Butterfly is doing great too! It's picking up speed. This week we met a couple of great students, and the best part is, they're all girls! Between the ages of 17 and 22, and I love teaching them. One of them is named Chloe. We met her on the street. We meet everyone on the street, lets be real. But we were just getting turned down one after another for hours. I see her walk by and she has a shirt that says, "God bless you." Quick background update: everyone here wears clothes with english on them. Rarely do they really make sense, and they are never spelled right. Better yet, nobody usually knows what is on their shirts. It's hilarious sometimes what you see people wear. But Chloe's was about God, so naturally, we go talk to her. She doesn't believe in God. Never actually even thought if He existed or not. we talk with her for a bit, and she's willing to try to pray, but she's very confused throughout our entire conversation, in all honesty. Why are these two white girls speaking to me in Chinese about some western god? I think we shocked her into agreeing to meet with us again. So we schedule her, and she walks away and the back of her shirt reads, "Nobody know what it mean." I thought that was hilarious and very fitting. Chloe turns out to be very willing and interested to learn more. She's great. And Paul came to church! We've been trying for weeks and weeks. Paul is a great great kid. He reminds me a lot of Justin, actually, in his opinions and religious beliefs. So that's been interesting to teach him. The Lord sure does prepare us for the people we meet.
I'm sure I told you about A-Wan before. She's from mainland, and we just got mandarin elders into our zone, so we had to pass her over. I was kind of bummed, but they're great and will be really good for her. One of the elders is brand new out of Idaho. He's one of my favorite. just pure and very unaware because he's learning mandarin and everyone here speaks cantonese, so that's just hard. I forget he doesn't even understand what us missionaries say. His companion is from Malaysia, so he speaks cantonese and mandarin and english and malay and some other languages fluently. Those Malaysians are very accomplished when it comes to languages. So he has no problem, but that poor idahoan has the best attitude. He couldn't get her name right. Kept calling her AA- wong. no,no no..it's A-wan. Oooooh...like aaah one two three. haha. so now, that's what he says when he's trying to remember how to talk to her. it's great. Anyway, A-wan had a rough week. We got a call from her asking us to come help her move some stuff. We agree and run over to this old person hospital she was at. She waves us up these stairs and we come up and turn the corner and she is in this full on brawl with this nurse, and the cops are there and it was a mess. The cops see us and wave us over. Ask if we were the friends she was calling. They have us stand out of the way, as they work through with these angry chinese woman. I've decided that the scariest person you could ever come across is an old angry chinese woman. They're scary. They were yelling chinese so fast and in heavy mandarin accents, it was suuuper hard to understand what was going on. And I just felt sad. A-wan is completely broke. She has nothing, and lately she has been telling us she has been visiting a friend in the hospital, but from what we could pick up from the fight, her husband had just passed away. It was her husband. She is so humble and so desperate and it broke my heart to watch. Things settled down, and we helped her carry her husband's things home. We're at the point right now where we have explained what the gospel can do for her, how it can help her, how it can comfort her, and she has been willing, for the most part, to try. And now, we're trying and waiting to help her see her life improve. It takes a lot of faith to look at these people who will look you back in the eye and soak up anything you say, and tell them that you know that God really does love her and really does care about what is going on in her life right now. It takes a lot of faith to tell her that things will be ok. She's a strong woman. takes things as they come, and she's starting to act on what we promise her because she really has nothing left. She came to church on sunday. She was late, and made a scene pushing her son in to come with her, but she came. I love that woman. And I'm really glad she likes us ok. I would be terrified to be on the opposite side of that end!
And then, this week we had a really great fireside. We are in contact and teach so many mothers who are so worried about their children's education. There is so much stress and expectations and competition put onto these 5 year old kids, it's sickening. But they had some church leaders who have gotten PhD's give a fireside on the relationship between the gospel and education and knowledge and all that. Both practical things and faith things. But It was neat to sit in the audience and listen to these brilliant chinese men speak in cantonese about their computer science degrees and research and know what they're saying. I should have worn my glasses to it, make me look a little smarter ha. A little more fitting. I especially loved what the stake president ended up sharing. He talked a little about his childhood and hobbies and his journey to phd-ship. And he said, make a note of the weaknesses you have. Pay attention to those. They aren't an accident that you have those. He then shared Ether about weaknesses becoming strengths, and bore testimony that that is one way that God reveals his will to us is through our weaknesses. So, if I heed his council, maybe I'll go into math. I'm terrified of math. Or something. I'm nervous about a couple things. But it made me feel a little more brave about the future. Our weaknesses aren't accidents. use them. It was a cool thought
Alright, I love you! SO great to hear from you! I'm feeling better, and doing just fine :) Have a good week!
Love hannah
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