Hey family.
You sound great! Way to go in tennis, Danny. Looks like you will go pro soon enough. Thanks for keeping your hair long. I'm excited to see you. According to your picture, you have incredibly long legs - which means you will be tall. In my mind you still look like the picture we took at Lake Tahoe as a family, because thats what I look at every day.

It was a great week. Things just keep going. Found some new people, taught some old people. I love them. I am so sad. And then again, I'm not. I can't tell you how excited I am to see you. Thank you for the advice on sleeping and all that. I'm not sure I'll find a phone to call you. I'll try, but I might just plan on seeing you in Reno.

President Lam organized a fireside for all the departing missionaries to invite people they met throughout their mission - investigators, recent converts, less actives, members, other friends- to come and hear our last missionary testimonies. It was a very sweet thing. We each just took a few testimony to share what we've learned. Tuen mun (where I live now) is just too far for people to go, and I figured if they came, then they might not come to church the next day and I figured church was better ha. So I just invited what people I still had contact information for from my old areas. I was really kind of sad about it all, though, because I couldn't get ahold of Cherry. Remember Cherry? I love Cherry and her family. She left in July to go visit Utah with her entire family for some extended family member's wedding, and when she got back, the sisters serving after me in Sham Shui Po couldn't find her. She just kind of disappeared. Nobody answered her phone, nobody was ever home. That happens sometimes. People just kind of disappear into mainland and you'll never hear of or from them again. So I was pretty worried any way of contacting her was lost. But I tried emailing her and invited her to the fireside. I sat there on the stand as we waited for our turn to share, and scanning through the crowd, she wasn't there. I was really hoping she would come, but knew it wasn't the greatest of probabilities. But as the night went on, I saw her sneak in through the back with her son, A-yuhng. And I just cried. And then I had to go up and bear my testimony. Great.

I feel good about coming home. There's a lot to be done and I am excited for that, so I haven't been struggling too bad with emotions. But sometimes it just tears at me. Not often, but every now and then, I'll just feel it...just a deep sadness that it has to end. There have been a few times, now I guess 2 times, where I've felt it. And they both happen to be in front of a crowd which is just embarrassing. And this testimony meeting was one of those times. Since Cherry came, I decided to just share my testimony of God. Of Prayer. Of the importance of coming to know Heavenly Father. Which is done by coming to know the Savior. I don't know what she has been struggling with lately, but she's changed a bit. But I bolted down there after the closing prayer, and she had tears in her eyes and I had tears in my eyes, and I got an asian person to hug me. Which doesn't happen. I love that woman. So sweet of her to come again. She said she'll keep trying. And that's all I needed. along with her new contact information so I can make sure she does. It's hard to know if I really fulfilled everything I should have with my time out here. And especially in the case of Cherry, easily one of the most important people I met on my mission to me, and I didn't get to see her progress as much as I could have hoped in the gospel. Sometimes you wonder if you did everything you were supposed to. But it's not my work. And it's not my gospel. I worked hard, and I have perfect confidence in Heavenly Father's way of doing things. Which includes using me to try.

I am excited to see you! Please be patient with me. I have the airplane figured out. I will write my talk and sleep, and talk with elder koochin (we're the only ones flying home on friday, so that will be funny). I have the airport figured out. We'll say hello, and we'll hug and drive on the nice freeway home! I have sunday figured out. We'll go to church, and I'll give a talk and go to primary. (Thank you mom) But then monday morning will come and I'll wake up, and I haven't figured out after that. But I'm excited! Life moves on. And I have been changed and learned things to help me keep going. keep moving.
I love you all. See you Friday! or Saturday! I'm not sure what day it will be.
Love hannah

Oh I have a lot of pictures. But I'll just show them to you later. Too maahfaahn to upload them.

That's what the Spirit is for.

I love you mom. Thank you for the pictures. It took me a few moments before I realized that was McKaya and Bethy! I was wondering what friends you let Abbey bring up with her?! But what a fun trip! Give them a hug for me! Especially Grandma. Love you all.

Wasn't conference so good! I came in with a lot of questions, specifically self improvement questions, and the answer I kept getting was...well, that's what the spirit is for. It would be too easy to take down my answers in note form from conference (although lots did appear that way). But I love all the invitations through the conference to prepare yourself and put yourself in an environment to receive personal guidance from Heavenly Father. And I've noticed that most of my thoughts that I think come from Heaven stream in during or surrounding my prayers. which seems obvious, but it's been neat to see it really happen. Of anything I have learned recently on my mission, it is how to not only feel the spirit, but have enough courage to understand and do what I feel from a thought. These past few weeks I have developed a greater faith that prayers can be answered, not just given. And though we don't have control of how or when we receive assistance, we do have power to call down heavenly help. I really believe that. So conference was good.

I was also schooled by a buddhist sifu. The elders met him on the street, and apparently his purposes in inviting us to his home was to teach us the doctrines of buddhism. But the elders were a little nervous to tell us and just said that he had a lot of christian friends (which he does) and was interested in knowing why we were different. So it was close to a breathtaking surprise at the turnover lesson to walk into his house and see his buddhist shrines and worship altars completely filling his house. It was quite beautiful actually. And he had a lovely table set up for us to sit at with drinks poured and his own lesson manual covering the table with his book of scripture. He was incredibly gracious and allowed us to start with a prayer, and we spent the time sharing thoughts on God and resolving certain questions of the human soul using our respective beliefs and doctrines. Like the origin of God. Our perfect state. Having justice in our lives. It was super intense. And super deep. But very neat to see where certain beliefs and ideas were similar. He was very dominating and it was difficult to give completely share without being interrupted, but he was very passionate on having us understand what true buddhism contains. Because, he said, all those on the streets burning their money or possessions to send to their ancestors or worshipping Buddha, were not sure buddhists and gave people false impressions of what they truly believed. We expressed that we were grateful for his time in helping us more fully understand what he believes and we, too, feel misrepresented with our beliefs, especially here in hong kong, and would love to share with him to the same level of understanding of our beliefs as he did with his. He agreed and is letting us come by again on Wednesday. Very nice man. Very very interesting experience. People are good There are so many beautiful and ancient beliefs here. It's difficult to come in sometimes and tell them about a church a young man started in the 1800's as they share about these ancient roots. But that is also the beauty of the message of the restoration. Because if we understand it, and teach it correctly, these truths were since the beginning. The power of the priesthood, the covenants made with God, the divine nature of ourselves and our families. It's from the beginning. And it brings light and truth to anybody wiling to listen and try. I have met so many people and been to so many places of beautiful tradition and deep spirituality, but the light that comes from our Savior Jesus Christ and his restored gospel cannot be imitated. Especially in it's simplicity. not when I talk about it. I turn it into a confusing jumble of words. But I love listening to the prophets and other inspired leaders. President Uchtdorf's talk was beautiful, wan't it? I'm excited to go back and read it. Elder Holland's talk was so powerful and spot on. Thank you mom, for bearing so much. Sister Marriott's talk brought a special spirit to me that I needed. I don't necessarily remember much of what she said and I don't have my notes, but I was better for listening to it.
Love you all!
Hannah

A collage of great people!

Okay family and friends - the countdown has started!  Hannah will be home in less than three weeks.  Her speaking date is October 23at our 9 am Sacrament meeting - if you're interested.  I'll try to record it for those who live too far to travel.  And Hannah doesn't want you to get your hopes up - she'll be jet-lagged, worn out, & her English will be lacking.  

But, she can't trick me - I know she'll be amazing.  She always is!  Can't wait.

(Sidenote - Hannah references Tommy's work on Google stuff.  While Tommy was working on the Google ads project, it is not technically hisproject at work.  Does that make it any less amazing?  I think not, but I wanted to clarify.)

Hello! Congratulations Abbey, you're done work! and Danny and Jack, you're tennis champs! and camilla can destroy me in rock climbing! and Tommy is doing advertisement for Google?! I love reading these letters. It's so fun to hear what's going on. Thank you for the topic. I'll think about it.

How was conference?! I'm so excited to watch it. I need to think a little more specifically how to prepare for it.

It's been a busy week. We had zone training this week, and it went great. It felt really personal, and I think missionaries walked away with something for themselves. It was very much centered on families, and on time. We've been focusing on trying to schedule people in their homes here, which is not really in line with the culture, but we're seeing some progress, and people let us up! It makes a world of difference in teaching. And this week we went on exchanges, and got to know one of the sisters in our zone a little better. Sister Chi from Taiwan. She told us about her conversion story: as her family of 7 were out one night for dinner, missionaries approached them and their father agreed to let them visit them at their house later that week. 2 months later, the entire family was baptized. That story should be in preach my gospel or something, because it's practically perfect. But I'm glad it's not, and I'm glad it didn't happen in south america - it makes it seem a little more possible here. Is it actually possible to find/teach/baptize a family on the street in Hong Kong? I've never heard of it happening on my mission. But of course it is. So we're searching out more families. We were at Mission leadership council this week and stopped by the mission office, and as we were thinking about what we could do to implement the goal a little better, we went and grabbed every family proclamation we could find.So hundreds of those are making their way around the New Territories these next weeks. We cant let a single family pass by without inviting them to learn the message of the restoration. Which seems like an obvious thing to do, but there are lots of people in Hong Kong and it's difficult. And I'll be honest...it's weird. and awkward because usually only the kids will talk to you. but we'll get better at it! I still would choose the single 50 year old man over the 30 year old mom with a kid any day. Those mom's are intimidating! But now we'll go for the families. It's fun. I'm excited.

Speaking of moms, I have such a respect for moms. I learned it a little better this week watching a woman in our ward come to church. It's downpouring rain, and she has a baby strapped to her front, an unbrella in one hand pushing a stroller with the other hand, and the stroller has one son standing on the back end and one son in the cart part, all covered with that one umbrella. and she runs that stroller straightn up the narrow ramp to the church doors in one try like it was nothing. I was just in awe. So thank you mom, for doing that for us. I am amazed at what moms do.

What else. Paul! Paul is awesome. he's incredible. He's progressing! Great great kid. We taught him the word of wisdom last week, right before mid autumn festival. He went up to mainland with his family for the holiday and kept the word of wisdom all week! I was so impressed. He said that he would jsut drink hot water instead of tea, and his family didn'tthink too much of it. And then he also went out this week and bought himself a white shirt and tie and sport coat to wear to church. This 15 year old boy going out and doing that by himself. He walked up to church and looked sharp. you coudl tell it was probably his first time wearing clothes like that before and brother sam helped him straighten things out a bit before we started, but it was sweet to watch him really do his best to look his best. I need to get a picture of him for you. He reminds me a lot of jack's personality, but a little quieter. And as sat behind him in church his head reminded me of danny's haha. It's quite large. Probably expalins why he is so smart. very smart kid. sorry, you should take that part out.

And Winson!

so the picture of this family has the super mom, sister Yuen. and her sister and parents and husband and kids and us. And the man next to me is our recent convert Winson. He looks a little scary, but he has the kindest heart. Very rough background and he is always surrounded in quite a hard environment with work, and I am amazed at how sensitive he has stayed throughout his life. every time he meets with us, he'll bring us some sort of packaged chinese dessert, which is very kind. I am glad mid autumn festival is over and we dont have to eat any more moono cakes. Don't worry, I'll bring some home for you to try. But brother au is our ward bought Winson a new white shirt to wear to church to pass the sacrament in. And since it was raining so hard (it practically rains horizontal because it's so hard with the wind) he was soaking by the time he got to church. But I appreciated him all the more because you could see through his soaked white shirt tattoos spread all over underneath. you couldn't tell before, and I had no idea. But I really respect him. Very quiet. Very timid, but very willing to try. His willingness to learn and be obedient to the Lord has impressed me greatly. He quit smoking on his own over the course of being taught, and he just had an ability to do. he just does things. Doesn't say much about it or ask much. I've met so many great people. I'm just going to tell a 15 minute collage of all of them and sit down.

Oh, and today we went fishing. I loved it. Here are some pictures.

Love you!
hannah

We aren't alone in being good.

Oh my goodness, Danny doesn't look like danny, and Jack doesn't look like Jack. They are not the preteens I always think they are. I know that isn't any news since I've started the mission, but it's made some rapid progress, that's for sure. What a fun homecoming.
Tell dad that I'll work for him :) for food and rent :) I hope everything at the office is ok.
And I dont think really anybody needs to hear me give a talk. I have no abilities to give a worthwhile talk. But I am excited to go to church and understand everything that goes on ha. No, I do understand for the most part. Usually for every part, but sometimes it feels like some dot connecting listening to people speak. But it's fun. I enjoy it. Today I bought fishing gear from a nice old man at some fishing village, and I was proud of myself for being able to do that. Somehow we are able to do things. But the progress and accomplishments and changes I've seen in myself on this mission just seem to stand out more than others. Probably to prove that everything good really is rooted in Christ. On a mission it's easy to make that connection. I think I muddied that up a little before and called them my own. I am grateful to be here. The other day I got a chuckle out of a conversation I had with Camilla one day in the parking lot at belmont. I think I was picking her up for church. After recognizing that we accidentally were wearing the same sweater and shoes (for probably the 3rd matching Sunday in a row) we talked about what the mission might be like. I remember specifically talking for a bit about how we thought I might change in the mission field.It was a funny conversation, I remember that. But thinking back on that made me smile. Not just because it was funny. I love that girl. We have such a good family.

So this week, we took Uncle Fai to institute, and I loved every second of it. The teacher and other students were very supportive and patient, and it's doing wonders for Uncle Fai. He loves to think about God, and has a great Testimony of Jesus Christ. No going back, he says. He is a latter day saint. Great, great man. But I am amazed, because he is very outward. Always has an opinion, always something to say, and everysunday school turns into a Q and A between him and the teacher. He keeps things exciting, and I don't know how to answer him have the time. He thinks alot. And his thoughts are way out there, they're crazy in all honesty, but somehow, they're kind of right. We had a discussion with him on Adam and Ever or on resurrection. And he will tell us his opinion on things and what he thinks happens, And it's hilarious, because although he describes things a little wacky, he's for the most part at the bone of it all, pretty spot on. So institute this week was about the identity of Jesus Christ, and it was fun. I should take better notes and give good examples of some of his thoughts, but my favorite part of the entire night, was actually a discussion the class had on a talk by president bednar- the one about the truck, and the snow, and how we can bear our burdens or overcome difficulties. I'm not sure why it came up, but I was very amused listening to these YSA's who have only ever seen a truck or snow on tv, try to explain why driving through snow might be difficult, and why loading things into a truck could help. There was a descent amount of confusion. Institute's awesome.

This week I went on exchanges with Sister Redd, and we set out to find a less active. He lives at the top of a very steep hill. So we essentially went hiking. We were
dripping...literally our hair was even soaked. And just as we make it almost to the top, we meet this cute 60 something year old woman making her way down with a very cool looking umbrella. I always thought the umbrellas in the sun thing was dumb until this day. We stopped her to make sure we were going the right way. After she confirmed and commented on how sweaty we were, we got her talking a bit longer. She has some grandchildren. Just visited her friend. Oh my grandkids go to your church. Christians, right? Ya, they represent our family to Jesus Christ. but I'm buddhist. So we end up just listening to her and ask her questions about what Buddhism means to her. She didn't really know, but said it's practically the same as Jesus to us, except they have Buddha. Then we talk about prayer. She baaisahns too, and prays to her ancestors. The conversation was incredible because she felt listened to and respected for what she thought. We would bear testimony about things that we agreed on, and this hurried grandma-down-the-hill-converstaion turned into a very warm hopeful conversation. I remember Elder Perry told us to never leave any teaching situation without bearing testimony of Jesus,Christ, so we did that along with prayer, and asked if she would pray with us. Buddhism here is very much a tradition, not so much a belief. That's not always the case, there are also very dedicated buddhists here, but for the most part, they aren't devoted to that religion. So after having such a spiritual conversation with her, it was amazing to see her attitude to christianity change. We said a prayer with her, and closed with tears leaking out the sides of her eyes and sneaking down her face. She didn't want to learn more, but she didn't want us to go either. We finally were able to exchange information, and hopefully we'll have the opportunity to see her again. But that was a neat experience. I love to watch the spirit work on people. And slowly, people have experiences throughout their lives that will prepare them to someday understand in full the Plan of salvation. And if not in this life, recognize it in the next. We called her A-yi. I loved talking to A-yi.

I also met a couple other awesome people this week. At crossroads, the place we do service, we were assigned to package medical equipment and box them up to send to somalia. And we actually worked with these two somalian men. We moved a lot of really heavy equipment that took all four of us to get on the crates, and by the end of our time, we earned their respect. They were awesome. They said " whenever we see people wearing your black name tags, they have our respect. We know those mormons can work." There are a lot of years of history of missionaries working at that organization, so the fact that missionaries have kept that reputation there for so long was impressive to me. But on the bus ride home, I sat by one of their friends named manstefan. And he was super interested in the gospel. Remembered seeing missionaries when he was younger. Later this week, I also met a man from uganda on the hingtit. he also mentioned remembering missionaries when he was a young boy. Also willing and interested to learn more and come to church. People make impressions. That's one thing I learned this week. results rarely are immediate. But these guys are awesome. So, if after this mission I disappear to africa, it's because I'm making a lot of friends from that continent lately. They said we could come. No, I'm just impressed with how good people are. So down to earth, and willing to help and be kind. There are so many down to the bone good people in this world, and I want to be more like them. This gospel is true. We have so many truths to share. but we aren't alone in being good.
I should get going, but I love you all. So good to hear about your week.
Love hannah