Dear Family,
So I am officially in Yuen Long now! Yuen Long is in the New Territories zone which is pretty much the boonies of Hong Kong. We are almost the farthest stop out on the MTR that you can go and I can see Mainland China from my window- it’s nuts!! Another crazy thing, I am in a trio right now with the two sister training leaders for our zone. They are Sister Warner from Cotton Woods Heights Salt Lake and Sister Anderson from Price Utah. They have both been out for a year now and were actually MTC companions. Sister Warner has been in Yuen Long pretty much her whole mission and she actually trained my MTC companion Sister Jackson, so I just switched Sister Jackson spots. They both are really great and I love Sister Warner so much already. She is such an amazing missionary and has been super patient with helping me and Sister Anderson learn the area and our investigators.
The apartment we live in right now is unreal. I honestly couldn’t even believe it when we walked it because at first I thought it was a hotel. It is so clean, and modern, and has NO cockroaches or mold anywhere!!! It honestly feels so nice and clean and is so much more of an improvement from our last area. In Hong Kong all of the buildings have guards that unlock the door for you and you can’t go upstairs unless you live there or check in with them. It’s fun here because all of the guards know us, so when we go to leave and walk buy the buildings we live next to all the guards wave at us or talk to us.
Yuen Long also looks a lot more like California and much less like Hong Kong. They still have big chuens (apartment buildings) but not everywhere you go like in Sha Tin or the busier parts of Hong Kong. They also have mountains out here and so much more greenery and it looks so much more like home. They also have tons of little villages here with these little houses so we can go and knock on doors which I have never done before! Our area is really huge because they haven’t had sisters our here for that long so we cover a lot of ground and have a lot of travel time.
We live with another Sister who came out a transfer before me (Sister Hansen from Utah) and she is training a sister from the Philippines (Sister Mendoza). The first few moves of the transfer were really challenging because I left the only area I’ve known and am trying to adjust to new companions and a new area. It also is hard because Sister Hansen and Sister Warner have been working together for a while now so they are pretty tight, so I sometimes feel a little out of the loop because we are all still trying to get to know each other. But they all are really so great and Sister Mendoza is so funny and full of energy and brings a happy “newbie” light to our apartment. She also learns Cantonese so fast! I feel like she is going to know more than I do in a matter of a few weeks. #Cantonese struggles
I love the ward here though and the investigators we are working with. We have two teenage girls, Lolo and Katherine, who are getting baptized this month! Lolo is SUPER shy and is the first one in her family to investigate the church. She is so wonderful and we hope we can start teaching her mom next! Katherine has been investigating the church for over a year now and is practically apart of the ward now. She has met with lots of different missionaries and is now finally ready to be baptized! She really wants her mom to be there so that her mom will want to start meeting with the missionaries but it’s really hard for us to schedule a time for her baptism with her mom’s work schedule. We are really praying we will figure out a time that her mom can come. Say lots of prayers that both of their baptisms will work out!
This week Elder Ballard came and spoke to our mission and we got to have a meeting with him as a mission for two hours and we each got to shake his hand. It was so incredible to hear mission advice from and apostle of the Lord and learn directly from him how we can improve our mission. The Spirit was so strong in that meeting and you could just feel that what he was speaking was from the Lord. He told us that he thinks our mission is a little too shy and gave us lots of new challenges for how we can meet with more people. At first I was a little nervous about it because he challenged us to talk to 10 more people a day outside of finding and teaching. That means for us 30 other people as a companionship. Sometimes I get scared to talk to people when I’m on a bus or MTR because I am afraid if they reject us then I am just stuck on this bus with them with everyone watching and it will be super awkward. But after Elder Ballard told us that I thought to myself, “That is so silly to be scared. Part of being a missionary is to open my mouth and share the gospel with everyone I see.” I have been praying a lot this week for more courage and have seen the Lord help me so much already. I am able to plant so many more seeds in a day and talk with so many more people when I try to.
The next night we brought some investigators to the meeting with us and it was really cool for them to be able to hear from an apostle as well. The meeting was super packed and a ton of people came. Afterwards we went to this place and got huge pieces of pizza that were super yummy!
Sorry I am out of time but next week I will send more details and pics about the area. I love you all so much and hope you have a good week. Dad way to go on running your marathon!! That’s awesome! Cami, good luck with the ACT! Kristen, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I hope you had a fab day 🙂 Love you all!
love,
Sister Christensen
Sister Elizabeth Christensen China Hong Kong Mission, Cantonese Speaking 