Former U.S. President George W. Bush

Whenever we talk with anyone, the first thing they ask is how long I've been in Hong Kong. "SAAM GO SINKEIH! GAM SAILAH!!" (3 weeks! So amazing!) It's more fun than when they ask how long I've been studying Cantonese (3 months) but the reaction is almost exactly the same.

The second thing they ask me is where I came from. They're ALWAYS confused when I say America because apparently I don't look American. Most everyone thinks I look British (do British people look different than Americans?) but I've also gotten French and (for some reason) Finland. Are there that many Finnish people visiting Hong Kong? But on Saturday we were having dinner with an investigator who was talking about my face. Tall nose. Small mouth. Then she said something about my eye's and we had no idea what she was trying to say. So she pulls out a translating app. 30 seconds later she hands us the phone. The screen says *ahem*

Eyes similar to Former U.S. President George W. Bush

What the what?

So many things about this that are hilarious, but I don't have time to break it down. But seriously....what?!

My miracle for this week, is Liz. 

Last week she was at her Christian church when her pastor started on a rant warning everyone to never join the Mormon Church because it's evil. Liz was curious. The next day she was talking to a friend who brought up the Mormon Church and how it's "nothing special." So what does Liz do? She kneels that night in prayer to learn more about this Mormon Church, and why it's so different than other churches. NEXT DAY she runs errands in the city and run into (drumroll please) missionaries. They met in a different area, but those sister's referred her to us, and gave her a Book of Mormon. We don't know any of this, but get the referral and plan to meet her at a McDonalds. Normally we spend about 15 minutes introducing ourselves and doing small talk so they feel comfortable. But Liz jumps right in. "What is this Book of Mormon?" So we skip introductions (we're wearing name tags after all) and just start teaching. in the course of this lesson Liz says

-What happens when we die?

-I was reading in the Book of Mormon and it says this, what does that mean?

-The Book of Mormon is almost better than the Bible. I'm not very smart and the Book of Mormon seems easier to understand

-I want to find a church that talks a lot about Jesus (check), that will give me peace in my life (check), and is the Church God wants me to join (check).

-I don't know why I'm so happy right now. But all of you (we brought a member) are soon happy!

-Can I come to church on Sunday?

Yes Liz. PLEASE  come to Church on Sunday. 

And she did! And she brought a friend. 

She's amazing.

I love that Heavenly Father was able to answer our prayers through each other. We prayed to find prepared people, she prayed to learn more. And Heavenly Father did it using people who didn't even know. And in fact, if they found out there actions had lead to her finding the church, they would be furious.

But when our hearts are in the right place, Heavenly Father will arrange things exactly right for us :) It's so comforting to know that all I have to do is (1) be obedient, (2) have faith, (3) endure to the end. It can seem like a lot. But the Lord wants us happy. If the load is too heavy, lean on Him. His burden is light. HE WANTS to help us. But too often, we don't let him. I'm so glad that  this isn't my mission. It's HIS. And that means that I don't have to do this alone.

We NEVER  have to do ANYTHING  alone

I love you all so much.

Until next week 

-- 

Love

Sister Hugo

Yiu Ji Muih

Your favorite

The Low Speed Chase

This week I ate chicken feet. I ate the whole thing, without puking! I'm proud of myself. And I'm happy to say, that those chickens did have large talons.

So in finding, I feel like we either find amazing people.....or crazy people. Let's start with the crazies :)

One night we're doing a little bit of finding before heading in, and we walk past an old lady. We ask her how her day was, and she says "samfu", full of suffering. We try to talk with her a little bit and she says she hasn't eaten or drunk all day. We realize she's having problems walking so we help her over to a park bench. She's hot, and can't breathe, and says she wants to die. We pull out our pamphlets and start fanning her which helps. We stay with her for maybe 45 minutes. Just trying to take care of her. She can barely walk 3 steps, let alone to her home. We tell her we'll pay for her to have a taxi (technically against the rules, but I think if we didn't she would have died. Not exaggerating). After forever and a day we get her into a taxi, and say we'll call her tomorrow. She doesn't want us to come to her house because it's so messy. We say "Don't worry about it! If you want, we can help you clean! Or we can just meet at a McDonalds or something"

Fast forward to the next day. We arrange to meet her at the mall. Then she picks out a restaurant we've never been to and walks in. We follow, but when we get the menu it's really expensive. We start to worry. We figure we'll just get the cheapest thing and share it. Angelica (that's her name) talks only in a whisper, so I don't even hear her let alone understand what she says. Eventually though I figure out that she thought we would buy her food. We apologize to the waiter and walk out with Angelica.  WE try to explain that we can't buy her money and she starts getting mad. We try to talk with her for maybe 25 minutes before they Spirit tells us to just walk away.

So we do.

And she yells after us.

And then starts following us!

I mean, she's almost 70, but I'm still terrified out of my mind

We walk for maybe 3 blocks and think about going into KFC for lunch. We decide against it and turn around to head for McDonalds. And she's there!! 

I start booking it. Again, she's a 70 year old woman. She can't do anything. But I'm the biggest worry wart in the world. Sister Kessen yells after me "Well don't run!" So I slow down.

We walked to our next appointment instead of waiting at the nearby bus stop.

I'M SAFE AND FINE MOM!!

But I also have an "In case of crazy lady" plan along with my "in case of zombies plan"

So, I either find crazy people who chase us Or I find the most stellar people

Enter, A-Bee

We were walking down a street and we stopped him.

Gosh dang it I run out of time every week

Okay, long story short, he asked if he could come to church with us and meet with us again to learn more. He'll be amazing!!

Hopefully will write more about him later :)

--

Love

Sister Hugo

Yiu Ji Muih

Your favorite

Editors Note:  These pictures are not associated with the email that Joanna sent, but she asked that they be included on the blog.

 The Samuel L Jackson of Buddhas

 Hey look! I found Dad!!

 The selfie stick Buddha

 Apparently this is a thing

 I took an EFY picture by accident

 Selfies on a  regular camera are hard. Group Selfies are even more fun :)

 My desk :) I'm slowly making a post it collage of my favorite things

 I know what an Area book is. But is it normal to have an area book, LA, RC, Members, Formers, and Potentials in different binders? We're going to talk with ALL OF THEM!

 One of our investigators is Siu Pohpo (Granny Sue). She is 68 and has an acre large farm that she takes care of by herself.  She's AMAZING!  She put one of these tipis over every one of her gourds. The rains hits the knot instead of the gourd, so the gourds don't get bruised. She put them over all of her farm at 3 in the morning one day because it was raining so hard. But she's so nonchalant about it. She won't tell you all the crazy stuff she does, you have to ask her.

This is Joanna with her Mission President and his wife.

Emailing in the MAC store

I'm emailing this from inside a GIANT Mac Store. So apparently that's a thing.

Sorry Mom! I took a ton of pictures......but I left the camera at home. But that means next week there will be an overload!!

Also, I have much less time than I'm used to, so this email will probably be short and rushed. 

The plan ride was a tolerable hell. It really was a miracle. What made the difference I think was sitting next to a very talkative Elder. Don't tell him, but I pretended to be sleeping a lot to get out of talking with him. Just Kidding of course. What made the difference were my constant prayers that I wouldn't die of boredom or give into temptation to watch Guardians of the Galaxy. Or peak at the hilariously overdramatic drama the man in front of me was watching.

We got off the plane, and it took us about 2 hours to go through security, customs, and baggage claim because we needed to stay together and everything went wrong. We left bags on the plane, they sent some bags to Bangkok, and they lost other bags inside the airport somehow. But we came out alive and finally got to meet our mission president! Present Lam is amazing. His English is perfect, which actually relieve a lot of stress. What relieved more stress was when I tried to talk with him in Cantonese and he just said "Sister, you've been a plane ride for 16 hours. You're brain dead. You can talk in English." YES! Sister Lam is my new favorite person. How do I say this without sounding rude. She's very bossy. But in the good way, where she always takes charge and just tells it how it is. :)

In the airport, the Assistants to the Presidents (who hereafter will be referred to as they because I can't say AP and I don't even want to type out the full thing again) asked us how we felt about the weather. Everyone else said "So good" "I think it's really nice actually" and I said "I'm melting." Which is bad news because it was night time. And Hong Kong is having a cold spell. 

Tinfuh, ngoh keihkauh leih. Bong ngoh

It's been better though. I drink a lot of water, and I'm so glad I was smart when I bought all my mission clothes.

The first day here, we got our Hong Kong ID's. I wrote out my full name for the official who immediately starting laughing. "Why did someone name you after rain? That is the st--- Why did someone name you after rain?" He's one to judge. Hong Kong people pick their English names, and they're hilarious. In our ward we have Salad, Jello, and Purple. 

Anyway, when we were waiting for our ID's, we contacted every person in the waiting room. We handed out maybe 4 BoM. It wasn't just me though, there were about 10 missionaries there.

My Cantonese isn't at 0. Maybe 2 out of 100, but NOT ZERO. Which is a miracle in itself. I was prepared to understand nothing anyone said, so every time I catch even a really basic word I'm excited.

Sunday I bore my testimony at church and it felt awesome. My theory was "Enthusiasm can make up for anything" so I just spoke what I know how to say with fervor. But at the same time remembering not to change the tones. I'll ask the members later (when my Cantonese is passable) if it came off well. But I'm proud of myself. Heavenly Father just wants me to be doing my best, and I'm definitely doing that :D

My trainer is Sister Kessen and she's a rockstar. She has only been out of 4 months, but her Cantonese is amazing. She's taking good care of me. We're "out in the boonies" of Hong Kong. Which means our apartment complex only has 30 floors. Our area does have some actual houses though. This week we're going to try and help a grandma with her garden. But here, when people have a garden it's less like a garden and more like a small farm.  I'm so excited.

Street contacting is terrifying, but getting less and less so. I'm getting better at it, and now I feel awkward if I DON'T talk to people. Which I'm taking for a good sign. 

Our members here are amazing. All of church I would focus really hard and get a couple of word. Then during the song, I would ask my trainer about it. I would get like "She talked about prophets" and it would actually be an experience worthy of a general Conference Talk. Like I said, they're all superstars.

I was talking with a member, and they kept talking about excited they were to see "American Captain" eventually everyone started talking about it and I was just like "Who is this soldier, and why is everyone so obsessed with meeting him? He must be an amazing person" Turns out they were talking about Captain America! No spoilers anyone, or so help me....

Teaching lessons to real people has been amazing. I can feel the spirit so strongly when everyone is being open. And even when our investigators aren't listening and it's obvious they don't care (not yet), I can feel the spirit testify to me that what I'm saying is true. This church is true. This church is SO true. It's nothing but the truth. It's all the truth. I'm so grateful for the gift of tongues (whenever I do a silent prayer to understand people, it always happens), for Jesus Chris's everlasting an infinite Atonement (which turns even me, into an instrument for good), and for the Love of our Heavenly Father. One thing I've learned it that he doesn't care who we've been. He cares who we are. And when we humble ourselves unto repentance, that's enough. In this gospel, we get blessed for trying. 

I love you all

Gaa yauh

--

Love

Sister Hugo

Yui Ji Muih

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