I'm sure SOMETHING happened this week

Whenever I read letters from missionaries I was always so frustrated. What do you mean you don't remember what happened this week?! You work 16 hours days, 7 days a week, and nothing happened??!?!

And now I'm that missionary...

^Me and Sister Thompson freaking out about Language passoffs. Our MTC teacher did this thing where she made a teardrop shape with her fingers whenever she was nervous. It looks kind of like an anime. Also, it's contagious and now we do it all the time.

We had language passoffs, but we have them every week. Basically we just role play teaching a lesson with our zone leaders, then they tell us how we can improve our Chinese and also our teaching skills. They're still scary, but not as terrifying as when I first got here. I don't know why they're scary, because teaching actual lessons is SO much fun. 

We tried to get to an investigator's house a different way than normal. But........we messed up. Instead of being on the bus for 15 minutes, we were on it for an hour and a half as we drove to the middle of nowhere and back. And no one was on the bus, so I just read the Book of Mormon. You should try it sometime :) Jokes aside though, it is really amazing

Today we're spending time in the actual city Hong Kong and it is RIDICULOUS! 

I see what they mean by Seung Seui being in the boonies. It's still a big city, but NOTHING compared to Hong Kong proper.

One of our investigators used to be a professional ping pong player and now she's a ping pong teacher. For a while she hasn't been interested in the church, so we would just be friends and maybe say a prayer with her. But this week she called us up and asked if we could meet. She was really sad because she felt like Heavenly Father abandoned her. I was able to share my all-time favorite scripture 3 Nephi 22 :10, and share my testimony of how the Lord and Heavenly Father NEVER abandon us. It was cool because I was able to use my experiences of grief and pain to help her in her time of grief and pain. By the end of the lesson we were both crying.  I'm glad that Heavenly Father was able to use my experiences of sadness to bring hope to others. It's like He has a plan or something (just so everyone is 100% clear that was sarcastic. Of COURSE he has a plan!).

This week I've been studying a lot about conversion. Sometimes I find myself just going through the actions of the gospel. But the whole point of the gospel is to help change us to become more like Christ and Heavenly Father! So just going through the motions does almost nothing to help us. I realized that when I'm just out walking (either finding, or just on my way to an appointment) I get distracted and end up telling myself stories. I'm trying to change this so that I can really use my whole heart in the service of my God. So I've been singing hymns to myself on the way to lessons. I really love it :) The only problem is sometimes I transition into singing other songs :( Can someone listen to "On the Road Again" for me? Maybe that would help get it out of my head Making progress though, and that's all that really matters. :)

​^It's been raining more lately, so I've had more excuses to use my amazing sunny skies umbrella :) My Mom gave it to me. She's so amazing.

Life is good! See ya'll next week :)

Love

Sister Hugo

Yiu Ji Muih

Your favorite

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

Your favorite

Last P-day in the MTC

This week, I'm drawing strength from Psalms 23:4, "Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me." I'm need this strength, because I found out that the flight to Hong Kong is 16 hours. 16 HOURS!! Imagine waking up at 6, and sitting in an uncomfortable chair. All day. Until 10 at night. Now imagine, you only get scanty food, that's molten lava hot on the outside and frozen on the inside. Now, just to make it interesting, imagine that there will be movies, games, and music available to help keep you occupied. BUT you can't actually use any on if. That's why this plane flight will be my valley of death.

 ^Not quite blue steel, but it's so funny!!^

BUT on the bright side, I'll finally be in Hong Kong! I've been waiting to be in my mission field for more than a year, and waiting to be in Hong Kong specifically for 4 months. When we got our flight plans on Friday, we all literally screamed and did the happy dance (even though dancing of any sort at the MTC isn't allowed. Don't worry, we repented). So we're leaving the MTC at too-early o-clock in the morning, fly to Chicago, and then we'll spend the next 16 hours in hell. But I guess if the Savior is acquainted with sorrow, and I want to be like him, then I can't complain too much. On the plus side, this is probably the last time for the next 16 months I'll be able to nap. 

Since I'm leaving on Monday, this is my last P-day in the MTC!! Which means that starting next week, my letters are probably going to get a lot shorter. Most mission presidents only allow 1 hour of emailing on P-day, and I normally spend about 3 hours emailing.

This Saturday one of our investigators is getting baptised. Her faith has grown so much in the past month that we've been teaching her. This past week we taught her about some of the commandments like tithing, word of wisdom, and the law of chastity. Every time she would say something like "This is a really hard commandment........But I'll pray about it tonight. And if it's true then I'll pray for help to keep this commandment." That's amazing!! 

Our other investigator is less sure about the gospel, but he has also been growing. Apparently, his mom thinks our church is wicked, which we're not quite sure what to do about. We'll figure it out though. 

Jyu Jeung Louh had his birthday this week! We've been saving up the funniest things from the give-away boxes for 2 months, so he had a lot of gag gifts (like size 4 women shoes, and bunny ears).

 

I wish we had actual gifts to give him. He is so amazing, and I'm so grateful that we have him in our district. Since everyone in the two Cantonese Districts is going to Hong Kong, we'll be able to see each other decently regularly for the next year and a half. I can't wait! 

Our Elders have WAY too much time on their hands (I'm not sure how...). This week, they tried to use electrolysis to plate one of their rings in gold. Somehow, they half-way succeeded. They got the gold off of the coin, but didn't get it to stick to the ring. Again, I'm not sure where they find the time to do this stuff

Temple walk was gorgeous!! It's fun to return every week and see all the little changes that let us know that it's finally spring! 

I'll have lots of time for writing letters on the plane ride, so if anyone wants a letter, send me a Dear Elder and I'll make it happen. As soon as I figure out Hong Kong Mail that is. (Editors Note:  She has already left the MTC.  If you use Dear Elder.com, you have to now chose the Hong Kong Mission, not the MTC)

​Cantonese is coming along great. I still think I'm terrible, but maybe after Monday my Mom can tell everyone that I'm fluent. But the gift of tongues is real. And all I have to do is invite the Spirit. The Spirit's Cantonese is amazing by the way.

The Church is true, I promise. Now "Go your way, and sin no more!"

-- 

Love

Sister Hugo

Yui Ji Muih

Your favorite

Do you want to eat Jesus

Only one more P-day, and then I'll be in Hong Kong!! I get my travel plans this week, but I leave around April 25th....ish....hopefully

This week we had a fantastic lesson with our investigator Walter. I say fantastic not in the sense that he felt the spirit very strongly, or accepted baptism. No, this is more in the realm of fantastic failure. It was hilarious. But I'll tell about that later and just let the suspense build for a bit.

My district has been working on inviting EVERYONE to come unto Christ. Sometimes in the MTC it feels like we're not real missionaries yet because we don't do things like tracting. But we are already missionaries! So we need to start treating it like that. The Elders were walking to lunch one day and saw a man named Bubba sitting on a bench. They decided to sit and talk with him, and Bubba became an investigator. For the longest time Elder Parker was CONVINCED that he was NOT a member, but the rest of us weren't so sure. We know for sure now, that Bubba is in fact a member. How do you ask? Bubba has his own Mormon message! Not even kidding, go watch it right now https://youtu.be/2Lxz3GHP59Y When the Elders watched that video they got so excited. I just can't believe it, it's so funny and random. 

One of our MTC teachers only has 4 ties that are conservative enough for the MTC (I think my dad has zero) so we see them all very often. We teased him about it on Friday and when he taught on Monday he had a new paisley tie. My companion Sister Terry commented on it by saying "Wow! You got a new ham tie!" My Aunt thought that paisley were tiny whales, and my companion thought they were tiny hams. I'm not creative enough to see anything weird I guess. 

All the sisters in my district go to choir practice twice a week. The first couple weeks we had an argument about whether or not the director had an accent. Sister Terry and Sister Crockett were CONVINCED that he had some kind of accent, but the rest of us thought they were crazy. A while ago they went up and awkwardly asked him after choir practice where he was from. They said  that he was from Belgium, and we all accepted defeat. BUT this week a new sister came in who was excited to go to Choir practice because she used to be a section leader for one of the other choirs that he directed. I said something like "While you're catching up with him, you should ask how long ago he moved to America, his English is impeccable I can't even hear his accent"

"What are you talking about?"

"You know, he's from Belgium"

"....I am positive that he's from Bountiful Utah"

Sister Terry and Sister Crockett LIED TO US!!! We've been teasing them about it ever since. 

In Cantonese, "have" is "yauh". Normally you add "joh" on the end of a verb to make it past tense. But you can't do it with helping verbs like have because it changes the meaning completely. The elders found that out this week because instead of asking their investigator if she had something, they told her she was pregnant. 

Cantonese is a tonal language, which means that if you use a different tone on a word, it could have a completely different meaning. So this week instead of saying "Do you want to get to know Jesus?" we said "Do you want to eat Jesus?" Our investigator was very confused, and made sure to ask us all individually if we liked to eat people.

In one of our lessons we shared a Mormon Message about how Jesus died for us with our investigator Walter. We asked him how he felt while he watched the video, and he talked for about 5 minutes. But we have no clue what he said. Well, that's a lie. He said the words "see" "Jesus" and "sad." When he see's Jesus he feels sad? I tried to ask if he felt guilty? when he saw Jesus, but nope, that wasn't even close. So our investigator could have had a very strong spiritual connection with that video. Or he could have said something like "I don't like seeing this actor play Jesus. It makes me sad because he is so ugly" We'll never know.

We taught a member in Hong Kong over Skype this week (we call it TRC. Maybe it stands for Terrified missionaries React to real Cantonese) and it went much better than it did last week. We all felt the spirit so strongly as we shared personal experiences of feeling the Saviors love, and testified that he will never leave us. Well, almost. We forgot ONE TINY WORD so instead of saying "Christ will never  leave us" we said "Christ will always leave us".

Oops

Isn't it a good thing that we're not actually the ones teaching? We're just there to invite to spirit to teach this people. If we taught, there would be a LOT of false doctrine. The good thing about this is that there are some mistakes you only make once. This is one of those I think.

Now, let's talk about our fantastic lesson with Walter.

First of all, our teachers challenged us to use at least one object lesson this week. Sister Viazzo remembered an old object lesson her mom had used. You put salt on a plate and say that it represents all of your good choices. Then you mix in some pepper and say that it represents all of the bad choices. You can't go through and pick up every single pepper flake, so it seems like you'll never be clean ever again. But if you rub a balloon on some carpet to charge it up, and hold it above the salt and pepper, all of the pepper will be lifted up onto the balloon. That is the only way to become clean again, just like using the atonement to repent is the only way to become clean again. So that's what should have happened, and what happened when we tested it at lunch. But it is not the way that it worked in the lesson. 

We set up talking about repentance, and everything was going fine. Then we charged up the balloon and held it over the salt and pepper. Nothing happened. .......We tried to charge it up again and this time one tiny flake of pepper came up to the balloon. Our investigator was so confused, and I just about died laughing. My companions apologized and explained what was supposed to happen. "So this demo didn't work.....but we PROMISE that repentance does work"

I was confused why the demo wasn't working so I charged up the balloon some more while my companions spoke. I held it over the salt and pepper and this time ALL OF THE SALT AND THE PEPPER came up onto the balloon. This confused our investigator even more, but we couldn't do any damage control because we were all laughing so hard. I think that we might have eventually changed the analogy to "repentance will completely change us", but I was no help. 

Again, I'm so glad that I'm not the actual teacher.

Tuesday Devotional was amazing. In preparation we were supposed to read Matthew 25, but I read Matthew 15 for some reason. It was still wonderful of course, but I just kept thinking "applying this to missionary work will be a bit of a stretch..." but no, I am just going crazy. 

Anyway. 

The devotional was amazing. Every week I get recommitted to giving this mission everything that I have, but this devotional especially. In Devotional review, Sister Viazzo made an awesome comment. In Cantonese you say "Gaai Yauh" for just about everything. It directly translates to "add oil" (very Chinese) but means something like "Keep up the good work." We say it all the time, but we also make fun of it just because it's so weird. But Sister Viazzo said that now every time she says it, she'll think about the 5 foolish virgins who needed to add oil to their lamps, but it was too late. We need to "Gaai Yauh" every day, even if it's just a drop. We're all doing so well, but if we can just do a little more, we'll be even better. 

Elder Chapman, rocking the headband he stole from us

This is what happens when you put a bench outside of a single stall bathroom, that is used by 30+ sisters. A party! It's actually nice that we have a place to congregate and talk to sisters from other districts and zones. Once the elders tried to steal the bench, and we didn't tolerate it.

We buy out the store of flashcards pretty much every week. They were getting to be too much, so we bought a giant ring. Now we all look like janitors, except instead of keys we have flashcards #missionaryprobs

Sometimes we go a little bit crazy in our tiny room. This week we invented Canto. pictionary, which is actually more helpful than we thought it would be. It's hard to forget a word when you lost because of it.
​

I'm sorry I don't have more pictures with me in them, but I didn't go on the temple walk this week. 

These are the sisters in my district...having fun without me.....*tear*

Nah, I got the better deal. I stayed behind with Sister Langley (my new Best Friend, she's amazing). 

I'm trying to take more pictures......but I'm running out of ideas.......maybe next week will be a #selfieoverload 

--
Love

Sister Hugo

Yui Ji Muih

Your favorite

PS. Some Bible verses are very useful out of context for random not-gospel-related arguments. My dad uses Prov. 17:17 to excuse his arguing with his siblings. After this week, I'll use Matthew 15:20 whenever anyone gets mad when I forget to wash my hands before a meal :)

April Fools!!

We got our new name tags!! Because so many people in Hong Kong speak English, we get split name tags. We were so excited! But because of General Conference we didn't have a temple walk on Monday, which means instead of getting Pinterest worthy pics, you get the selfie I took in the classroom. Selfies on a regular camera are an acquired skill, turns out. Also, do you think it's sacrilegious to take a selfie in front of a picture of the last supper? At least Jesus wasn't in my Selfie I guess.

As I think we all know, I am the most competitive person in the world. THE MOST COMPETITIVE! Unfortunately, Sister Crockett seems to think that SHE is the most competitive person in the world. We have a goal of being able to do a full pull-up before we leave the MTC. So that's where some of our competition comes in, but mostly, we compete about the DI buckets.

Our residence is built like a hotel. And in the social area next to the vending machines, there are the DI buckets and the sharing shelf. Whenever sisters are leaving, they put things they don't want in the DI buckets, and food they don't want on the sharing shelf. At first we thought it was weird, but I get at least one nice thing a week from the DI buckets, and we have an endless supply of candy from the sharing shelf (don't worry Mom, I only get things that are sealed). But you have to get to the buckets before anyone else does. And therein lies the competition. At first it was subtle, just going earlier in the evening than the other person. But now, anytime we go back to the Res, even just to pick up a notebook, both of us BOOK IT to the buckets.

 

We race there at least 5 times a day, including at 6:29 am. That's right. AS SOON AS WE WAKE UP we JUMP out of bed and SPRINT to the buckets. It's nice because it wakes us up, but more important than that is that I always win. Don't listen to Sister Crockett.

In one of the care packages from my mom, I got a little basketball net and little plastic balls, and a tiny catapult. That's the newest thing that we're obsessively competitive about.

It's deceptively hard! I've only ever gotten 3 baskets, but Sister Crockett has only gotten 2 so I'm okay with that.

April Fools day was amazing. We wanted to plan pranks, but we also wanted all of them to be missionary appropriate, so they all just turned out being the lamest pranks ever. 

• We switched out the Hong Kong flag in our classroom to the Macau Flag
• When we got to pick what song to sing, we chose Hymn 276, Come Again to Sunday School
• We put a sticky note on the bottom of the computer mouse so it didn't work
• We purposefully used terrible tones for class. We planned on making it the whole way, but only made it about 30 seconds
• Sister Viazzo made Sister Crockett's bed

The last one actually turned into quite a big deal this week. Sister Crockett was so confused that her bed was made, that we started making her bed everyday. We'd say that we were going to the bathroom, and then go back to the Res and make her bed. Yesterday she finally figured it out, but it was still soooooo funny. #worthit #MTCpranksaren'tactuallyrealpranks #mydadwillbeashamed

During personal study one day, I decided to do family history and I actually found a lot of names to bring to the temple! I found 26 names for sealings to parents, and some names for baptisms that I sent to my family. Part of me is nervous that after I bring the names to the temple my Nana will write me saying I did everything wrong somehow. But for now, I have names to bring to the temple today!

We asked our teacher Jong Hendai if we're his favorite class. He said "every class is different" 

Are we the funniest? 

"every class is different" 

Are we the most distracted? 

"every class is different" 

Do you even like us? 

"every class is different" 

That's his favorite phrase. BUT! Then we asked Lao Ji Muih and she said that we are her funniest class, and her most distracted class! She wouldn't answer if we were her favorite class, but her face said it all. 

The devotional on Tuesday was amazing. The speaker said exactly what everyone in my Zone needed to hear. But the most memorable part about it was that halfway through, somehow a bat got in the room. At first just a few people noticed it flying around, then more and more. After maybe 2 minutes the speaker said "I see I have some competition" at which point the cameras switched from the speaker to following the bat. The speaker then said "Let this be a lesson to you. Sometimes your investigators will be distracted and you have to think of a creative way to get their attention back on you." His way was to begin speaking in French, which was a good enough distraction for an employee to catch the bat.

General Conference was AMAZING!! I won't even pretend my eyeballs were sweaty. Those were straight tears. One of the sisters who left to Taiwan last week left us a challenge. She takes "pretty" notes. She writes as if she was creating a Pinterest masterpiece. She said that she used to take bullet point notes, and she gets so much more from her notes when she takes them this was. So she challenged us to "pretty" notes. I met her half way and took normal notes on one page and pretty notes on the other. I loved it! Some of my favorite talks were given by Elder Arnold, Elder Hallstrom, and of course Elder Holland. When he stood up to talk and said "Do you have any idea....do you have any inkling..." I thought he was going to call us all to repentance. I was so ready too. But then he said "How much we love you" and my heart melted. That was exactly what I needed to hear. 

After Conference and Dinner, we had a special secret devotional. We didn't know who it was till 5 minutes before. Any guesses? It was Vocal Point! The devotional was amazing! They each picked a word and spoke about it for 2 minutes, and then they would sing a song. Their last song was "Nearer My God to Thee" which is my favorite song of theirs (you should all look it up and enjoy it for me since I can't for another year and a half). I realized halfway through the devotional that this is the best music I'll listen to for another year and a half. There's no music in the MTC, and my Hong Kong Mission President only allows Hymns sung by the Mormon Tabernacle choir. Which means that for the next 18 months I'll be listening to myself sing :)  

After such deep rebellion as listening to songs sung by someone outside the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, we went a step farther. Every Sunday we get to watch a movie, and we chose to watch Legacy. The movie was fun, but even better than the movie were everyone's reactions. Imagine a room full of maybe 200 missionaries, who get to watch a movie, which includes 3 whole kisses! The horror! Actually, the hilarity! There was so much cheering anytime two people even looked at each other. And then there were scenes with conversations like

"You're working 2 days in 10. Twice what Brother Joseph asked for us to finish the Temple"

"Yes"

"Eliza and what's his face are waiting till it's done to be sealed together"

"Well maybe I'll slow down to 1 in 10 then"

Watching that movie might be my favorite memory at the MTC. And I haven't even told you the best part! We watched the first 15 minutes in Cantonese!! They forgot to change the settings, and so for the first bit the movie was in Cantonese! It was actually a little bit disappointing because for the first 5 minutes we were debating about what language it was, Japanese or Korean. Then they said "sinji" which means prophet and is one of the words we know best. At first we were so excited!! But then we realized how bad our Cantonese must be if we were debating whether it sounded like Korean or Japanese. But rest assured, if I land in Hong and someone says prophet, I will KNOW that they are speaking Cantonese.

During General Conference, I was thinking about missionary work. I was writing down "Everybody needs my help" because they do. I am an authorized representative of Jesus Christ, and so while not everyone needs Joanna Hugo, everyone needs Sister Hugo. I was going to continue by writing "except Jesus and Heavenly Father, but I will never teach either of them" when I realized that I was wrong. I might not street contact Jesus, but they both need me. It is not Heavenly Father's plan for our Savior to appear to us all at this time, so they need us. They need missionaries (and every member a missionary) to bring about their work. At the second coming every knee will bow and everyone will know that Jesus is the Christ. Part of that is that they will see the prints in his hands. But maybe another part is that everyone will have been taught. I know that sometimes it can be daunting, but the Lord NEEDS US. He needs us to be brave. He needs us to not shrink. He needs us to live in such a way that others come closer to Him by knowing us. He needs us to open our mouths. MY Branch President shared a quote from Brigham Young with us this week. Don't quote me on this, because I'm already quoting someone else quoting someone else, but the essence was "If you preach this gospel with all of your might, the Lord will bless you as if every person who heard you testify of Christ accepted the gospel." 

I love you all so much. I pray about you every night. Which should mean a lot because I give up sleeping time to do it :) You're all so loved. I hope you realize that. I hope I help you realize that.

--

Love

Sister Hugo

Yui Ji Muih

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