2 Typhoons!!!! Week 62 from Hong Kong

Hello All,

   This week has had a lot of interesting things happen. I will cover as many as I can.

   Well first off this week has been insanely wet!!! 2 typhoons! that is a lot of rain. I am from Oregon, I know rain, this week we had a LOT. 

   So I can't remember if I mentioned it last week. But our washing machine broke, so we told the sisters and they said that they would wash our clothes if we would throw their fridge away. So we aren't dumb so we took that deal. It was pretty easy, all we did was run over to their house and use our exercise time to take it to the dump about 100 meters from their house. The funny thing was that we got around the corner and a homeless woman asked what we were doing with it. We told her that we were throwing it away and that it was full of mold and cockroaches. However she insisted that we leave it on the street with her. So we did. I think she wanted to recycle it for money or loot the brass from it or something. I am not sure. We went by a few days later and it was gone and I didn't ask what she did with it.

   So the first typhoon was on a day that Elder Garcia and I were on exchanges. It was only a class 3 so we could go out side. Since it was an exchange there was no point in staying home and doing paper work. So we went out and made an attempt at finding. I got more wet in those few hours than I have in the last year easy. My shoes were wet for 3 days. I finally had to turn the heater on them and leave them in the bathroom for a whole day. It was 37 in there. it was awful. I am not sure but I think that the rain might have stained my bag. Meh I don't really care, it kinda adds character.

   The other typhoon was a class 8 so that means that we had to stay inside a whole day. It was terrible. It was so boring. We live in a small house and we had spent the whole day before in the house, and our house is quite small.... so we had a good case of cabin fever. 

   Then this Sunday we had a nice man from Japan come to church. His name was brother Suzuki. He was very nice and was in HK for business and got delayed because of the typhoon so he decided to come to church. that was fun. Luckily since he is a business man he had really good English. And since my companion falls asleep in church quite often I was put in charge of translation. That went really well. 

   Today we had a mission tour! IT was sick! Elder Wong of the first quorum of the 70 presided and gave trainings. It was fanatic!!! It was hilarious! He is supper funny. He is from HK and I served in his home ward of Sha Tin for a long time. His English is great and has a great accent. 

Love you all!!!!!

- Elder Walker

My family had a family reunion and this is me with the picture of them from that and me in the same shirt haha fun. 

Elder Garcia and I on exchange 

the rain

some damage from my the level 8 typhoon

Elder Garcia and I made a vain attempt at water proofing our shoes by putting paper towels in the bottom and trash bags around our socks. It worked for a while but not for as long as I would have liked.

drying socks 

eating the Skeleton shaped Cheetos we sent him in his last box.  He said he used chopsticks to keep his fingers clean.

KBQ from last p-day (Korean BBQ)

possibly the last picture with me and elder Powell =(

This is where I am e-mailing from right now.

This is where the mail goes and how we receive it in the mission office. 

The Sisters have my underwear. Week 61 from Hong Kong

Hello all,

   Well this week has been an interesting one. Most of our Investigators were in Mainland this week, which makes it hard for us to teach them. It looks like only one of our anticipated three baptisms will be happening this month. I am just really glad that we might be able to help Andy (Taxi driver) get there. He was doing great and accepting everything, until we got to tithing. So now he is having his trial of faith before his baptism. I just really hope this goes well. I think it will. The problem is that he is not a very rich man and he is afraid of not being able to provide for his family if he gives 10% to the Lord. We Explained that all would be well but that he would need to trust God. He said he was going to fast about it. So I am excited for that.

   Well on another note as the title suggests we are having washing machine issues!!!! We realized that it was broken when it started leaking water all over the floor. So we called around and someone told us about a valve that we should open at the bottom to let the extra water out. So I was making some hot Chocolate and Elder Darrington opened the thing and water gushed out! we were really afraid that it was going to come out of the kitchen. Luckily our kitchen has a drain in it so the water just sort of went away. It was lucky that most of us had enough clothes to last the week. So we were quite concerned when the repair man came and told us that we were going to have to get a new one. Therefore last night we realized that we were mostly out of clothes. So Elder Darrington called the Sisters and asked if they would be willing to wash our clothes for us. They agreed on the condition that we help them throw away their old fridge. To which we gladly agreed. So this morning we ran over and gave them bags of laundry. hahaha. That was strange. Really, really strange. I am really interested to see if my socks come back folded or not haha. 

   We also invited the Tai Wo elders over for dinner and hand made tacos. Those were really, really good. The Tai Wo elders live way out of there area and we live really close to their area. So we gave them a key and invited them to store food and just come over and cook if they wanted to. 

   This week was not too exciting but it certainly was entertaining! 

Love,

Elder Walker

Taco Night!

Washing machine issues

Food Poisoning and Apostles. Week 60 from Hong Kong

Hello all,

   This was yet another week of miracles in Hong Kong! Investigator wise Andy the Taxi driver is doing well. We taught him the law of chastity and he was like "Well duh..." and we agreed. I am super excited for his baptism this month if everything goes well.

   Well as the title suggests I got a dose of food poisoning. That just happens if you serve here. It is just a matter of when. The sad thing was that it was my favorite dish that got me. I just woke up at 2:30 in the morning with the sudden realization that I needed to puke and puke NOW. So I climbed down off the top bunk and went into the bathroom and rocketed the contents of my stomach into the toilet. Not fun. I was also worried because the next day was conference. Luckily it was only that session of puking and only mild diarrhea. So that was nice.   Sorry everyone.... TMI!

   With the passing of conference also passes the AC and going outside without a suit coat. So that means a lot more sweating. Luckily we got a text this morning that said that if the temperature is more than 24 degrees centigrade then we don't have to wear a suit coat. Which is nice because it really won't get cooler till December. 

   General Conference was fantastic!!!! I got 10 pages of notes that I am excited to apply to the work. I also was able to have all my questions answered. That was really cool. I just love general conference. It is also crazy to think that I only have one more on my mission!!! Time is flying! way way too fast! For breakfast on Sunday morning we had pancakes! It was really good. We made everything from scratch. Including the syrup. We didn't even try to make it maple flavor that just wasn't going to happen. So we made it vanilla flavored and it was great!!!! 

That is all for this week! 

Love,

Elder Walker

Cool view from a door we were knocking.

General Conference. Week 59 from Hong Kong

Hello all,

   This was an interesting food week. I will start of by saying that for us General Conference will be this next weekend! It is a week behind the real one because it needs to be translated in to Cantonese. I will get to watch it in English so that will be great, (For those who do not know that is when the prophet and apostles and other people talk and we get to receive council from God. It is awesome) 

   Also If every thing goes according to plan we will have 3 baptisms this month. So that will be great for everyone involved. Speaking of which we were teaching one of the families and the husband offered to feed us dinner. So we being poor and near the end of the month decided to let him. He took us to a restaurant that had a menu in only Characters. Which means that I couldn't read it. Scriptures yes, but menus no. So I decided to be brave and just get what Mr. Lau was getting. He got something called nagh jap mihn. Which I anticipated being some kind of beef noodles. To be fair that is what it was however it was noodles, cow stomach, cow intestine, cow kidney, cow liver, and various other organs that I did not want to try to identify. Mr. Lau was quite surprised that I was able to eat it. He kept saying that If I didn't like it I could get something else. However I endured to the end and all was well. It wasn't all that bad. Good, no but not too bad. So that was an experience.

   Then the other food story is a much better tasting story. In total I spent 6 hours making cookies. This is because we are teaching a former Investigator and she would only meet with us if we would make cookies with her. She went to a cooking school for sweets and such, which is to say that she can make some good Cookies! They were absolutely fantastic! She also bought most of the ingredients so that was a plus. Making cookies also gave us a great metaphor on which to build our lessons. So that was a lot of fun. haha. We will just have to spend much less time doing that in the coming week. 

Love you all,

Elder Walker

I went on exchanges with my district leader Elder Darrington, he is a  Mandarin speaking missionary. So that was fun.

the nagh jap mihn  (Okay, I can barely look at this!  I don't know how he ate it!)

HUGE SPIDER!!!

cool 10,000 Buddha statues

Week 58 from Hong Kong

Hello all,

   This has been an interesting week. One of the best things that happened was that in our meeting with Andy (The Taxi driver) we extended a baptismal date and he said yes! With no hesitation! It was awesome!!! We are super excited for him.

   We had our quarterly interviews with President Lam this week. That was great. We had a good long chat about the work and we went way over time haha. He both cried and laughed so that was good. After that I kept remembering the stories I have been told by other missionaries about how in some missions the mission president will go on 24 hour exchanges with the missionaries. I think that would be really funny. 

   This Sunday we also had the assignment to teach the gospel principals class. So in order to prepare for that we had to go and buy 11 nails and a small block of wood. This proved a most difficult task. We had to go to 6 metal shops (like a hardware store but much more grungy) none of them had any nails except for the last one which had them way, way in the back. Then the block of wood was pretty easy. We just walked up to a construction site and asked for a scrap of wood. It had huge nails sticking out of it so we had to get rid of those. I will attach a picture of the completed thing so this will make more sense. The class went quite well and everyone was very impressed. So that was nice.

   Yesterday we went back to the church very late in the evening to teach a lesson. However, the person who we were going to meet did not show up. However, Yoshi was there, and out of his bag he puled a Chinese Chess set and said "I know you know how to play" and then disappeared to wash his hands. The best part is that it is Thomas the Tank Engine themed. So that was supper awesome! Yoshi, I know you are reading this, so Thank you!

   Lets see what else, one of our investigators called me last night in tears and said that she was going to kill her self. She was quite drunk as well. So I spent a half hour on the phone trying to talk her out of it... And I did so that was good. yeah, good experience.

   Then our water heater came back! I don't remember if I said or not but we have not had a water heater for about 10 days and there has just been large wires sticking out of the wall in the shower. But the man came and put it back in so that was great!!! He also told us what was wrong with it... it is in the shower and it is NOT WATER PROOF!!! So that was really dumb of the land lord. Good thing he came and paid for it though. So now we have to be careful with the not water proof water heater. 

   So yeah good week this week. 

Love,

Elder Walker 

1. this is a pretty place in our area.

2-3. the nails and block of wood object lesson on obedience.

the nails and block of wood object lesson on obedience

this is a pretty place in our area

Lifts and Piñatas. Week 57 from Hong Kong

Hello All!

First of all HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENSEN!!!!!  I am writing this on the 19th and you are reading it on the 18th haha cool. Happy Birthday and have a good one bro! 

   Ok so bad news is that I had most of this e-mail written and then it all disappeared so I will have to be bad so sorry.

   We were going to attempt a 3 day diet of only fruit and rice. We realized that it was expensive and we were all very hungry by the end of the first day so we decided to stop. We also learned that dragon fruit seeds do not digest. 

   This week we did a lot of "Less Active finding". Which means we go to the houses of people who have not been to church in a long time and just check up on them. This led to us going in to a few very sketchy buildings with very very sketch lifts. I got videos of a few so I will attach some of those. For the most scary one I only got a video of the door because it had a man inside and I didn't want to make fun of his house. 

   Then we had a great activity which really helped us find some people to teach. So that was amazing. It was also a great party so those are always great! Our roommates made a Piñata. That was really fun because the Chinese people have never seen one before so they were asking a lot of questions. They didn't quite understand why we did it. One asked me if it symbolizes raining blessings on people. I said "yeah... kinda like that..." haha. At this activity I also learned how to play Chinese chess. Turns out it is vaguely similar to our white people version. I was playing one of the Priests (16-18 year old young man) and trying to figure out how it worked when a member came up from behind me and started playing for me. He won of course, but it looked like I won and it blew everyone's mind that a White dude could beat a Chinese person at Chinese chess. So that was really funny.

   I also want to talk about an awesome investigator we have named Andy. So Andy drives a taxi and the way that that works is that you own your car and the more you drive the more money you make. So He came to all 3 hours of church!!! He lost a fair amount of money so it was a pretty big sacrifice for him. So that was amazing! I am fairly sure that he will be baptized fairly soon. 

 Ok that is all for this week Love you all!

Love,

Elder Walker

Sketchy elevator

Water heater troubles

Address of the building Gordon Lives in.  Its fun to "walk" the streets in Google Maps!

Piñata

Our water heater broke again. So that makes about a month total for me with no hot water at all...

the moon on the night of the mid autumn festival. (By the way avoid moon cakes. the ice cream ones are good but the rest are quite... interesting)

This was a funny name of a lift. it is very similar to a movie title...

Still Alive. Week 56 from Hong Kong

Hello all! 

   Well I guess school started because my in box is supper empty haha. It is just as well Nothing really happened this week. 

   This Tuesday I got a visit from Sister Yong (Now whatever her first name is). She and I served together in Sha Tin when she finished her mission. She came back to Hong Kong right before school started just to visit some people. It was pretty funny because she was supposed to buy me lunch. However she was running late so I had to buy her lunch. She paid me back and paid for half of my lunch so that was nice. It was just a short 20 min visit. It was good to remember and laugh about old times back when I was still a trainee. 

    The only other real thing that happened was we got to help a lady move. The Mandarin sisters were teaching her and decided that she would probably learn the gospel better in Cantonese. So we counted that as a turnover lesson. So that will be nice to have an investigator. The move was pretty hard because she lived in a room which was on the third floor and we were helping her move to a place on the fifth floor of another building. Both of which had no lift and we were moving things like a refrigerator, and all manner of cabinets. The stairs were narrow too. Only enough room for one in a row. (that was bad English I know) 

   Honestly other that that nothing really happened. It has been rainy so that is nice to go finding with no burning sun.

   That's really it. sorry for the boring one this week.

Love,

Elder Walker

The video is of the new apartment. Fun fact, the average apartment size for missionaries in HK is 800 square feet. That means there are some even smaller that that!!! ​

thisvideo is about the rain storm. The thunder was so loud it set off a car alarm! 

funny sign "ya don't see that in America"

couple neat rainy buildings