She's in Hong Kong!!!

We had a great time talking with Kasey last night when she called from the Los Angeles airport. She sounded great and was excited to be on her way! I have been tracking her flights and she just landed in Hong Kong!

Her mailing address is on the right side of this blog. She would love mail! If you comment on this blog and I will send your comment in my next email.

Thanks!

Barbara

Aaiya!!!

Hi Everyone!!!

6 days until Hong Kong!!!!!! Aaiya!!! Can you believe it! This is my last e-mail from the US until 2013! I can't believe how fast the time has gone! We leave the MTC on Monday, fly from SLC To LAX, to Taipe, Taiwan and then Hong Kong. We get to Hong Kong on Wednesday morning!!!!!!!! Yay!!!!! So a week from today doesn't exist for me! It's kind of weird to think that I will never experience Tuesday November 29, 2011! Hopefully nothing too exciting happens! hahaha I'll make up for it with an extra long day on my way home!

On Thanksgiving, we will have our "feast" around noon and then make sack lunches for dinner. We have a TON of personal time which we will probably use for packing and studying and then a service project and a devotional (hopefully and probably with a general authority!!!!!) at night! So exciting news from the week!!! Soren was baptized on Saturday! It wasn't a real baptism since of course he is already baptized, but we set up a service and Leih Ji Muih made programs. I gave a talk and Leih Ji Muih and Nihp Ji muih sang! It was really cool. I felt so happy and realized that if I felt this good when we were "baptizing" a person we were just practicing teaching. I can't imagine how happy I'll be when one of the people I meet in Hong Kong makes the decision to be baptized!!!! On that note, Tina is getting baptized tomorrow! Our teacher has given us a really good person to work with, Tina's "parent's" haven't been supportive of her getting baptized so we've been working with her over the past few lessons to get her parents permission and they finally did! It's a bit difficult because it is a practice, so we can't actually talk to her parents, but it's really helped me learn how I can better meet the needs of the people I teach. The gospel can really help anyone with any problem.

There is this awesome senior couple that was here last week. They're actually going to Cambodia but they will be in Hong Kong working at the temple for a bit, so we will get to see them!! It's been so fun to talk to them and practice our Cantonese. I think the most important thing I learned from them was how to say my name! Elder C. spent like 2 minutes saying my name and repeating it until he was satisfied with my ability to say it. I'm still not great, but I'm bound to learn!!! At least I'll be really good at the "eung" sound which is one of the hardest for us to say! There is also this sweet sister from just outside of Hong Kong, she is headed to Sydney Australia and is here learning English. Yikes!!! We saw her on our temple walk on Sunday. She must have seen our Chinese name tags and said "Leih hou" she got so excited when we responded back!!! We talked to her for about 10 minutes and the best part was, I understood most of what she was saying!!!!!!! This was such a blessing for both her and us, she is here learning English and was probably excited to have the chance to speak her language and I was for sure happy to have the reassurance that I can sort of communicate in Cantonese a week before I go to Hong Kong! I seriously can't believe it! We really haven't been here for that long, but I can speak chinese!!! and it dosen't sound ChingChongie to me anymore, it's an actual language!!!! Aaiya!!! Such a miracle and I'm sooooo excited to be a part of it!!

I love you all soooooo much!!! I hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving!! Run hard, eat well and give everyone hugs for me!!! I'll Talk to you soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,

Sister Nelson

Stella from Hong Kong

This is one of the videos that Kasey mentioned in her email last week. It is amazing to me that Kasey understand this language now!

A Book of Mormon Story

This is the other video that Kasey mentioned in her blog.

13 Days until Hong Kong!!!

Happy Tuesday!

Wow!! SO 13 days left! The energy from our first few weeks is back! I have a goal to learn 50 new words a day and I'm doing it! Sister D. suggested upping our goals, and I was skeptical that it might overwhelm me, but it hasn't!!! I'm just learning how to better use every single minute to reach my goals and the results are amazing!!! One of my words Saturday was "strengthen." I hadn't looked over it a whole lot, but I was able to remember it in a lesson. My SYLing is improving too. I think I am finally figuring out how to set good goals that will stretch me, but not overwhelm me. It's actually quite addicting!!! The Lord is helping me sooooo much. The blessings of being set-apart as a missionary are incredible. I know if I were to come home today, I would be soooo different. I have learned and grown soooo fast these last few months and it is amazing that I am able to do it!!! I am sooooo excited for what I can do in Hong Kong!!!!

Along with that, I've just been amazed lately at how much Heavenly Father is "Micromanaging" my life. It's a good thing! The other day one of our teachers pointed out that Heavenly Father is closer to our lives than we will ever realize, and we just need to let Him help us. I have been amazed at all the little things He has done to prepare me to be here, and the things He is doing for me now. I realize His hand in my life more and more every day!!!!

Richard I Heaton, the MTC director spoke again on Sunday, and he spoke about tithing again. It's that important!!!! He also said that January of 2011 they had 52,000 missionaries in the field, so they predicted the same number or less for this year. Actually, in Jan 2012 there will be 56,000 missionaries in the field!!!!!!!! Isn't that incredible!!! This is an amazing work!!

I just wanted to tell you quickly about our lesson in the TRC. I Love the TRC because we get to teach the people as themselves so we're actually making a difference in their lives!!! This week’s lesson was about receiving revelation through prayer. Sister L. came up with this great object lesson she had a long skinny box with one end closed. We named off all of the blessing God wants to give us as we put Jolly Ranchers into one end. Then we told the volunteers if they opened up their end by praying they could "RECIEVE ALL OF THESE BLESSINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and dumped all of the candy on them! We got to teach two of our favorite people who we've taught a few times before. One, is a return missionary, the other is this hilarious old man who is Chinese, but also served his mission in Hong Kong. He loves to joke around, but is also sooooo fun to teach. At the end of our lesson, we asked if they had any experiences with prayer that they would like to share. This man, Brother W. told us his conversion story. It was amazing! I honestly couldn't understand most of what he was saying, (afterward, my companions were able to help me get a general gist of what he was saying) but the Spirit was sooooo strong!!! I could tell that he knew what he was saying was true and that he felt strongly about that. The spirit is an amazing thing, I know the people in Hong Kong might sometimes struggle to understand what I am saying, especially at the beginning, but I hope that I can teach in such a way that like Brother W., they can feel what I mean.

I have no idea what I'll be doing for Thanksgiving, but I'll let you know!

I have had 2 almost colds, but the worst one was this past weekend, and seriously only lasted about a day. It really wasn't that bad, I was able to exercise and focus like normal, I just had to blow my nose a bit more. I know I'm being blessed. (I know the blessing when I was set apart is true, because all of my roommates have been sick.)

Well I have to go, just one more thing, there is this really cool new Mormon Message on the Book of Mormon you should watch, also look up Stella on Mormon.org she is from Hong Kong and her video is so fun to see!!! (you can also look at my profile too!! my current location is "Hong Kong"!!!!!)

I love you sooooooooooo much !!! Thank you sooooo much for your love and support and letting me have this wonderful opportunity!!!

Love,

Sister Nelson

Post a comment and Mom will send it to me in next week's email.

buhngaausih

Happy Tuesday!

Oh so did you know it was daylight savings this weekend? We didn't!! hahaha we all got up at "6:30" to shower and I was super surprised that there wasn't a huge line like most Sundays. We kept getting ready and finally realized that it might be daylight savings. Sis. L went to ask some other girls and of, course it was. SO I fixed my hair, and make up and went back to bed for an hour, it was AMAZING!!!!!!!!

Last Thursday we taught Mr. C who is actually Elder M, the Mandarin elder who knows Cantonese. We were teaching about the Word of Wisdom and decided we wanted to have a "member" come help us teach. We asked one of his companions to be the church member and just made it really obvious when he should testify. Since Mr. C knows both Mandarin and Cantonese, it was perfect. I was amazed at how much I was able to understand, and even without understanding, I was able to feel the Spirit. The Spirit is absolutely amazing! It really can be communicated through any language barrier. Every time I realized that, I am so comforted because there is no way my Cantonese is good enough for the people in Hong Kong to really understand what I am saying all the time. But I know if I strive to have the Spirit with me and show through my actions that I really do love and care about them, the Holy Ghost will be able to speak to them. Which is what I want for them anyway. My companions and I counted the other day, and we have learned about 900 words since we got here!!! wow!!

Ahhhh!! We only have 20 days left! All of the missionaries that came in with us are leaving!! Speaking of which, there is a Portuguese missionary, Elder B. who has been re-assigned to Chicago while he waits for his visa, maybe he'll come to Ottawa!!! Oh, listen to your last year's EFY CD. I know the girl who sang "I am his Daughter." She is super sweet!!!

I wanted to tell you about a cool experience this weekend. This weekend I was feeling a bit like a "buhngaausih" (a missionary coined term which is a combination of buhngaau (apostasy) and chyuhngaausih (missionary)). I really wasn't, but I really wanted to be working harder, I knew I could be doing more to be prepared for HK in 3 weeks, but I really wasn't sure how. It's so frustrating! Saturday night and Sunday morning, I really prayed that I could figure out how to snap out of it and be motivated to work hard for my last few weeks here. I also dedicated my fast to figuring out what I needed to be doing to be prepared for Hong Kong. Heavenly Father hears prayers!!! We had barely gotten to church when I realized I was speaking Cantonese with my companions without consciously deciding to do so! That alone was a motivation boost! The rest of Sunday was really uplifting and rejuvenating, I learned a lot! Since then, I haven't been "cured" completely, but I know that wouldn't help me, I need to learn to work hard and learn, but Heavenly Father has blessed me with lots of little experiences that have really kept me motivated and helped me know what goals I can be setting and how I can improve. I still have to work, that's not going to change, but I know Heavenly Father is behind this work 100%!!! He is going to help me, and with Him I can do this!! That is perfect!!

I love you all soooo much and I hope you have a great week!!!

Love,

Sister Nelson

Post a comment and Mom will send it to me in next week's email.

Halloween at the MTC

Happy November!!

Sundays are interesting here. All of the sisters have Relief Society together. We watch the Mormon Tabernacle choir’s Music and the Spoken Word and then have our Relief Society meeting. A guest speaker comes for this meeting each week. This week Sister Dalton, the General Young Women President, came! It was so fun! I have never seen a happier woman in my life! She talked about trials and how we shouldn't stop when we’re in the middle of a hill. It takes just as much distance to go up as it does to go down, so you may as well get to the top and enjoy the view and the satisfaction that comes from overcoming challenges. (Can you tell she's a runner?) :) For Sunday School, we have District meeting, so the six of us in my district meet together and one or a few of us gives a lesson. After that we eat lunch and then have Sacrament Meeting with our branch (2 Cantonese districts, 2 Portuguese districts who are waiting on their visas and a few English districts). After Sacrament Meeting, we have time that we use for a walk around the temple and district study. At night there is a devotional. Sunday's are still busy, but it's nice not to have language classes and to be able to do my own personal study.

Guess what!!! We have 2 baptisms!! Assuming everything goes well in our last 2 sessions, Soren, our practice investigator is pretending to be is getting baptized this Friday. Mr. S is hopefully getting "baptized" next week. Obviously they won’t actually be baptized because this is all so we can practice teaching in Cantonese before we get into the mission field, but we still have to plan the service and have it all organized. Heavenly Father is amazing! Can you believe we've only been here 7 weeks and already we can teach with enough clarity to teach someone enough about the gospel to lead them to baptism!!! This is sooooooo exciting!!

Quick, about Halloween, it was fun! I decorated our residence hall with the Halloween cards you and Jenny sent to me. Sister L. acquired a rubber foot which we are growing in a bucket of water in our residence, and Elder N's family sent him a pumpkin with Mr. Potato head pieces, we decorated that on Sunday. Grandma Jones sent me a pumpkin mask and Sister L. had a mask as well. Oh and the card Grandma Jones sent me was a singing card that sang "The Monster Mash." I might have danced a little when I opened it. . . hahaha We also acquired a pumpkin flash light from the give-away box. Oh and tons of cookies and candy!!!! yummy!! Overall, a great Halloween!

Yikes! I'm out of time! I love you sooooooo much! Thank you for your support and prayers and for letting me be here!! Missions are the best!!!

Love,

Sister Nelson