Have you ever wrestled a washing machine? Week 30 from Hong Kong

Hello all,

This week was a killer. We will start at the beginning. So it is getting warm here again. So I decided to apply some powder in my pants and socks to see if that would increase my comfort level at all. The answer was a resounding yes for the socks and a horrific no for the pants. I was in my office getting dressed and I put the powder on (It is called snake brand prickly heat.... I don't know mom bought it for me) and at first it was nice/ normal. Then it began to burn with the fiery intensity of 1,000 suns. So I ran out of the office grabbed my towel and ran in to the shower to rinse the powder off, the whole time saying "nope, nope, that didn't work, that didn't work at all". Over and Over again. So I learned that lesson.

This is what the former Hong Kong missionaries suggested to use so, that's what we bought and sent with him!

Then there was the problem of the washing machine. So our old one broke while I had my whites in it. Sometimes it has an error and doesn't drain properly so normally you just run it again and then it is fine. I did that about 5 times and it didn't work. I tried messing with the knobs and everything so it was broken and I had no underwear or white shirts (which I need everyday). So I eventually had to wring them out and put them in a bucket and then take them to the shower and wash all the soap out and then put them in the dryer so that took all my prep time that day. The next day Elder Taylor tried to wash his stuff and see if that helped but it did not. Luckily the next day we had and apartment inspection so we just waited until the senior couple came and we told them about our problem. They promised to fix it. We had a good chat with them. They are really funny.

So latter that day we got a knock at the door and it was the housing Elders with a brand new washing machine!!! That was great!... or so we thought. That night I washed Elder Taylor's clothes in the shower while he installed the washing machine. That night we gave it a try and it broke a piece in the lid that dispenses the soap but that wasn't to bad because we can just put the soap right in. The problem was that it squirted water onto the floor. So we later fixed it (kinda) and gave it a try the next night. It is some kind of mega washing machine and can go at 800 RPM which means that it shakes the whole machine and the room. So that night it literally sounded like a helicopter was crashing in to the wall of our house for about an hour and a half. So we figured out how to lower the RPM speed but it still shoots water out. So now we keep towels around the floor and just dry them with our clothes. There is a repair man coming tomorrow so hopefully this will be over soon.

On a better note! Elder Chen and I were teaching a lesson one night in the park to a less active member with the Elders Quorum president. The lesson went very well and we were staying and chatting with the Elders Quorum president and he called one of the sister missionaries that is serving in Sha Tin fat so that was funny. Then we walked away and a member of the Ma On Shan ward (he fed us the huge Chinese buffet a few months ago) came up to us and I recognized him as Yoshi! He is super cool we call him the Tolo Fairy because when he is free he just does really nice things for missionaries. So yeah he walked up to us and remembered my name which was super cool and he handed us a huge bag of food and drinks and we asked him how he knew we were there. He said "I saw you in the park teaching a lesson so I ran and bought this stuff and then hid in the shadows and prayed for you until you were done." Literally the coolest thing ever.

Yeah so that was this week. Hopefully next week is better.

Rice is life.

Love,

伍長老

Elder Chen and I with our area in the background