March 17, 2014

HI!

darn! That is sad that you didn't get to meet the chan family! but i am glad you took a spontaneous trip and hit the valley! :) i bet it was fun even though you didn't meet them. But they are wonderful. Really. I love them so much. I think they would feel verrrrrrrry bad if i told them you went just for them so that was a good call mom :)  

I don't think ill be wanting to skip a block of BYU but i would love to hit BYU a few days after i get home haha. I am a little nervous about it all but thats ok. I don't have to worry about it for a few more months. 

It is good to hear about uncle merril and natalie and ray!! :) but not so good to hear about grandpa sherwood. :( ill be praying for the davis family! and chantz. It really is such a blessing that we have the knowledge of God;s plan. 

well this week we got to see our England momma in stanley! we decided that we would turn her over to the international elders next time. We wanted a smooth turnover so we decided to get a fellowshipped first! so we called around and found the closest member to her. We called and got it all scheduled and then we went to her house and what do you know? Sasha knew the member! it was soooooooooo good! so we will be turning her over this next week. But this is a picture of her and her two kids. the fellowshipped sister Pachini and her daughter! wow what a miracle. 

but the biggest miracle of all is 

KASEY CALLED US AND WE GOT TO SEE HER AND SHE CAME TO CHURCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

yep :) she called us and told us that she wanted to see us. So she met us at the church and we didn't know what to say. so we just sat and let her talk. Well it turns out that once she got baptized, her sister stole her credit card and took all her money and now she is in debt and she has school and now part time jobs to try to keep her in school and in her parents house. It is so sad because she had been saving up for a mission and her ice skating competitions. she didn't want to go to church because she didn't want anyone to find out and want to give her money. sad. But i was soooo happy to hear that she is the same old kasey. She has gone through everything. It makes me so sad but so grateful. Anyway she came to church and it was just the happiest day! everyone was so excited and happy! and kasey stayed after church and then we talked and she is just amazing. PRAY FOR KASEY!

Then the recent convert sister chan (the deaf one) has been teaching us sign language. She wants to see us once a week so we can learn :) well it has been great and this sunday she gave us a referral! her name is sister yeuhng. So we will be learning a lot more sign language! i need the gift of signs now. But the cantonese is getting better :) anyway that was also a miracle!

 We have seen great miracles but this week has been a little tough. We got dropped by our investigators and our potentials also fell through. We have been finding and finding and finding but not really "finding" if you know what i mean. We have not been able to find many people who want to listen. It seems to just be a little dip that our district is in because it si happening with the elders too. Then right when we were feeling down we got a text from president hawks that said that he knows we are working so hard and he said he is praying specifically for our success but more than that he is praying that we will feel the Lord's acceptance of our work. So that was another little miracle. I love president Hawks. 

I have come to realize that faith is just the most basic principle but also the hardest for me. I have faith in the big things like my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I have faith in the gospel etc. but sometimes i really lack in little points like if i will find someone on the street that day. or if i will really develop christlike attributes and these things. I guess i just need more faith in myself and how the atonement can change me. I mean it already has so much! anyway enough talking about this. 

Today we will be going to stanley and we will eat some Belgium waffles and some shopping...maybe Hong Kong has made me a shopping lover. sorry dad! but it is so great over here :) well i love Hong Kong and i love you all so much! 

March 10, 2014

HELLO! :)

hehe i love your emails haha. 

The dr just checked my back so it wasn't that bad. And i didn't bring the bra with me haha that is a weird word. But i have the little clippy things that are fake undershirts that i lOVE i am wearing one as i type. 

MIRACLE! Kasey answered the phone this week! We got to talk. She sounds perfectly fine but i know that something happened. We will continue to work with her and pray for her. Our ward is just a mess thinking about her and trying to help. 

Well today i got my "leave date" :( I haven't been more sad on my mission than today when i opened the letter. It says that i will be home tuesday december 23rd. It is way too soon. But i am super blessed to have almost an extra month in Hong Kong. I am just heart broken right now. I don't want to leave. I love it so much here. So just letting you know. I don't know what we will have to do with school stuff or anything. It will be a little crazy because school starts the beginning of January. So just let me know what i need to do. Because i really don't have any idea.

So this week started out well! I woke up crying because i had a dream michael phelps retired. I don't know if it is true or not but i don't really care haha. I don't know why i was so attached to him in my dream. But i woke up crying. 

Then we went to do some exercises in the park and we saw the regular grannies just doing their morning exercises. So we decided to ask them if we could join. It was so fun. I love the old people in Hong Kong!

We were also able to meet angela this week. She was our investigator about 2 months ago and then she got a new job and disappeared. Well we were able to schedule her this week and we saw her and it was amazing. She has such a strong desire to know if this is true. And she does know it. We gave her a baptismal date for april 5th! So we are so excited for her :) I think that transfers are in the middle of April. I do not want to leave Aberdeen. This is my home :) i love it and the ward so much. When people reject us and just tear us apart, our ward is
ALWAYS there to build us up and make us stronger. The members in Hong Kong are so strong and amazing. 

I don't know if i have told you about the "shoe guy" yet but i think that every area has a strange man. Kwun Tong had the "dancing man". He would find the missionaries and just try to dance with them and yell at them and follow them around. Well we have the shoe man in aberdeen. If you are wearing shoes that don't strap he is there! He walks to you and hold his hand out for you to shake it and if you shake his hand he steals your shoe! So i have learne(from past experience) not to shake his hand. Well he popped out of no where and didn't even try to shake my hand and went right for the shoe! Well we were on a but so everyone was watching and i just had to handle it like a servant of the Lord. I was blessed and he didn't take my shoe but boy he scares me! So look out for the shoe guy :) haha

OH! sweet news! My ward correlator brother Chan told me that he was going to phoenix this tuesday! and he wants to call you two when he gets to the states just to talk. He has been my ward correlator for 5.5 months and he is amazing. He is one of the best members in the world! well i gave him the house number and your number mom so he will call you this week! and so if you are in phoenix this week he would LOVE to meet you :) and wouldn't it be cool to meet someone from my ward? well he and his wife will be in arizona. If you have time then you should definitely see him! But i know you are both really busy so if it doesn't work out then it is ok. But he will call you so be ready! :) his name is Jimmy Chan. and his wife is Jo Chan. :) :) they are amazing and have 2 sons on missions right now. 

So mom to answer your question about have we FOUND anyone this week. Well we find a lot of people every day! the problem is if they want to find the truth or not. We were walking past a dragon parade when i saw this man sitting on a boat on the sidewalk. (that sounds weird but they are all over the place) and so i decided that the spirit told us to talk to him. So i walked up, said Leih Houh, and he turned around. Well he had these harry potter glasses and one of those chinese mustaches. but it was a little thin and very frizzy. but that didn't stop us! so we started talking and it turns out he lived in arizona for 6 years and went to ASU! (that tells you what kind of a man he is right off the bat) haha just kidding...but really. Well his name was Ben. And the first thing he brought up was Joseph Smith. We explained that we don't worship him. Then he asked "do you know what will happen to me after i die?" well that is a perfect question and one that all missionaries want to hear!!! so we got all excited and said YES and started to introduce the Kingdoms of Glory to him. Then he stops us mid sentence and says NO there is NO middle kingdom! you go to HEAVEN or you go to HELL! that took us a little off guard. So we just looked at him for a second and he asked where it talked about that in the Bible. so look! a great opportunity to talk about the book of momrmon and other revelation. Well he didn't like that either. And he wanted me to talk to him in english so it was just weird all together. Anyway we kept taking my arm and saying "you need to stop preaching false doctrine" and "you need to get back to the bible" "the book of mormon is not revelation. it is not the word of god". well one thing i have come to realize on my mission is that i KNOW that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and it is revelation! So he could tell that i couldn't deny it. But he was just so sincerely trying to "help" us come to the truth. Well it was a good lesson but he just wouldn't listen. So we just stopped and i started to bear my testimony to him. I felt such power flood into my words. it was amazing. Then i looked at him expecting him to feel something and he looks into my eyes and says "you are a masterpiece from God". I decided that was our que to get outta there. haha. but we invited him to pray and read the Book of Mormon. He wouldn't do it. I just felt so sad. I can't understand why people don't believe the truth. THIS GOSPEL MAKES SENSE! there is nothing confusing about the gospel. There is nothing that doesn't make sense. If people would just listen and let the spirit talk to them they would know! But i just remembered what Elder Holland told us "if they can't accept that we have revelation then leave them because revelation has always been what classifies the true church". I just feel so bad for the people that won't take it in. But we will continue to pray for them. 

We were also able to talk to Gigi more this week and she didn't like us. Well we are pretty sure she has 2 personalities. She will text us and be mean and then call us and love us. So she told us to come to her house for orange chicken so we went and then she didn't answer rthe door and gave us a text after. Ill send you a picture of the text. I think that explains her. But we will pray for her too.

 

But all in all this week was great! I love this mission and my companion! she is so fun :) and she has such power when she teaches. I love you all so much and hope that all is going well. Tell grannies and uncle merrill i love them! I love you! :) :) 

<3 sister Huhng

oh ps hong kong has some of the best food ever! this is us at a Japanese place. in honor of you dad!

march 3 ,2014

this is my comp and i in the MTR and at a cool lithe brick restaurant.

HELLOOOOOOO! 

well yes i went to the old doctor leung....well he is not old but he is pretty good i guess. it was ....interesting. let me just say that the stereo type of chinese doctors is right! haha no it was good. he said that it looked great and that we just needed to see him again in 4 months to make sure nothing is changing. but it was pretty expensive! it was 2,600 hong kong dollars! that is about 300. i put it on my card if that is ok. Sorry family! and i have the receipts if you want me to send it all to you i will! just let me know! Sister Hawks went with me and then she took us to lunch afterwards. I love her so much. 

 

so this week was super great! Elder Holland was AMAZING! we had a missionary meeting for a little over 2 hours. just right before we took pictures with him! and i was lucky enough to be RIGHT BETWEEN HIM AND PRESIDENT HAWKS! yep i was front row because i am even short in asia haha. But it was amazing. these two are my most favorite people in all of China right now so i was just so happy. then Elder Holland, his wife, brother and sister stevenson, and hailstorm. I decided to do the 40 day fast that dad told me about. so i fasted that day and really focused on what the spirit told me i had to change for these 40 days and really for the rest of my life. Well Elder Holland started talking about how this mission is not just right now. This mission is my life. I need to make every change permanent. Then i feel like every talk was about prayer. Elder Holland said that when we pray, we should refuse to let heaven go. We should feel so connected with heaven when we pray. I realized that sometimes when i pray i am just praying because we pray when we go out we pray when we come in we pray all day every day and i realized that sometimes my prayers are not sincere and i didn't really feel like i was really contacting Heaven. So for these 40 days i am changing the way i pray.. Sister Holland told us about 3rd nephi when Jesus visits the nephites. She talked about how Christ prays and prays and then commands them to pray and the whole chapter is about prayer. Then Elder Holland talked with a lot of pulpit pounding :) He has such a passion and love for his mission. It was amazing to feel the power when he spoke to us. I just have so many notes haha so i will have to share them later. Buti felt so empowered. I just know that he is an apostle. another thing from that conference was "don't just go through your mission, let your mission go through you". We need to let everything go through us! we can't just go through the motions. I should be forever changed because of this. So i just love the 40 day fast idea. THANKS for telling me about it :)

But one of my favorite parts of this week happened when Elder Holland left. We all stood up when he left. Then all the missionaries waved him off as he exited the chapel. Then we all turned around to see president and sister hawks just looking at us all. I feel like time just stopped as we looked at them. They had such amazing love. I can't even explain how happy it was. It was so emotional to see them looking at us as our parents. I don't know how to explain how much they love each one of us. It is incredible to just look at their lives and know how much they have sacrificed to take care of their 150 other children. I love them so much. 

So we had such an amazing miracle this week! My new companion realllllly wanted to check out our finding area this week. so we decided to try new places. well the first few days were rough. We couldn't find many people and if we did they wouldn't stop. Well we decided to go to stanley. Yep, the huge tourist place. and then we realized why missionaries don't go there. Well my companion came from one of the few places in hong kong where you can pohk muhn. that means we can knock on doors. so she had an idea to just roam until we found somewhere we could knock on the doors! so we followed the spirit to a cute little alley way and guess what we saw. A TRAMPOLINE! it was a yard with a trampoline and a patio and all! So we decided to try to knock on the door. So we go up to the door and before we could knock a lady opens the door and says "come in!". Ok this was my first time knocking doors and this lady just opens and asks us to come on in! Well she is from london and her name is Sasha. She has 2 of the cutest little kids i have ever seen. Their names are claudia and hector. Well she told us that she had just been reading a book and it talked about missionaries and then she just opened the door and there we were! What a miracle. Well she only spoke english so it was solo weird to try to speak in english. Well she talked to us about her husband. He was in switzerland at a press conference for some sport thing. I don't exactly know what but they were suppppper rich. The house was HUGE! they had a couch and everything. So we got to talk to her and she rescheduled us to come back. it was SUCH A MIRACLE!!! We will have to turn her over to the englsih elders (who are both chinese) haha so it was just so good. miracles happen every single day!

This sunday we also got a new investigator! Her name is susan lee. She is deaf and has 5 children. She is the cutest and so are her kids! WE have a member who comes with us to help us translate but it is so amazing to be a part of a mute lesson. We are excited to see what comes from this. It is so amazing that we can teach in sign language. I am a little scared because we will be expected to know it soon haha so ill be working on that! We have the deaf sister who just go baptized and she is going to teach us more this week. so pray for us to learn more sign language:)

we were also able to go to a space museum today and we......ummm hmmm well we find and find and find! So we will keep finding and teaching! I love you so much, Thanks for the prayers. I can feel them so strongly. I love you love you love you! HAVE A GREAT WEEK! expect miracles and serve others!

Love sister Hamblin

February 24, 2014

Hello fam! 

This week was AMAZING! It is the 65th anniversary of Hong Kongs dedication for missionary work. We have such amazing member pioneers here. The first ones are still alive and we get to hear from them. I have them in my wards and it is just amazing to see how strong the members are here in china. I mean they had to get over a lot of tradition and hate to join the church. I look up to them so much. Pioneers in all places are role models. Elder Holland talked to Hong Kong last night and is still here. We haven't had our conference with him yet. that is tomorrow :) We are just so excited! His talk last night was amazing. it was about how we are all pioneers in this amazing and greatest dispensation. He talked about our churches history of fleeing. We fled from babylon, from jerusalem, from danger, fled to salt lake and many more stories of fleeing. Then he said something that just stood out. He said that we are done with fleeing. We are the first dispensation that will stand here and fight. We will stand tall even in the hardest of times because we have to prepare the church of the lamb for the Lamb. He is so amazing. He is such a powerful speaker. Probably because he is an apostle of the Lord. You could just feel the power in the room when he walked in. What i thought was interesting is that i already felt the power before. just as a missionary it is amazing the spirit that you have with you ALL THE TIME. but when he walked into the room there was just like a surge of that power that overcame me. I know that he is an apostle of God. I know that this church is true and is the only church with the full restored truth. 

So hong kong is getting warmer now haha and it was 97% humidity this week. I can't even get that through my head. There was just water dripping down our walls. it was the closest thing to raining. It was like we were swimming in our room. 97%! i can now say that Arizona has DRY heat. 

GIGI! This week we were able to see gig every day or at least talk to her. She has her other church and is really hung up on it. they keep telling her we are evil and she is silly for even meeting with us. They also told her that she couldn't meet with us anymore. So she called us and told us she didn't want to see us but thank you for everything. We were so sad. I am pretty sure my heart exploded when she texted us. We were just so sad and couldnt stop praying and thinking about it. Then she called us and just talked to us about how she doesn't think we are evil. She just talked about how we are good and what we say makes sense and how she just feels so good about what we say. Then she told us again that she wouldn't see us anymore. We were just so sad. I think missions are the most emotional things ever. So yesterday we were just doing numbers and GIGI walked into the church!!! We talked to her. she was just so frustrated with all that is going on. We bore our testimonies and just talked to her about Jesus Christ. It was so powerful. Then She told us she would see us tuesday night. So we are going to continue to teach her and hope she will listen to the spirit! what a roller coaster. It made me think of the skrewtape letters. When they are talking and the devil tells his angels that it doesn't matter what the people do as long as they are just a little off the path. How they can have their religion as long as it is not the full truth. How Satan will tempt us to do good things for better things. We have a less active that likes to do service instead of coming to church. Service is AMAZING but it is not what God wants her to do instead of taking the sacrament. I have come to see that a lot in my mission. People think they are just on the right track and they are doing great. Well they are just a little off and that is how satan can win. So please try to help everyone to get fully on the path.

haha so something funny that happened this week. So you know that companions are supposed to stay together AT ALL TIMES. the bathroom and an interview is the only exception. Well we were on an elevator. and elevators here are cra=zy. they fit like 20 people in a 5 person elevator. so anyway we were crammed in with a lot of mandarin people and it was our stop so i got off and then i turned around and a mandarin lady popped out instead of my companion! they i just heard some cantonese some mandarin and then the doors closed and the elevator ate my companion! i was a mess. I didn't know what to do and i couldn't talk to this mandarin lady and we were just so confused. well finally my companion came back running down the stairs for me but i don't know what will ever happen if i don't have someone with me all the time haha.

so question time!

well sister johnson will go to SUU in utah and i will see sister lee and johnson tomorrow and kasey is still not answering her phone or coming to church. my buy thing....uhhh i don't know....hambli23  name    and emilyb#23 password

maybe that is it. i am not too sure. sorry! i hope that is it. And i got the card of a huge picture of hudson and i am in love and i am so excited jess and andy are moving back to PROVO!!!!! :) :) :) see them in 294 years. I'm not coming home! haha

WELL I LOVE YOU AND HAPPY FEBRUARY! :) love you all love you love you and preach the gospel! invite people to activities and help them come to church!!!! <3 sister hambreennnnnnn

Feb. 16, 2014

Ok hello mom! :) ummm hmmm so this week was a great one! Remember Gigi? the lady we met on the street that said she didnt believe in prophets and shot down our testimonies? well she called us this week. it was a miracle. she asked us "i just want to know how you absolutly know for sure that you have a prophet?" she felt the spirit testify and she wanted to know! it was amazing. And we have taught her every day this week :) SHe calls us to pray for her every night. SHe is a part of the baptist church though. We visit her and she tells us that she believes in her churches information but she feels something different and right about what we say. we have been trying to help her know that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are two seperate beings. We taught a full lesson about that. She just cant wrap her head around it. And on friday she finally opened up. she told us about all of these problems she has and things that have happened in her life. I know that this is the hardest investigator i have had yet on my mission. She askes all these bible questions and i just really need to brush up on my bible skills and really everything. She is definitly going to push my studies and the way i think. I am so grateful i get to teach her. But we are going to need a lot of prayers for her. :) miracles happen every single day here.

 

We also have our zone conference this week with our beloved president Hawks :) we just love him so much. but he invited us to read the talk "living a life of peace joy and purpose" but elder richard g scott! this is the talk he gave at jessys graduation!!!! Dad do you remember that? when we walked out you told me that i needed to find that and read it because it was sooooooooo good. well president hawks was probably there and also loved it. so i have been studying that this week. I invite you all to read it too. It is amazing. One of my favorite parts was the decision section. We need to base our decisions on eternity. He says that most people make them based on current situation and how that usually give us bad results. I loved this thought. lets all base every decision on our eternal lives. Have an eternal perspective. I just think about Joseph Smith. I feel like every decision he made was based on eternity. He never had an easy life. He was persecuted from the time he was 14. He had to suffer his family to so many hardshipps. He did not only made decisions based on himself but for the church and for the world. He could have easily given up and denied everything so save his family or the church members, but he had an eternal perspective. I love lookig at the like of Joseph Smith. I know that Joseph Smith is a true prophet.

 

Transfers were this week and sister johnson got moved to tai wo. But i got a new companion! her name is sister Cheung. She is CHINESE!!! I am so blessed with my chinese companions. She was born in California but both of her parents are from hong knog. So her cantonese is like perfect, but she can also relate to me :) haha but i love her so much. she is so sweet and has a very strong testimony!

i came to a realization this week. so let me just tell you that sister johnson and i were devistated when she was told she would move. we cried all during district meeting and the 3 days after that. i just loved her so much. Then when we went to stransfer, my companion was not there yet so i got to spend an hour with an older missionary. sister alder. She didnt really say much, but she changed my mission. I dont even know how. She has amazing cantonese, she was talking to president hawks about extending her mission. she already extended it 6 weeks and she was trying to extend more. she just always brought conversations back to the atonement. she is just amazing. I just came to realize how much i really need to change. I have to improve on so much. I want to become a missionary like her. I just could feel her love for the gospel so strongly.

 

SERINA WAS BAPTIZED THIS WEEK! Serina is our investigator that has been learning for 6 months. She her little borhte and sister were baptisez yesterday :) and also Chan jimuih. So our ward had 4 baptisms! and each companionhsip in our ward has at least one person being baptized. it was such a special day. sister chan is the elders deaf investigator. That was such an amazing experience to get to see her being baptiszed and just the spirit that was there.

And it would be great if you could pray for Kasey. she moved back in with her parents a couple weeks ago and we havent seen her since. She wont answer her phone and told a ward member she is in the hosputal :( pray for kasey! she is so strong. we just have no idea what happened to her. But i know that ashley from kwun tong is justdoing great.

sorry i sent that without finishing. So sister hakws just called and said you called her! oh mom. Ill be fine. my patriarchal blessing says so. but thanks for worrying about me :) president hawks also told me that there was a new sister coming in from st johns in april!!! FIND OUT WHO IT IS! maybe sister lee will train her too :) wow. time is just flying and it just keeps getting better and better. I am able to understand more and speak and i can feel the spirit testifying to people through our lessons. I am liking the chinese foods now and just feel more comfortable. I absolutly love being a missionary. I love you all so much and i hope that you all will continue to read the scriptures every day and sencerily pray. Not just a rote prayer but pray with your heart. i know that on my mission i have felt more power through prayer than i have in my whole life. Dont let anything slip and remember to make your decisions based on eternity!

love you all

-sister hambreen

Feb. 9, 2014

 

LEIH HOU!

haha dad is a funny man. Of course he would do such a thing!

Ive been prayng for uncle M. We hope he will start feeling better! as for this week....it was another GREAT one!

oh and mom i measured a mole on my back and i think it is a little bigger than that 5 mm thing.

this week we got a NEW INVESTIGATOR! her name is Anna :) she is 21 and just so good. She came to church too! It is rough getting people to come to church and make commitments. Everyone is sooooooooo busy. I didnt understand busy until i came to Hong Kong. I feel so bad for so many of these wonderful people. But it was a miracle to have anna come to church! We also had Serina at church :) she wiill be baptized next week. I have been so blessed to have met these people.

 

So this week we decided to go finding in a place called Wah Kwai. Well it is a little sketchy but hey there are prepared people EVERYWHERE! so we went. and when we were walking we found this cool path into the jungle! so hey we took it and we found POK MUHN DEIHFONG! that means we found little houses that we could knock the doors. SO COOL! I have never ever done it before because it is illegal to knock on doors here. But sister Johnson and i decided to take the chance and try it! we were super scared but we started walking up very thin stairs to these houses on the mountainside. All the gates were closed and we were getting a little sad. Then we saw and open gate! so we went in and turned the corner. right when we turned the corner we saw this huge pitbull half rottriler (sorry cant spell it) sleeping! we almost stepped on him! so we backed up slowly and stopped breathing. We backed out of the house and decided to get out of there! when we got on the stairs we looked up and there were 3 others coming at us and barking! i almost wet my pants...skirt! We just stopped and prayed so hard. Then the other god woke up because the other ones were barking and started walking toward us and growling. i have never praYed so hard to live. haha i know that other missionaries probably go through this all the time but we were dying. We just had a feeling to walk toward the dog and just squeze our way through him and the mountain to get out of that place! well he kept on growling and stuff but he didnt bite and we got outta there! so i just hope i never find one of those places again...then we went away from that place and went down by the ocean by some houses. We were on the premenade when i looked down at my legs and i had over 30 bites on my legs. there were killer flies just eating me alive! We got out of that place too and decided to go to a place we knew. I found my bug bnite stuff and put it on my legs and then my eye started to itch and i didnt remember i had bug stuff on my fingers and just stuck my finger in my eye. Let me just tell you that i thought iwas going blind.  haha it was a rough day.

 

JOKE TIME!

 

what do you call an aligator in a vest?

 

AN INVESTIGATOR! hehe a momma joke.

 

OH AND GUESS WHAT!!!

ELDER HOLLAND IS COMING TO OUR MISSION TO TALK TO US IN 2 WEEKS!!!!!! HOW COOL IS THAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!!?!??!?!?!?!? WE ARE STOKED!!!!!!!!! yes elder holland :) the super sweet apostle. He is coming to talk to us! well im just super super duper excited!

 

OH and we went to a leadership meeting last night and i saw ASHLEY! our convert from Kwun Tong! She is a ward missionary and doing so goood! she is also going to BYU Hawaii in april! it was such an amazing day.

 

So we went finding this week and we found this lady named Gigi. She was so great and really interested. Then i bore my testimony of prophets. she looked at me and was like "wait you think you have a prophet right now?" and let me tell you that i just have this stellar love for President Monson so i just layed my heart out for her. Sister Johnson and i just looked at each other and couldnt help but smile. I felt the spirit testify though me so strongly. All i had to say was that i knew without a doubt that we have a living prophet on the earth. Then i took out my book of mormon. I showed her a picture of president monson and we bore testimony again. Then she looked at me and told me that we were being childish and just believed what other people said. She told us to be careful and not believe him. I have never been more hurt i dont think. I wanted her to feel it so badly. I wanted her to know that I KNOW that we have a prophet. We gave her a book of mormon and a restoration pamphlet and asked her to read. She then texted us the next morning and told us that she didnt want to talk to us anymore. Well that experience just made me stronger. I know that we have a living prophet and that this church was restored though Joseph Smith. I know taht we have the priesthood on the earth right now and i cant deny it. It just makes me so sad when other people wont let the spirit touch their hearts.

 

So i just want to share one more thing. So you all know the primary song, He sent His son.

"How could the Father tell the world of love and tenderness. He sent His son a new born babe of peace and holiness. How could the Father show the world the pathway we should go? He sent His son to walk with men on earth that we may know...."

This week i couldnt stop thinking about Gods love for each and every one of us. I think about how hard it would have been to send His perfect son as a helpless baby down to this rough world. Then seeing His son being rejected beaten and suffer for each of us. We know that God is perfect but i know that He still has feelings. We know that He weeps with us when we weep. He rejoices us when we rejoice. He is our Father and loves us more than we know. But i think one of the greatest acts of love He has showed to us was when Chirst was on the cross. He had to leave his boy in His greatest time of need. How hard would that be to have to leave your son when he needs you most? I am not a mother yet but i cant even imagine. I hope that we can all remember the love our Haevanyl Father has for us.

 

I love you all and hope that you have a wonderful week! talk to you later :)

love sister hAmblin!

 

 this is a picture of the jungle we walke through to that creepy knock doors place haha

 

February 2, 2014

this is a place in aberdeen where we find and our district with a couple mandarin sisters

this is us ice skating and sister lee and i eating squid legs :) they were tasty

HI MUM! well so much happened this week and we dont have much time on the computers because it is still new years and places are not opened haha. Chinese new year lasts about 5 days. it is crazy! they have all different days and all different traditions. Each day has a family to visit or friends. or a pace or something to worship. It is pretty interesting. I actually love it all so much! it is HUGE!

There are so many traditions for the new year. My favorite is the mouh si. that is the lion or the dragon  dance. You know how in mulon they have the huns in this big dragon/lion costume? well they are real! Yep these animals run around from store to store and collect red pocket money. People walk around them with huge drums and bang on them! the drums are to warn the children of the monster. We were doing language study and all of a sudden we hear this huge huge like huge drum. We didnt know what it was so we ran up to the roof and we saw a huge dragon dancing in the street! It was sooooo cool! i took a video that wont let me send but you have to look it up. It is so fun. The dragon is very big in china. i dont know why because people say that the dragon is evil. Everyone steers clear of him. But it is just so cool!

Another tradition is red pocket money! Chinese people get all there money together and put it is beautiful red and gold envelopes. Then the week of new years they walk around and give them to children...and especially missionaries :) When someone gives you an envelope you must bow and put your hands together and shake tehm up and down and tell them "SANTAI GINHONG" or "CHING CHUN SEUHNG JYUH", or LUHNG MAAH JING SAHN". these are just like health luck and stuff like that. It is so cool. We are not supposed to accept tis money but they force it at you. So it is realllly rude not to accept it. so we just give it to the missionary fund every year. Sister johnson and i got over 1000 dollars for new year. So the missionary fund will be booming this month :) haha the members and people here are so amazing and deep in culture.

We also had a whole lot of chang outs this week because of new year. The members love to make the traditional stuff. So we had bagged spicy duck tongue, cat, liver of all different animals, and of course RICE! they have something called yahm cha. it is where you go to a restaurant and they just keep bringing food....and keep going adn going and going. It is pretty cool. but you eat everything in tiny rice bowls and just keep putting more in so it is very unhealthy because no one knows how much they ate :) haah but it is good.

This week we also had exchanges and it was a 24! so that means all missionaries in our zone exchange. And just my luck, i got changed with a mandarin missionary..in my area. so it was pretty much 2 days of just me. She couldnt speak cantonese at all. but it was cool to see my improvememtn.

ummmm oh the fair! the fair was so cool :) i ate a lot of squid legs and saw SISTER LEE! i will send you pictures

so this is a cute chinese baby and the dragon dance!