Thursday, June 21, 2012

Another Week in the Promised Land

Hello Wonderful Family All!

I love you. A lot. It sounds like all kinds of exciting things are going on with everyone, and my love is being sent in spades to you all. Also, thank you so much for the packages you've sent me! That box of goodies was just super exciting. Thanks. I have almost used up my entire first tube of anti-itch cream (the mosquitoes here are seriously out for blood. War has been declared here), so I am eternally grateful to have another tube. It's funny, the more successful finding is, etc, the more the bugs seem to bite....It's a good indicator, I guess.

As for me, things are going well. The work really seems to have picked up in Yuen Long, which might partly be because of the season (almost summer, students and everyone are more available). To be honest, when I first came to Yuen Long, I thought things were rawther slow, which is largely due to the mere size of the place (which, I humbly acknowledge is probably average in most missions in the world, but in Hong Kong, seems super big). You often spend about two hours of your day just taking trains and riding bikes to get where your lessons are. However, that also makes for lots of opportunities to just talk with the people around you, which is thrilling and also really hard to constantly do. It is a constant repentance process of trying to get better at that. It's good for me, I can tell.

But, this week has been an overwhelming one of trying to get better at everything simultaneously because I am training in a week! The nice thing is that I know that imperfect or not, with Heavenly Father's help, it will be enough. My trainee is apparently British Born Chinese. This means that her Cantonese is probably decent. Thank goodness! Yay! Luckily, I've noticed serious gifts of tongues miracles. For example, I have been able to slowly start to read the Book of Mormon! Parts of it! And yesterday in a lesson, I was able to help Sister Poon read out a scripture when she stumbled over some of the characters cuz of her eyesight! A miracle! (We have been meeting with Sister Poon, the Spiritual Giant, because her helper's out of town these two weeks, and we want to serve her. I love that woman.)

Also, yesterday, we had another cool miracle. We met with a 60 year old woman named Chan Popo who the elders had found while contacting. She is from Mainland and her Cantonese is iffy...Rather Mandarin-laced...But when Sister Taylor and I met with her, we understood almost all of what she said! Yeah! She was even telling these detailed stories of her childhood, and we understood the general gist of it. And she immediately took to us and told us stories that she'd never told anyone and said she'd come to church on Sunday. Amazing, no?

These past few weeks we've also seen lots of our other investigators and found some new ones, and it's been delightfully busy. Really, some people say that this is a hard mission, but I really think it's fairly blessed. And I get to serve in the prettiest area in Hong Kong, which is great. Really, Heavenly  Father knew I needed more nature, and put me right in the jungle. Well, not really, but more so than other places in Hong Kong. I will have to take some pictures sometime.

As for our investigators and how they're doing, some of them are really progressing! Remember Jau Taai who we found paak muhning? Well, every time we see her, she's cleaned up a bit more. And last time we visited, her husband even listened in on the lesson, though he wouldn't want you to think it (hasn't officially joined our lessons yet). And Apple, the Thai woman, she keeps coming to church and loves it. Can feel that it's good, even though she doesn't understand it. And Stellar, really, there's a miracle there. She's so hopeful and happy lately. She's been helping us teach lessons to her older sister, and bearing powerful testimony, and it's incredible. Heavenly Father really has the correct plan in mind, is what I'm realizing. I think her siblings needed her, and though she isn't baptized yet, this is all Heavenly Father's plan.

Well, one last miracle: last week while going through our day, we contacted this teenage girl named Crystal and told her about English class. Well, on Saturday, she called us up and wanted to see us! She had a lesson with us, then stayed to English class, then the next day she came to church and thought it was "fantastic" in her own words. So, we are excited for her.

Well, that's all there's time for this week. Things are always exciting here, and it's really a privilege to get to participate. Really, it's thrilling to get to invite people to pray and ask God to know if our message is true, and to know that they can get an answer. Who else does that? Anyway, I'm learning a lot, and trying to work hard.

And I love you.

Love,
Sister Nielsen

No comments:

Post a Comment