Done with Training!

I'm officially done with training! Which is weird. I know I've improved so much over the past 12 weeks,
but I still have no idea what I'm doing. Which is why the spirit is so important. If I have the spirit with
me, the message turns into a guided missile. I can be WAY off, but the spirit will still carry it to the
hearts of my investigators. I fully expect for my dad to tell me that that's actually not how guided
missiles work, but I still think it's a cool metaphor. #ComeAtMeDad #ILoveYou #ArmyBratProblems
#HashtagsAreAddictive

I'm sorry that my emails are basically just stream of consciousness. I hope that at least it feels like I'm
really talking with you. That's one of the cool parts of the conversion process I think. We have to
become like Christ, but we don't need to become Christ. We just need to find that version of us. I still
have my sense of humor, my likes, my dislikes, and my pet peeves. But I'm also becoming more like
Christ.  

This week in English class we were talking about things you can do at a lake or ocean. We tried to
explain Cliff Jumping like this "It's kind of like sky diving, except you don't have a parachute, and
instead of jumping out a plane you jump off a mountain" then a student said "Oh, are you saying
...oh what's the word....suicide?" NOOOOOO!! We VERY quickly explained that you jump into WATER
and so it's really really (mostly) safe. That was a close one though.

The Cantonese in our mission is lacking, so we're all revising our language study plans and getting
pumped about learning Cantonese! I'm excited because now that I'm done with training, i'll probably
actually get my hour of language study a day! I joke sometimes that my Cantonese sucks (because,
it does) but I'm still amazed at how much I have been able to learn. It's only been about 5 months,
and I'm able to talk with people on the street about life, and teach people about the gospel. There
are still plenty of times where I'm confused, but the Gift of Tongues is REAL!!

No one in Hong Kong has ovens. Or is it stoves? I always forget which is which. We can make
scrambled eggs, but we can't make brownies. Anyway. This week we tried to make Banana Bread in
the rice cooker and it turned out surprisingly well. We're going to be experimenting more, because
I miss baking gash dang it!

During weekly planning this week, I took a step back and really looked at all of the people that
Heavenly Father has put in my path to help. It's crazy, because they are real people who have real
problems. Really serious problems. And the Lord trusts ME to point them back to him. *gulp*
Sometimes I think he trusts me too much, ya' know? But that's what this gospel is for! Fixing
problems! And it's not just some small bandaid. It's not just for people who have small trivial issues.
It's for EVERYONE! ESPECIALLY  people who have ENORMOUS problems! But that's the awesome
thing about it. When you feel like you have nothing. No money. No family. No love. No friends. No
purpose. Nothing to live for. All you have to do is turn to the Lord, and you will have everything that
matters. You will have peace. Knowing that 

I attached a picture of the Sheung Shui missionaries at dinner at a member's house, because I always
forget to include pictures of me.

This week while we were waiting at language passoffs, we invented Vocab Jenga. Every time you miss
 a word you have to pull out a block, and it got REALLY intense. It was really effective at helping us
learn vocab actually, because the adrenaline was so high.

​

As always, I love you all. Thanks for the support and prayers you send my way. I feel it every day. Y'all
are awesome!

The church is true

The book is blue

--

Love

Sister Hugo

Yiu Ji Muih

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Happy Birthday to Mom!

This week is gonna be a short email, cause I need to spend time writing my mom to wish her HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

 

Want to know something terrifying? Last transfer is already over. And it flew by. And things just keep getting faster. And at the end of the transfer I'm in, I'll have been a missionary for 6 months. Where is the time turner when you need it?! Although now that I think about it, I'm already exhausted all the time...and if Hermione couldn't handle it, there's no way I could. I guess I'll just have to do things the good ole fashion way and live in the moment.

 

This week our Sister Training Leaders and Zone Leaders are prepping for Zone Training. Which means that Sister Thomson and I went on splits! Pretty much every day this week. Which....is kinda terrifying. We were in the same MTC district, so neither of our Cantonese is really that good. And we were teaching real lessons, to real people, with real baptismal dates. It was a big week of learning. And really humbling. Sister Kessen says that the best part of being a missionary is how often you get to fall on your face. Which means that this was probably my best week ever!! Seriously though it was awesome. It helped me realize that for a while I've been stagnating as a missionary and just making excuses for myself. Well, it stops now! I'm so blessed to be a missionary at this time. The Lord has trusted me with so many amazing people who need His love. I love the Lord. I love this work. I love Hong Kong. It feels like that moment in the Grinch when "his heart grew 3 sizes that day" It's almost time to go, but just know that I'm doing a-MAZE-ING. Life is good. The Lord is better. I'm just astounded at how much love is in my heart right now, especially considering I'm just emailing in an Apple Store in the middle of China. Who would've though?!

PS. They took forever, but these are some pictures from a couple weeks ago when I went bike riding

--

Love

Sister Hugo

Yiu Ji Muih

Your favorite

Hong Kongers

Found out this week that my MTC teacher lied to me. No one calls the people who live in Hong Kong "Hong Kongers." Except for me now.

Also, topic lines are getting harder and harder to think of! Maybe I'll just a mad libs title

I plan to cut my hair soon and I need your votes. Trim or chop? I don't know what to do, but it is too dang hot so something is going to have to change and fast 

(This is the point in the letter where my mother will get nervous because she think's I'll have already cut my hair. Not yet mom :) Don't worry)

Makeup time again! Susan is really stressed about finding a job to support her family. So we took our P-Day off to be models so she can graduate her makeup school faster. She is A-MAZE-ING!! She made me look like Co-Co Chanel. It was a little bit scary how much I looked like the picture of Co-Co actually.  Susan is such an amazing person and mother. She's really busy and it's hard to meet with her because she has so much stuff to do and she has to do it all herself. But this gospel is exactly what she needs. The moment she realizes that will change her life. I love her so much! She's such an example to me of hard work, diligence, and taking life one step at a time.

We've been meeting with Ada, Peggy, and Yoyo for about a month now. Ada is a single mom working hard to take care of her two daughters. Her English is amazing considering she teaches herself, mostly by copying her daughters homework. They've been going to church with us for about 3 weeks, but this week they went to mainland to spend time with family.  We didn't mind (family is important!) and then we got a call from them right before we went to bed. They were on their way home and had food to give us! We met them at the train station 10 minutes and Ada gave us a GIGANTIC bag of lychee fruits. Then she brought out a giant bag of "spicy stuff." Looks like marinated vegetables. She started pouring the food into our tupperware when Peggy said "Stop! Don't give them so much! I want some too!" To which Ada replied "Stop complaining! We like them!" I love them so much, they're so adorable. 

We had a water fight church activity this week. We had 3 investigators attend and they all LOVED IT! Which we loved. The only part we didn't love is that we weren't allowed to play with them. It was so hard to sit in the chapel and watch the amazing water fight going on outside. No worries though, it just means I'll have to have an even bigger water fight when I get home. I didn't bring my camera on that day, but just imagine 40 youth soaked to the bone and smiling all the while.

We shared a spiritual message about how the Book of Mormon helps us. It's not a fairytale. It's not a charlatan trick. It really does help us . To help us we had an awesome object lesson. Place your finger on the Book Mormon laying flat and sideways (so you can see half your fingernail) and raise a can high above your head. When trials try to bring us down (bring the can down hard on your finger) the Book of Mormon helps us stay strong. The can comes away dented and your finger is 100% fine. 

Something like this happened for me this week. I woke up....just....angry. At nothing. It wasn't anger towards anything. It wasn't allergies. I wasn't tired or hungry. I wasn't stressed about anything. I was just .... ANGRY. Which felt terrible. I spent some time trying different things (chocolate, cleaning, meditating, eating, doing pushups) but nothing made this giant ball of anger go away. Each thing placed a little dent in it while I was doing it. But once I was done the anger would come back in full force. That is, until I read the Book of Mormon. I said a prayer really just explaining the day to Heavenly Father and pleading that something in the Book of Mormon would heal me. I started reading the Book of Mormon, and 5 minutes later all the anger and stress had gone. It melted away slowly, without me even noticing. There was no "AHA" moment, no magical verse, and no-one fell over as if they were dead. But somehow, I was healed. I say somehow, but really it was through the Love of God, Christ's atonement, and the influence of the Holy Ghost. A lot of Hong Kongers think that our church, and God in general is just a fairy tale. Nothing better than a Disney Movie. But that just isn't true. The help of our Father in Heaven is REAL. We just need to turn to Him and let Him in.

I'm out of time, but I love you all. Keep up the hard work!!

-- 

Love

Sister Hugo

Yiu Ji Muih

Your favorite

Another Day in Paradise

I feel like not much happened this week, but I also know that somehow I'll find things to talk about as soon as I start typing. 

Every time I see members, and investigators even, they without fail ask me if I'm tired and/or hot. I mean..... yes..... but is it that obvious? I keep telling myself they'll just be even more impressed with everything I do if they think I'm exhausted.

Also, every one is insisting that I've gotten skinnier. I haven't lost any weight though, so what must be happening is that I'm getting taller!!

This last P-Day we went on a Bicycle Ride in Dei Mai Dok. #Gorgeous #MyDad'sOverUseOfHashtagsIsContagious We were able to go with a lot of other sister missionaries and it was a blast! I rode in a 4 person (2 x 2) bicycle which looked stable, but is somehow harder to drive than the tandems. I got a lot of pictures on another Sister's camera, so maybe you'll get pictures next week too!

This week we met with the Lee family and brought one of my best friends Salad along with us as well. (Sorry, no pictures) The Lee's are AMAZING I love them so much. Two of their three children are English speaking RMs and so they helped me translate (who knew I would have needed the word helicopter so badly). Members don't feed us very often like I imagine happening in America, but when they do feed us they go ALL OUT! Amazing soup. Then chicken for days. Then Mango Pizza (actually amazing, but I was expecting Yellow Bell Pepper flavor so was confused for a bit), then melon, and then dessert.  The best part of the night though (apart from the amazing lesson where all of the Lee's for powerful testimony of Christ) was my language skills. One of the Lee's asked Salad where she met the missionaries. She said McDonalds. Ithought that what they meant "Where did you first meet the missionaries who baptized you?" but what they meant was "Where did you meet Sister Hugo and Sister Kessen to walk over to our house?". So when I said "Wow. God had a plan!" all of the Lees had to stifle giggles. But then when they told me what had happened I was the one who laughing the hardest. It was so FUNNY!!

This week I went on Splits with Sister Thomson while our companions did STL stuff. We taught 4 lessons together and they all went great. WE did get lost....but just a little bit! And thank heavens for members because in one of the lessons we had absolutely no clue what she was saying.....MEMBERS TO THE RESCUE!!

We had a meeting with the Bishop about working more with the Less actives in the ward and he gave us maybe 6 names. We contacted all of them in 24 hours and they're all amazing!!  

Ada and Peggy rode bikes to church in the 35 degree Celsius (95 F) weather. They're rockstars! 

Transfers are this week, and I'll probably stay in here with Sister Kessen, but we'll find out!

Life in Hong Kong is soooooOOOOO GOOD!!

P.S. Has anyone gotten any hard copy letters from me? I've sent about 3 every week and I'm worried that I'm sending them incorrectly somehow........but just know mom, that I've written you a letter very week, even if they aren't getting to you

--

Love

Sister Hugo

Yiu Ji Muih

Your favorite

#StinkyFeet

Hello World!!

I bought a facial mask and was expecting a cream or something. Instead it turned me into a MONSTER!

 

On my birthday, the other sisters bought me the most amazing chocolate cake *drools* and then wrote 20 compliments on 20 balloons. They're the sweetest. I loved it so much.

 

Translation: Except for your feet, you always smell really good! #nosolution

Reaction: Yeah, that sounds about right. 

 

 

I tried to sleep with all the balloons, but it didn't work out. Still got this picture though!

 

This is a bowl full of the famous chicken feet. Ada and Peggy love having us over, and every time we come over Ada cooks enough food for 12 people, not even kidding. But it's always delicious so we don't complain. They came to church this week to see the baptism of 8 year old Adia Wong (who was in my ward in Hawaii! Talk about a small world!) . They loved church (all the food after the baptism probably helped) and are going to try and come again next week! At first they didn't want to hear anything about the gospel, but I can see the Spirit softening their hearts. Now they're so curious and willing to listen. I love them so much 

 

We had a Relief Society activity where we made Oreo mousse cup things for father's day. They said "The first step is to take out the cream in the middle of the Oreo because it is far too sweet!" I was so sad! I ended up just eating about 1/4 of the cream anyway (which was a lot because we had about 6 boxes of oreos) and the members thought it was HILARIOUS that I had such a sweet tooth. That's America for you! I made an oreo parfait one for you dad, and thought of eating it for you. But I don't think you would ever eat an oreo without the cream AND without milk to dunk it in. It's un-american! #obviously...I'minHongKong

 

Then in the group picture at the end, I was probably the tallest person by 4 or 5 inches. When I told them I want to be taller they started arguing about whether or not I could find a boyfriend/husband if I'm that tall. I think this might be the running joke of my mission. I think it's so funny I love it so much.

 

My companion Sister Kessen and I are trying to talk to more people, and as soon as we put in extra effort we saw miracles. Like someone talking with us for 5 minutes, giving us 3 referrals, and then insisted she come with her to dinner (where we tried to pay for ourselves but she got there first). Or a man who stopped us on the street because he has questions about religion and we are ministers. 

Sister Kessen became a Sister Training leader and our zone was split so we're TINY. Just 6 sisters now. The real fun happens this week when the STL's need to go on splits. Sister Thompson and I will be out by ourselves with our cumulative 4 months experience with Hong Kong. I'm going to get so many fun stories out of this week!

 

The people of Hong Kong are amazing, and they are so prepared to hear this joyful message. The saddest things that happen are when people are being prepared by God to receive this message, receive all of these blessing, and they reject it. It breaks my heart. But I'll keep working, I'll keep trecking. This gospel means everything to me. The thought that my only purpose in life right now is to share what has been the biggest blessing in my life makes me indescribably happy.

--
Love

Sister Hugo

Yiu Ji Muih

Your favorite

Chegau

No time for small talk. Too many amazing stories!

We went to visit with a Less active, Lo JiMuih. She's a grandma from Taiwan who lies by herself. We walked to her house and somehow got there half an hour early, but we called and she was home so we just came right in. 3 minutes later a man walks into her house to give her food. We're confused but play it off cool and try to talk with him but he just waves his hands at us and goes to the kitchen. When he comes back he says to Lo JM in Cantonese "Do you know these people aren't christian?" to which we respond (in Cantonese) "Actually, we are Christian. We love Christ" His mouth drops to the floor (these two white girls speak Cantonese!) "Also, we're not chegau (a cult)" he didn't say anything but his face said "AND THEY CAN READ MY MIND!!"

We ended up just chatting with him. Turns out he is Lo JM's Son in Law and brought her food because she wasn't feeling well. At first he really didn't believe we believed in Christ. But we just talked with him about normal things (We love the TV show Friends too!! Does China have Netflix? Oh man I miss Netflix) and some missionary stuff (We really don't get paid! And we don't listen to music. And we wake up at 7 and go to bed at 11. We really do spend hours outside just talking with people) and a few spiritual things (What's that? Oh, that's the book of Mormon. It's kind of like the Bible).  He ended up staying for about an hour and a half, it seems like partially to make sure we didn't hurt Lo JM (yep. this is who you need to be afraid of. Two white girls in skirts who want to talk about Jesus and help your mother in law clean her house) and partially out a curiosity as to....just everything about us. We don't have his phone number or anything, but now he knows we're not a cult! We're praying we'll run into him more often. Especially because he is SO funny and his English is amazing.

Yesterday at church I understood almost 1/2 of Sacrament meeting!! Woo! I'm really glad that I prepared myself by imagining not understanding anything for 6 months because it makes the little victories that much more sweet.

Sunday night we ate with the Ling family. All of them are converts of about a year and a half. Wai Kei is going on her mission soon! They're all so amazing, I love them. Anyway, after dinner we were comparing heights with everyone. I was the tallest one there, which made me excited. Sister Ling was confused why I was so happy so I explained how I want to be 6 foot. She squealed "No! If you get any taller you'll never get married! I'm already worried about you!!" I laughed so hard. But it would be worth it to be 6 foot. So watch out world, prepare yourself for a 6 foot engineering spinster. 

 Today we had a meeting with all of the trainers and trainees. Which meant an MTC REUNION!! I missed them all so much. Not everyone was there, but I'm glad that so many were. I miss those who weren't there, but I know that the Lord will take care of them.

Anyway. I loved seeing everyone!! I gave out a lot of hugs, and reminded all the Elders its only 21 months till they get the hug to end them all. I'm so proud of all of them! I completely understand why I can't give them hugs. It makes complete sense. .......It's still hard to not hug them.

After the meeting we rushed downstairs to go to the bathroom. Then we went into the mission office, and there was a surprise birthday party!! AAHH!! Not gonna lie, I cried. There were egg tarts, and my MTC companions gave me notes. It was amazing. No pictures, but just imagine me smiling so hard that my eyes disappear into my cheeks X)

-- 

Love

Sister Hugo

Yiu Ji Muih

Your favorite

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

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