Hello All

Hello Loved Ones!

 

How I miss you all! You are all wonderful. Thank you for the constant letters you send me. It makes me feel very doted on.

 

Well, I'm sure you all want to hear the news of the week from Hong Kong. Well, luckily, it was a pretty low-key week, but also a good one. Having two summer missionaries has made it so that we can split up constantly and really be two places at one time, which is the best. We can do twice the work! And these summer missionaries with all their fire just seem to make for miracles.

 

The only sad bit from this week is that I lost my planner. Those planners have all of the phone numbers of new contacts and potential investigators and are VERY VERY important. I am not a careless person, but this is the second planner I have lost in a row. It's very discouraging. I am sure that Heavenly Father wants me to learn something (to be more careful, obviously, and probably other things too), but it's hard to not have all of those phone numbers. I wonder if Heavenly Father is subtley telling us to make room for new people to come in, ones who may actually be interested. We shall see.

 

But we've already seen some miracles come to show me that Heavenly Father will make up for this lost planner. Namely, I lost the planner after going street contacting and getting two girls phone numbers, which means that I lost their numbers. This was very discouraging because it felt like a waste of all that work. But we went back to the same area that evening, retracing our steps, and we found one of the girls again and got her phone number! In a city of 7 million, that is clearly a miracle. The other one we had already scheduled to see this afternoon. We will go and try to meet her, and hope that she shows up even though we haven't called her. We are praying hard.

 

But, speaking of getting new people, we went street contacting on Monday, too, and found this amazing girl. Her name is Bo Yan. I think she is the real deal. It goes like this: I was finding in Yuen Long with a summer missionary, and saw this girl and said hi and she smiled, and that is all the invitation I need to be someone's new best friend. So, I went to go chat with her, and I've never had a more Spirit-guided contact heretofore. I just had all these questions to ask given to me, and we were able to teach her about prayer. In fact, we invited her to say a prayer with us together. I had told her that it was the way we talked with our Heavenly Father, and though she wasn't sure if Heavenly Father was real or not, she understood when I said that we have to talk to someone to get to know them, therefore, we have to pray to get to know God. I then asked her to think about what she'd talk to God about if she really could talk to Him, then invited her to pray. In her prayer, she only said one sentence, but it was one of the most sincere and humbling prayers I've ever heard. She asked Heavenly Father to bless her mom to get better instead of progressivly sicker as she has been. We had no clue that her mom had an illness. Anyway, we met with Bo Yan the day after as well, and we'll see her on Saturday again. It's so exciting. I hope her parents don't oppose. In fact, I hope we can teach her parents too.

 

We are trying to teach families more in the mission, and are specifically praying for this, too. It is really a big thing, I think, because it helps people not become inactive so quickly. There is a big problem of that in HK. In fact, you could make 13 stakes from the amount of less-actives that are in HK. So we are working to find them back again, too.

 

Oh, a quick update on an investigator: Jau Taai is coming to another activity on Saturday! She's actually been praying more lately, and more reverently too, and she seems to be making some progress. She seems to have really gotten into my heart, and though she takes more time that other investigators (lots of traditions to change), she really has been changing. We will keep praying for her.

 

Well, the other thing is just that I feel like we are training a constant stream of summer missionaries, and that my own trainee is getting trained this way (I hardly see her!). It's fun, but it's going to be nice to be with my companion again eventually. She is doing well, even if she puts too high of expectations on herself. I just am grateful that we have some time every evening to talk and chat out the days joys and sorrows.

 

Oh, by the way, a new transfer starts today, and to no one's surprise, I will stay with my companion here in Yuen Long. I really want to try to help this area before I go, and I'm really happy I'll be here a bit longer.

 

Well, I love you all so much. I am so glad I get this chance to serve. I had this moment last night when I just kinda realized how much I love my mission. I know that this work is true and is the most exciting work I could be doing. I love the Lord, and I love this mission. It's hard but worth it.

 

Everyone remember to ga yauh! I love you!

 

Love,

Sister Nielsen