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.