Aug. 31, 2014

August 31, 2014

HELLO!!

(wait so Rach is coming home early? What? YAY! so we will both be home for christmas?)

This week was a week. We had a lot lot lot of miracles. Like 2 really good miracles! We were able to meet a girl named Kelly on the street next to the promenade in Sai Wan Ho. Well we sat down and started to talk to her (me with my bad chinese and my companion with her......chinese haha) and she was just so sweet. She is 18 years old and just finished her BIG Hong Kong DSE test. Well we asked her what she has been doing and she said praying. She didn't do well on her test and so she was a mess. (if you don't do well on this test you have no hope in being anything other that working with food your whole life. Only one out of 7 teenagers who do well on this test get to go to a university. so it is a big deal.) well she was so sad and discouraged until one of her friends told her to try and say a prayer. She didn't believe in God or Jesus Christ but she thought, hey, why not. Well she prayed and she has had a huge change of heart. It was so great to hear her testimony of prayer. Then we testified of prayer and told her about the restored gospel. She then agreed to meet at out church to have a tour and listen to more. She came and we invited her to be baptized on October 26th. She accepted! It was amazing. The spirit was so strong. My companion did an amazing job at teaching and it was just miraculous. So Kelly is our miracle. 

Then like i said last week our bishop has been inviting us to pray for people to come to us. So we have been praying really hard for this. Well just as we were dropped by some investigators last night we got a call from the Tung Chung elders. They said that a member brought a family member to church today and this girl was so interested and then she lived in our area!!!!! so we called her and scheduled her and will see her this coming Saturday. Her name is Au Yeuhng. I am so excited to teach her and get to know her and help her to come unto Christ!!!! So please pray for Kelly and Au Yeuhng. 

We were also called by other elders to introduce a less active to us named Joey. She has probably the most sad life i have ever heard other than Job. Everyhting bad has happened to her! She is 19 years old and her grandparents mom and dad have died in 3 months. Well she is also an amazing girl and we are working on helping her gain a testimony of the church and the Atonement. 

Chai Wan is a great area and my companion is also amazing. She is so strong and willing to learn and try new things. Sometimes it is really hard to get her to talk to people but hey i understand. I really remember how i felt. But now i don't know how it is to not understand how it feels to not understand Chinese. I feel like everyone should know it! haha so i need more patience and love. 

We were able to go finding with some members today. I want to invite you all to go finding with the missionaries this week!!! You will change. I know it. try to take some time not only to have the missionaries over for dinner, but to actually go out with them! do the work with them!

So now some updates from ABERDEEN! remember when i was having a really hard time in Aberdeen and we didn't have any investigators for 4 months and then we found Helen?!?!!? well she got baptized yesterday :) Miracles happen. 

This morning during my study time i really put myself into the scriptures and a song came into my head. 

It talks about seeing the Savior

It talks about what we will do when we see Jesus. Will we sing praises to His name or will we fall at His feet. 

I can't wait until I see the Savior. I have never been more ready in my life. I love being a missionary. It is hard....really hard, but it is a lllll worth it. Every single rejection and drop of sweat. It is all worth it for Kasey Serina Ashley Kelly Au Yeuhgn and every single other person we have talked to and not yet talked to. I love these people so much. I love the member and the people who anti our church. I love the old ladies picking up wet boxes on the street and the busy rich business man going to work. 

Hong Kong is amazing and i can't imagine myself anywhere else at this time in my life. Thank you so much for encouraging me and supporting me and praying for me. You are my strength. You all and the Savior. Keep Him in your thoughts always and start to love all the people around you. Heavenlt Father is preparing the people of Arizona, Utah and Idaho. Germany, Holland, the D.R. and everyone all over the world! Be the light that they can look to to find their way to the Savior. I love you all so much

-sister Hamblin

pic: my beautiful city

August 24, 2014

Hello Family.

Sounds like everyone is doing great! Well my trainee came fresh from Utah America this week! Let me tell you that she doesnt know one BIT of Chinese.....I remember how it was a year ago when i first got here. IT WAS SO HARD! now i can look back and see all the miracles that happened because of faith, hard work, and prayer. Now i can speak decent chinese and i can get around! What a miracle it is to notice the change. Well she is from spanishfork utah and is 19 and white! and she is a giant compared to me and all the chineseees. I am just hoping and praying that she will get the language so that i can have someone to talk with me. My english isnt good and i just speak chinese all the time. I feel bad for her. Pray for sister Anderson (my companion).

Oh mom before i forget...can you please send some hair oil? it is called esquisite oil from matrix. I bought it at walmart in the salon place. If that wouldnt be too much of a hastle would you send me some of that? :) if not then that is ok too!.(and if you send that might as well put some reeses in there too :))

hmmm oh we had some great miracles this week!!!!!!! and the chai wan ward is amazing. We meet in the beautiful wan chai chapel. Bishop Ngh is also amazing. He called me and sister Anderson in his office yesterday and talked to us about his family and then told us of all the miracles that we will see with training and sister missionaries! he is a wonderful bishop. He gave us a whole bunch of cards with his signature and they are called invitation cards. He told us to give them to people on the street to invite them to come to church! So we will see how that goes! Then he told us that he and the ward have been praying to have people come to them to hear about the gospel and they have been having a lot of success with that too! But right now we dont have investiagtors :) so we will be doing a lot of finding again. But last night we did find a girl named joyce that is super nice and has interest so maybe she will be the one who will be baptized soon! :):) pray for miracles please. We need them. 

This week was kind of a up and down week. My cute little sompanion sister warner was transferred because i am training and she is so far away. It was so hard for me to say goodbye. It was rough. This picture is of us. and this other picture is my new companion. 

I love you tons.

-Sister Huhng

August 18, 2014

Good Morning family

This week has been a great one. We have been working hard to open Chai Wan. We have gotten lost a lot and we really have no clue what we are doing or where we are going. We are also having to travel to TKO to do turn overs with the elders in our old area. All in all, things are good. We have one investigator named Lilly. She is a mother with 3 daughters. Pray for Lilly. I never thought opening an area would be so complicated. We don't know who the bishop is or any of the auxiliary leaders are. But it will all fall into place if we work hard and are obedient. I also found out that i will be training this coming transfer which is on thursday. If you have any suggestions please let me know. It is a little scary opening up and area and then training a new missionary, because i don't even know where we are going or what we are doing. I would just really like to get a foundation in the area. We are doing a lot of finding people and finding our way around the city. Chai Wan is back on the island. Another little twist was that a sisters companion went home early and so now we are in a tripanionship. We will be taking over Wan Chai and Causeway Bay and Chai Wan this week until my new missionary comes in. So things are hectic right now. So many changes happened in so little time. 

This past week was fun though. We went to monkey mountain this week and were able to hike and see monkeys....like real monkeys. a lot of them! They are so scary. If the elders in our district were not there i think i would have gotten out of there as fast as i could! Everyone was taking pictures and loving the monkeys...but me haha. I was shaking in my crocs. Then a monkey came right up to me and started scratching my leg!!!! I just froze up and couldn't move haha. Well all the missionaries got the monkey away from me. Anyway, i came to the conclusion that they are not so great. But the hike was amazing. It was so beautiful. It felt like we were walking the great wall, but more of in the mountains. 

China is such a beautiful place. I love it so much. 

We also have a new house. We live in Bak Gok. Which is North Point in English. It is a big city and pretty ghetto-y. We have a lot of cockroaches and bugs. And the elevators don't wait for you so i get squished in the doors a lot haha. but no it is also really fun. It is what you picture a mission apartment to be like. 

Sorry i don't have much to report on this week. There is just a lot of change and we are going to need a lot of prayers! But a cool fact. I have been in the same stake my whole mission and i will be in Chai Wan until the end and so i will be a Hong Kong Island Stake missionary.

I love you all.

-Sister Hambli

August 10, 2014

Heool!

Well we have big news too! President Hawks needed to talk to us and he told us that he has been thinking a lot about our companionship and he wants to move us to a place called Chai Wan. It is back on the Hong Kong Island. We are supposed to be working there this next week. But it is not even moves yet so we are a little confused. haha we don't know the area we don't know the members we don't know when or where church is...we don't know anything about it. This place hasn't had sister missionaries so we are opening it up. We need to turn all our investigators and less actives to the elders. It is sad to leave them all. We don't know why we would leave after having all these good things happen, but we know that Chai Wan needs us. It is going to be a challenge but we are ready for more growth and faith. So pray for us! That investigators name is Daisy by the way. 

This week was really good. We were able to give 2 new baptismal dates! These are the first we have given since i have moved to TKO, but now we are moving again. 

It rained a lot a lot this week as well. And my companion has been having some problems :) heheeh well this week we were in the rain and we forgot our umbrella...again. Weell it started to rain solo sooooooo hard. So we ran for shelter,,but the only place that had a roof was the wet market with the brains all over the tabes haha. so we stayed in there until we couldn't take the smell anymore. We also were heading to meet with the zone leaders so we couldn't be late! But to get to the chapel we would have to run out in the rain again and climb up a lot of stairs. We decided we had to go out sometime so we booked it to the stairs! All of a sudden my companion stops right on the stairs and says, "I HAVE TO GO...LIKE RIGHT NOW!" then she squated and went to the bathroom right on the stairs! hahaha it was so funny and really awkward (but Chinese people do it all the time so it wasn't weird to them). Then we finally made it to the church and we were laughing so hard. When we got to the door it was locked and the zone leaders were late. so we just got extra soaked :) that was funny. But that is not all. We went finding again and it started raining again and we had to pick some huge leafs the 4 times the size of my head to walk around with the have shelter. Then all of a sudden my companion did it again.....so we decided to talk to sister Hawks. It turns out that is what stress does to my comp. It makes it so that she can't hold it :) hehe so that was a great part of the week. 

I also got the package! Thanks mom :)

We were also able to have mission tour this week! Elder Wong and Elder Funk came to talk to us all about missionary work :) It was so fun :) They really helped me receive inspiration on our investigators. It was miraculous. I love president and sister Hawks so much. Everytime someone visits the mission they talk about how amazing these two people are. And they ARE amazing!!!! I love them!

Anyway we had a lot of miracles and they just keep coming! We will be moving to North Point this week sometime (we don't know) and then the adventure will begin again! GA YAUH! 

But i love you all

_Sister Hamblin

this is us saying goodbye to our ward. I didn't geven get to know them well. :(a

August 3, 2014

Good Morning!

Sister Huhng here.

This week was ccrazzzyyyyyyy. I don't even know how to start. Summer missionaries are tough but great, just like a mission should be. But i learned a LOT. Like a Lot a lot. I learned patience, love, charity, and a lot of chinese :) So thats good! It is just so different being with someone who is not a missionary. One day she got so mad that she took her tag off and told me she was going home. Well that is not ok because i need a companion, so i had to convince her to stay. Then she would yell at me in chinese and get mad, but then the next day she loved me. I hope i was not like that growing up. If i was, i am so sorry! But I hear that Rachel has a mini comp that is also not a missionary. I understand. Out other summer missionary had schizophrenia. Nothing happened for about a week, then one day she was seeing people and it was really scary, so we had to take her back to the office so that her parents could pick her up. It was really scary. But she was such a nice and sweet missionary.

Anyway, we were able to see a lot of people and do a lot of finding this week. I have been trying to help the ward out more with doing missionary work. They are so great! I love the people of Tseung Kwan O (TKO). TKO is such a great place. It is getting a little warmer here, but we have AC (but we are not allowed to use it much becas=use it is REALLLLY expensive). We live on the 40th floor. And yes people still cram in the elevator, but it is normal now. You just talk to them for 40 floors. And i just met our neighbor yesterday! His name is mr. Lo and he is a great old man :) I think i want to make him some rice and take it over. Then maybe we can share the gospel!

So back to this week. One of the most grateful moments on my mission happened yesterday. let me rewind to last week. Last sunday my comp and i had a feeling we needed to visit one of our investigators. This investigator has had a ton of problems with every commandment. It is really hard to see her and we can't just go over to peoples houses in Hong Kong. So we called her and miraculously she told us we could come over. So we talked to her friend who is in the relief society presidency to come with us to visit her friend. We didn't know what we would teach her and we didn't know why we needed to go over. So we just planned to review the restoration with an emphasis on God's Love. So we went over and this investigator just listened. She was a little sad, but we just thought that she was tired. So we shared a short message and just bore a brief but sincere testimony. Well we rescheduled her and went home. Then yesterday during fast and testimony meeting, this relief society member (the investigators friend) got up to share her testimony, She said that last week she had a feeling that she also needed to visit this friend. She said that she could hear a distinct voice telling her to go with the missionaries. Then 2 days after we visited this investigator, this investigator called the member and told her a story. A few hours before we called her to see her, this lady had bought some chemicals to take to a hotel to burn and commit suicide. Then we called and she decided that she would listen to us one last time. The spirit touched her and gave her a very strong feeling of god's love for her. This investigator decided that she would not kill herself but give life another chance because "God loves her so much that he sends messengers to her". What a sad but amazing story this is. I am so grateful that we were able to be God's hands this week in helping  His daughter. I know that life is so precious. It is so important. It makes me so incredibly sad to know that some people just can't feel the goodness of life. I know that the gospel is the way to happiness. God is the person that can help us. Through the atonement we can overcome anything. Keep this investigator in your prayers.

On a happier note, i saw an old man showering in the rain this past week. Right outside the church window during personal study! haha oh the people of China. 

We also were looking for one of our less actives. We don't know what she looks like but we thought her name was Chan. So what we did was we went to the place where she worked. we thought we knew who she was and so we asked another lady at the restaurant if the lady was named chan. She told us yes! WOOHOO! So we went over there and wrote her a not that said we loved her and wanted her back at chuch. Well we were all confident and went up to her and she looked really confused. We gave it to her anyway (because less actives usually pretend then don't know who we are anyway). Then we went home to write on her record. Turns out this less actives name was really Wong, not chan. And so we gave this random lady a letter that said we loved her. ( and people don't use the word love her) so it was really weird. I feel bad for the lady named chan. But it seems like that happens a lot herE!

This week i was also reading the Liahona conference style and i read something great.

LIVE WORTHILY, PRAY FERVENTLY, FOLLOW COURAGEOUSLY

I think that is a motto that we should all live by.

this is me and my summer mish, haha chinese style picture taking

love o=you all

July 28, 2014

good morning family.

This week has been a good one. Having a summer missionary is a little rough haha but probably because they have zero training! It is weird not having a missionary as a companion. It is like a 2 week split. We are hoping this week goes smoother! Ill have to tell you stories when i get home haha.

Hmmm what happened? We had new neighbors move in this week. They came over asking to borrow a rice cooker hahah only in china. Then a man came to our door this morning and asked us if we could look out our bathroom window and see if his clothes were on our hangnig rack haha. it was so funny. again, only in china. Everyone hangs their clothes out their windows and sometimes things fall. I love it so much here,

Something really cool happened this week! The Aberdeen missionaries just told me that a boy got baptized this past sunday, but it wasnt just any boy. it was a boy that my companion and i had found on a boat when i still served in Aberdeen! Well he got baptized! Woohoo! Finding is where all the miracles happen :)

Cool finding story, my summer missionary and i were finding last night and we found a lady named Alla. She asked us some pretty amazing questions of the soul. She told us that we could see her tonight to teach her about the restoration! I love prepared people. Our ward also had a baptism this past week for a miracle boy! There are just so many miracles happening! I love it. 

It was cool to hear about Dustin. Too bad she cant leave a little later huh? And i got an email from mandy. She is great. Our family is awesome! I also got an email from Rex, i still cant believe it has been that long. But he and Graham are doing great! And Kare also emailed me a few weeks ago. 

Thank you for all you do for me! Have a fantastic week!

P.s. Has the whole family gained a lot of weight or is that just the pictures or the camera?

love sister Hamblin

this is what a 20 dollar bill has on it over here haha. scary turtle dragon!

and this is a picture of the colorful streets of Hong Kong

July 21, 2014

HELLO FUHMOUH!

Ok the doctor called and said I'm dying....JUST kidding :) it is all fine. No noticeable change and so i don't have to go back. woohoo! no more chinese doctors for me. Also i got the package with the book! guess what....i found out that it is all in mandarin and i have to translate it all to cantonese! haha cool right!? haha. Oh and i got an email from BYU and guess what? I MADE IT IN AGAIN! haha phew now i don't have to worry about that anymore. Nut do you know when i have to worry about signing up for classes? and can you tell me what you think i should take? Ai Ya. 

This week was a good one. We found out that we were going to be having summer missionaries! That means that 16-19 year old girls and boys from Hong Kong come to be with the missionaries for two weeks. It is stressful but i guess a good experience. We just go ours. Mine is from the new territories. She is a 17 year old convert and she is tall haha. We will be companions for the next 2 weeks. Good luck! Because i don't know the area very well. So i hope we can figure things out. 

Ill send you a picture of us together! I just hope that i can help her out and really see miracles with her so that she will want to be a missionary too :) 

So guess what!? SISTER YEUHNG came back! we had lost her for 2 weeks but now she is back. She is willing to keep all the commandments but one she has a problem with..it is no other gods. We were teaching her and she said she wanted to be baptized, but then she said that her heart was split. We asked why and after rome questions and inspiration She said that she believes in 2 gods. One is Heavenly Father. The other one is a terrocota soldier god (well that is the way she described it to us). She told us that when she was 8 her prophetess grandmother and her lived in china ( i guess they believe that there are some major important spiritual people in mainland china). Her grandmother had a dream that said she needed to go to a certain place at a certain time and then a god would appear. So she and her grandmother packed up and went to the place. Then the god appeared and now she still remembers that moment. I don't exactly know what to tell her about this vision she had but i hope the Spirit will help us out. I know He will. Now we just need to help her know that we only have one god that we worship and that is Heavenly Father.  We talked to president Hawks and he just told us that all we could teach her was truth :) so we will just teach her what our chinese will allow and expect a miracle! I didn't know how tough it was to teach about our Heavenly Father, Anyway, pray for sister Yeuhng!

We also had a ward activity this week called Poon CHoi. It is where yo get a huge bowl. Then you get 15 people at a table, fill the bowl up with shrimp, bean curd, intestines, fat, fish balls, tofu, and other unmentionables and then you put some water in it and boil it up! Well we went and there were a TON of people there :) we were able to walk away with 4 referrals!!!!!!!!! so cool :) we will be meeting with them this week. The Poon Choi on the other hand was pretty weird. I mean i really like the food here now but i couldn't really finish my bowl of rice and poon choi. You should try and make some!

We also had a ping pong night! I know that people say that it is a stereo type to think of chinese people playing ping pong...but it is not! It was so intense haha. I want to learn to be a ping pong master! We will also be playing more this week with some referrals from our members!

It is great to hear from you all and all that is happening in Eagar. President Hawks still never fails to tell the world that we are both Eagar Beavers haha. I had to tell him that they changed that like 50 years ago! Anyway i love president Hawks and sister Hawks! they are amazing. They just make the world a happy place.

So i was reading in 3rd Nephi this past week in chapter 18. You should read it and really think about the sacrament. Think about what church has done in your life and how it has changed you. I know that church is so important! And still it is one of the hardest commitment sfor investigators to commit to. Ill invite you all to keep inviting people to church! I love you all so much and pray for you daily. You are amazing. Keep loving the Lord and serve Him with all your heart might mind and strength.

我們在本次大會中看到一些忠信的弟兄被卸任，我們也支持了另一些人的召喚。在教會裡，召喚的更替是非常尋常的，卸任不是「下台」，蒙召喚也不意味著「上台」。為主服務沒有「上或下」，只有「進或退」，其間的差異在於我們卸任和蒙召喚的態度，以及我們的作為。我有一次主理一位年輕支聯會會長的卸任，他服務了九年，表現良好，很高興被卸任，也很開心與妻子一起接受新召喚。他們在支會裡被召喚為托兒班領袖，只有在本教會中，才會把這兩種不同的召喚都視為同等的光榮。 慈助會的會長琳達‧柏頓有一次在婦女大會上說：「我們希望在每個人心裡 灌輸 想要更了解聖職的渴望

I don't really know what this quote says because i don't read chinese but you can google translate it and find out! I get to start learning characters next month..so i don't know if i will learn of not haha but gayauh!

Oh my goodness! I didn't tell you the scariest part!

Ok so i have told you about the spiders here right?

Well they are HUUUUGGGGEEEE! We were in the church the other day and we saw a spider the size of my head. Not kidding. And so we were so scared. It didn't just run across the room but it LEAPED! iT was huge. So we were so scared and the elders came and they had to squish it....I wet my pants it was so scary haha. Then we found another one even bigger! But this time it was in a tree right in front of the church. And it was hanging above our heads. We had to knock it down so that we could get through. Well i took a picture of this one. You would not believe the spiders here! ai ya. Then also i found a dragon...a real one. It a caterpillar form. Ill send you the pictures :)

LOVE YOU ALL!

_sister Hamblin