Sun shines bright in Hong Kong

 I passed this the other day in my apartment building.  It feels like something Paul and Luke would love, but amazingly enough, I love it too!

Zone conference....
Hey everyone!  If you love the feeling of boiling hot water on your face, you would love being in Hong Kong right now!  They never let you drink cold water because they think its too big of a shock to the system.  All we want is cold water.  Weve started telling people we want to get sick so we can get cold water!
My language is very slowly but surely improving.  So is my attitude and outlook ;) Since Sister Johnson and I are fairly new its a little tricky when we go together.  It's doable just because we're talking about church and the Restoration and so I know that kind of stuff, but if they get into anything else it's a huge struggle. Honestly I usually just nod and move on or guess what they are saying or just straight up tell them I don't understand and then move on. Haha it's super awkward. Understanding is just a huge issue. I still get very little, but Im noticing I can pull out small tidbits here and there, just enough to survive. But it's all right because when we go finding we know enough to get by. Also the last time we brought Christa a member with us and so she was a huge help. Also Sister Adams and Villisan aren't summer missionaries, they are just regular missionaries. They live with us and serve in the same church building as us so we are with them a lot. They each had a summer missionary who was a native for two weeks. Their names were Sister Lui and Lee and they went home today. I'm sad they are gone but also I get to sleep in my bed now so also pretty happy.  Everyone's obsessed with sea food which is super fun for me. But actually I'm getting use to it. I just eat those little shrimps and the fishes and it's fine. On Saturday Fiona from the TST sisters ward took us out to dinner. She has this group of unmarried friends who love the missionaries. We went to an indonesian food place and it was awesome. Also update on Korean class it is just becoming more and more of a hit. The Chinese have officially rejected our American class and only want to learn Korean.  Who knew?  We actually had three people who we found on our own show up! Since the time I've been here we've never scheduled a new investigator and had them actually show up, but this little girl and her brother and Mom came to Korean class on Saturday. I was so happy. They said they'd come back next week and let us teach them lesson after. I really cant tell you the level of joy this has filled me with.
I want you guys to know that I am glad I am here, and am filled with hope and love for the chinese people every day.  They are gentle and truly good people.  The women are soft and kind in their manner and I really feel drawn to them.  I feel braver as we go looking for people and feel like if not me then who will go looking for them.  God loves people.  I know this to be true.  He understands the reason we are where we are, because he knows the entire life circumstance and has complete love and compassion for us.  I want to represent him fairly.  The only way I can do that is to love and show compassion to everyone.  I know God hears and loves people.  We are his treasures.  
So I bought a fan.  For real!  Its a beautiful chinese fan and I fan myself on the brutal hot streets . I hope you have a good image of me and all the Chinese people fanning themselves on the street.  Have a great week!

Chopsticks mastery

HEY GUYS!  You're fourth of July sounds way fun. Mine was pretty good too, After Pday we went to eat with the Pangs again with the Elders. Their kids are so cute and funny. Their little girl  Yoyo dances and her mom showed me this video of her doing High School Musical cheerleading and it was so adorable but then Yoyo started crying because she was embarrassed and it was kind of sad.

 I was able to share a message with them from the scripture I shared last week and I actually felt like I was able to say what I wanted to say (which is rare). Also this week Sister Ng started doing her Sister Traning Leader stuff so I went on exchanges two times with Sister Johnsen. It was awesome. I'm seriously so happy I get to do that sometimes now! She came in with me and she is a good friend. She had a little bit rough first transfer and she is so kind to me and my struggles,  but she got a new comp this transfer so she's doing better. We have a lot of fun together and we even were able to teach some full lessons when we went finding. 

 We also took Christa with us. Christa is also 19 and she is in the ward right next to ours so we see her all the time. She's pretty much in our ward too because she always sleeps in past her sacrament and comes to ours instead haha. I love her. Yesterday we ate dinner at the church with Christa and her older sister Ayan and Christa helped me do language study. Her English is really good and it was so helpful. Today we are going to this place called Mega box which is a restaurant place and then to the Bruce Lee Museum with Christa, Ayan, and Glynis (who is Sister Chung's Daughter). Glynis told her Mom that on her summer mission all she ate was instant noodles and I guess her Mom freaked out and then invited us over the next day to eat dinner at her house where she fed us a ton of vegetables haha. It was cute. We also ate these huge shrimps with the eyes still attached. Surprisingly they were super good. I'm getting much more adjusted to the food now and also using chopsticks which makes life a lot easier. You can lose alot of weight really fast if you dont know how to use chopsticks.  You notice your weight stabilizing when you start to master chopsticks.  

 Oh also we have two summer missionaries in our apartment who are with Sister Adams and Sister Villison which is fun. Well kind of not fun because we have to sleep on the kitchen floor, but fun because their super cute and always help me figure out my words. I love you guys.  Have a great week.

So I see this cute picture every day leaving my apartment and I realize Paul and Luke are never far from me. 

never ceasing miracles

Hi family! 

This was a good week in Kowloon City. We met with a couple of our investigators and they are doing well. Gigi, our little eight year old friend, is excited about being a missionary. We gave her a little missionary tag to wear and she was so proud. When we teach her she loves to answer questions and be like the missionaries. It's pretty adorable.

 We were also able to meet with an investigator who was just turned over to us from some other missionaries named Betty. She learns slowly, but has the purest heart I've ever seen. She's just so sweet. She also has a bit of speech impediment as do I so our phone conversations are very fun as you can imagine. We  taught her the Restoration this week and her desire to know truth is so pure and sweet. 

I also want to share some thoughts with you that I've had this week. Last night particularly I was thinking about atonement. Sometimes when I do dumb things and then repent it feels like no big deal. You know, some days I know I did things that weren't perfect but I tried my best and so I know that I'm forgiven and it doesn't feel like a big deal. But then there are some times where it wasn't that I just fell a little short after all I could do. Sometimes I know exactly what I should do but I choose not  to do it. Sometimes I know that God is telling me I should say I'm sorry or have a better attitude and I purposely do not do it because I just don't want to. And I'm a missionary, I really should be doing these things as soon as I am prompted to. Anyways, the other night I was thinking about Christ performing the atonement and I thought about all these things that bring me pain and other people pain that I have done purposefully and knowing full well what I was doing. I felt so sad at the thought. How could I do that to Him? How could I, someone who knows better, someone who preaches this same thing to people every single day, cause my Savior that kind of pain simply because I'm selfish or lazy? It hurt my heart so much. I wanted to hide myself from God. Then this morning as I was reading the scriptures I came across a scripture that touched my heart. 

Romans 3:22-24

"Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." 

All have sinned and come short. All. I know that that's true but then sometimes for whatever reason I just want to be perfect and think maybe just maybe, today I could not fall short. Today my sins could be minor and I could be exempt of this all people are sinners thing. But that just isn't the way it works. God already knows that every single person will sin every single day. He is well aware that they all will fall short. So He sent His son to pay the price, and the price has already been paid. Why would it matter to God the size or significance of your sins if the price has already been paid? Why on Earth would He measure whether your sin was an allowable sin, a righteous person sin, a good missionary sin, or a big one, a shameful sin, a bad person sin? I came to realize that sin is not being unaware of what is wrong and accidentally messing up. Sin is knowing right from wrong and choosing wrong anyways. Sin is purposeful. I kind of hate this. The scriptures tell us time after time that we are all sinners but I think to be honest I always ignored that. I never wanted to be a sinner. Being a sinner just feels too shameful. But this is what fills my heart with love for our Savior. He just doesn't care. He felt our shame, He knows the parts of us we don't want anyone else to know. He knew from the moment He created us that we would be sinners, this doesn't faze Him. Our sin is not something that surprises Him or disgusts Him. He saw it coming before we even did. All we have to do is accept Him and all is well. We are forgiven.  Not half forgiven, or almost forgiven, or forgiven but still pretty rotten. No, we are completely healed and completely justified through His blood. 

 I have a final story to tell you that you will not believe and I think this is worthy of being printed off and read out loud or something because it really is huge.

On Saturday  Sister Ng and I were ready on our way to go visit a former investigator named Caroline. She is 17 years old and started investigating the church a few months ago but she doesn't have much focus and is more interested in being friends with the missionaries so they stopped teaching her. But we still see her sometimes just to check on her. So anyways, we had our appointment to visit her home on Saturday afternoon when Sister Ng dropped the bomb. She has TWO CATS. I told her well we cannot do that then and she told me we can do that and we have to do that. So we got on the bus and found Carolines house and I never stopped praying the whole time. then we got to Carolines house and there was no sign of any cats. I thought I was safe. We were talking with Caroline and having fun and she was even speaking in English and it was a dream.  First it was Kenny and William shortly followed and I thought I was dead. Caroline noticed that I was uneasy so her sweet little heart made sure that her cats didn't cross her so that they wouldn't touch me. So then I began so share our spiritual message with her. As I was talking about the scripture we would share William (the big cat) COMES AND SITS RIGHT NEXT TO ME. RIGHT NEXT TO MY STOOL. HE WAS PRACTICALLY TOUCHING MY LEGS. AND GUESS WHAT I DID? I, Emma Frances Terry, kept on talking. I looked Caroline in the eyes and I smiled and in my awful cantonese I told her that God wants to hear her prayers and that He loves her. I didn't even look away from her the entire time. I did it. I was terrified and yes, being afraid of cats is probably the most insane thing in the world and most definitely the most humiliating thing, but it is quite a cross to bear and I DID IT. So if any of you are wondering if God exists I think I have officially solved the question , but God gave me strength beyond my own to be able to share my testimony with our friend. 

So I just want to tell you that it doesn't matter how little, or HUGE, or embarrassing, or shameful, or unique, or difficult your problem is. Heavenly Father does not with hold his help. He cannot judge us for our problems because He gave them to us. And I have many. And wow Hong Kong is awesome but it kind of has a lot of promblems too. I'm beyond thankful for a Father in Heaven and Savior who understand every human being perfectly and know exactly how to help them have the best life possible.  Love you guys.