Hello, hello!
Alright, don't hate me....we're at apple again. We got to go to the temple today! so that's why my pday is today, not yesterday. So....next week I'll send a few pictures! haha. I'm so sorry. They're really not that great ha. [Some sweet friend of Hannah's - Hui May-  did send me a couple pictures, so my thirst was quenched... a little!]

But I miss you all! You sound amazing! Primary is lucky to have you, Mom, and your raspberry jam :) I bet the women's conference was great! We won't watch it until the 12th. With all the translating stuff, we'll get to watch conference that weekend. But I can't wait!!! so excited :)
We had a good week! Had interviews with President Hawks. He's amazing. I don't know, people are just good.  Lots and lots of good people in this world. Love 'em all :)

what to write, what to write? Yesterday was HOT. and we did a solid 7 hours of finding. it was rough. and my upper lip is feeling sufficiently moisturized ha. We went paakmuhning (knocking on doors) over near Yau Tong, kind of along the shoreline on your way to Kwun Tong. Probably one of the only very few places to go knocking, because it's a long walk, but we had the time. It was like this little village, and the living conditions were pretty bad. Just these tin shacks with garbage everywhere, and random materials acting as walls or roofs- mixed with cement. The space between the one row of shacks and the next...like the pathway to get around the cluster of little tin homes, was about 2 feet wide. Just dark and wet, with big scary black dogs lying randomly in the middle of the paths haha. It was a fun maze. and lots of tiptoeing :) And I finally saw those 'human cages' I had read about before the mission. They are these literal cages about 4 feet wide and 6 feet long. They lay a piece of cardboard on the bottom of it so they can lay down. And these cages are stacked on top of each other, and side by side. I wasn't sure they really existed, but it was an incredibly humbling experience walking through them. Just the bare minimum of survival, and here we are trying to say we having something that will help them. Before, I would really question if asking them to sacrifice so much and come to church or pay tithing or whatever it was, I would question if I had the right to ask this of them. Or if I was asking too much. And you know, it's still hard to see some people with so little and teach them some of these things. But the blessings Heavenly Father promises us are real. The gospel changes people and their circumstances. Today I sat by two Indian women in the temple who were receiving their endowments and getting sealed to their husbands. The power of Heavenly Father can be felt so strongly in the lives of these people. They give up everything for this knowledge and hope. I didn't know such great faith was still so alive in people today. You read about stories of faith and sacrifice back with the pioneers or even throughout the scriptures. But it's just as true today. This work is true, and people are recognizing it. And it brings happiness that can't be attained anywhere else. I feel very blessed to get to see small examples of that.

Hmm, what else. I got the rest of my Chinese name! it's Dung Wihng Yihn. I don't know how to put the accent marks in or give you the chinese characters for it, but that was cool. It's official. I have 2 names now! And this week we've really been trying to improve our teaching skills. We watched an episode on the mormon channel with Elder Bednar about teaching. there were two episodes. they were amazing! and I realized how brilliant of a man dad is. There are things throughout my whole life growing up that dad has counseled us in, that have more meaning to me as a missionary as they ever have. But this week it was the idea of being our own agents, and not being acted upon. And really, that's a fundamental part of the whole plan of salvation. I was studying 2 nephi 2, and it's throughout the whole chapter. That is how Heavenly Father has prepared for us to learn and gain experience. So we're trying to transfer that to the smaller scale of helping our investigators learn the gospel. Because it's true, we can sit in lessons about faith throughout our entire lives and recite back and even believe we really understand what it is. But until I experienced it a little differently with a specific experience I had with Ayuh, I feel like I've learned it in a much more personal and real way than I ever knew before. I'm running out of time, but we had an incredible lesson on the restoration with a woman named Crystal. She has met with missionaries for years and passed through 4 different baptismal dates. But as we approached the lesson, very openly and straightforwardly with her, that we weren't there to teach her things she's been hearing for years, but to help her have her own experiences with the spirit and own questions answered, it just changed the entire lesson. She came out of the lesson knowing that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that he saw God and Jesus Christ. Just the idea of acting for ourselves and inviting others to be their own agents and have questions and curiosity and desire to know and learn. Sorry, bad explanation, but look it up. It was great!
I need to go, but I love you all very very much. Thought about all of you in the temple today, and I am so grateful to be a part of this family. I miss you all, and will talk to you next week!

Love hannah

oh and ya, and the protests are fine. most people are more about work or school. nothing to worry about. besides President Hawks is very aware and cautious. We stayed in for part of yesterday. Oh, and remember the problem [her companion had] with sharing about the book of mormon? and the fear of talking to men? haha. I do it in a very safe a responsible way, but I talk to almost every man I see about the book of Mormoon. And it's working great haha. Love you all. Bye!

Trying

I am sorry I haven't sent pictures recently. We've been emailing at the apple store lately just because the last few pdays have been a little cramped. and we're here again today, so I can't upload pictures. But I will next week! because I have lots of pictures to send! But congrats to Abbey! How cool...Camilla and Abbey have both showed me up and got their motorcycle license. What a neat thing. What's next...? And I love that Danny's in the marching band. I still can't get over how tall he looks. It's amazing! And I'm glad Jack and Dad are keeping the yard up to speed. Love it Jack. You'll miss it, I promise you.

But hey! I found out the rest of my Chinese name. Dung Wihng Yihn. So you can just call me that now haha. I am also picking up on some Tai chi in the mornings. We have an entire colony of popo's who line up and do their routine, and every once in a while they'll invite us to join. So I'm loving that! The last couple of weeks we've had washer and dryer problems, so we've just been hand washing things and hang drying them . So the light fixtures are in very good use lately :) And it's not that big of a deal, other than I'm learning I'm not good at hand washing things haha. I feel like I just put them in a dirty sink and get them wet and soapy...and more dirty haha. And it's so dang humid here, nothing fully dries. So that's probably the most day to day report to give. I love that I'm from Nevada and can have dry skin when I go home. Even if it made my legs look like fish scales sometimes :)

This week was kind of a disappointing week. We had 13 lessons cancelled on us. And 8 of them we had members scheduled to help us. hou cham. big fail. just one after the other haha. 10 of them were on from friday through sunday. And I can't help but wonder if Heavenly Father just knew we weren't ready or worthy to teach these people the way we needed to. Because actually on Thursday night, Lam Jimuih and I had a bit of a tiff. Everything's fine now, but yikes. We have different backgrounds and speak different languages, and it made things hard. We had different opinions about the word of wisdom and talked about it after the lesson. and it got to the point where she was throwing her bags at the MTR station and wanting to call President Hawks about an emergency transfer ha. But we went home and talked it out and worked things out and things are ok. Sometimes it's hard. She just is very up and down with her emotions, and almost every other night she breaks into tears and gets upset. This one was just the worst one. But we worked it out. Everythings ok. We're really getting better and better every week. little by little. But after that night, I think we just needed these last few days to reset before Heavenly Father really trusted us with teaching these people again. And that feeling wasn't great. I don't know...I could also be reading too far into it. But either way, gives us something to do better next week!

But we did still have some incredible experiences this week anyway. We're are teaching a woman named wendy lam. She is very special to me. She is very poor, but doesn't want to get a job because she wants a good job. A career. she has plenty of opportunity to work to get by, but refuses to take it. She has been meeting with missionaries for years now, but mostly just for english class. She has a strong temper and very "woe is me" mindset. But she wants to change. She realizes she needs to change. We've been meeting with her almost every night the past few weeks, and we've seen such huge change. she has become so humble and willing and honestly, if I've ever seen what it means to "thirst" for truth, she's it. We met with her quickly after English class on wednesday night and read scriptures. Afterwards, we invited her to say the prayer. Right as she was about to start, she quickly looked up and asked if we could kneel. (the lesson previously we taught that when we have personal prayers, sometimes saying audible prayers and kneeling can help us feel the spirit better). I felt silly for not already suggesting we kneel in the first place, but we quickly agreed that would be a good idea and knelt down together. That was really sweet for me to see. She wants to feel the spirit, and she's trying. She then offered a prayer in English. Of course we encourage them to pray in their own language, but I think that since it was right after English class, she went for English. And for this time, I actually really appreciated it, because I could understand everything she said, and for me it was such an amazing and powerful and heartfelt prayer. Seriously so simple I feel silly writing about it, but as she offered it, it brought me to tears. It was powerful. She's trying. And I'm trying. Yeah, there are a lot of things she could do better and try a little harder at. But I had this overwhelming feeling of love for her. I wish she could have felt it. And it made me realize that Heavenly Father thinks the same thing for us. yeah, I could try a little harder sometims, or do a little better. But I'm trying. We all are. And being able to see how sincere Wendy was, and how humble and willing she was really impacted me. I know Heavenly Father loves us, and we're asked to try our best. Anyway. this I'm sure is one of those mission experiences that matters a lot to me, but doesn't come across fully for other people. but I thought I would try.
Alright. I got to go. But I love you very much! Take care of each other :)

Love Hannah

Ups and Downs

Hello hello!
What a fun week! Everyone looks so great! :)

Camilla's photobomb made me laugh. and yes, we need to get that dannyboy's face to look normal again. its going to go permanent! thanks for the pictures :) Congrats to Uncle Mark and Tracy! What a beautiful wedding. Uncle Mark looks buff and tan :)

And darn...you knew!? Isn't that awesome though! Conference speakers in their native languages?! I cant wait. ahhh so excited :)

Things here are good! like normal haha. Hong Kong is a very special city. It would be so awesome to come here as a visitor. It's such a fun place. This week it has cooled down a bit. mostly due to the increased level of typhoons haha. Last night was pretty fun. Once it reaches level 8, President Hawks will instruct us to stay home. So yesterday we were doing our normal thing...we had 2 lessons scheduled that night that I was really looking forward to, but until then we were out finding. I forgot my umbrella though (whoops). but we only had about 45 minutes of finding scheduled, and the rain wasn't too bad, so no problem.  Then on the street we ran into a member who informed us it was a level 8 and we should go home. But really, the rain was light, and we hadn't gotten a text yet, so we kept on. Then both of our lessons called and cancelled on us. The natives really just dont like rain, so they all run for cover at any sign haha. So we kept finding all night, and it was fun! Rain finding isn't always the most productive since everybody goes inside, but we went around the chyuns or apartment areas and we found a new investigator! So it was worth it!

But it's been the same kind of week as usually haha. full of ups and downs :) We are still teaching taahm taitaih. She's incredible. Everytime we visit she hugs the book of mormon and cries and thanks us over and over again. She still only finds time to see us once a week, so things are progressing slower than we like, but it's incredible to see the spirit work in her. She knows what we talk about is true and she sincerely feels it. Before, she knew about God, but not much. But she loves learning about the Savior so much and reading scriptures so much, she found more and more Christian churches and people to talk to...I think she thought that would make us proud and excited haha. So we need to try to help her understand the restoration a little bit better. Its hard, because there really isnt any foundation and it's so foreign to her. But it's been amazing to see her learn.

And I dont know, it's been an adjustment with my companion. She's great. We just think and teach and do a lot of things very differently haha. But I think we're both learning a lot. She refuses to talk to men though. Or talk about the book of mormon...which is kind of important ha. But we're doing better :) And she wants to improve her English, so we mostly speak english, but I've been tweaking how I study the language, and I'm excited for it. I dont think I'll ever be fluent, but I'm getting better!

Alright, times up. sorry, I spent most of the time just thinking about what to say. I hope you're doing well. I love you guys! The pictures made my day!

Love hannah

Opportunities to Learn

Jack...that is a winner. (Sent funny pic of Jack) Hands down the most attractive face I have ever seen :) And I love Camilla. Someday I'll join her in her adventures. If she'll have me. (Fun photo of Camilla on her hiking adventure with Abbey). Congrats to Uncle Mark! How fun! Party hard family. That's so awesome so many people will be there. And mom, you're a natural mathematician. You're going to love that class. And raspberries! Please save me bowl! freeze me an entire bowl for next year!...and it will actually probably be more like November, based on how I think transfers will go...I'm not sure. not that I've counted. (I've had a few weak nights haha).

No things here are great. We had a busy week. We had to travel down to wan chai 4 times this week, all for very worthwhile reasons. We had zone conference, and then we were invited to the saturday night session of stake conference, and then sunday stake conference, and then today we got to meet with some general authorities. And on every one of those trips up here (except for sunday), I ate at the famous Paisano's Pizza!...it's a tradition for me. Every time I come up to wan chai I eat pizza. The guy running it and I are becoming pals. Now he throws in a free soda every now and then :) He's from India, so once I get my hands on a non chinese Book of Mormon, I'll throw one of those in with my 30 bucks ;)

But I should talk about the meetings. We were so blessed to hear from Elder Raspband, the senior president of the 70. He and his wife are incredible. Today at our missionary conference, we also had our area presidency, Elder Gong, Elder Funk and Elder Wong.  http://www.mormonnewsroom.hk/eng/leadership-and-organization
Elder Wong is a newly called general authority. I'm not sure what I've written home yet about him, but I really like him. He is the one who visited in the MTC. And then at our mission tour a few weeks ago, he was the speaker who had me come up and help him with an object lesson where different missionaries held different sizes of cups over their heads, and then I had to pour water into the cups while having my eyes covered. (my waitressing abilities were a little rusty, and some people got pretty wet). But he always say hi now when I see him and calls me lousi dung (teacher dudley) ha. He's an amazing man. He's actually speaking at General Conference. 1st speaker on saturday morning. Pay close attention to his talk....I'm really looking forward to it. It's going to make history ;) We also had Elder Allen, the missionary organization president guy. I'm sorry, I forgot his title. It was really such a neat weekend.

But your night sounds so amazing! I miss those outside dinners. The weather here has yet to cool down...but I'm really looking forward to when it does. Then I can wear my sweaters. I'm getting bored of my clothes, so those sweaters will be a fun mix up :)

Because of the meeting today, We need to cut down on our email time, so I need to get going, but I love you all. It was cool to see a lot of the things I've been studying and thinking about were talked about in the meetings I went to this weekend, and I found so many different answers to questions I had. Heavenly Father knows our needs, and gives us opportunities to learn through the spirit. That's what I learned this week. And lots of other stuff, but I'll write more next week!
Hachi gin!
hannah
P.s...yihm jimui taught her husband to pray....=HUGE STEP!! party. alright, goodbye!

Even Bananas

Miss you mom. I love you :) and I hope you feel better soon. who cares about the scar haha. put jack on those dumb pigeons and squirrels ha. And I'm sorry to hear about your eye. Darn, it's just been a series of bummers, ya? I sincerely hope you know how much I love you and miss you mom. You and dad mean the world to me. I keep having this dream of the night I come home and I go take a shower and come sit at the edge of your bed and talk to you and watch TV. (After, of course an ice cream run with dad ha.) Like remember that night when we watched the olympics? Actually, I know we've had a lot of other nights like that too, but I love having that image in the back of my mind. And I love that school blessing dad gave me when I was going into my Senior year, maybe. And I was full of all sorts of attitude (sorry ha) but he said that you were my best friend before you were my mom. And I know that's true. I feel so lucky to be so close with you and Abbey and Camilla. I love you mom.

And give Alana a hug for me. I've thought about her a lot out here. She's such an incredible girl. So capable. I hope she feels better soon. And huge congrats to Austin! I had secretly hoped I would get called there. He'll be amazing in Novosibirsk!

And tell dad that I sure hope it cools down soon! It's hot. and oh so sweaty. But everybody is sweaty, so its ok. I discovered that the place I sweat most on my body is my upper lip. Seriously! who knew? my armpits and body aren't bad...I'm mean every inch of us is glistening and wet, but the only place that drips is my upper lip haha. could be worse...

sorry, that was probably needless information.

Congrats on the school! That's awesome mom. Dont worry about the math. It's a new challenge that will come and go, and you'll be all the better for it :) or it will come and go, and you can move on with life haha. either one. I miss it..so try to enjoy it for me :) I'm good on the water filter. we have filtered water in our apartments, so no need. Protein packs would be awesome though! unless you already sent a package, then don't worry about it. but I would drink them! Believe it or not, the people here are impressed with my ability to a)use chopsticks and b) eat what they give me. I deal with spice way better than most people (even bundei's) and I am (to quote my current comp) "the least picky eater she's ever served with." I had to include that to impress Camilla and Tommy and Dad. I don't think they thought I could do it, but I'm showing them! I even eat bananas now. I'm pretty sure the only thing that will never change is the mint...sorry :) that's part of me haha.

My companion is good. Sister Lam. We think very differently, and work very differently, but our investigators are tough, so we're really tryiing to come together so we can help them. She has some kind of anxiety or stress, so once a week we travel up to wanchai for her to see a social worker. But she takes teaching really seriosuly, and all in all, it's going to be good. We'll probably be together for the next 4 or 6 months....so we're in it to stay! My cantonese is coming. It's so gradual I dont feel huge differences, but it's really coming. sounds and tones are hard. I sound super american haha, but I'll get better  :) We're also working on improving sister lams english, so we switch back and forth which days are english and which days are chinese.

I feel good though. I feel not very pretty ha. But I'm setting goals to take better care of my body. and to improve my language. and to love my investigaors. and my companion. I have 2 mintues and still have so much to write! haha. I guess some things I've really learned this week is the importance of consecration in missionary work and in life, I've learned about looking forward with faith and not dwelling on the past. Lam Jimuih and I have been going through a talk by Elder Holland about that, trying to help her work through past feelings on things. And then I've really tried to become closer to the Savior. I think that's always kind of the center for me. Alright, sorry, I need to go! sorry to end so badly. But I love you!

Love
Hannah