Move Calls - Week 28 from Hong Kong

Hello all,

   This week was full of... experiences some good some bad. This week was the end of my second transfer in the field and the beginning of my third. This means that the opportunity arose to be transferred to a new area. WHICH DIDN'T HAPPEN!!!! Which is awesome! I love this ward and all these people and I want to see this area be super productive before I leave it. 

   So this week started with us realizing that the basketball court that we usually use in the morning is closed for a few weeks. So that was a bummer. Luckily Elder Chen and I found another court that is within running distance of our apartment so that is awesome. Otherwise we would have had to run every morning and that would have been awful. 

   Then during weekly planning we found some balloons in our apartment and blew them up and passed them back and forth with the other elders in our apartment and wrote notes on them. That was fun, they are cheep Chinese balloons so they are now just randomly popping in our house which is great in the middle of the night. 

   Then this Saturday we went over to Chan Wei (member) 's house to help him and his son learn English. That is always a lot of fun. Afterwards he will feed us lunch and teach us some thing. Last week it was proper table manners. This week it was some history related to simplified and traditional characters. That was a lot of fun. Then we went to correlation and that was just normal. Then we had another meeting with the sisters in our ward. Which was ok but they were condescending the whole time so that was a long meeting. Then we got a call from our ward mission leader and he told us that he just got a call from a Former investigator that wanted help moving. So we got yanked out of that meeting and had to go and find this guy which we finally did after about 45 min. So he takes us to his house which is supper tiny and sketchy and he said "I asked brother Chan (ward mission leader) if I could move in with you guys but he said that there was not enough room." so we should have taken this as a sign that he was crazy but we just brushed it off. He also had an old woman with him who he referred to as his "thinker" which was strange. He was moving to Aberdeen, which is way out of our zone so we had to get permission to leave. Luckily the answer was no. He also had no plan and had no idea of how to get there. So long story short we had to carry his huge and heavy bags of stuff the 4 mile distance to a buss station and on the way got separated and I completely lost it at him on the phone and we had to leave before we could finish "helping" him. He literally had no plan it was absolutely insane. So that was not great. But English class that night was great. I had them read and talk about a financial statement about Ferrari my dad sent me so that was great. 

   Then the next Sunday. Chan Wei came in to church while we were greeting members and he opened a bag of shelled peanuts. Which I have not had because they are supper expensive here. So I grabbed one and threw the whole thing in my mouth and his eyes got huge! It absolutely blew his mind. So he took the bag over to the other missionaries that were there and had them eat some. They of course opened the shell and bro Chan came back to me and said pretty much "you are a freak!" joking of course it was hilarious. 

   That is the big stuff for today. We are hiking Lions rock today so that should be good for pictures next week. 

Love you all!

- Elder Walker

 

 District Photo

 Setting up cameras for the district photo

District meeting and a sisters birthday

I tried to make a smoothie but the blender was broken :)

This is just outside.... It's a Batmobile!

Week 27 from Hong Kong!

Hello all,

    Well this week has been an interesting one. So last week after p-day in the time that we have to prepare for bed and such Elder Powell (My District Leader and roommate)  asked me to do something no one has asked me to do before. He asked me to give him a hair cut. I agreed but only if we prayed first. So we did.. and it went... well. Actually not too bad. The problem was that the cutter thing (I forgot what is is in English) was very slow and if I tried to do anything fast it just didn't cut hair. And so I wasn't able to finish it that evening. So the next morning we woke up a little early and I finished the job. I will attach pictures at the end. You may judge for yourself s how I did haha.

   Then later in the week we were planning to go and visit one of our investigators. He was really close to baptism. He also just got over having a stroke and so we thought he was going to live in Sha Tin with his older sister. However he decided to live with his little brother in Tin Sui Wai which is outside of our zone. So we got permission to leave our zone and do a turn over lesson to the elders who take care of Tin Sui Wai. Which meant an hour MTR ride one way and also a charge of $18.50 One way. So it was a long and expensive and sad day. However he is still progressing so that is good. 

   I have a new favorite chapter in the Book of Mormon It is Mormon Chapter 9. You should go read it it is pretty sweet. 

   This last Sunday we went with the High Priest Group Leader (Brother Tzeh) to visit a 94 year old man and to give him the sacrament. That was really cool and my first priesthood ordnance in the field! Also because he is so old he speaks what missionaries call old Cantonese. The biggest way to tell is if when they say "hello" they say Neih hoh or Leih Ho. The latter being the more common version and the one we are taught. however it is an easy pronunciation difference and then no problem. So Brother Tzeh is a little bit older so when we left I tried to ask him which way he had learned as a child. However he responded by telling me that he didn't learn Pingyam (the Romanized version of Chinese so white people can learn it) So I tried again in a slightly different manner. He responded by telling me that he can't speak mandarin so after that I gave up. Now I think he thinks I am an idiot.  

   The biggest thing that happened by far this week is that I called in the missionary equivalent of an air strike. I called in President Lam (my mission president) to help us with a lesson. I did this because the investigator has been investigating since 2006 off an on. He has some genuine concerns and we wanted President Lam and his wife to help us out. It turned out to be the most powerful and spiritual experience that I have had on my mission. The lesson ended up being 2 and a half hours long. It was great a lot of it was using scriptures to discuss what his concerns. So president Lam paraphrased a verse from Matthew 16. and the investigator pulled it up and said that he didn't want to paraphrase the words of the Lord. So then everything after that was an exact quote and president Lam said exactly where it was and everything. Supper cool. Then it got to the end and Elder Chen and I just bore the most solid and most powerful testimony I have ever bore and it was the coolest thing the Spirit was strong. Then at the end the investigator gave each of us a hug. Which I have never seen him do and was super unexpected based on his personality. Best thing Ever!!!! It was all in English too so that was great!

That is all for this week. Love you all!!!

Love,

伍長老 

This is a bed of nails

This is me on the bed of nails.  It was pretty cozy and the nails were SHARP too.

Gordon's description for this picture was missing so???

The pre cut

After side view

After front view

This week in China - week 26 in Hong Kong

Hello all,

   Well this was a fast few days. Though I had many adventures. The first was last p day we met a man who talked to us for like a half hour about how pure cannabis oil can cure cancer. so that was an interesting waste of a half hour. He was supper High as well. meh so it happens.

   I also had my first "numbers" in my new role as Senior Companion. It was a lot of fun. My District Leader is very nice and he lives with me so he was able to explain stuff and it was very low stress so that was good. I just reported my statistics for the week and talked about the names behind them. So that was fun. 

   Then Sunday night we had an interesting experience. I woke up to a bell ringing. It sounded like one of the alarms we have set for the morning. Except when I got out of bed I realized that it was coming from outside our room. I also noticed my watch which informed me that it was 1:30 in the morning. So it was the fire alarm in my building. I stuck my head out the window to see if I could see anything and I didn't smell anything other than the normal amount of smoke. However I did see some people congregating outside. So I flipped on the lights and announced to my roommates that the fire alarm was going off. So Elder Taylor jumped out of bed and came and looked out the window and we watched the two fire trucks pull up and the fire fighters jumped out but they were walking really slowly ya know like not running with hoses or anything. Then the fire alarm went off and people started going back inside so we got back in bed and went back to sleep. We were tired the next day.

   The next day which was Sunday it was my new companions first Sunday in our Ward and so that was fun. I am serving in Elder Wong's (First Quorum of the 70) ward and he came to visit. He was really cool and supper powerful. Gave a great talk in Sacrament meeting as well. The fun thing is that when we were leaving he almost hit me and Elder Chen with his car. So all in all this week my house almost burned down and I was almost ran over by a 70. 

Love you all,

伍長老

This is a family in my ward and my old companion on his last Sunday in Sha Tin

Last picture of me and my "dad" (in the mission your trainer is your dad and a trainee is a son, it is good for unity)

me and my new companion Elder Chen of Provo Utah

This is the Dragon that was going around the mall last week and in to every shop and blessing them and all the old people

It was supper cool and super loud. There were also some people around it making sure that the Dragon didn't do any thing bad because it is hard to see out of. They are called Dragon Trainers if I understood correctly

cool street scene  

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Week 25 from Hong Kong!

Hello all,

   It has been some time since I have had the pleasure of reading your emails and being able to give updates about my adventures. These last 10 days have seen a lot of changes but I will just start at the beginning.

   This week started with the most serious Headache I have ever had in my life. It was bad enough that it made me want to puke supper bad. I didn't though. Luckily I had a lot of Ibuprofen so that came to my rescue. That lasted for about 4 days and after much medicine and prayer it went away so that was a nice relief. I think it was mostly stress. We were incredibly busy last week and I think my body just needed a rest. So that was good.

   Then we had a turnover lesson from the Sisters in my area. He was very interesting. I would most accurately describe the lesson as a fencing sword fight. He was very smart and wanted us to speak to him in English. He is paid to analyze companies and fix their personal problems. It was very interesting he paid a lot of attention to what we were saying and asked a lot of very specific questions, though he was not very willing to listen to our answers. So we will see how that goes. We are going to get our mission President involved and sue his awesome power.

   This week was also Chinese New Year. Which is celebrated by everyone going back to Mainland and those that stay are very busy and don't answer their phones haha. It was really pretty. It is still going on. We are in a huge mall and there is a dragon going around and blessing all the shops so if I get a chance I will take a picture of it and send it next week. 

   This week also had more SURPRISE MOVES!!!! This time Elder Phung (my trainer) was moved to the international branch on the Island. I stayed in Sha Tin and am the senior companion. Which only means that I know where stuff is and have to do all the administrative stuff. My new companion is Elder Chen... Another ABC (American Born Chinese) haha. He was in my same MTC group so that should be a good chance for some growth. I felt kinda bad for him because I went and picked him up in Kowloon Tong and took him back so that he could pack a different suit case and go on Zone 24 hour exchanges. This all happened last Monday so we have had 1 full day together haha. So I am looking forward to this new change. 

   Then while we were on exchanges I and my exchanged companion elder Merril got called up and invited to lunch so that was a lot of fun. It was a traditional Chinese New Year meal. So there was a lot of seafood which I was not a fan of but was not too bad. They also lived in the nicest apartment complex I have ever seen. We got lost and ended up wandering around in a parking garage that I would have paid money to walk around in. Lamborghini, Ferrari, Aston Martin, and Maserati are just a few of the things that I saw. It was great!!! The appointment ended up lasting 3 hours though so that was not the best. But it was a great opportunity to get to know that family better. 

   We also had Zone conference which was awesome!!! it was a broadcast from Salt lake from the Missionary department. We were also informed that in two Mondays we will be pleased to be addressed by Elder Gerry Stevenson of the Quorum of the 12. Really looking forward to that!!!

   Those were my big adventures this week. I am at the apple store and therefore unable to send pictures. Next Monday though!!!

Love you all,

Elder Walker