WEEK 78

It's been a short time since the last time I emailed, but SO many wonderful things happened!!

I forgot to mention that after the temple last week, I walked into the dressing room and guess who I saw!!! IDA from Yuen Long!!! That was probably one of the happiest moments of my mission seeing her standing there beautifully dressed in white :) I don't know if you remember me telling you about Ida, but I met her last September in Yuen Long! She hadn't been to church for 30 years and had decided it was finally time for her to come back. So we taught her the missionary discussions again and she became reactived by December! Ah! She is such a wonderful lady and it was so awesome to see how the choices she made led her to the temple where she will recieve eternal blessings. I love the temple!!

We payed a quick visit to an elderly couple in our ward. We felt prompted to visit them for like the past month, but kept putting it off since they live outside of our ward boundaries. But we couldn't ignore the promptings of the Spirit much longer, so got permission from our leaders to leave our area and visit them. They were SO grateful!! They hadn't had the missionaries visit them in over 10 years. We were the first Sister missionaries they ever had in their home! We learned that her older brother was the first missionary in Hong Kong and he was companions with President Hawks' mission president! They are such wonderful people, so strong in the gospel and enthusiastic about missionary work. We are so grateful for their examples to us. (also...mom they will come visit us next year!!)

On Thursday night we had a great ward activity. Bishop Lee is in the fruit business. He "tests fruit" and tells which companies which ones to buy. So we got our ward and investigators together and learned how to find good fruit. Did you know that the bigger the navel is on the orange, the sweeter it is?....At the activity Edward overcame his fear of eating watermelon and Glynis won the watermelon eating contest. Haha we kept telling Edward to "choose the apple!!" (do you remember what that means from my last post??) People were happy and fellowshipping was getting done. It was a wonderful night.

Fruit activity!! :0

The next night we were on our way home and I saw this girl on the busy street. We passed each other and waved. Then I felt the strongest prompting to contact her. We both did a double take and kept walking. I wanted to contact her so badly, but I looked ahead and could see I was falling behind my companion. I caught up to her and we decided we needed to go back..even though we probably couldn't find her in the crowd. Well Heavenly Father's plan is perfect, we ran back and she was stopped at the red light. I started talking to her, but she was deaf!! And she was there with a bunch of her family members who were also deaf! They were so wonderful, here visiting. We got their contact info and it felt so good to follow the Spirit. :)

Sunday rolled around and we had a great testimony meeting! They asked me to be the opening speaker...didn't see that one coming....ha but luckily I had like 30 seconds to pull something together. And then Bishop Lee (he is so funny) arranged to have my favorite Chinese Hymn for the closing song. I think one of my favorite things is to speak when you first get into a ward and then when you are about to leave a ward. I got to do that in my last two areas. It's cool becasue when you first get there you look at the congregation and you just see a bunch of Chinese people. But then you get up there for the last time.... you still see a bunch of Chinese people...but their faces are familiar, you know their names, you've heard their testimonies, you've been in their homes, they've been in your prayers, they've fellowshipped for you, sacrificed their time for investigators and you've shared so many experiences together. AH. So heart warming. I love the members here in Hong Kong with all my heart!

 Also, the youth just had their youth conference so we got to hear a lot of testimonies from the youth. I remembered al the girls camps, treks, and youth conferences I attended. Maybe at the time I thought some things we did were silly, but reflecting back on them, I realize they helped my testimony to grow. I am so grateful for everything I learned while I was there and I am so grateful for the examples of my leaders. After the meeting we asked one of the young men to help us fellowship, then he ended up dragging 3 of his buddies with him and we had a great group lesson on scripture study and how the Book of Mormon can apply in a young teenage boy's life. Edward felt so comfortable and I know the Spirit was there. It was so powerful for him to hear from other teens his age that face the same temptaions with work, friends, and the Word of Wisdom. We are so grateful for the ward's support in teaching Edward! He is getting excited for his baptism on the 16th!!

 

 The Yip family had us over for the 2nd time in a month to introduce us to their friends!! They are on fire with the missionary spirit!!!  I want to be more like the Yips-so eager and happy to share this happy message that we have. :)

I love the gospel and I love my Savior Jesus Christ. I know this is His Gospel. 

-Sister Warner