2 days 2 servings of chicken feet. Week 82 from Hong Kong

Hello all,

   Well this was an interesting week. I got to go on two exchanges as well. The first one was with Elder Harding. He is great. I love going on exchanges with him and he is a great district leader. The exchange was darkened slightly by the fact that we got a text from his area that said their ward mission leader's mom had passed away. That was sad. Especially because  they are really, really close friends with their ward mission leader. We were however able to have a great discussion about the plan of salvation, which teaches us how families can be together forever. That was nice.

  Then Elder Taylor and I were back together for about 12 hours and we got a call from the assistants and I was invited on an exchange with elder Sargent, who is one of the Assistants to the President. This meant that I was able to check living in the temple apartment off my mission bucket list. That apartment is HUGE! It is at least 4 or 5 times bigger that the one I live in now, It is also Air conditioned constantly. 

   The fun part of this exchange though was the lessons. The first was with a really, really rich woman. Who after the lesson took us out to dim sum. It was a supper fancy restaurant in Festival Walk. She asked if there was anything we didn't want to eat. We said that everything was fine. So one of the dishes she bought was Chicken feet! They were not bad to be honest, They were just really hard to eat, because when I bit it, it would like grab my chin and the toenails were trimmed, however they were not trimmed well. So I would also feel chicken toenail on my cheeks and that was not a good feeling. It tasted fine though. Just not enough meat for the work. That evening we went and taught an investigator family. They were super nice. They had 2 little boys one 10 and one 8. They were super cute. It was a really good lesson. When we were done we were walking away and they came running after us and handed us two huge bags of food! That was nice haha.

   That was a really good exchange. It also made me loose any desire I had to be an Assistant to the President. Way, Way too much paper work. 

   Then this week we had a stake Youth activity. That was a lot of fun. It was for the youth to see what mission life is like. Haha. That was a good time. Part of the activity was taking the youth out finding with us. Which pretty much was just finding by yourself. They were surprised how nervous they were. haha. It reminded me of my first few days in the field.

  Then this last Sunday we went to the mental hospital. That was a good experience. So we found the hospital and then we found the front door. We went in and found that there was some kind of activity going on. So we asked one of the volunteers who directed us to a doctor. We asked him if we could visit our friend. He said that we were not there during visiting hours. We knew we were there at the right time so I looked him dead in the face and said "Do not lie to the servants of God" Then he got all sheepish and said that we had to leave so we decided to not do that. We finally found the desk and asked to see our friend and we were led straight there. We had a great visit and read the Book of Mormon with her. She often goes to our English class. One of the funniest things she said was "there are only three normal people in here. Everyone else has mental illness." haha that was funny. She was also convinced that we were kings in a previous life and therefore had to suffer and be missionaries in this life. That was amusing. 

  Well those were adventures from this week.

Love,

Elder Walker

This was our apartment when I was on exchange with Elder Harding.

This is Elder Darrington trying to focus on the movie he was watching in Chinese for language study.

The video is a place we buy groceries from. haha. Don't get that in America. I don't think you can see it but the butchers are smoking. ​

Dog Attack. Week 81 from Hong Kong

Hello all,

   Well this was an interesting week. Many things happened. Some were good and some were not so good.

   This week I was able to go to MLC (Mission Leadership Council). That was interesting. It was a 4 hour meeting that was mostly the different zone leaders and Sister Training leaders sharing ideas and struggles that they are having in their zones. This was great and all. Normally the point of this is to get things and inspiration that we then take back to our zones in the form of a zone training. However we got to the second half of the meeting and President Lam stood up and announced that Zone training and Zone conference would be combined and that he wanted us to help him plain it. That went terribly wrong. We ended up really stressed and not knowing what is going to be happening at this meeting. So the stress level was high. In the end we knew that we were going to be giving a training for at least an hour. We will see what happens. That happens next week so we shall see. We are still in the panning stages and are preparing to have our plans dashed by some unforeseen information that will probably be coming our way. In the meantime though we are working with a member to get us a tank of Helium from mainland. apparently it is much much cheaper there. Again, wee shall see.

   I am pleased to report that this last Sunday I was able to go to Lori's baptism! That was fun. In the service she shared a cool story about how she came into contact with the church while living in main land. That was cool. 

   We also had an amazing kids English class this week. Normally we have like 2 kids maybe. This week we had 19. I ended up being the model for the "what kind of clothes do we need to go to America?" game. Those pictures will be attached.

   So to address the title. We were up in the hills looking for this less active man's house. We have been there before but not for a long time and I thought we should go and pay him a visit. Now there is this house that you have to walk by and there is no way around it. In the yard of this house lives a dog. This dog has no teeth, nevertheless it is very vicious. Most of the yard has a fence around it and it is normally too dumb to go around the other side. However this time we were going and we walked past like we normally do. but this time my companion all of a sudden looked be hind us and said "dog". I quickly turned aground to see this dog running up the stairs towards us. I knew there was no way we could run from it. So I let out all the stress and frustration from the last few weeks on this dog, and just pointed and yelled "NO!" several times and we started yelling at it to go home and leave. All in Chinese. It stopped right in its tracks and turned and walked home. So that was a good experience to tuck away for a later time. 

   That is all from this week. 

Love,

Elder Walker

My modeling pictures. If anyone wants to hire me just let me know haha.

This is a terrible picture of all of the Zone leaders from our group that were at MLC

This is a really awkward picture of an awkward picture we have from the MTC when we first met each other.

Fong Fei Kei. Week 80 from Hong Kong.

"Fong Fei Kei" in Cantonese is to break a promise, a deal or did not show up for an appointment

Hello all,

   This week sure has been an interesting one. We had about 15 lessons scheduled and confirmed. Then one by one they either all called and canceled re scheduled or did not show up at all, so we ended up at about 7 lessons this week. That was hard. 

   So a few weeks ago the bishop asked us to sing in sacrament meeting. So yesterday was the day and we decided to sing a hymn that they probably did not know because it is not translated into Chinese. I as a joke suggested "If you could hie to Kolob" haha so long story short we sang that in sacrament meeting and the ward members loved it. They were looking for it in the Chinese hymnal to find it but they couldn't haha. 

   Our church building is right next to a Catholic church and on Sunday two guys walked in and asked what time mass started. We told them that the Catholic church was next door but that they were welcome to stay. So they stayed for priesthood class. They were really cool and asked a lot of questions. We will see if anything happens with them. 

   Last p-day we went and played football (Soccer) with some of the Elders from Elder Ian Taylor's group. That was a lot of fun. It was a very hot day and we ended up quite sunburned, and very very sore. I had almost forgotten how bad I am at football (Soccer). 

   I was also able to do an exchange with Elder Stone. He is one of the district leaders in my zone. He is supper cool and a really good missionary. We were able to end the exchange with me doing a baptismal interview for one of his investigators. It was right after church so I did it in one of the bishops offices. The person's name is Lorri. She was awesome and super prepared for her interview. So she will be getting baptized next Sunday.

   We also had the end of the month which means that Elder Darrington and I spent from 7:30 to 9:30 crunching numbers and chasing people for their numbers. It was much smoother this time so that was really nice. 

   All in all this was a rough but rewarding week. 

Love,

Elder Walker

This is Iris, who meets with us. She turned 16 this week so we made a pineapple cobbler to give to her and her parents along with some stuff about our church to try and get her parents to like us. It did not work. :(  oh well it was fun anyway.

this is Lorri and the Ma On Shan Elders and me and Elder Taylor

The people we played football with (Soccer) or as elder Taylor sometimes says "footie" 

The red faces afterward

See attached video. It is low volume so turn it up. ​

Elder Taylor's Pants Troubles

New post will be Wednesday March 1st. Mom is out of town!

Down with the sickness. Week 79 from Hong Kong

Hello all,

   Well this week was a bit rough. I was really sick the first part of this week. It was mostly just a terrible cold. I felt awful. So Tuesday I wore a mask to District Meeting which was fun but I think it made the other people nervous. It was sad too because this was the first time that the people who moved into the zone would see us and we were sick and no fun at all. So we will have to try again this week. But yeah after that Elder Darrington and I went home and slept for the rest of the day. He was feeling just as bad as I was so we sent our companions out on exchanges. Not a great Valentine's day. 

   Through this experience I learned that Chinese cough medicine does not even try to taste good. They actually have a saying that the more bitter the medicine the more powerful it is. So yeah that was one of the more vile things I have ever put into my body. So after struggling through for a few days I am feeling much better. 

   That was a major theme of the week which was sad. We were also supper busy we had 15 lessons this week. Which is a TON! usually a companionship will get around 5. So that was great. We now have the problem of trying to re-schedule them for this week and not having enough time for them in the week. which is a lovely problem to have. 

   On Friday after English class we had the Ma on Shan Elders over for dinner. Elder Taylor and Elder Smith made British chips and fried chicken. That was really good. I like having a companionship over for dinner now and then to change it up. 

   We are going to sing in sacrament meeting next week and we were going to sing a really complicated song but sister Clark decided that she didn't want to play that one. So as a joke I suggested that we sing "If You Could Hie to Kolob" (you can google it and listen to it on Youtube and long story short we are singing that next week. It does not exist in the Chinese hymn book so it should be fun. 

   We also had our interviews with President Lam. That was fun. I love having interviews with him. He always has good things to say. 

   I was also privileged to do a baptismal interview for a young man. His name is Jackie Chan - not the famous one haha. I did it in the bishops office since there were lots of people at the church. He was really cool. He will be getting baptized this coming week. 

   We also had elder Smiths birthday. He turned 20 this Saturday. So we went out and bought him a cake and the re-lighting candles. that was fun I will attach a video. 

   We had a really good week this week. Hopefully next week is better.

Love,

Elder Walker

Last p-day riding bikes in Tai Mei Tuk

  Me and President Lam

Me and Jackie Chan

This is a note we got from one of our investigators in a bag of chocolate for Valentine's day.

She is 15 and super cool 

British chips and fried chicken.

Elder Smith's birthday 

I had pop tarts for breakfast this morning and they are still amazing!

I had to go really far to get them  but it was worth it.

There has been a thing about shaving legs in my apartment. I have not taken part.

Elder Taylor did last night and shall we say made a bit of a mistake.

The video is Elder Smith's cake. We surprised him on the way to get tin the​ shower.

Chuffing Pipes. Week 78 from Hong Kong

Hello all,

   This has been yet another week lived in Hong Kong. The weather was actually a bit chilly this week so that was really great. 

   Well the subject line is a quote from my companion Elder Taylor. We had yet another water based emergency in the Tai Po apartment. This time we discovered a large amount of water coming out from a cupboard under the sink. Turns out the pipe that accepted the drainage from the washing machine came off. So we made a few attempts to fix it  but with no success. So we are yet again out a washing machine until the office elders can help us out. So we can stay tuned for that next week. 

   We had a lovely Zone training meeting. All of the trainings went really well. I gave one and used an awesome analogy to formula one, about starting your relationships with Investigators properly so that everything just goes much smoother. I think it was cool. I showed a couple videos of F1 starts and pace laps. It was fun. I forgot how cool Formula One is.

   Nothing else too out of the ordinary happened.  We were less active finding and accidentally knocked on a members door who was completely active. So we just shared a quick message and had a nice little chat and got out of her hair. I think it was nice. 

   Sister Chen left and so we had a ward party for her. I will put some pictures up from that. 

   Also the sisters form my group left this week. That is supper weird!!!!!! That means that the clock is really ticking now and I am really conflicted about going home.  The sisters that were trained in the MTC with him are the ones that went home. 

Love,

Elder Walker

some of these will be of people, but most will be of things. 

Tony one of our Inv. who moved to England this week. super sad to see him go.

Tolo Harbor Zone and a third of the hosts of heaven who were cast out.

sister training leaders and Zone leaders 

the Missionaries and Sister Chen who left.

us and Dennis. One of the members who is supper funny

MOVE CALLS Week 77 from Hong Kong

Hello all,

   Well as the title suggests we got move calls last night. That was fun. None of the Elders in the Zone are changing so that is good I like all of them. Some of the sisters are changing and they are opening Tai Wo sisters. Which means that we will get sisters in the district. That will be weird again. One of the sister training leaders is going so we are getting a new one. We are all really sad about that. However there are no mistakes in the mission field so we just press on.

   Speaking of which, this Thursday we got to watch a world wide broadcast from Salt Lake. That was really good of course. They changed the schedule which is interesting. The major change is that planning is now the first thing in the morning, lunch is half an hour, and we only do planning and 30min of personal study on p-day. The changes take some time to get used to but are nice. The thing I like most is the half hour of journal writing time at the end of the day. The thing I like the least is the 30  min of lunch, only because that is less time than it takes just to make rice never mind eat it and be out the door. And you can forget about washing the dishes. There is just not a way to do it. So we end up having to have a crappy second half of language study so that we can actually eat.

   So every month the Zone leaders and Sister training leaders put on a 3 hour training meeting. We learned earlier that that would not be happening anymore so we were not ready when President Lam announced the fact that we will be teaching one this Tuesday!!! By the end of tonight we will have put in about 6 hours of planning. Then add the study time that has suddenly been filled with preparing for this meeting. I am really excited for it though. I am making a really cool analogy to Formula 1. Specifically the importance of the start. That will be really cool.

Gordon would set his alarm and get up in he middle of the night to watch Formula 1 races!

   We have almost come out of the Chinese New year celebrations so that is great. We saw a really cool dragon dance that I will try and send. The drums are supper loud!!!

He didn't attach a video.

That is all for this week!

Love,

Elder Walker