Mom. Dad :) Hey!
It's been a good week. (The space bar here doesnt work very well, so sorry if the words stick together.) What to say? They have a new mission rule here that we can't really go and eat at members houses unless it's with an investigator, so I haven't been fed too much. I've had a few weird things though. We went to one investigating family's house and they made this blacksoup. It was super bitter, and really just awful haha. I wish I had a picture. There was a black hard-boiled egg in it...ugghh. they call it 1000 year old eggs and let me tell you...never again. and then there were all sorts of other animal parts in there. Like a hoof or foot of some kind, and then there was also this smoother thing, that was some sort of organ haha. At first I was bummed with that new mission rule, but I don't think I'll ever be more grateful for anything haha. I also tried durian or dorian or something. I didn't mind that, but I guess a lot of people don't like it. I wouldn't go out and spend money on it, but I ate it just fine. I usually just cook up some porridge in the morning and cut a mango into it. The fruit here is so cheap and so good. 3 mangos for 15 HK $. which is like 2$US. I think. maybe. I honestly don't really know anything anymore haha.

You would love it here. It's so busy and fun and has so many lights. The malls are huge and on every block, and the shops are cheap and so much fun. The metro is awesome. It's like a sauna out here. I am always wet from my sweat haha. When we go running in the mornings, it seriously looks like we jumped in a swimming pool haha. The popo's (grandmas) here do a funny exercise dance in the mornings. 100's of them in the park doing the same exact little dance thing....so funny haha. And everyone always walks around with an umbrella here for 3 purposes: 1) for the rain 2) for the sun 3) to shield us from talking to them haha. They're good shields....they just stick them in our faces when we say hello. It's funny...very few people know or believe in God, but they all recognize the missionaries!

The language is tough. I can understand when my companion speaks about the gospel. But when the natives start talking, it's pretty difficult. But I can see improvement from last week, so that's good. I think it will just be a long process, so I'm not feeling frustrated or anything about it. It does wear my mind out a little bit to be constantly trying to listen and understand what people are saying. Church is exhausting! But really helpful for the language! And the members are so great and kind. We teach all of our lessons at the church building, and we almost always have a member present for every lesson. And we teach like 8 or 9 lessons every week, so they really are involved in helping us and building their ward.

The mission work itself is a little difficult for me right now. I'm just trying to get a grasp on the people here so I can better understand how to approach people and what their needs are. Most people we have met with with so far consider church as almost an extracurricular activity. They have hobbies and once they feel like they're more proficient in one area, they'll move on to another. Many people are only interested in church for their children because they know that children that go to church are better behaved, and it's a big deal here to raise well-behaved children. So that's really the only purpose any of them see in church. It's hard to help people understand the purpose of the gospel or why this is important to them. Many of them have never put much thought into the purpose of life, or what happens after death. They're here right now, and they're purpose is to get money, and it's just kind of a different way of thinking. So I've been trying to learn how to best present our message to people. The idea of God and Salvation is hard for the people we've been meeting with to grasp. It's just been interesting and different.
I feel like I can work physically pretty alright, and I think I've worked hard mentally too, but I dont know how much I've exposed myself to working hard spiritually. And now I'm trying to, but it's tiring! haha. You just care for these people, and you can feel Heavenly Father's love for them, and you study and you do everythinig you can for them to somehow understand that the Spirit that they feel can be felt again and that through the gospel they can have peace and rest from their burdens and eventually obtain perfect happiness, but since it's not convenient, they dont entertain the idea for very long. So if you have any good thoughts on this, send them my way! And who knows, I've only met a handful of people, but it's been a re-occurring theme.
But I love you all! I think about you all the time.

The man with the slaughtered pig almost ran me over yesterday haha. We were walking through the gaisi in a crowd of people, and he just charged through....guts and all haha!

Love you!

Hannah

The Real Work Begins - Week 10

View from my 40th floor apartment

Busy street market

In my area - Kwun Tong

Family!!
Oh my goodness, I'm not sure how to start this. Hong Kong is AMAZING! I love it. I'm hot and wet and sticky and sweaty and I smell weird, but it's so great! I have a really sweet companion, Sister Simpson. This is her last transfer, and she's really great. She's been in this area for about 6 months now, so she really knows the ward well. I'm in Kwun Tong...so look it up on google or something ha. I haven't had much time to take pictures, so I'm really sorry mom. I'll send what I have though. I'm on the 40th floor of our building...it's so fun to look out the window! We ride the MTR a lot in my area (the metro, but they don't call it that) So I've been loving that. It's amazing how everything clashes here. There are these huge glass skyscrapers under construction with bamboo supports, or tons of these dirty smelly markets with cell phone booths in the middle of them. We were walking through one market, and this shirtless man was flinging a slaughtered pig that had been cut down the middle over his back.  I swear I felt something splatter on my face, but I just keep telling myself it was a rain drop ha. It's so beautiful here. It's a combination of green and mountains and the sea and city all together. I really love it so much. So that's the area. I'm learning way way around pretty well. It's smaller than I thought it was!

My mission president is incredible. Strict and down to business, but funny and kind and caring. I told him I was ready to work, and he said he could tell, and he could make that happen...maybe I spoke too soon? haha. Just kidding. His wife is an angel, I kid you not. She put together little food baskets for us on the first night because she knew we would wake up at 2 in the morning and be hungry for the rest of the morning. And she hugs the Sisters. Those hugs have been much appreciated lately. :)

Yesterday at church I was asked to come up and introduce myself and bear my testimony. There was a guy in front that just laughed at me the whole time haha. I'm understanding how horrible my sounds and tones are. I know a decent amount of vocabulary, but they're much more particular on the sounds than I thought, so I'm struggling to be understood. It's especially hard when we go finding because a lot of people don't want to listen to us anyway. They're nice and friendly, but as soon as they see the nametag, they would rather walk the opposite direction...and they have a few times! It's kind of funny. I'll start speaking to someone, and as soon as I bring up the Church or God or Jesus Christ or something, they say, "Ngoh mhsihkteng" or I cant hear/understand.  But I've placed a few Books of Mormon  and taught a few lessons on the street. We found 5 new investigators since I got to my area on Thursday, which I'm really proud of. We meet with them this coming week.

Yes, I feel overwhelmed a lot. This week has been very exciting and new, yes, but holy cow. Sometimes I just stare at people and have no idea what to say. I hardly understand anything that's going on, and everyone speaks so fast and loud in your face. So I'll look at my companion hoping she'll help me out, but she just stares at me too! Which is good. It's what she should do, but it's so hard. I've never prayed so much in my life. And in all honesty, the language is only a small part of that. I don't have what it takes to do this mission, but I decided I could either try to do this mission alone, and quite honestly fail, or I can really give everything up to the Savior and rely on Him. I need to do my best, and believe me, I'm really trying to do my very best...when you're drowning there's not much else to do but your very best haha. But then I need to just turn my confidence over to the Savior. That's lifted me up so many times this week. In my district, we all had to come up with a saying we can say to oursleves to keep us going. I have a lot of variations, but I guess it comes down to...This isn't my gospel. It's not my message. It's the Savior's. And that's why I can gain the confidence I need to go walk up to some stranger and in hardly understandable broken cantonese try to testify of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and His restored gospel. 99 times out of 100 they'll give me the hand or yell and say they can't understand me and don't have the time, but this morning on the metro, one women listened and agreed to meet with us again, and it makes it all worthwhile. It really is so neat.

Alright, I'm sorry. I hope this doesn't seem like a negative email. I absolutely love it here and would rather do nothing else. This really is the most amazing opportunity to use my heart like this and see people and myself change.  Love you!

Hannah

Week 8 - MTC

Hey!!!

I'm good! It's really happening! I'm getting more and more nervous....we're finally leaving!!  The mission is really finally about to start! Not that it hasn't, but it feels like I'm going to be in the MTC for the rest of my life. And the old life I had was just some dream I had one night. (P.S I've started to have dreams here....and they're really crazy! every morning I wake up breathing all heavy from whatever I was dreaming about. Not scary or anything...just really active haha. Weird, huh? I never had dreams. I had one dream I married this blind guy. We went to our daughter's soccer game and he was sad because he couldn't see her. But we worked through it and had the most beautiful life together. Honestly, cheesiest thing I could imagine!!! It was so funny, but so beautiful! So if you ever see a really attractive blind man...it's meant to be!!! just kidding haha). But guess who we saw at the temple when we were walking out? uh, David Archuletta!? He was hou sai! so tiny! and his hair was all parted. Write Alana...she'll die. or at least she would have back in high school ha!

Alright, down to business. We leave Monday morning at 4:30. We fly to LA, and then off to China! We get there about 7:00 Tuesday night - (which is probably more like 4 in the morning your time I would guess. I don't really know). Today I think I'll put together a box of stuff I dont need and it send home, so my luggage is good for weight and everything.

I'm so excited for Abbey and Danny to go to EFY! At night Sister Adams and I sometimes study outside at this table, and we kept hearing all this cheering.We couldn't figure out what it was. It sounded like it was maybe coming from the football stadium, but what would be going on there this time of year?....I was convinced Camilla must just be making a killing at the farmers markets they have there :) But honestly, it was way too consistent to be a sporting event. It just kept going and going for the longest time. We finally figured it must be EFY. So I know they'll have so much fun, because I've been listening to it haha.

Oh, and the picture you sent just about killed me! All of you sitting in my old apartment just down the street! And I love that picture of Tommy and dad. We have such a cool family. Please send me a picture of Danny in his hawaiian shirt. Tell him to look up this movie called the Phone Call. It's on Lds.org in the media library. You should watch it too. My friend showed it to me last semester, and it was hilarious. I dont know why I'm just remembering it now...probably the hawaiian shirt and thinking about how awesome Danny is :) Well I hope you and jack have fun here with Tommy and Camilla. Give everyone a hug for me. And give everyone up in Canada a hug for me too. Tell Grandma Joyce that I love her, and I'm so grateful for her.

Sorry, I really don't have anything to talk about. It's just the same old stuff here. I'm still working on the language. Along with reading the Book of Mormon, I decided to start reading the New Testament. I'm still not sure what to expect in Hong Kong, but I feel like probably just as in any mission, and perhaps even more so, I think sharing the knowledge of Jesus Christ and His atonement will be such an amazing and hopeful message. So I guess I've been focusing my studies around that. But ya, I'm excited. And ya, I'm nervous. When a native Chinese person starts speaking to me in Cantonese, I feel like I forget everything about the language I thought I knew. And they speak so darn fast! But then I just calm down a bit and try to pick out words here and there and get a basic understanding of what they're trying to say. I feel like I can speak it better then understand it. And that's something I want to flip, because it's way more important, in my opinion, to understand what they're saying and they're concerns and questions and experiences. But the language will come :)

Alright, well I love you! I hope you have a great week! Next time I write you, I'll finally be there! At that time we can start saying I miss you. I'm too close here to say it :) Alright, Love you!

Hannah

Week 7 - MTC

Hey family!
This week has flown by, but I dont have much to update you on. We skype members from Hong Kong now and teach lessons, which is pretty tough. Sometimes it's hard enough to hear what people are saying when they speak English over skype, but we manage. Maybe. Actually, who knows what we really say haha. I'm really still loving learning this language though. The hardest thing for me is remembering the grammar when I'm talking. The concepts and structures are actually really easy for me to understand, but it is kind of backwards from the way we think in English. So I'll have an idea and I'll start speaking, and then mid sentence I realize what I'm saying technically should have been at the beginning of the sentence. And if I need to add any additional thoughts to my sentence and have it still be part of my idea, that was also supposed to be at the beginning. So then I have to start my sentence over a billion times, and we lose any ounce of the spirit we might have had haha. So for example..."you show faith in Christ when you take the sacrament at church" would be...."When you, at church, take the sacrament, at that time you towards Christ show faith". Weird, huh? and who knows if that's actually right or not, but I think it is. I'm getting better at really thinking out what I want to say before I start speaking, and I'm glad for that.

And yes! I have seen Oscar! Or Elder Ayala. He looks great! I had my eyes peeled for him all day on Wednesday and Thursday. We were friends with the Portuguese elders going to Madagascar the transfer before him, so I knew his probable classroom was next to our Cambodian district's classroom. So when Sister Adams and I went to meet with the our Cambodian sisters, I peeked my head in to see if he was there. He's in a trio, and looks like he gets along with his companions. They seem like awesome missionaries. And then I saw him again on the temple walk yesterday. It's a hard schedule to get used to, and the first week is pretty demanding, but he seemed to be handling it alright, and he looks really great. He is so humble and has a great testimony. It made my week seeing him! Hopefully I'll see him around often.

This week we got to hear from Elder Nelson and his wife. We really are so blessed. Something I loved about this devotional was their desire for us to learn to become 'desperate missionaries.' When we understand the value of this message, we will be desperate to share it with everyone we come into contact with. When we are desperate, we more easily understand what is most important, and are more willing to sacrifice whatever we must. We find time. We find energy. We more intently love and give ourselves to this work. We share our message confidently, but work desperately. And I think back to times where I felt desperate for answers or things in my life, and those have absolutely been my most spiritually stretching and growing moments. But how cool if we can achieve that progress or growth and side-effects of desperation without necessarily having to be in desperate situations. Kind of the idea of becoming humble before the Lord without being compelled to be. I just kind of thought it was a neat idea.

Today Sister Adams and I were given the opportunity to go to the Temple. I am so grateful for Temples. What an amazing and powerful place. I know that our family will be together forever, and honestly, nothing makes me happier than to know that. I love our family, and that power is so real. It really is.

Well I love you all. I really do. Only 2 weeks left here! Do you mind sending me Alan's address? I have a couple letters to send him. Thanks again for your letters. I love hearing about your lives. Hope you have a good last week of school!!

Love Hannah