So let's start at the very beginning. A very good place to start. Haih mh haih?
So we woke up early Monday and made our way to the airport from the MTC. A bus took us to Trax and we were quite the crew... I still can't believe we all made it alive with all our luggage.
I barely made weight with my luggage. 50 and 51 lbs. So I actually didn't make weight.. haha I was over. But the guy was really nice and let me slide. :)
Flight to Seattle was quick and then we started on the forever long 13 hour flight to HK. It was a smaller plane than I thought it would be so there were two side seats and then a row of about 6 in the middle. I wasn't really by everybody and was kind of bummed, but don't worry. The Lord takes care of everything and it all turned out okay! So I sat next to this 18 year old boy headed to HK for an internship. He was from Canada and spoke Gwongdungwa and English. We got talking and he was super fascinated that I was "learning Canto to teach people about Jesus." About an hour into the flight he just told me that I should practice on him. I was super confused because they didn't really prepare you in the MTC for people to just ask you to teach them the lessons. Maybe that's what they teach at West Campus where all the Spanish speakers are, but not to us Asian missionaries!
In my head I was like "yes of course I'll teach you what you need to know to receive eternal salvation, thanks for asking!" So I "practiced" on him and taught the first 3 lessons in Gwongdungwa with a little extra explaining in English. It was super cool! I think he was much more interested in the fact that I was some white girl trying to learn Canto than in what I was actually teaching him, but he thought it was pretty cool and was way nice about it. Who knows, maybe I'll run into him in Hong Kong!
So we landed in HK after probably the longest 13 hours of my life. Oh and just in case you were wondering, airplane food is worse than MTC food, believe it or not. (Okay MTC food really isn't THAT bad. But the airplane food was way awful.) President and Sister Hawks along with the AP's met us at the airport (it's hard to miss a bunch of white 18 and 19 year olds who have no clue where they're going) and we loaded all our luggage into the mission vans. There wasn't room for some of us so 8 of us volunteered to go with the APs on the bus. (Hong kong is so much more like Japan than I remembered!! It feels like home.)
While waiting for the bus the APs handed us some fliers without a whole lot of explanation, but we got the message. In my head I was like "Are you serious. I've been on a plane for 13 hours, I look like I've been hit by a train, I've been in the country for 30 minutes and now I'm supposed to talk to someone in a language that I still don't know?" And then I thought, "Duh, Sister Robinson. You're a missionary. This is what you do." (Ya.. I call myself Sister Robinson in my head now, so that's weird.)
So I went in and sat by a lady with her daughter that looked about 14 and a son that was 4. After expending the entirety of my small talk vocabulary, which consisted of like three questions (they don't teach you that kind of stuff in the MTC, in fact there's a lot of things they don't teach you in the MTC haha) I tried my best to tell them about families how they can be together forever and all that good stuff. Let's be real. They had no clue what I was talking about. So I just smiled real big and gave them the pamphlet and went and sat next to everyone else. And now all three of them have baptism dates for next month. PSYCH. Jk Jk. I wish. Haha no it was pretty bad, but hey, I tried, right?
We got to the mission home and went to Pres and Sister Hawks apartment which is in the temple for some cake. THEY LIVE IN THE TEMPLE. It was pretty sweet. We landed at about 7:30 pm HK time so we went across the street to a building that is half mission office, half chapel, half patron housing for the temple. (I realize that was 3 halves... Oh well. I'm a missionary. We don't think about math.) And we all crashed!
The next day to be honest is kind of a blur. Lots of training and trying to stay awake! That night we went to Hong Kong University and ate super good food in the cafeteria, way cheap, super good. And then they sent us on splits with missionaries do go do finding for a couple hours.Sister Brown and I went with Sister Berry. Our fist day in HK and her last! She was super awesome!! We went out and walked down some street and talked to people. Lots of rejection, but one of the last girls we talked to was super excited about what we had to say and I bore my testimony about the Book of Mormon and we prayed with here right there on the street and it was awesome! It was pouring rain and we had umbrellas, but we were just soaked, and basically no one wanted to talk to us. And I turned to Sister Brown and Sister Berry and said, "I know the church is true because this is awful and I'm still happy!" (Mom: the crocs are great in the rain :)
The next morning we got our trainers and my trainer is….SISTER CHAN!!!!!!!!!
I was SO stoked!! For those of you who don't know, Sister Chan is from NZ and is fluent in Cantonese, Mandarin & English! She was in my MTC group and was fast tracked because she knew the language! Our former neighbor in Bountiufl, Janice Stauffer, served a mission in NZ with her husband where they taught Institute. Sister Chan was one of the YSA they got to know there. Sister Chan asked Janice to pick her up at the SLC airport and take her to the MTC. While she was in Bountiful for a day, Janice brought her to our home in Centerville to meet me! So can you believe that my mom and siblings have already met my trainer!!! PRAYERS ANSWERED!!! She's 22, studied music before her mission and is probably the most incredible person I've ever met. She's only been here 7 weeks and is training, so that'll tell you something about her! We're the youngest companionship in the mission, but she's incredible so she makes up for it!
We are serving in the Tsuen Wan area! We're the first Sisters in the area for a long time, so we're trying to figure it all out! We live in Kwai Fong right across the street from the Kwai Fong station with Sister Johnson and Sister Hadley! Elder Merrell is in a companionship with Elder Busby in the Tsuen Wan ward as well! It's super awesome to see Elder Merrell and Sister Hadley all the time! Makes the transition a lot easier! It was hard saying goodbye to everyone, but we didn't get a whole lot of time to think about it!
(Editor's notes: I think these are photos of her apartment building, her standing out in front of it, and her view from in front of the building????? My sister-in-law said, "She's out fairly close to the airport. There are some pretty big housing estates out there, and a huge outlet mall!)
This last week we had dinner with two families! One with the ward mission leader and then with the second counselor. Both incredible families! The ward mission leader is the Asian equivalent of Blake Barnes (The man from our ward who spoke at my farewell). He's the bomb.
One thing president Hawks said in our training is that the gift of tongues doesn't really mean you will be able to speak with fluency. It just means that they can feel the spirit from the things that you say. And that's been so true! 90% of the time I have no clue whats going on, and I'm sure the people here have no clue what I'm saying, but the spirit is there and that's all that matters.
I was asked to bear my testimony on Sunday and it was terrifying, but all the members were so nice and they all tell me I have such great Cantonese, but I'm sure it's only because I just smile and nod my head all the time. And I'm super good at praying for my companion during lessons, because I can't do a whole lot more than that! It's great though!
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| Dinner with Sister Chan and Sister Hadley!! |
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Our toilet is so legit! |
Love,
SisMoRob
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