Hong Con: Week 6 - Fainting, President Nelson Birthday, Sister Fung

One more week down. This one involved a lot less sickness fortunately. On Tuesday, both Cantonese classes combined into one to prepare for the incoming Cantos this week. It makes it a bit harder to learn in such a crowded room, but it's not awful. Cantonese is still hard as ever and progress is slow. This week, we start teaching members in Hong Kong over Skype so that will be fun. Hopefully we will be able to understand them pretty well.

On Tuesday morning, Elder Mead (the elder who I spent the last week being sick with) kept fainting and ended up going to the emergency room. They tested him for hours and concluded that it must have just been stress from the MTC. He had to be in a wheelchair for a while just in case he fell or fainted again so he wouldn't get hurt. He had a great time making fun of the whole thing, but it was a bit scary for the rest of us. He's totally fine now so that's a blessing. When he finally got back from the hospital that night, we had a chips and salsa party and played a ton of Uno. It was rad. Sister Fung gave us some good advice that night too during devotional review. She is from Hong Kong and serves with her husband over the branch. She admonished us not to worry too much about the language in the MTC. We should do our best to learn it as best we can, but our first priority should be to deepen our own conversion first. That took some of the pressure off and I have actually been finding myself learning the language a lot better ever since.

Wednesday and Thursday were pretty much normal. Classes, studying, weird MTC food. The works. Then Friday, we got to ditch our evening classes to go set up for the President Nelson Birthday Celebration. They streamed it in the gym, so it was our job to turn it into an auditorium again. The actual celebration was super fun to watch. We learned some cool things about the prophet and got to listen to some really cool music. I think most of the missionaries just enjoyed being out of class a bit earlier. Beforehand, we got some birthday decorations from Elder Lee and the Mandarin district and took a happy birthday picture for President Nelson, it was pretty funny.

Saturday was a pretty normal day too. We taught more TRCs, this time to a bunch of Hong Kong RMs. They had a bit too much fun speaking fast to us and making fun of our language mistakes, but it ended up not being too bad. They gave us good advice about enjoying our time in the country because it goes by way faster than you want it to. I'm trying to live that here in the MTC because even thought it's not the best at times, I know I'll probably miss it when I'm in the thick of things in Hong Kong, eating my third helping of pig brain. But I'll enjoy that too... I hope.

Yesterday, I got released as District Leader which was a very nice release of pressure. It wasn't a very difficult calling, but it made things just that much more difficult. I can't help but feel glad that I don't have to do that anymore. The bummer part is that it was goodbye for a lot of good friends. All of the mandarin missionaries in the zone left this morning, so we had to say goodbye last night. I also said goodbye to Elder Levitri as he goes to Ukraine today. It was a bummer with everyone, but at least Elder Levitri and I made plans to play in a band together when we get back. The funny thing was that this morning, my dad met Elder Beam, one of the mandarin elders, at the airport. What a small world!

We are getting anxious for Hong Kong because the mission is running out of missionaries and really need our group as soon as possible, but things aren't really cooling down as much as we would like. Oh well, there is a still time and who knows what will happen. I know that whatever happens, I'll be able to do whatever the Lord will require me to do. His plan for me is better than anything I could plan for myself, even if it doesn't seem like it in the moment.

Anyways, thanks for reading! Here's to another good week! See you in a while!

-Elder Murray