Week 25 - English Class Cancelled; Mr Wong; Surprise from Dexter; Old Artist in the Park; Chinese New Year; 10,000 Buddhas

Hello! This week has been a pretty fun week. 

Tuesday, we had district council where we got trained on a new english class program that President made a big deal of in Zone Conference and was promptly canceled later this week by church legal council. So that was fun.

Wednesday, we taught our new friend Mr. Wong. He met missionaries 30 years ago but lost contact. Now he's got in contact with us again and has a lot of interest. He asks a lot of good questions and has a lot of good insights on life that line up with church doctrine. Sweet stuff.

Thursday, we had our usual Crossroads service. We loaded mattresses into a truck but some of them had major mold and rot problems. Once we got back, I got a notification from Google maps that my brother Dexter was 50 feet away from me! I went downstairs and there he and his wife Amanda were. I saw him before he saw me so I ran up behind him and gave him a good scare.

It was crazy to see him and chat for a few minutes. He invited us to dinner later than night and we went to taam jai (noodles) later in the evening (with proper approval). It was so cool to meet and chat with them and share a bit of Hong Kong with them as they make their way around Asia. So cool. 

Friday, we had a dim sum appointment with the "empty nesters" in the ward. More street contacting and more studying. We also met again an old man that sits in the park and draws some really interesting portraits with ball point pens of all colors. They pretty cool. The previous day, he told us to come back and pick up some pictures of Jesus he drew. They are pretty money and the guy is super nice.

Saturday, Elder Mumford (the other greenie in the apartment) and I were on an exchange for the whole day. It was stressful but also pretty fun. We got a number during our contacting and taught a lesson to Tim. Tim was kind and pretended to understand as we rambled on in broken Cantonese about the Doctrine of Jesus Christ. It was a good experience over all. We still managed to bring the Spirit to some degree.

Sunday, we had our normal church meetings. It is the week before Chinese New Year so there was practically nobody there as this is a HUGE holiday. All the folks that were there just kept giving us bags and bags of food and treats. We are really blessed here to have such a good relationship with the members. We went that night to a young member family's house for dinner. They had two little girls who were super cute when they wanted to play piano for us. We shared about the Restoration and related it to the upcoming special general conference. It got me excited for whatever exciting things will happen. 

Today, we went to a place called 10,000 Buddhas. It is a temple with a ton of golden Buddha statues. It was fun and a good chance to use my new camera. We ate IKEA hot dogs for lunch.

So that was my week. The work still goes on albeit pretty slowly during this busy holiday. I'm still just hanging in here, having a good time and trying to preach the gospel. Transfer calls will be this Saturday so who knows what will happen. Thanks for all the prayers!

- Elder Murray

Week 24 - Sunset Peak, Christ-like attributes, Ding Ding Sing, Tim Confirmation and post baptism lessons

Things just keep moving along and here we are again on another P day. This week hasn't been too bad. Things are still pretty much the same for me here. We do a lot of street contacting everyday, we do all of our studies, we aren't currently teaching anybody. So it has been kind of less exciting in that respect, but it is still a bunch of fun.

Monday, we went on a hike to Sunset Peak. It was super steep, stairs straight up the mountain to the top. It was smoggy, but the view was pretty amazing. Then, we stopped by this little pizza shop which had a really good deal on pizza. Cheese is expensive here so cheap and good pizza is hard to come by. 

The middle of the week was full of more finding. We continued our post-baptism lessons with Tim. Wednesday, I gave a training on Christlike attributes in District Council. It went ok. Thursday, we did our service at Crossroads again hauling desks and school chairs into the back of a truck. We also had our regular interviews with President that evening. Friday, we did a district find in an area that was an hour away. Another Elder and I were actually able to place a Book of Mormon so that stoked us out pretty good. 

Saturday was a special day. On Hong Kong island, they have these street trams that have been around for over a hundred years. They call it the Ding Ding. For Light the World this year, the church paid for one to get decked out with Light the World advertisements. On Saturday, I went with the mission choir, donned a red tie, and helped sing hymns out the window of the top floor of the church Ding Ding as it drove across the entire island. They had a church film crew film us for an upcoming video and also livestream it on facebook. It was a ton of fun watching people's heads turn and then smile when they see a Ding Ding full of singing white kids. We sang pretty much straight for 3 hours so my voice was pretty hoarse by the end of it. It felt really cool to not just go out and ask a few people on the street if they want to listen to a message, but to actually sing that message to everybody on the street. 

Sunday, Tim finally got confirmed. It was super cool, he seemed pretty excited out about it. It is a really special opportunity to see the gospel change people like that. I know it's corny, but he really did seem brighter and happier afterwards. 

Well that was my week. There were some boring things but some really good things too. I just keep plugging along. See ya!

-Elder Murray

Week 23 - New Year 2020, Blackout year, Hotpot, Korean BBQ

Well it is a new year. I guess this starts my 2020 blackout year letters. That's pretty nuts. This week was a pretty decent week.

On Monday, our hike turned out to be too long and too far away, so we just had hot pot. It was still way fun. 

Tuesday, New Year's Eve, we had our usual day of studies and finding, nothing special to report. Then a member took us out for Korean BBQ. Sooo tasty, but I ate too much meat and kimchee.

Wednesday we had Zone Opening Exercises and a district find in our area. No new friends yet, but we found a new place that looks promising. Then, we went to a dinner appointment at the home of a member family's friend. It was really cool because the family really enjoyed our message and the food was fantastic. All around a good experience.

Friday, we had Zone Conference. We got a lot of good training and I met a lot of people in the mission I hadn't seen in a while. 

The rest of the weekend was pretty normal, pretty boring but that is good. For Pday today, we went on a big hike and now we are getting pizza. That's all for 

Week 22 - Christmas, Tim's Baptism, Victoria Peak

Another one down. This week was a pretty exceptional week what with Christmas and all. Our friend Tim also got baptized this weekend which was the cherry on top.

For P day, we went up to Victoria Peak on a tram and took some cool pictures of the view. It was amazing to see a view I've seen a million times in pictures for myself. Unfortunately, it was a pretty cloudy day but I still could see all the famous tall buildings on Hong Kong Island. I'll make my way out there again sometime soon on a clearer day. 

Christmas Eve was full of meetings with members. We had a caroling activity planned in the evening but couldn't stay long before we had to go visit another member. The only thing that made it feel like Christmas was the bus ride home when the bus driver played Christmas music.

Christmas was fun because I got to call home in the morning, but other than that, it was a pretty normal day. It's kind of nice around here that it doesn't feel too Christmassy because then I don't feel like I'm missing anything. Besides just doing normal missionary work, we had members feed us dim sum for breakfast and then hot pot for dinner. Can't complain about that. 

Thursday was the real fun Christmas celebration. In the afternoon, the whole mission got together for games and a devotional. We had a minute to win it competition between the zones (which we failed sorely at) and had a lot of fun. We had a super nice dinner of pasta, salad, breadsticks, and chicken parmesan, then a Christmas themed devotional with the Philips and a member of the Seventy, Elder Homer and his wife. It was really cool, they all gave really powerful testimonies of the Savior and their gratitude for his birth. 

Friday, we taught Tim his last lesson and had a District white elephant party. I came home with a cool bag with a cat on the front. Tim's lesson went really well and he seemed just as committed as ever to get baptized.

Saturday, we had Tim's baptism. It was stressful for a minute because I was chosen to perform the baptism and I had to memorize the blessing in Cantonese, but then I put it into perspective that it isn't about me at all. It isn't about my fears concerns, it was all about Tim. Once I remembered that, I was a lot less stressed about memorizing the blessing and it went on without a hitch. Tim bore a really simple but powerful testimony that this church was true and that he knew God was directing it today. It was very cool to see how much the Spirit had helped him grow and learn. 

We ended the week off with a normal Sunday full of church, studies, a bit of finding and then a dinner appointment with members. It's a blessing how much the members help us out around here by giving us meals and advice.

That's my first Christmas down! Only one more to go!

-Elder Murray