And we are back... Week 32 from Hong Kong

Hello all,

   I am sorry that in my last email I failed to mention that I would not be able to email on Monday.  I got to go to the temple today so that was awesome! We also found a McDonalds that we ate at that didn't make me feel like I was overdressed! It was supper fancy!

   Anyway much has happened in the space since I have written, so I will just jump right in. So one day they turned off the flush water in our whole apartment building. Which was a new experience. That made for some amusing dances, until we remembered that you can force a toilet to flush by pouring water in to it. So we would just turn on the shower and shoot it in to the bowl. It only took me a few times to realize that I should not use the hot water haha. (not good steam to be hit in the face with) 

   Then the next day the Tai Wai elders (Powell and Taylor) came home from a service project where they were doing something with horse poop. Turns out there was a lot of bugs and Elder Powell ended up with 214 bug bites on just his arms. So they were not very comfortable. 

   I ended up being super embarrassed last Wednesday because we ended up being half an hour late to a dinner appointment. We had a lesson that was all the way across our area and it went slightly long, but he accepted a baptismal invitation so that was good. So we ran all the way to the bus station and from the bus stop to Felix's house and were still late despite our best efforts. That lesson went really well though so we were lucky.

   This last Sunday we were also able to see one of the Tai Wai elders Investigators get baptized that was really cool. We are really hoping that we can keep this missionary momentum and finally get the ward to do some missionary work. 

   I had an interesting experience here in the most civilized city in Asia the other day. Elder Chen and I were walking around and we came around a corner to see that a sewer had burst and there was a river of poop flowing through the middle of the housing estate. So that was unfortunate. 

  I also told my roommates the saying that my mom would say whenever I left the house "Remember who you are!... And don't let it get you down!" and now they say that every time that we leave so that is funny. 

   We all four of us had a funny racist experience. So all four of us elders are from the US, we are all white and Elder Chen is an ABC (American born Chinese) so normal people don't even look me in the eyes because they don't like white people / that's just how they are. So the four of us taught a lesson together because we were not sure which area he lived in and the Tai Wai elders didn't have anything to do so they came with us (which was good because it turned out that he lived in their area). Anyway so we taught the lesson and at the end the man (Mr. Au) turned to Elder Chen and said: "Thanks for translating" in Chinese of course. Which was hilarious because none of us spoke English and Elder Chen didn't repeat anything that we did. haha so that was funny!

Good week I will write again on Monday!

From,

Elder Walker

Tai Wai Elder's Baptism  

sometimes ya just need a good wrestle to get through the week

saw this guy taking his load to Mt. Crumpet 

Temple today!!!

Elder Chen...

We were trying to explain intestines in English class

BAPTISM!!!! Week 31 from Hong Kong

Hello all,

   This week was a great week. I will just start from the beginning. Last P-day we went to Sham Shui Po to get some stuff because it is always fun there. We ended up getting swords so that we can do workouts with the old people in the morning. So that was a lot of fun haha. Pretty cheap too I was surprised. Then a few of us bought voice recorders so that we can send home recordings of our voices. I thought that my family would like that. I just hope I can figure out how to send them home haha. 

   Also our washing machine is fixed!!! It is completely silent now so that is great! Also washes stuff really well. Which is a good feature for a washing machine to have. So that was nice.

   The weather this week was INSANE!!! We had one day that was 100% humidity and the next day was more than that. It was like taking a shower for 2 days straight. You could run your hand along the wall and it would just be soaking wet. We came home after a long day and had to mop the floor because it looked like it had rained in our apartment! It was at this time that I learned what a de-humidifier does. It worked great. It pulled a bout a full bottle of water out of the air just in our office. So that was a good adventure. 

   This week the best thing that happened was Michelle got Baptized!!!! That was great. We were in charge of the filling the font. The thing was no one knew where the key was so we spent 2 hours at the church trying to find the keys. We were able to find it though so that was good. Everything went off without a problem and the spirit was strong. The bishop wanted us, while Michelle was changing clothes to show the clip of the first vision and bear testimony. So we did and a few people started crying so that was great!!! Her dad has been investigating for a few years now so we are hoping this will help! 

   That is all for this week hope everyone had a good one!

Love you all,

Elder Walker

This is the family and bishop and girl (Michelle) that was baptized

Swords, Elder Powell didn't get one so he's using his finding pen

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 

Me on the top of lions rock 

the new washing machine 

New mission vehicle. haha It is a batman and superman add in festival walk in Kowloon Tong 

This ended up in elder Chen ripping his pants

I'm not really sure...

Week 29 from Hong Kong (kinda gory this week)

Hello all,

   This week here in Hong Kong was eventful once again. Lets just start at the beginning. Last Tuesday Elder Chen and I were out finding and we saw some policemen pouring sand on the curb vaguely near our house. I though that was interesting and when we got closer we realized the purpose for all the sand... to absorb blood!!! Apparently there had been a terrible incident in which a person was driving and all of a sudden became stationary. Not sure how/what the accident was. All I know is that there was blood and gore all on the side walk and the tree and broken glass and metal everywhere. That was the only way to get home so a little got on my shoes so that was not the best but it is not much worse than some of the markets here. We walked by a few days later and most of the glass was still there so the police are not that great at cleaning stuff up here. 

   Then we kept going and found some french people walking around looking at their phone trying to find the MTR station. So we talked to them a little bit (in English) they were very nice and we tried describing how to get to the MTR station but it is deeply buried in the mall so we ended up taking them there. So that was a fun good turn for the day.

   This last Friday Elder Chen and I were asked to share a spiritual thought in Zone training about Isaiah 1:16&18.

16 ¶Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;

 18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

That was a lot of fun. Super good for the studies.  My personal studies have gotten a lot better and I have a notebook that I am just filling with revelation and stuff so that will be cool to look back at some day.

 
 My companion is having a tough week because he was messing with his camera trying to make the pictures smaller so he could fit more and he found a button that said "Format" and he thought that would do the trick so he hit it and it erased all the pictures from his mission thus far. So that was sad. 

   Then this last Saturday we went over to brother Chan Wei's house to help him and his son with English and we discovered that the game MTR Uno is a thing. It is supper fun all the warning signs make you draw and the train lines are the "colors" I hope I can find a copy of that some where. Then he asked me if I really eat peanuts with the shell and is said yes. Then he told a funny story about when he told his wife that I did that. He quoted Joseph Smith "had I not seen it myself I probably would not have believed it" (all of these stories are in Chinese unless otherwise noted). So that was really funny.

I found a google image of the game!

  Also last night we did something called a Tim Tam slam. Where you have hot chocolate and drink it through a Tim Tam and then eat the tim tam without it falling to the bowl of hot chocolate.     

   

   

Love you all,

Elder Walker

This is companionship unity 

This was parked outside my house the other day

This shop just opened in our mall

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