Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Time is Relative

Time is weird, but especially in the MTC. It feels like I'm in a constant time warp. Every night we all think "Wow, it's bed time already? I guess I am tired." And then when we write in our journals and ask each other what happened that day and we all think "Was that today? I feel like that was last week." The weeks are getting a lot shorter, and the idea that I've already been out for more than a month. It's terrifying to think that I might blink and miss my whole mission. I guess the same thing happens in life for everyone though. It's still weird to me that we're not in 2010. What I'm trying to focus on is working hard, and using every second wisely. Which means that when I play, I play hard, and when I relax, I relax hard (oxymoron?), and when I study, I study hard.

I had the hardest day of my mission so far this week. Don't worry, it was just one hard day. Basically someone in my district was having a really hard time and I felt like everything I tried to do to help didn't work. Which was so hard for me, because I love them so much. And I have a tendency to put the world on my shoulders and blame myself if anything goes wrong. So above all, Friday taught me to rely on the Lord, and that I can only do my best. There is literally nothing more than I do, after I've done my best. But the Lord takes my efforts, and sanctifies them. Through Him, I am enough.

Besides Friday, the most stressful thing that happened this week was they changed the seating arrangement in the classroom. Now none of us have any extra space to put our million and a half grammar books. How could they do this to us?


After Friday being a hard day, I went to class and found 2 dozen Krispy Kreme Donuts!!! Thank you.  That was such a huge blessing.

Image result for krispy kreme

On Saturday we had district inventory, which is where we talk about everything that we think our district can work on. No one wanted to go first, so eventually our district leader said "Sister Hugo will go first, and get all of the blunt out of the way." Yep :) that's me
 
Usually our grammar book is stellar. But sometimes it teaches us how to say some very *useful*  sentences. This week we learned "My dad, compared to your sister, rather likes going to church" and "I only like to play ball all day, nothing else." So now I feel very prepared for my mission. What a blessing it is to have such wonderful grammar materials that teach me such valuable sentences.


(This picture is from a missionary grammar book)

During a grammar lesson Elder Chapman said "People changed Christ"  instead of "Christ changes people." Lao Ji Muih corrected him but he didn't want to back down so he said "Yeah! We changed Him to dead!" 


Easter in the MTC is my favorite thing. I think Easter might be my new favorite holiday. We didn't know who was going to be speaking at the Easter Devotional, but I was so excited. Just 3 minutes before the devotional was set to begin, Elder and Sister Ballard walked in the room. We (the choir) started the devotional by singing "Jesus once of Humble Birth." It was amazing. My branch president said he thought that we would all be translated by the end of the song. In the devotional Elder Ballard did 2 things that really stuck out to me. First of all, he told the story of his grandfather's vision of the Savior. I don't have time to type it all out, but I'm sure that you can find it if you google it. I noticed in the story that there are 4 things the Savior did.
  • Smiled (The Lord LOVES US)
  • Called me by name (He knows us individually)
  • Reached out his hand (He's always reaching out to us)
  • Blessed him (The Lord wants so badly to bless us, but it can only happen after we accept his outreached hand)
The other thing that Elder Ballard did that was amazing, was he blessed us. He blessed everyone in the room. He blessed us that our testimony of Christ would be strengthened, that we would have strength, courage, and determination. The nothing would stop us from witnessing that this is the only true and living church. That we would have health of the body and the mind. That we would be attuned to the past and present witnesses of Christ. That we would have an awesome missionary.

(Joanna assured her mom that after this picture she took her hair out of pigtails)

I'm still a new missionary, so I'm still learning how to do this. So in case you're missing it, let me bear my testimony of The Living Christ. He is my Savior, and your Savior, and  is a Savior for ALL OF US. The most important thing that I can tell you about Jesus is his infinite love for us. He had forgiven me of my sins. He has given me comfort. Through His everlasting atonement, I am a better person. Because of Him I shall live again. I shall live again with my family and Heavenly Father. And I KNOW that all of us can have these gifts. That's why I'm on a mission. Because I love Him and His message sooo much. I love it so much, I put college on hold, so much I wear a skirt EVERY DAY, so much that I'm learning Cantonese and going 7000 miles away from my family. Because ultimately none of that matters if I can find anyone who will listen to this message. Please don't close your ears. Please don't harden your hearts. Just listen. Just try. He loves you, and is right around the corner. I can promise you, this if you listen and try, you will be blessed in ways that you can not begin to understand. You will be closer to your family, have peace, comfort, and a purpose. You will have strength. I know this, because I receive these blessings every day. I can't imagine life without my Savior. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen. 
-- 
Love
Sister Hugo
Yui Ji Muih
Your favorite

Thursday, March 24, 2016

Paco the Irish Gentleman



I have my full Chinese name!! My full Chinese name is Yiuh Yuh Ting. (If you want to see the characters, go to my blog and my parents will post a pic) It means "Graceful Rain", but when my teacher first wrote down the meaning I thought she wrote "Graceful Vain."


 I see  how it is Lao Ji Muih. Once we got it figured out though, I was honestly a little bit confused. Joanna means "Beloved of God" and Coquete means hummingbird or butterfly.  Lao Ji Muih explained though that when she thought of a butterfly and Me, she thought of two primary songs (I'm just going to copy and paste the full songs, you can skip them if you want

My Heavenly Father Loves Me
Whenever I hear the song of a bird
Or look at the blue, blue sky
Whenever I feel then rain on my face
Or the wind as it rushes by
Whenever I touch a velvet rose
Or walk by a lilac tree
I'm glad that I live in this beautiful world
Heavenly Father created for me

He gave me my eyes that I might see
The color of butterfly wings
He gave me my ears that I might hear
The magical sound of things
He gave me my life, my mind, my heart
I thank him reverently
For all his creations of which I'm a part
Yes I know Heavenly Father Loves me
     and
When I am Baptized
I like to look for rainbows whenever there is rain
And ponder on the beauty of an earth made clean again
I want my life to be as clean as earth right after rain
I want to be the best I can
And Live with God again

So I'm "Graceful Rain" because the message that I'm bringing people will wash away their sins and let them know that they ARE LOVED.
Also, I think I'm very beautiful and graceful, so two birds with one stone
I love my name

Elder Stober who was transferred out of our district has an awesome name. His first name is Patrick which he says means "Irish Gentleman and his Chinese name sounds like "Paco." So he is the Irish Gentleman Paco in China. 

My teacher Lao Ji Muih is ENGAGED!! AHHHH!!! That class was especially hard to focus, but she eventually answered our questions if we asked them in Cantonese. She's soooooooooo adorable and we're all SOOOO HAPPY FOR HER!

Every Saturday we teach two lessons to volunteers who speak Cantonese. They're supposed to be like lessons with members, and the volunteers are usually RMs going to BYU. Except for one gentleman. A senior named "Ai Hengdai" (Brother I). He's my new favorite person. When we taught him, it was really more like he was teaching us. He would say things like "can I share a scripture?" and " would you like to share an experience?" He's my new favorite person. 

Before we taught TRC the director said "Try to teach as if the Savior was in the room". My immediate thought was "that's silly. If Jesus was in the room I wouldn't be teaching. After giving him a big hug, HE would be teaching." She went on though "That might seem crazy because most of you would probably just turn the time over to Him. BUT because you are his mouthpiece, I think he would just turn the time back over to YOU." Wow. I'm not perfect, but through the spirit I can become a perfect teacher. I can be who the Lord needs me to be.

My companion Sou Ji Muih came up with our class motto based off a Stitch quote. "It is little, and broken, but still good." Our Vocab is little, our grammar is broken, but our lessons are still good!

We got to choir practice every Sunday and Tuesday, then we sing in the Tuesday devotional. It is the highlight of my week (except of course for all the letters! keep them coming please!). The choir director is amazing. It's amazing how much better we sound after every 1 hour practice. Especially since he spends about half of that time sharing the background of the song, and scriptures, and basically just giving a mini devotional. It's fantastic though, because then it's not that we're just singing a song. It's a prayer (DC 25:12) and a testimony. Yesterday we had a special choir practice AFTER devotional to prepare for Easter Sunday. The choir director said this "I'm not allowed to tell you who will be speaking. So I won't, but you WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTING. I'm also not allowed to tell you that the devotional will be broadcast live to every MTC around the world. So I won't." I'm so excited!! It's going to be so special.

I got an amazing care package from my family! It is the CUTEST thing ever. So much candy! Which is good, because I can't survive sitting in our little classroom for 9 or more hours a day without a little bit of candy. There were also a bunch of cute toys which I'll make sure to take pictures with this week. Thank you family!
It started snowing one day and my district are the only in Provo happy about it I'm pretty sure. 
This Monday the oldest district in our zone is leaving, which means that my two Canto districts will be the oldest! It's a really weird feeling.

Tuesday morning we got news of the bombing in Belgium, and our Zone had a Zone prayer to pray for those involved. Three missionaries were hurt, but I know that the Lord protects his missionaries

On Monday my zone got to host the new senior missionaries coming into the MTC and it was amazing! I definitely want to serve as a senior missionary. They were all so cute! One couple is going to Lebanon to do service with the displaced refugees. When someone asked where she was going she said "Lebanon" but then whispered under her breath to us "I almost said to Hell." 

Now, to the best part of this week. The Provo City Center Temple Dedication.
This is my favorite temple. I remember when I would go to the Tabernacle to watch the Christmas pageant. I remember when it burned down. I remember the announcement that it would be built into a temple. I went to devotionals about the engineering that went into it (which is amazing btw). When I was picking my availability date for my mission, I said the day after the first day of the open house. I was going to go in at least once before I left on my mission. I went to the open house 7 times. I used to say that I didn't care which temple I got married in, but now it has to be the Provo City Center Temple.

First the funny part. My grandma sent me a white lace handkerchief with the Provo City Center Temple screen printed on it. But when it came time to do the Hosanna shout (in case you don't know, everyone stands and shouts hosanna while waving their handkerchiefs) I couldn't find it. I had extras so I was fine, but I was confused because I had had it at the beginning and I had literally JUST SAT THERE! I didn't get up and move around or anything. When we stood up at the end of the session as the apostles left the room, I looked at the chair in front of me...... and saw my lost handkerchief. I must have dropped it there at the beginning when we stood up for the apostles coming INTO the room, and that poor senior sister had sat on it the entire time!! I quickly retrieved it, and now I have an awesome story about how I lost my handkerchief in 3 square feet of space.

There were a lot of things that I loved about the Temple Dedication, but I'll just focus on the best part because I don't have tons of time. By far my favorite part was the Hosanna shout. This Hosanna shout was unlike any other, and I might go to other Temple dedications (I hope I do) but this was a once in a lifetime experience for me.
Sunday was Palm Sunday. The day that Jesus rode into the city, not as a conqueror, but on the foal of an ass. The people were so excited to see him, that they started shouting "Hosanna" which meant "God help us". They spread clothes and palms on the ground so that Christ's donkey never touched the ground. The next day, Christ cleansed the temple (his house) and spent the day teaching the people. 

This is where it gets cool.

Because of Palm Sunday, Hosanna is now the word that we use whenever we are welcoming Jesus. And so when I did the Hosanna shout at the temple dedication to welcome Christ into his new home, it was almost 2000 years to the day after the original Hosanna shout to welcome him into his house in Jerusalem. And I got to do it with more than 2000 missionaries, preparing to assist in the Lord's work.
How amazing is that?
I love you all so much
But the Lord and Heavenly Father love you more.
That's a lot of love.
He's right there just waiting for you to reach out. Please reach out to Him.
Please.



--
Love
Sister Hugo
Yui Ji Muih
Your favorite


Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Week 4 Toilet to the end!

Wow! I can't believe how long I've been in the MTC. It feels like a lifetime ago that I was dropped off, but at the same time, it feels life yesterday. It doesn't help that according to the MTC I've been here four weeks, even though today is only day 22. Yeah, that's what I'll blame it on.

A lot has happened this week, but first, language mistakes!
I'm really glad that all of the investigators that we teach are already converts, because otherwise we would be preaching a lot of false doctrine. Like
-Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon
-We are possessed by the Holy Ghost
-We need to toilet to the end
-We don't know Jesus

Just to be clear, we TRIED to say
-Joseph Smith TRANSLATED the Book of Mormon
-We can FEEL the Holy Ghost
-We need to ENDURE to the end 
-We always say YehSou Geiduk, which is Jesus Christ. So when our investigator said "You're here to teach about Jesus" my companion said "YehSou? I don't know that word" because she didn't realize "Jesus" without the "Christ". Does that make sense? I hope it does. 

All of these were hilarious, and our investigators love to bring them up. Which is awesome, because they're HILARIOUS! I hear missionaries all the time say "My mission language is just so beautiful!" Cantonese is not beautiful. At all. But it is so much fun! And I have enough language mistake stories for a different ice breaker for every situation in Hong Kong.

They've been telling us for a long time that eventually we'll get Chinese names, and to not worry about it. It's being taken care of!  Well this week when we brought it up to our teacher Lao Ji Muih she freaked out because she had forgotten about it. So we got to spend an hour going around the room talking about the meaning of our names. I'm excited for my Chinese name because my first name means "Beloved of God" and my middle name (well, ONE of the meanings of my middle name) is hummingbird. I told Lao Ji Muih she could use butterfly though because there's not really a word for hummingbird. 
Sister Crockett thought that her name (Leah) meant "lazy" and "cow." When Lao Ji Muih looked it up on her phone she said "I don't know this word. Mysterious?" So she wrote the word on the board. 
Mistress

We laughed SO hard, and poor Lao Ji Muih was soooooo confused. Finally we settled down enough to explain to her what a mistress is, and she was MORTIFIED! She and Sister Crockett decided to have her name mean "Courage" instead.

On Friday I had the stomach flu which was SO FRUSTRATING! I wanted to work on my vocab, and plan our lessons, not focus on keeping food down. Finally in the afternoon my companions dragged me to the nurse. She gave me some OTC meds and told me to sleep. It took a little bit of prayer before I was okay with the idea. I realized that the Lord needs me to work hard, and give my best. And it would be much better if I took off 1 day to get better, than if I tried to push through it and spent a week at only half efficiency. I planned on sleeping for 1 hour. I slept for 5. Woke up in time to teach our lesson, and went back to sleep till 10 the next day. About 17 hours of sleep.
Sleep is beautiful.
When I woke I was back at 100%, although I was STARVING.
I know that the Lord blessed me with getting better quickly, and used the opportunity to teach me a lesson. Also, sleep was beautiful. 
I tried to use this lesson to convince our Branch President that all missionaries should get 30 more minutes of sleep a day. He didn't agree.

All of the food at the MTC is blending together. I can't eat the burger everyday, because it sits like a brick in my stomach. But the salads are less like lettuce with a sprinkling of toppings, and more like toppings with a few leaves. And my district is convinced that all of the soup is same base, and they just add different chunks. I'm figuring it out though. And I'm drinking a lot more water. All of the Sisters bladders have shrunk to the point that we have to go every hour. It's annoying because the bathroom in our building only has ONE STALL. Who planned this? Some days it really does feel like we are toileting to the end.  

My District has changed again! Elder Parker (Bak Jeung Loh) was having a hard time in the other Canto district, so we had an Elder swap yesterday. We all miss Elder Stober (Song Jeung Lo) a lot. And it broke up the dream team of Elder Stober and Chapman. But I know that our district is going to be really good for Elder Parker. And we still see Elder Stober at every meal, so it's not the end of the world. It's crazy to me how close we've grown in such a short amount of time. I can't imagine how stressful transfers will be in Hong Kong. 

This Sunday I get to go the Temple-nacle (Provo City Center Temple) dedication. I am so very excited. I'm not sure if we're allowed to have favorite temples, but it is mine. Even just looking at it brings me peace. Heaven is found within the walls of the Temple. I wasn't the best at going consistently before my mission, but in the MTC I get to go every week. I'm so grateful for the peace and love it brings to my life. I hope that all of you love the Temple as much as I do. I challenge you all to go the Temple this week. I know that when you do, you will feel the spirit, and you will become more perfected. You will take upon you the Savior's countenance.
Yesterday for the Tuesday Devotional, the MTC choir sang "This Is The Christ" and it was ....... beautiful doesn't begin to describe it. We practiced for an hour Tues. and an hour Sunday, and EVERY TIME we sang "This is the Christ" I felt the spirit testify that it was true. We've been looking a lot at all of the amazing videos the Church has been making for Easter. I want to add my testimony, that I KNOW that that He Lives. He lived for us. He atoned for us. He died for us.
And He rose again for us.
"He is not dead, not doth He sleep" 
Jesus Christ is the head of this Church. And he loves us all so dearly that we can't begin to imagine it. All that we need to do is reach out to Him. I'm so excited, and so blessed to be bring this glad message to the people of Hong Kong. He has helped me every day on this mission, and I know that as I continue to reach out to Him, He will continue to guide, love, strengthen, and bless me.
I love you all.
Talk with you next week!

-- 
Love
Sister Hugo
Yui Ji Muih
Your favorite

Picture 1 is the Sisters in My District. I'm sending it because I thought I was so clever using the phone to block my eyes. Turns out it was a terrible idea.


Pic 2 is sisters except Sou Ji Muih who was talking to a friend


Pic 3 is a selfie at lunch, Sou Ji Muih accidentally did a nose photo bomb



Pic 4 is just a really pretty picture of the Flag and Moroni. I think it captures a lot of emotion. I imagine Dad will cry and then frame it.

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

My first week in the MTC has been AMAZING!! There have been hard moments in each day, but mostly it's been AMAZING!! Everyone said "The couple days are hard, just make it to Sunday." but honestly, I just had to make it through the second day.  I love it here so much. I feel like so much has happened in just a week, I hope I remember everything.

My companion (Tongboun) is Sister Terry (Dai Ji Muih). She's from Springville, and we have a mutual friend, Rebecca Morrison. She used to be a ballerina, but now she's the most dedicated missionary I've seen. At every possible spare second she pulls out her flashcards. She is an inspiration and an example to me.

So. Cantonese (Gwadongdong) is fun. Our teacher (Jong Hyun Dai, Brother Johnson) is soo patient with us. And he almost never breaks into English. I think we've heard him say 10 English words. And they were all words like "Modifier Particle" which I'm really glad he didn't try to say in Cantonese. Also, I thought that it would take a while for us to get crazy language stories, but I already have a ton.
-If I say the tones in my name wrong (Yu Ji Muih), instead of being Sister Hugo I'm Sister Fish. 
-And if I say my companions name with the wrong tones she ends up as Sister Fat instead of Sister Terry. 
-And Elder Song (Song Jueng Loh) said the "Plan of Chubby Cheeks" instead of "Plan of Salvation". 
-And the word for missionaries (Chung gao sih) is one tone away from being "Shovel horse dung". Who chose the word for missionaries?!
-In a lesson I said "God loves little girls" instead of "God loves little children". At least that one's not technically wrong, right?
-Oh also, I was using the wrong tone for God, so for the first half of the week I was praying to mountain instead of Heavenly Father.

So yeah, Cantonese is CRAZY! CRAZY FUN! It's definitely a challenge, but I think I'm having the easiest time out of anyone in my district. I just know that the Lord called me Cantonese speaking, and he knows me. He knows that last week I knew ZERO Canto. And he still called me. And besides, I'm not spreading my word. I'm spreading HIS. So He'll give me everything I need to teach by the Spirit. So I've been pretty calm about the language. It's still really hard, but I feel at peace about it. It's definitely the Lord blessing me.

At the end of Saturday class, our teacher bore his testimony to us in Cantonese, and it was amazing. For the first time, I understood EVERYTHING that he said. He talked about how we have been saved for this time, and we are going to Hong Kong to teach certain people. The Lord loves us, and will be on our right hand and our left hand bearing us up. We don't need to speak flawless Cantonese, we just need to teach with the spirit. I had been wondering when I was going to get the Gift of Tongues and I got at least a little bit of it right then. I'm so grateful to be here doing the Lord's work.

We have already taught 3 lessons to our investigator. Her name is A-Fish. Yep. Like the thing swimming in the ocean. I just take it as a sign that I'm supposed to teach her since my name is almost Sister Fish. The first two lessons we taught her we had the whole lesson scripted. We were afraid of going off script because we weren't confident in our language speaking or listening skills. For the last lesson though, we just wrote down some words that we might need and trusted in the Lord. It was amazing. There were still some moments when we had no clue what she was saying. But those all passed and suddenly we would understand. And we weren't fluent by any means, but because we were teaching by the Spirit, we got our points across even better than when we were scripted. I could feel the difference in the lesson, and it was amazing. We're teaching her again tonight after dinner, and then Thursday is our last day with her! I'm going to miss her so much. Teaching her is by and far the best part of my days here. I came on a mission to TEACH PEOPLE after all!! I just have to remember when I'm sitting in class with what feels like a million flashcards, and books open all around me, that I'm learning Cantonese so that I can more fully love the people. It's all about the Love. 

Our district feels like the forgotten Mission because everyone assumes we speak Mandarin. There are about, I would guess more than 100 Mandarin missionaries right now. And just 20 Cantonese speakers. It's really funny when someone sees our name tags and tries to impress us with their Mandarin. They'll go off for a minute speaking in what sounds like excellent Mandarin before they give us a chance to say "Lei ho" (Hello). Then they normally just go "Oh" and turn around and act like it didn't happen. At the devotionals, they've tried to say every language in the MTC and every time they miss us Canto missionaries. We've started saying "Many are called, few are Canto"

When we did service I got to where a backpack vacuum. I felt like a ghost buster for a little bit, but then I realized how bad of a design it was. It overheated on back constantly, and every time I leaned over there was a 50/50 chance that the vacuum bag would fall out. So you've got some time before the backpack vacuum becomes the latest rage.

We went on a temple walk on Sunday which was AMAZING!! I didn't know that we got to do that and it was definitely a highlight of my week. As my district was taking pictures someone counted down in Cantonese and another Sister on the other side of the fountain shrieked "ARE YOU GOING TO HONG KONG??!?!?" turns out she's from there and is preparing for a mission to Canada Mandarin speaking. We asked her some questions, but some we decided would be rude to ask. Like  "Is the acid rain really so bad that it will make your hair fall out?" Hopefully we'll figure that one out, but I have a good rain jacket so I'm no super worried.

At the Sunday Devotional, we talked about Jacob 5. Every servant in the vineyard asked for more time except the last servant. The last servant asked for more laborers. I am one of those laborers. It feels amazing to be bringing light the world, as it gets darker. This is the time when people are looking more earnestly for truth, more fully for light. And I have the power of the Sun behind me. (did you see the pun there? I'm pretty clever)



I think that's everything for this week, but it's pretty likely that I'll send out another email in 20 minutes with a bunch of stuff I forgot.

With all my love
-Sister Hugo
-Yu Ji Muih (Yu is my Chinese Surname, Ju Muih means Sister. I don't know how to type tones, but I doubt any of you would know how to read it anyway)