Pregnant Fish

We had 2 cheng-outs (dinner at a members house) this week. Both of them turned into parties. We were expecting a single family, and then we get there and it seems like somehow half of our ward is crammed into a tiny apartment. I got to try a lot of new food both times, but my favorite were the pregnant fish. They're small, maybe 5 inches long, and you eat them whole. They still have bones, but I guess with the way you cook it or something.....I actually have no idea. But you eat them whole anyways. And I forgot that fish have about a million eggs, not just one, so biting into it's stomach was interesting.

Wai Kei, a young woman from our ward has been waiting for her mission calls for a little over 2 months, and she finally got it! She's a convert of a little over a year, and we love to have her be a member present because she has such an amazing testimony, is hilarious, and as an added bonus, her english is AMAZING. Wai Kei is going to Australia! She is so happy because it means she is going to have a chance to use her English. Her family is so excited! And we're so excited for them. All of them. :)

This week we tried to contact every Less Active possible. So far there hasn't been a lot of success....but we gave them the chance. And now we have time to move onto other people. One of the houses is out in the middle of nowhere, and we spend 2 hours trying to find it and we still have not found it. But it is gorgeous out there! I'll send pictures next week. At one point we were walking through the jungle on a striped vinyl road *sings* Follow the Striped Vinyl Road! Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow the striped vinyl road!

Siu Pohpo is doing amazing. She doesn't really know how to read, so we've been watching Church movies with her. It has been so amazing to see the Spirit working on her. This week, she says that she knows that Jesus Christ is real, and so is the Book of Mormon! And then in her prayer, she thanked Heavenly Father for sending us to her. Cue silent tears and my heart melting, then recollecting and growing.

On sunday the elders took an investigator to church, and we helped her in Relief Society. She is amazing, and is so willing to learn, but I had no idea what she was saying, and at one point I just gave up and started nodding and saying things like "yeah, uhhhh, for sure". Turns out she was saying "I don't think you understand what I'm saying. You're like a little baby. So innocent. You don't know what's going on around you." That was a blow to my pride. But I rebounded! That night at a cheng-out we shared a message about conversion and everyone there felt the spirit very strongly. Afterwards a lot of the members complimented me on my Cantonese, which is exactly what I needed. The Relied Society President recorded part of the lesson and let me watch it. I think I sound terrible! How do people understand what I say?!? I tell myself that it's just because you always sound weird on video. Yeah. That's what it was.

I'm starting a challenge (we'll see how long it goes for) where I read the Standard Works in a year. All I have to do is read 5 chapters a day, for the next year *laughs, then cries a little on the inside* nah, I can do it. Hopefully.

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Love

Sister Hugo

Yiu Ji Muih

Your favorite

English Especially for Youth

This week, the missionaries help the Ward put on EEFY, which I assume stands for English Especially For Youth. Although Elephants Extremely Fawn over Alligators is also possibility. But serisouly, EEFY is just a 2 hours a day English Class. The thing is, our youth are all so incredibly smart, so we get to do really fun activities because they already know almost everything. The schedule was

Monday American History with Water Balloon Reenactment of the Revolutionary War

Tuesday Olympics

Wednesday Regions of America (Food, Accents, Culture, Music)

Thursday Holidays

Friday Dinner Table Ettiquite and Final Review Jeopardy

All the missionaries took pictures for each other while they were teaching. The Elders were good cameramen. Most of the time.

The youth made boats and we saw which ones could hold the most weight. They had to use only English while making the boats, and it was supposed to represent Columbus's ships.

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We did about 10 different relays around the chapel where the kids had to do English activities at each spot. Make anything a competition, and it becomes super fun.

Our beautiful Elders. Elder Darrington and Elder Hansen. 

Best for last. My beautiful face. I think they really caught my good side in this last one.

Time is out somehow again, so I'll see you again next week!!

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Love

Sister Hugo

Yiu Ji Muih

Your favorite

Pokemon Go

My family at home is kind of obsessed with Pokemon Go (and rightly so, it looks amazing!). About two weeks ago she asked me if it's a big thing in Hong Kong. I said "No, I don't think so." And then Pokemon Go was released in Hong Kong the next day. People are OBSESSED WITH IT!! Every park we go past is packed with people. It seems like every subway station and bus stop is a hot spot, because people tell us they can't talk, they're trying to catch Pokemon. Sister Kessen is a little freaked out by it, but I LOVE it. I just hope it's still a thing a year from now so I can play too. My favorite, are the groups of friends who go out together to catch Pokemon. 

This week, the Fanling Sisters (who we live with) got summer missionaries! For two weeks, they get to be companions with two Hong Kong teenagers. They are AMAZING! Honestly, part of it is that they actually know how to speak Cantonese. But most of it is their energy! They are so diligent in doing everything. I went on splits with one this week, and we didn't have anything planned so we went street contacting. She was so excited! It definitely made me more pumped. 

Before my mission I didn't like bananas. But Hong Kong has better bananas, I'm convinced. Also, they have so many more different kinds of bananas. Regular (hung jiu), tall (gou jiu), fat/sturdy (daaih jiu), and milk (laaih jiu). I heard someone this week say "laaht jiu". All the bananas I know have the word jiu in it, so I thought it was a banana. And laaht is spicy, so I thought "huh. Spicy bananas. THat's weird. I'll impress them with my knowledge of Cantonese.

"Oh. A spicy banana? That's so interesting!" 

Nope.

It's the name of a red pepper.

Almost. Right?

It was so funny though! And I'm proud of myself for at least knowing enough to make a guess.

Last Monday and Tuesday, we had a typhoon. For about a week our members have been calling us warning us about this typhoon. Hong Kong has a 1-8 warning system. When it gets to 8, buses, subways, and trolleys shut down and missionaries aren't allowed to leave the apartment. This typhoon got all the way to 8. We had investigators who have been ignoring our calls for weeks call and tell us to get him. We had to tape the windows (just put a giant x over it). The weird thing was, for most of the time it wasn't even raining. Maybe we were in the eye of the storm? Anyway, we had to stay home, and calling people was useless because they were all freaked out about the typhoon. So we just filled out paperwork for about 4 hours. Yay. But then the warning went down and we were allowed to leave. Hallelujah!

This week our ward had a music activity! Everyone showed off their music and dancing talents. Our ward is TALENTED! Every auxiliary had to have an act, and it was so fun. The relief society all did a dance, and it was so funny. Imagine a K-Pop group, consisting of middle aged women who don't really remember what they're doing. I love them so much. Sister Ling played a really cool Chinese instrument. No idea what it's called.....It is about 8 feet long, has a lot of strings, and kind of resembles a piano. About the same length, and it sits on a bench about the same height as a piano. It was SOO PRETTY!! I thought she had been studying for all of her life, but it hasn't been a year yet. It sounded so good!! The 4 of us missionaries also had to have an act, so we sang "Love is Spoken Here" with ukulele accompany by Elder Love. Elder Love and Elder Taylor are both AMAZING singers....and then there were us two. Everyone says we were really good.  Which means all of our members are better at lying than I thought there were. The weirdest food that night was haupia (kinda like coconut jello) with corn in it. The best food was a Betty Crocker cake mix cake. Hong Kong does NOT have ovens, OR cake mix, so I'm not sure who pulled off that miracle. And they didn't buy it, cause Chinese cake just tastes like air. But it was SOOO GOOOD! Coming home might be dangerous to my health. 

Hold down the fort for me!!

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Love

Sister Hugo

Yiu Ji Muih

Your favorite

Celsius is different

We're finally emailing from somewhere we can send pictures! I can only fit 3 in this email, but I volunteer my family to put the rest of them on the blog

Got to go to the temple this week! 

A member taught us some calligraphy.

Got to see them take off an old Angel Moroni, and put on a new one. That was special.

We went on STL splits this week, which means I got to serve in Fanling. All the way next door! Actually, I live in Fanling, which means it's closer than my own area. Anyway, all of our lessons cancelled on us. Which meant that we went finding for 5 hours!! But it was 37 degrees outside, which means that no one was outside. Sister Cote said it was literally the quietest she's ever seen it. It's been weird having to work with Celsius instead of Fahrenheit (however you spell it). But I'm fairly certain 37 degrees is the temperature of the freezer.....on the surface of the sun. Not suite that bad, but we treated ourselves to ice cream that day. :)  (Editors Note: 37 Celsius is 98.5 Fahrenheit)  But the awesome part was looking back to 3 months ago. Going finding for even 15 minutes was TERRIFYING! And now I'm a pro(ish).

In Skype TRC one week we had a super awesome lesson with Chan JiMuih, who lives in Utah County. Well, she visited the ward that Sister Terry serves in, and she remembers us! She asked about all of us by name, and thanked us again for that amazing lesson. I remember planning that lesson and being excited but also uncertain. We were teaching about the Atonement and Christ's love because that's what we felt like we should teach. But that is some deep stuff! And our Cantonese was NOT good enough. It just wasn't. But that doesn't matter. During the lesson several times she said "Your Cantonese doesn't make any sense. But I can feel in my heart the message you're trying to say." Just wanted to share that the Lord is doing his Work. And He may be using missionaries, but it is NOT US! Not even a bit. If it was just us, this church would have crashed and burned a long time ago. But we just have to push forward, open our mouths, and have faith.

 Gotta go so I can send all the pics. 

Sorry for the short emails lately

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Love

Sister Hugo

Yiu Ji Muih