Sacred at Every Point

Hello, hello!
Butterfly is getting hot. It's been an unusually not that hot summer I guess. And I believe it...last summer seemed way hotter. The trek thing sounds really fun! I cant imagine how much work that takes. You do so much for people.


A few weeks ago we were tracking down a name of a less active. There are 1000's of less actives here, so it's quite the project. but one at a time, right?! Actually not really, several usually live in the same chyun building, so we go place to place and do a sweep through. If we can get in. The guards really don't like us. But we had a miracle and got in! so we went up to Chung Chun Tak's room. gave it a pretty pathetic umbrella knock through the iron gate. And this shirtless 70 year old man in his leopard boxer shorts opens the door, and with a huge, 2 toothed smile says, "missionaries!! come in, come in!" What?! come in?! really?!? great! "Is your wife home?" Yea, she's in the toilet right now. come in! come in! The the only place to walk or sit is along their plywood bed/table. so we all take a seat, and wait for his wife to come out. His son was up in his bed, and didn't want much to do with us, so we just made small talk with Brother Chung. He didn't really remember when he got baptized. But remembered seeing us on the street a few days ago. He pulled out a flier we had given him. He waited all week for us to find him! haha. I don't know how he thought we could ever track him down in Hong Kong, but I guess he was quite certain we could. After about 3 minutes we quickly realized that there wasn't anybody in the bathroom, and we needed to leave. He's a sneaky one. So we scheduled him for Monday, and left. On Monday we came with a brother from our ward. We had a great lesson and they became quick friends. He really didn't remember anything, so we started from square one about who God is. On the walk home, the Brother who helped us said that we would just need to teach him from scratch, and help him remember everything. We visit him with another sweet old man from the ward, Gou Hingdaaih...I'll tell you more about him in a second. So we're pretty excited! A grandpa who we are teaching in his home! His wife will be there sometimes and can hear the lessons! His son didn't seem too interested, but his 2 grandkids could come to primary! We were pretty excited to tell the ward about it. So on Sunday in PEC we told them about this family. We didn't know when he was baptized, so they all pull out their phones and start looking through this record. Hmm, how does he have grandkids? he's only 37. ......? We start connecting all the dots, and realize that that punk in bed who was listening to everything we ever talked about to who wethought was Chung Chuk tak, was actually the person we were looking for haha. Can you believe that we went a few weeks teaching this man, without ever figuring that out?! I felt so dumb ha. But it was hilarious. And now we have an awesome investigator.


But for me, the best part of this entire story is actually coming to get to know a very sweet old man from our ward, Gou hingdaaih. He helped us teach "Chung Chuk ta," and as I have come to know more about him and watch his commitment to the Lord, I have been deeply impressed by the person he is. Gou Hingdaaih. The first Sunday I came to this ward, there was a basket on a table at the church filled with fruit and bread and crackers and food. It's for the missionaries amongst the 3 wards to split. I was shocked! The members here are amazing! The next Sunday,
we got their extra early to teach an investigator, and I saw Gou Hingdaaih, sneak through the foyer and pull out some fruit out of a red gaaisi bag and put it into the basket. Dragon Fruit, apples, oranges, bananas. He turned and saw me watching him, and then gave me the shush sign and sneaked away. He cleans the chapel every Friday night in his basketball shorts and high socks. We'll walk out of English class and he'll be mopping away as lively as ever. And every Sunday he blesses the Sacrament in his pressed suit and bowtie. One day on the hingtit train while we were finding, he stepped on with his cart and was wearing one of those paper thin tank tops and ratted shorts, and I realized how precious those church clothes were to him. My respect for him grew so much. And then, the other day when we went to the temple, guess who was conducting our session. Gou Hingdaaih. It was incredible to see him dressed in just a
magnificent white suit. That image of him conducting that session means a lot to me. So when we picked him up to go teach Chung Hingdaaih with us, we thanked him for his temple service. He was waiting for us at a McDonalds nearby, and he walks out in his pressed church clothes on a Monday night to teach Chung Hingdaaih. He has a severe limp, so we slowly walked with him and learned more about his life. He lives alone, and has a sad past. But he wakes up at 4 every morning and travels 2 hours to the temple to serve there. What an incredible man. Just serves the Lord in whatever way he can. In every way he can. He taught Chung Hingdaaih so matter of factly about the gospel. I wanted to teach like him. But my favorite thing was as we were walking up to Chung Hingdaaih's door, Brother Gou lagged behind a few steps. I turned to see if he was alright, and I see that he pulled out of his side pack a small water bottle that he was wetting his hands with to fix his hair before we walked into this cluttered cement cockroach filled apartment. The gospel is a sacred thing to him at every point. And I learned a lot from him.

I need to go. But I love you all. hope you are having a great week!
Hannah