you I survived, but who knows.

ANYWAYS. SO EXCITED. I can 't speak this language and we're totally panicking that today is literally the last P day and everything has to be packed like...today. but yeah. it's okay.

 New Name Tags!

 Elder Wilcox from Jr. High

 Crazy grammar

 Long ugly day?

 Beautiful daughters of God serving Him

 Cousin Elder Carter

 Sister Nuttall and cousin Elder Carter

 Some moms send waffles and veggies.  Sister Crook's mom just sends junk food and treats.

 The last Oreo...

 Canto District

 Too complicated

 Travel plans!!!

 Sister Crook and Sister Nuttall

New Scriptures

 Travel plans!!!!  She's off to Hong Kong!!!!

 Many name tags!

August 4, 2014: 2 WEEKS LEFT!!!!

I have two weeks left until I fly to CHINA. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. I REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL. We're all totally freaking out because none of us can really speak this language, but I know without a doubt that the Lord will bless us if we just have faith that He can help us get through this. One of my companions has never left Utah, and has never been on an airplane, so that will be a fun adventure for reals. It will be so great. We get our flight plans this week, so I ask that everyone pray that our visas all come through! There are so many of us (18!!!) so we hope to be able to fly together as well as all leave at the same time. None of us want to be here longer...the food does weird things to you like gives you crazy lucid dreams... we all feel like we're going insane. but it's no big deal!

AH Tuesday. Tuesday was WONDERFUL. I had my first really awkward moment speaking Cantonese (well, first moment significantly more awkward than the rest anyways). We were teaching cute Suki about then 10 commandments. I read about "Thou Shalt Not Kill" and she mentioned that her dad liked to kill chickens. I wanted to tell her that killing chickens for food is okay, but not for fun. Either I said something wrong or she misunderstood, but she was like "Umm, what kind of person do you think I am?" and we were all seriously laughing so hard we cried. it was pretty bad... so. Moral of the story: Don't kill chickens for fun, also don't tell people about it. Our devotional Tuesday night was INCREDIBLE. Elder (Brother?) John H Groberg, the guy from The Other Side of Heaven (the real guy, not the actor!) came and gave an amazing devotional on bearing simple testimony. It was truly amazing. I think one of the best things ever is that his cute little wife spoke too- the same wife that wrote him all three years of his mission. They were just both some of the cutest people I've ever seen and I have to say that old people talking about how they met just makes me so happy. I love it. SO much. They both shared such inspiring and wonderful messages. At the end, we all sang "I Know That My Redeemer Lives" and the room was dead silent. It was so powerful. The spirit was SO strong. LOVED it. so much.

Wednesday was ALSO awesome. I totally got to host my cousin Aaron (Elder Carter now!) as he came up to the curb. I got to see my aunt, uncle, and a couple other cousins and help Elder Carter to get his name tag, books, and it was just great. I have seen him at least every day since then and he seems to be doing awesome. I didn't get a picture yet... Sorry Mom! But I'll get one this week for sure before he heads out. Sad that I've been here 7 weeks and he got here and still leaves before I do. Gaahhhh. oh well. #CantoProblems for real. So the awesome awkward moment of Wednesday. I'll do my best to make this not sound totally crazy. Our trio walked outside since it was nice and we decided to companion study out there. Our elders decided to go out too and sat down about 50 feet from us. They'd make annoying noises, so of course we'd shoot them a glance. So Elder Anderson finally said "Seriously, what the heck are you looking at!" (just trying to tease us!) and Sister Killpack said "Just admiring God's creation behind you!" Note: when she said that, she was referring to the trees (long story- we had a conversation about that earlier...) but Elder Merrell happened to be standing behind Elder Anderson. So he was like "Umm... Merrell?" So then it just got awkward and was way funny. I seriously love our elders. they're like brothers to us and I hope that we can stay in touch after our missions. Both of these young men, as well as the other elders from the other district, have such strong testimonies and we all just love them! They're the best.

So Thursday was a whirlwind of adventure, and pretty much none of it was fun. We started the day off in gym just like we always do. I was playing volleyball just like always, and was playing front center, prepared to set the ball. Well, my team was serving. I must have turned just right, because no joke I got slammed with the ball so hard in the side of the face that my contact got ripped out of my eye and my nose bled. So that was fun. It hit my head so hard and I couldn't think clearly for a second or so. Then I panicked because I couldn't see out of that eye. It took me about ten seconds of feeling literally sick to my stomach about how that messed up my eyesight and I'd never be able to see again before realizing that it was just my contact that got pulled out. but in my defense, I had just got hit in the face with a volleyball going full speed, so I couldn't think totally clearly. So I found it on the floor with the help of my teammates freaking out and ran up the stairs. My nose started to bleed then, so I ran into the bathroom and chilled there for a few minutes till it stopped. Thank goodness there was no concussion or broken nose or anything serious, just a dirty contact and a massive headache for a day. Then we went into the doctor. I've been having pain in my heels for a while and I really had hoped it was just new shoes and adjusting to that. I felt the same pain every day last summer life-guarding but figured that was walking on the cement all day barefoot (which probably didn't help...) so finally I broke down and went in to see our doctor. Turns out I have plantar fasciitis. So thank goodness it isn't anything super serious. We're hoping that stretches, taping my feet, and some orthotics and better running shoes will help so walking 8-15 miles every day in Hong Kong will be bearable. There's no way in crap that I'd go home for something as stupid as that. I'd rather walk in pain! Thank goodness for modern medicine and doctors who are willing to help missionaries out for waayyy cheaper than other people. Woo.

Also on Thursday (sorry, way eventful!) was probably the most incredible lesson I've taught so far. So Suki lives with her boyfriend. She works on Sundays and is kind of afraid to talk to her boss because he won't give her Sundays off. She made it to church once since we've taught her. She now has a baptismal date, assuming she will ditch the boyfriend and live the law of chastity. She's doing the best she can and we were kind of worried we'd reached a plateau with her. There's only so much we can teach- she has to make some decisions for herself. Right? Right. She told us she wanted to learn about the temple, so we took that opportunity and RAN with it. We brought in a picture of the Hong Kong temple and told her a little bit about where it was located (Kowloon) and she said she thought she'd seen it before. We pulled out our family pictures and explained that through the temple, our families can be together forever. We explained basically the ordinances that we can do, including being sealed for time and all eternity. We asked her what she wanted for her future family, and it really got her thinking. Then the coolest thing happened. I said something about how if she wants to go to the temple, she needs to live the commandments (which she's doing way better with!) and go to church and stuff. Then someone asked a question. We know that it was a spiritually inspired question because none of the three of us can remember what it was. But a question was asked. And we sat for at least a minute in total silence. If you've ever done that, you'll know how awkward that can be. 60 seconds in a room with 4 people...total silence. Suki started to cry. We were so afraid (or at least I was) that she'd been offended. But she looked up at us and said "I want to go to the temple so bad." We told her that God loved her and wanted to help her, and then went on our merry way. That night in class, Go Jimuih (the teacher who plays Suki) stopped the class for a second and said "I'm going to do something I don't really ever do. I want to tell you about what happened in a lesson tonight." She's right- she never evaluates us and usually we never even acknowledge that she's our investigator during class time. She looked at us and said "The trio did something really cool tonight. They let the spirit speak. They asked me a question and then were silent. At that moment, I realized what I needed to do." We haven't taught her since (usually we teach her Saturday but this week was different) so we don't know what that means, but we hope that means that she's ready to move forward and begin living all of the commandments. I'd love that. It was a testimony to me that teaching by the spirit is a true thing. I love it so much and LOVE teaching. Can't wait to get to Hong Kong!

Not much happened Friday, except I got an awesome package from the family with cute pictures and things. Always love that. I love hearing about things back home!

Saturday was good. We taught Jyu Jimuih and I had another awkward moment. We were teaching her about temples. I grabbed the big picture of the Hong Kong Temple and brought it in. After our opening prayer, I held up the picture and started to explain. I was so happy because Jyu Jimuih really wants an eternal family, so this lesson was totally just for her. She and my companions totally busted up laughing. Turns out I was holding the picture upside down...so yeah, that happened. Awkward story of my LIFE. I always do stupid things like that. Oh well. It was an icebreaker for sure. We practiced romanization in class, which was also fun. the romanization is SO hard. I cannot even tell you how hard it is... it's crazy. the tones are super hard but every day we get better. HA. so dinner Saturday was brilliant. Elder Li grabbed six little cups of red jello and cut each one out one by one and dumped them on a plate and tried to slurp them down...so yeah, that was fun.

Sunday was awesome. We had another wonderful mission conference, and it started to rain on our temple walk! Loved it! always love the rain. woo.

Tonight we are teaching Skyp-ee (how they say it in HK) Teaching Resource Center, meaning we literally are skyping real members in Hong Kong and teaching a lesson in Cantonese. Then at 8:15 we're teaching another pretend investigator named Lance that we met on campus. We have several people that volunteer their time and pretend to be investigators and things so we can practice teaching. He is the cutest old man ever and I am SO excited that we finally got to meet with him. The scary part is.......... we're teaching in English. I don't have a clue how to do that.

The language is weird. I'm in this weird place where I can't quite comfortably speak Cantonese, but I definitely can't speak English anymore. I have trouble remembering words, and often times when I think to myself I think in Cantonese. Sometimes I dream in Cantonese too. I'm TOTALLY so incredibly far from being able to speak it well, but I have a firm belief in the gift of tongues. It's a real thing. There's no way in crap I'd be able to speak this language even in the slightest without my Savior and his help.

Also, ALMOST DONE with Jesus the Christ. If you haven't read it- no matter your faith- you should. It's incredible and just talks about Jesus as he lived on the earth. I've learned so much about my Savior and the things that he suffered for me. He suffered more than just in Gethsemane and on the cross...he suffered his whole life for me. I love my Savior and know without a doubt that he loves me, and he loves each and every one of you.

Love you all! Ngoh ngoi leih! (:

-Kuk Jimuih

 Chinese grammar makes no sense

 Elder Anderson explaining sound waves physics lesson

 Elder Merrell imitating Elder Anderson again

 Elder Merrell imitating Elder Anderson again

 FINALLY passed the room clean check

 Sister Hadley

 Sis Heaton teacher, Sis Cochran, Sis Anderson, SisNuttall, SisKillpack

 Sis Nuttall

When you leave your camera out people take selfies: Sis Nuttall and Sis Hadley

July 28, 2014: P-Day Hong Kong Bring It On!

Just wow. I cannot even begin to comprehend the fact that I have like... 21 days left in the MTC. It's coming so fast. We spent Saturday evening playing with the interactive map on our mission portals and then we just got talking about how excited we are. Travel plans should be here in about 10 days and we're totally freaking out and so incredibly excited!! BRING IT ON, HONG KONG.

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

 The sister missionaries ROCK!  Sisters Killpack, Robinson & Crook