Oh my beautiful Hong Kong

 This is the amazing beloved Ms. Chou.  She is showing us how you summon the wind.  Im not sure how this could ever be useful in your life, but she is showing us the dance move and flower pose you need to do to call upon wind.  Good ol' Ms. Chou.

 These are moon cakes.  Do not let the delicious sounding word confuse you.  There is nothing cake about it.  Its like flavorless peanut butter with an egg yolk in the middle.  I dare you to eat one and not gag. I don't understand why nobody here wants to eat real cake. They're so crazy. And skinny. Oh yeah, maybe that's how they do it...

 Oh by Beautiful Hong Kong.  I love it here.  It is one of the most beautiful places you could dream of.  It really is feeling like my home.

Hong Kong really is so pretty. I absolutely love it. Something I've yet to get a picture of is the MTR bridge on Sundays. Sunday is most people's day off. There are a ton of foreigners that come here to be maids for rich Hong Kong people. Mostly they are from the Philippines, Indonesia, and sometimes India. Since Sunday is their day off they all go and sit on the bridge. They line their blankets on the sides and take off their shoes and sit there eating food and partying and it's the craziest scene I've ever seen! So much fun. Especially because the foreigners are actually kind to us. 
 There's a little boy named Don in church who I've been trying to win over for the past five months and yesterday I think I finally did it. He came up to me before sacrament and just kind of stood there waiting for me to talk to him so I asked him if he was excited for the primary program (which was the most precious thing in the world. I died. So much) and he said yes and gave me a high five. Haha. Chinese people aren't extremely friendly so this was quite the triumph. 
Also he had a singing solo in the program that was the most incredible thing on Earth. So cute. 

 We saw Brother Chou again this week. He's still as adorable as always. Still has questions about Jesus being an alien and about smoking a thousand packs of cigarettes a day. But he is very precious. I have alot of hope and good feelings when we teach him.

 Actually Sister Jung is becoming more willing to schedule us more. She actually told us that she believes our church and the Book of Mormon is true and also believes Joseph Smith is a servant of God, but not a prophet. We're hopefully seeing her next week.

On the bright side while finding this week Sister Ng and I met this sweet old lady and she ended up coming to English class and church! She hit it off so well with one of our members Sister Yip. She is like eighty years old but plays the piano amazing and after church showed us all. She was loving the spotlight. It was adorable. However we have to turn her over most likely because she's from Indonisia but her mandarin is better than her cantonese and we're supposed to give mandarine speakers to the madnarin missionaries. That's pretty sad. Also because we found another cute new girl who also met with us at the church but she lives outside our area so we have to turn her over too. And Sister Yip introduced us to her friend who wants to take missionary lessons but she also needs to be turned over to mandarin missionaries. We are very good at finding people we can't teach. Oh well. More blessings.

I am happy family.  I am starting to love the missionary life and work and feel what I am doing is meaningful if for no one else for me.  I realize how much I love you the longer I am away.  I just have one last request. i read Genesis chatper 9 today the last verses and it is some crazy stuff! It's about Noah cursing his son and I can't use google but could you maybe look it up for me and see if there's some symbolism there or why it's included in the Bible and send that to me next week?   That would be great.  I love you guys soooooo much!

its worth 1000 words

Hello family,
Im doing my letter a little different this time.  Im sending home a bunch of pictures to show you what my life is like.

 We spend alot of time riding this and trying to strike up conversation with people.  I love the purple seats.

 This picture is so you can see the cool boats behind me.  There are alot of little docks like this around

 Some of the beautiful area we cover  Honestly the water here is quite beautiful.

 So many of the building are just breathtaking.  They are exactly what you would picture in your head Hong Kong China would look like

 I love this little spot.  Its beautiful to me.

 So we pass this guy alot.  His music is amazing.  He looks like the most relaxed peaceful person Ive ever seen.  Sometimes I wish I had his life.

 Yes.  Exactly.  We spent a long time gut laughing about this burger.  Its mine of course.  And yes I ate it.  And no you cant see that picture.  Its private.

 This is because i wanted to impress you with how clean everything is here.  Its not normally empty but it is always sparkling clean.

 My precious friend.  She is about my favorite person ever.

 Ok so this is my new favorite Jesus picture.  This picture speaks to my heart more than any other I have ever seen.  I love these precious Chinese children.  They are truly gods children.

 More beautiful scenes

 from our walks and walks and walks.  Pioneer children might be jealous of us.

 So this might seem comical but I know little points of interest are sometimes interesting.  Our tiny little apartment is small and clean and cozy.  Isnt this the cheeriest shower youve ever seen?

 I included this because we sortof live and die by this map

 View from our window

 My darling Sister Viazzo and I

 This is where we eat

 and cook

 Mom thanks for teaching me cream of mushroom with anything goes over rice.  This is my new favorite over plain rice.  We love it!

 Another apartment view

 On a visit with our friends

 Where we sleep.  It really is homey despite the small size

living space

 Sometimes if there is nowhere to sit you just sit wherever and eat as fast as you can.  This is me having a quick snack in my normal chinese stance.

So I will end with this picture of Mr. Chou.  He is the reason I am actually here.  Not the cool scenery or cool food or fun living conditions.  It is for sweet souls like our beloved Mr. Chou.  So he is our first real investigator.  I cannot tell you what this has done for Sister Ngs and my spirits.  He asked us at first if God was an alien.  I thought to myself oh no we have a crazy person here.  But I looked at him and he was troubled and sincere.  He wasnt trying to be dumb.  He just was trying to wrap his head around the concept of God and what it could mean to him.  As we talk to him, I honestly feel the sweet promptings of the spirit saying these are the reason missionaries come.  We treat him good and he eats it up. He also wears the same purple tank top every time I see him which makes me laugh.9 Im pretty sure it says he believes in telekenisis. Someone please google. )   Sometimes at church he tries to escape because church is boring for him, but we are aiming to touch his heart.  I know God is real.  I dont know if the Jesus picture with the Chinese children effects you the way it effects me but it chokes me up with gratitude to be here whenever I look at it.  Ive come a long ways in my heart since I arrived off the plane as a scared Utah girl.  I feel bold and confident and ready to help.  I just want to help people.  I dont want to bother or give unwanted messages.  I pray we can find the people our message will help.  I think we will.  I feel as hopeful and happy as I ever have.  Find someone to help family.  Make it a great week.  I love you. 

Never give up

Hello Family what's up.

This week was transfers.  I did not get transferred but we got a third companion.  Her name is Sister Adams and seriously she is the nicest, warmest person you could ever meet.  I love love having her with us.  She seems to lighten the load and make everything easier.  I dont know how long we will have her but I hope its a while.  Kowloon hasnt had any baptisms or success for so long they were considering closing my area, but last minute decided to add another area to ours and see if making it bigger could help some.  I hope so.  It can get discouraging to look and look and never have anything work out.  The people here just have no need for religion.  I wish Kowloon could see how awesome being a Mormon is.  I would be very sad if this area were closed from lack of work able to be done.   I've been getting pretty frustrated with these cute Hong Kong people. They just don't care about or have any desire to talk about God. Okay, that's a generalization but a lot of people we talk to have just never even thought about Him before and just don't want to. It's been driving me crazy. I don't get why they don't get it. So anyways, as we've been finding and talking to people this past week I've just been thinking why doesn't God show them? Why won't He show them the way to Him and help them to be happy. Then on Tuesday when we had district meeting an elder in my district said something that really touched my heart. He said that President Lam was helping them teach a lesson where this man was so against religion and God in general. He just kept insisting that nothing was true and was getting aggressive. This elder said that President Lam was getting obviously frustrated and trying his hardest to answer every question the man had and he was completely kind with every act of aggression.  But then eventually he just sat quiet for a minute and thought. After wards he got very calm and just said " We can't force you to be converted. If you don't want it there's nothing we would ever do to force you." The elder in my district said that at this point he was so mad. He couldn't believe that President Lam gave up. They brought this man to him thinking that they could finally get through to him and then he gave up. He was so disappointed. Then later he was talking to President Lam and President shared a thought about the experience. He said that sometimes we look at other churches like they're evil and we look at people with no God and think they are wicked. But that's not true. God does not favor certain children. He loves us all equally, The ones who have the fullness of the gospel and the ones talking to an American missionary girl on the bus telling her that it's not possible that God helped her learn Cantonese because he doesn't exist. Because of this love our Heavenly Father wants each of his children to have peace. Except for some of them won't take the peace he has to offer. For some of them keeping the commandments and the rules and praying and doing the things they need to do is just too hard. They refuse to do it and they refuse to open themselves to it. So He'll give them whatever peace he can. If the peace they need is to go to another Christian church and believe that no matter what they are saved, then He'll let them have that peace. Or if the peace they need is to reject God entirely He will still allow them to have a piece of happiness in their decision (at least until they are ready to accept more). 

I have been thinking a lot about this thought. God's love for us is so deep and I still don't understand it. I'm grateful that He is willing to give peace and love to His children in the capacity that they are willing to accept it. My thought on the frustration of peoples resistance in Kowloon (not one missionary has taught for almost a year here) is that God meets us where we are at, and loves us in that moment, and line upon line builds our understanding and knowledge.  I have faith that if someone is ready to hear the gospel, we will find them. 

Keep praying for Hong Kong and keep being so wonderful because you are.

Love love love you. <3

-Sister Terry 

a little monkey business

 This past week we went to the beautiful Hong Kong Temple.  Thankfully we got to do it in English.

 Beauty treatments on the mish!

 This is one of our favorite people to visit.  She always feeds us delicious food

 So I guess they knew I was coming and named this incredible street after me.  Please tell Paul.

 This is my favorite I have ever eaten.  The meat is the most delicious I have ever tasted.

this is our temple group

 Okay so monkey Island is the SPOOKIEST PLACE ON EARTH. We went there for p-day.   Im not kidding.  Monkeys everywhere!  I was freaked out!

the baby monkey is cute but still a little bit spooky

 Guess what... we got summer missionaries! And uh... haha I'll tell you more about that later. 

Last week we got to go to the temple on Friday. It was super nice. I was scared it was gonna be in chinese but don't worry President Lam has apparently heard all our chinese and so he knows better. It was probably the first time I went to the temple and really felt at peace. Sister Ng and Sister Adams and Villisen and I sat in the Celestial room for a long time and I felt a lot of love from God. After that we went to this Phillipino fast food restaurant because Sister Villisen is from the Philippines and wanted to go. It was pretty good and after that we walked around Central and then had English class. It was a nice day. And then on Saturday we got a call from the Assistants asking us if we would be willing to get summer missionaries. When they called to ask I said "summer missionaries? us?" and laughed and then Sister Ng took the phone from me haha. I didn't think they would give us some because I don't know what I'm doing. But they did. Summer missionary are kids 16-20ish who want to try out a two week mission. They take a companionship and give them each a SM and then you basically split from your real companion all the time and are only with your SM. That means that right now I'm kind of like the senior companion for my SM and I. The only time we are with Ng and hers are when we do planning or just at the house seeing them/ward stuff. Which I guess is kind of a lot. Her name is Got Jm and she's super cute. But it's pretty tough. She's only 16 and I think she came here expecting kind of an EFY type thing... but yeah this is definitely not EFY. She doesn't like finding, actually pretty much hates it.  I cant judge her, this is tough stuff in the heat and everything.  Shes also a little disapointed by our diet of eggs and ramen noodles (cheap and fast) She keeps telling me that I don't understand Hong Kong people and that I'm doing it wrong. So she is actually a huge gift to me because she is teaching me so much.  As a missionary you really have to be persistent with people. I'm fully aware that I am annoying pretty much every person I talk to and yeah thats hard,  but it's what you have to do if you want to find that one person who will be willing to talk to you. So whenever we're out I'll start talking to someone chatting and finding ways to introduce the gospel and she'll grab my arm and pull me away and then after tell me that because I'm white I don't understand Hong Kong people and I need to stop. I feel torn so much of the time on this.  I dont want to annoy people but I also dont want to miss opportunities or waste my time.  It's pretty hard. Im not sure what to do about it, but I told Sister Ng and since she is bolder/clearer chinese than me she has said a few things to try to explain what missionary life is like, but Got JM is still pretty defiant. She always says she's tired and asks stuff like "when are we going to eat at a members house?" and I feel so bad because I don't know how to explain to her that we can't really take time to rest and that our members don't feed us. Ive been praying like crazy a member will ask her to eat at their house but its looking bad.  But on the bright side my language has already improved since I'm with her all the time and we speak cantonese all the time. Her English isn't very good so it's hard to communicate, but it forces me to have to figure out how to say things. 

 We haven't been able to meet with Slamet again but when I called her she said that if we call her an hour in advance this next week she'll meet us at the park again. Also glynis's mom is doing super good. She came to relief society on sunday and made all these comments like she's been going for years, super cute.  I love you guys.  Have a great week.