Hidden Blessings

Hello Family!!
Boy do I miss you guys. Can I just express how cool I think all of you are? Every one of you is seriously so capable and progressing and just so amazing. I hope you deem me worthy to come back home to join you all. I absolutely love hearing about everything that's happening in your lives. That is so exciting for Tommy. Seriously, I can't wait to hear about his adventures in New York. What a life he has. I hope Camilla feels better soon. That worries me she has been so sick. She's been hit hard lately, I feel like. But I'm excited to hear what she plans to do with law school or teaching and all of that. She's got such great attitude. She is just so good at accomplishing things. I think it's because she doesn't ever fall into the trap of rationalizing things out. I've thought about that talent of hers a lot lately, and decided that's a life long talent I need to develop. I hope she has some happy days coming up. Abbey, double duty going on. Whoever gets to take you to prom will be one lucky kid. Don't even worry about it.

Nothing big this week. Just lot's of finding. And it was good! we met this pohpoh (grandma) who takes care of her year old grandson. And he is the cutest thing to walk the earth. She is so funny. Lots of old people here are really involved with baaihsahn, or ancestor worship. But she thinks it's so maahfaahn. It's so funny to hear her talk about it. She believes in the Savior and lets all her ukkei-yahn house people know it. We love her, except once she came to the church, she didn't want to leave, so she just played with her grandson there at the chapel all day long...there was an activity going on so people were there. But she's so great.

We also got to go finding with Dan-Dan. Dan-Dan has quite the story. She is incredible and I want to be like her someday. Dan-Dan is from mainland, but she was visiting the church to go to the temple this week. She had a few hours to wait for the bus back to her province, so she came finding with us. Finding was something else with her. Most people here in Hong Kong speak both cantonese and mandarin, because they are taught both languages in school. along with english, but the english is super not good. But as we went finding with her (because she speaks mandarin) we would talk to these people in cantonese and she would speak to them in mandarin. Which isn't really a big deal for the people we are talking to because they're fine with both, but we had no idea what she would say, and she didn't have any idea what we would say. We can guess a few words, so I guess we could kind of follow a little, but seriously, they aren't super related languages so it was super hard. But it was really neat to see how well we could still teach these people, or at least communicate a message of hope and happiness to the people we talked to. And that was mostly from her. I think it's very rare to meet someone so committed and joyful in the gospel as Dan-Dan is. Holy cow, she just radiated. She wasn't overwhelming, but I'm trying to describe what it was to be with her, she was just...whelming. Does that make sense? You just wanted to listen to her talk and learn about what she knows and does. She was so magnetic-y, and it was so wonderful to soak in her spirit for those few hours. It was so fun. And it was cool to see that her excitement just kept kicking. She met missionaries in Russia on a bus. She went to medical school is Russia, so she speaks russian. How cool is that? The same day she received her degree, she also received her mission call to the Salt Lake City East Mission. It was fun to learn about her stories. She is a ward missionary in her ward in China, and she said it's amazing how much the people in China are wanting and searching for the truth. She said they never have to do any finding there, because every Sunday, tens of people wander into learn more. Every night she is at the Church teaching lessons after work until late at night where she'll take the 1.5 hour bus ride home. Talk about magnifying your calling. She's practically a full time missionary on top of her job, and to add to that, she keeps in contact with the 50 + people she baptized on her mission. Can you believe that?! I just loved it. Anyway, I'm just going over the top with her. But I learned so much from her.

Now what I've been excited to tell you about all week is that of our neighbors Stanley and Theresa. Stanley is this adorable old man who waits up for us to come home every night, and says goodnight to us through his door gate. Nice man. But little did we know he speaks fluent Italian?! Who would have thought? He's full of all sorts of crazy secrets. But the best part is Theresa, or Queen T, as we call her. She is a hoot. Karaoke is a big thing here in Asia, and let me tell you, she does not disappoint. Queen T ends the night singing her heart out, you are my sunshine, some my fair lady song, all sorts of classics haha. She's this cute little old bald woman, but she wears this wig out that just makes you smile. She is so round. Stan the man and Queen T are just one of the many hidden blessings of serving in Sham Shui Po. I'll send you a picture of them soon.

But I am doing great! Happy, working, all of the above. Thank you so much for the package. I can't wait. You are the best. and the plan with the card sounds great. Can you believe it's already almost mothers day?! We were looking at baptismal dates for one of our investigators the other night, and were shocked at how fast the time is going!

I love you guys. Can't wait to hear from you again soon!

Love hannah