EFY Medley

It is amazing how fast the weeks go by!  Although I do look forward to reading your e-mails every week, so by the time Thursday gets here it feels like it's been forever!!!

You didn't tell me Savanna is doing swimming, but she did!!!  Hahaha she'll have to give me remedial swimming lessons when I get back!!

Wow!  You've been teaching seminary for 9 years?  That's amazing!  Think of how many lives you've been able to touch in those 9 years and how many people you've prepared for missions I can count at least 10 people who have been in your class and have or are serving missions!! That's amazing!!!  Seriously, Seminary is the best thing that happened to me in high school as crazy as it sounds for high school students to get up early and go to a scripture study class it is definitely an inspired program.  I am so grateful for the foundation seminary has been for building my testimony and helping me to know how to teach the gospel.  You can tell your class, that I have such a testimony of Scripture Mastery verses!!! USE THEM!!!! 

We had the coolest experience on Sunday.  Our ward has a tradition of having a "Welcoming Party" for newly converted members.  The new members share their testimonies, there are lots of musical numbers from the ward member, and FOOD!!  We had to leave early, but it seemed like a really good opportunity for the ward to build a relationship with these new members and for investigators to come and see the blessings of baptism.  Three of the people that we taught were there and President Chan was there as well.  The ward asked the missionaries to sing the EFY medley.  Since we had to leave to teach a lesson, we sang it as the opening song.  What a powerful song to be able to sing to our ward!  As we sang the chorus "We are as the army of Helaman, We have been taught in our youth and we will be (or as we sang in the MTC "are now") the Lord's missionaries to bring the World His truth."  I realized what we were telling our ward as we sang.  I have been preparing my whole life for this, whether I always knew it or not.  You and dad taught me about the gospel and as I grew up I started deciding to read the scriptures and pray on my own to gain my own testimony.  Now I am here in Hong Kong to share this joy with others.  As we sang, we were telling our ward, that we are the army of Helaman and we are here to help them and their friends receive the blessings of this gospel, and we want to do everything we can to serve them. It didn't help that President Chan was there and looked like he was about to cry. . . I really just felt an overwhelming love for these people and for this work.  This gospel is so true and can change our lives if we will let it!!!

(Barbara's note:  This is a video with the song that Kasey mentioned.  It is a beautiful song!)

On another note, I passed my first pass off yesterday.  Our new district leader, Elder H., told me to focus on sharing my experiences and bringing the spirit into the lesson instead of just teaching the principles.  It helped me a ton, and I really truly enjoyed doing the pass off.  Now I can start working toward teaching the Plan of Salvation better and passing that lesson!

This week we've been doing a lot of finding, we've had to drop some of our investigators and others will be busy until after the New Year, but we have three lessons scheduled tonight and several more this weekend.  I am so excited to be able to start teaching at our chapel again!

 

Answers to your questions:
1 - What are Popohs?   

Oh sorry, old women/grandmas.  So stubborn, some are crazy, but I love them!!

2 - What is a SYL missionary? 

SYL stands for speak your language, it means speaking Cantonese as often as possible, it's so hard, but I want to do it!! Sister C. is helping me a lot, we've started doing our Companion study in Cantonese.  Honestly sometimes I'm not happy to have to think that hard early in the morning, but I'm surprised at how much I understand, and I know it's helping me!!!

3 - What is pinyam?  

The written format of Cantonese using Romanized letters.  That way I can read and write Cantonese even though I don't know characters yet.

4 – How often do you write to your Mission President? Do you use your emailing time to do so? 

We write every week, and we have an hour of time set aside on Monday to do that.  I am so grateful because I know that these letters will be a valuable journal at the end of my mission.

I love you!!! Happy Chinese New Year!!!

Love,

Sister Nelson/ Kasey