Thanksgiving Again Week 67 from Hong Kong

Hello all,

   I hope that everyone had a lovely thanksgiving. This week was great because it started to get cold!!! I haven't been chilly in 8 months. It dropped to about 69 degrees and we put on our sweaters. I much prefer Hong Kong in the winter. 

   This week we had our Zone Thanksgiving party! That was a lot of fun. We were in charge of making cobblers. That went surprisingly well. We were assigned to use the kitchen in Tai Po to prepare then carry the 6 cobblers for the hour of travel to the Sha Tin chapel. We made 2 peach, one banana, 1 mango, 1 apple and one pineapple. We were kinda skeptical about the pineapple one. turns out it tastes great! So we spent the morning cooking those as we did our studies. Then we got to the party. Our Zone leaders had prepared an "un-talent show" That was a lot of fun. In short it was a bunch of stupid skits or things people had to do. For example we had one of the sisters from Korea tell a story in Korean and another sister (who spoke 0 Korean) translate it. That was funny. One of the better ones was one of the Zone leaders doing impressions of people from different countries... in Chinese. He did Frozone from The Incredibles and Obama. Then he asked for requests. I yelled out "Bill Cosby being taught the restoration!" Which he turned in to me teaching Bill Cosby the restoration. It was really funny. Then we got to the part where I asked "has there been anything in your life that has caused you shame or guilt?" and he looked at me and laughed really hard thinking about what to say. and he then just broke in to Bill Cosby's chocolate cake routine! It was hilarious!

  Then I did my dumb thing and it was just as the mission president and his wife arrived. I had to look at a spoon in the air and spin really really fast and then drop the spoon and step on it. I will include a video. It was a blast! 

   Also It was elder Garcia's birthday so we got him a cake. and we put relighting candles on it! That was really funny!

Love,

Elder Walker

Gordon doing the spin then step on the spoon thing

Elder Garcia's Birthday Cake with relighting candles

Thanksgiving food! Everything was hand made!

scriptures I am memorizing in Chinese

Our roommates made a turkey piñata 

Thanksgiving Week 66 from Hong Kong

Hello all,

   This week was full of... experiences. It started with a really, really great lesson with one of our investigators. It was more or less a "Do or Die" lesson, We have been teaching him for 3 months now so we were really banking on it being a "Do" lesson. He will be having his interview with the mission president this Wednesday. Assuming that goes well he will be baptized this Sunday. I am really excited for that it will be the first person I have taught all the way through and then seen the baptism so I am really excited for him!!!

  We had our ward Thanksgiving activity this last Saturday. On Thursday we had a lot of paperwork to get done that really needed to get done. However I was moved upon by the Spirit and told to go and visit a Less Active family in our ward and invite them to this activity. So I looked at the map and jotted down their address. We took a way that I haven't been before and as we were walking a man came around a corner visibly very very shaken and crying and I guess he recognized the fact that we were "Priests" or some form of religious clergy (which we are), and immediately began to pour out his soul to us. He explained that he had cancer and showed us the lumps on his chest and legs. He also explained that he was too week to get treatment and that the doctors told him that he was going to have to die a long and very painful death. So he told us that he was intent on killing himself that night. However he was also saying that his mom said that if he kills himself that is not manly. While he was explaining this a few people came up behind him and made motions to us that he was very crazy. So we prayed with him and gave him our number and talked him out of killing himself. 

   Then when we got to the building we were originally trying to get to I realized that the house number... was not there and that I had not written it down! I managed to recall the floor number but not the room. So I made up a room number on the form to get in and when we got up to the floor the families door was open and we were able to look inside and I was able to recognize the house I had been to only once before. And they were home! So we were able to invite them to the activity. 

  On a sweeter note in relation to that activity we had the responsibility of making caramel. So we have spent the last few weeks trying and failing at making it at home. Eventually we got a good method down and taught the whole ward how to make caramel. So that is a good load of stress off of my back.

   Now this next Thursday we have our missionary thanksgiving. Elder Taylor and I have been assigned to make 5 cobblers for that activity and we have been given HK$50 to do it. Which makes about $6 US. this is going to be a thoroughly ghetto Thanksgiving.  

Love,

Elder Walker

Thanksgiving Activity

Me in an alley

Me not in an alley

This is a cool shot. I don't think you can see it in this picture but you can see some buildings in mainland. (I was on exchange with elder Garcia and we were up in Sheung Shui)

car

Tortillas? Week 65 from Hong Kong

Hello all,

   This was an interesting week indeed. To start things off, everyone back home chose the new president. No I will not make any political comments. However It was really fun because it was Wednesday for us when the election was happening. That morning my British companion woke up and said "I had a dream that Trump won the election 59% to 41%. So we laughed. Now, we don't use the internet at all except to email once a week so we had no way of knowing who was going to win/ how the race was going. So we spent the day texting each other the news we heard from people on the street. finally at 4:30 HK time our roommates got a text from a member and told us who won. haha so that was kinda fun. We actually got the text in a lesson and I looked at it just to see if it was life threatening and the preview of the text said "Its official President" Then it was killing me the whole rest of the lesson. haha silly things.

   So this next Saturday our ward is having a thanksgiving activity and they asked us to cook and prepare all of the food. So we were planning on spending a lot of time cooking and shopping this week. However our mission president found out and called our bishop and said "you are using my missionaries wrong" So now we are not making food for this activity. Instead they asked us to make caramel at this activity. Now we don't know how to make caramel, so we made a few tries and ended up with what tasted like caramel/vanilla fudge. So we are just gonna do that instead. So we will see how that goes next week.

   So we had a few people not show up to our appointments this week which was annoying. However one of the times our person did not show up the Mandarin Elders ran into the room we were in, and begged us to help them. So we being missionaries decided to lend a hand. Help them do what you ask? make 150 tortillas by hand!!!! I was in charge of flipping like I usually am on taco night. problem was that I was working three pans at one time. And the spatula I had was no use at flipping them so I just had to shake the pot/ pan in a way that the tortilla would fly about 2 feet in the air and flip like that. So that was good fun.

   Last night we had a lesson at one of our investigators house. She decided to cook us dinner. SO while she was cooking we tutored her 11 year old daughter in English. Haha that was really fun. we had her tell us stories and stuff and it was fun. Then I would write a story on a paper in English and then she would translate it in to Chinese. Or I would write in Chinese and she would translate it in to English. However sometimes I would miss a stroke in a character and she would correct me, and I would say that it was pretty close. Then she would spell a word wrong on purpose and say that it was pretty close. It was really cute. Then during dinner I had to do a lot of translating. Elder Taylor is new so his church Chinese is pretty good but his everyday Chinese is not there at all. Which is completely normal. It was fun though. It is also fun to see how far my Chinese has come in a little over a year. 

Have a good week!

Love,

Elder Walker

​

Last p-day we went bike riding with our roommates. This is the bike we rented. it was really good fun

a short video of them riding the 4 person bike

this is me posing on the bike    Nice face son....

Me and my new companion Elder Taylor. Some people say we look related

this is a giant Koon Yam statue

the tacos and stove set up

New move!!! Week 64 from Hong Kong

Hello all! 

   Well this week went very very well. We got our move calls and my companion elder Jensen has moved to Tagalog to work on the island. I am now also district leader in Tai Po and Training!!! The new district included us, our roommates the Tolo Mandarin north elders, and the Tai Wo elders. I am also training!!!! My trainee is Elder Taylor from a place called Yorkshire in the UK! He is super awesome, very green and jet lagged but awesome! I am really excited to work with him. 

   So story wise Elder Jensen and I took the bus to Kowloon Tong Thursday morning and the bus driver was a pacifist! I have never seen a Chinese bus driver that is a pacifist! Usually they are very aggressive and lacking in mercy. Long story short the bus ride took forever and I was 10 min late to the meeting! We were pushing his bags from the bus station and running. By the time we got to the gates of the chapel I took of running and ran straight in to the meeting just as the opening prayer was being said. So that was lucky. Also the whole thing was being filmed by a film crew because there is a documentary being made about the church in Hong Kong to dispel some of the confusion about the church. It is a half hour and should come out in December sometime. 

  So yeah I have been scrambling to get on top of the paperwork that was left by the previous district leader and also learning the new administrative system that is in place. So that is a fun challenge. 

   Also last week we went to the mainland border and took some pictures! haha that was fun. Really weird but super fun. We had to be really careful to not get sucked in to customs and stuff.

   We had a fun experience on the way home last Saturday. We were in a rush to get home before 10 and plan the next day. We had just enough time to do it too. However we saw a small old taxi driver trying to change a tire. He was bouncing on the wrench trying to get the lug nuts off. So we decided to give him a hand. We were in suits and tall white guys. So I am sure we gave him quite the shock. Any way we just jumped in and changed his tire for him. He was super super grateful! It also only took us about 5 min. so I still wouldn't hire us as a pit crew but not bad. And we were able to make it home just in time! 

   I am really excited for this new move!

Love,

Elder Walker 

funny pictures ya know how they always talk about staying away from "the line" well there it is!!! that is how close I got to breaking Chinese National Law. haha good times

tim tam slam to end the move

Video of the Tim Tam slam....

For Halloween we went to our zone leaders house and TP'd their gate. haha 

Building in mainland

planner I made for my "son"​  I'm hoping he attached the wrong picture and isn't making his new trainee carry this around as his planner!

Halloween and Move Calls. Week 63 from Hong Kong

Hello all,

   OK this week was pretty normal. So I will just apologize for not having any fantastic stories to share.  We love ALL the stories he shares!

In the Title Gordon mentioned Move Calls.  Looks like he will be getting a new companion but will be staying in the same area.

   I guess I can start by talking about how this week we went Less Active finding. We had a lot of extra time so we decided to go up into the hills and try and find some people that we had not seen at church in a few years and see if there was anything we could do to help or serve them. That was fun. The problem was that there were many dogs. However I learned from the boy scouts to be prepared so I brought my Chinese fan with me... to use as a club or to make myself suddenly seem much larger. I didn't have to use it so that was good. I did get charged by a dog though. I knew that running was a bad idea, and I saw that there was a chain on it so I was just banking on the fact that the chain was shorter than the distance between us was. And I was right!!! so that was good. Other than that it was a pretty area. I will attach some photos.

   We also came home one day and learned that our roommates had  made a piñata. I guess it was for some ward's Halloween party. So that was funny.

   It also got quite hot. I looked at my thermometer on my desk when the sun was on it and it said 35 Degrees! (95 degrees Fahrenheit) That is very, very warm when you add humidity. We lucked out however and it got kinda chilly the last day or two. I think it dropped down to 78 degrees Fahrenheit. So that was fun.

   The Mandarin elders also came home with some strange mainland money. It is made from aluminum and floats! They feel like fake kids money but I guess it is real currency. I had some fun playing with that because I did not believe that they could float. It is true they really do float. 

   Then this last Friday we got to go to the Temple!!! It was supper nice! I will attach a picture of my new district. it was nice and AC inside and hot and muggy outside so my camera fogged up. The temple is just the best I wish I could go more often.

  Have a spooky Halloween!

Love,

Elder Walker

Class 3 Typhoon rain on the street where they live

Class 3 Typhoon Rain (This one might make you a little seasick)

In the hills of Tai Po

Pretty Picture

Typhoon Rain

Dogs from Less Active Finding

Less Active Finding

Halloween Piñata 

floating mainland money

District

TEMPLE!!!

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