To Face God Again

Family!!!
hello, hello! Oh I love emailing you! it's such a highlight to see how you are doing. you guys look fantastic. Danny, you are taller than the tree! good thing it's not the "12 foota." Well, good luck with finals. Have fun. Have a happy, festive, spirited, and close knit family-filled Christmas! It sounds wonderful :) What day works best to call? and what time would be good? let me know.
Well, it's been another great week. ummm, wow it went by fast.

We are working with some amazing people. I love them so much. Shandy is 18. She wants to go to nursing school, so she's working 2 jobs right now to save up. Good girl. We caught her right as she was walking in to her apartment and gave her a book of mormon. she agreed to meet us again, and we've been meeting for a few weeks now. She is amazing. Especially keen to the atonement and the idea of repentance. She is thoughtful, and gives profound answers. We taught her about repentance and afterwards asked what she thought about it, she said, "so it's kind of like an opportunity for us to turn toward God. To face God again." I don't know about you, but she's been having struggles with her own idea of needing punishment, so to hear that from her really just impressed me. Because that's one aspect of repentance that has always stood out to me. I heard one of the apostles say that when they visited us in the MTC, so I wrote those words really big in my study Journal. And now this 18 year old girl who had met with us a few times already caught on to that idea that was so profound to me haha. I've just been so impressed and humbled by her. Really sweet girl. I love visiting her. But it's tough, because then for the rest of our day, we usually have a couple of hours of finding, and I have the song "Sandy" from Grease going through my head haha. ..."when hi-ai-gh schoo-oo-l is done...." Haha so I'm working on not making that a habit.

And then Cherry. I've probably already written you a ton about Cherry. I don't remember. If not, then shame on me. Mom, you would just want to give this woman a hug. She is the kindest, most caring person I've met out here. And especially towards me and Sister Killpack, she just cares for us. The other day we visited her, and she saw that Sister Q didn't have any stockings haha. it wasn't that cold, but she was certain Q jimuih needed some tights, so she pulls out of her drawer a pair, and starts helping Q jimuih put them on - haha. it was hilarious, but seriously, so sweet. She really just makes my heart happy. She had some pretty intense adam and eve questions, but we've worked passed them and are moving on to faith-which might be hard for her to accept. She's from mainland and doesn't have any religious background, and she is on and off with what she believes, but she is slowly opening up to it, and feeling things. It's been sweet for me to watch, because really, I care about her so much and I can just picture her family together being strong in this gospel, and it gives me motivation every day to keep going. Love her.

I'll send some pictures next week so you can put faces to names. Because they're amazing! We got another companion this week...Sister De Ocampo from the Philippines. Good girl. Usually Filipino missionaries here aren't cantonese speaking, but she gets to learn and teach in this beautifully obnoxious language. She went to the provo mtc, but because her visa was expiring, she had to leave a week early. So we got to introduce her to the mission this last week! So it was fun being in a 3-some again. And I got a call last night from President Hawks asking me to train this upcoming transfer, so it's possible she'll stay here with me. We'll see. Should be fun.

What else....I got a marriage proposal this week. Figured I should inform my family haha. No, it was a bummer of a situation. Remember Ken, the AP's blind investigator? He's like 60 something. So one day he showed up to English Class with a chocolate bar and a hand written note. Told me to read it later. He's a really good guy, but he's really lonely and sad, and he had a lesson on eternal families. Caught all of us totally off guard. But the elders talked with him, and things are fine. So that's good. I think it was the math and physics conversation we had? I don't know haha.

But things here are great! not that rainy. Lots of walking. I feel for this new missionary. It was a lot of finding and walking, and it's not at all what she was expecting. We just need to get her through this week and she'll be fine. Mom, I'm loving the Christmas countdown. I look forward to it every day. I still can't thank you enough for doing that. And over the past few months of p-day's I've been collecting little gifts to send home. I have one for everybody but dad. I'm having the hardest time. Any ideas of things he like? Something for his office? Really, I'm just getting cheap street market stuff so don't get mad at me for doing this haha. Give me any ideas if you have any!

Alright, I love you all. Drive safe up to Canada. Thank you for sharing Nana's testimony with me. I love that she shared so much about the Book of Mormon. What a powerful book. We've been scrutinized for it a lot this past week out on the street, so this really gave me extra strength to keep sharing it. I love Nana. What a beautiful example for us, and unifying power for everyone. Please give her and Gump a hug for me. And dad. I love you dad. I'm grateful you could give her a blessing. What an incredible gift. Please take care of each other. I love you

Love Hannah


ps:  Really - and drive safe up to Canada.