The Ma On Shan chapel is in a shopping mall!!

My previous companion

 Decorating Easter Eggs

This is me and my new comp (probably the tallest companionship in HK!!!)

Hi Everyone!!

Happy Easter! Can you believe April is almost halfway over?!! 

The other night I wrote in my journal a list of reasons why I'm excited to serve in my new area, I thought I would share it with you (This is coming from memory, but it should be similar.) Afterward I'll answer your questions that aren't answered already.

1) We live on the 27th floor

2) We live in a neigborhood of apartment buildings

3) This neighborhood is on TOP of a mall and a MTR station!!!!!

4) The grocery store is in the mall, and the gai sih is a 5 minute walk!!! so convenient!!

5) There are AWESOME places to run!!! We've been  to a different place every day!!

6) My companion likes to run. A LOT!!!

7) There are tons of cool hiking places

8) My companion likes to hike

9) My ward is going hiking on Monday!!!

10) We went to a wedding on Tuesday (He is from Hong Kong and speaks Chinese and a little English, she's from Vietnam and speaks a little English and even less Chinese. I don't know how it worked, but we're starting to teach her either English or Chinese or both on Monday, I'm excited!!!!!)                                                       

11) We have a blender

12) We serve 3 wards, Sha Tin, Tai Wai and Ma On Shan.

13) The Ma On Shan chapel is in a shopping mall!!

14) We ride trains, not subways, so they are above ground and sooooooo much prettier.

15) The buildings are shorter, we're closer to the mountains and there are more trees and open space it's soooooo pretty! We saw stars and a sunset yesterday!!!

16) Every Thursday night we have a coorelation meeting for the Sha Tin Ward. Our ward correlator is President Chan's son, so correlation is in the Chan's apartment in the TEMPLE!!! Sister Chan makes us dinner. I'm sooooooooo excited for tonight!  (Barbara's note:  President Chan is the mission president.)

17) Our members (that I've met so far) are really nice, lots of them speak English and are excited about missionary work!

18) There is a lady in one of our areas who only speaks Woo Lam Wa (I don't know what it is in English, but it's a dialect of Chinese.) She comes to church (and even General Conference) because she loves Christ, but she doesn't understand a thing, and we can't teach her because we don't speak Woo Lam Wa!!! (we hope to find a member who does and can help us!)

19) We have tons of investigators!!! The ones I have met are awesome!!! I am so excited to keep teaching them

20) My companion is Amazing! She has soooo much fire! She really loves the work and wants to work hard and be obedient.  I am so incredibly happy to work with her.  She is soooo fun and so ready to work!!  I'm learning so much from her everyday.  I feel super unified and I feel like the move is going to be great.  We both have the feeling this move is going to be awesome!!!

21) You can see Mainland from our apartment window (well, one mountain)

22) Our apartment has 2 couches, 3 awesome views and a big red fan.

I'm running out of things, but in short, I'm sooooo excited to be in this area! Sister H. LOVES the area so much and it's contagious! So many of the members have neat stories. Somehow I feel like my mission is finally just starting! I'm so excited!! There's a chance I could be here for a good part of my mission (or the rest of it!) and right now, I'm totally fine with that!!

 

The girls I taught in my previous area, A. and Y. both went to General Conference this past week.   A. had her baptismal inverview and is getting baptized this SUNDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And she's coming to visit on Saturday!!!  I'm soooo excited!!!  Y. was supposed to come visit yesterday, but had to do things with her family. I am soooooo sooooooooo happy that we're allowed to stay in contact with our converts to strengthen them. I really truly love these girls soooooo much. I've heard people say you meet your best friends on your mission and it is so true!!   When I got my call a year ago I had no idea what I was getting myself into, a mission is really the most amazing experience ever and it really is nothing like the way people describe it, but that's because you can't really describe it well enough to do it justice. Even on hard days or when I feel homesick and think, "what on earth did I get myself into?" I realize that I really am truly happy and I become happier and happier each day as I learn to better do the work and put my focus on the Lord. I don't know what Heavenly Father has in store for us in Tolo Harbor, but I am so excited for find out. I'm excited to learn to rely on the Lord and let Him bless his children. We can't speak Cantonese, but with Heavenly Father's help we can, and I am so excited to see miracles this move!!! I really hope that I can always be doing my best so my companion and I can always do what Heavenly Father wants us to do.

 

Questions:

1 - Had you transferred when you wrote last week?  

Yes

2 - How did you get to your new area? 

MTR. . . That was an adventure with 2 suitcases. The Elders helped us get to the mission office, I was grateful for that.

3 - Do you have roommates? 

Sister F. and Sister F.  I love them!! It is really weird not have Hong Kong natives in the apartment.  It was actually Sister F. in the picture last week.

4 - What are your roommates and companion like? 

Amazing!!! 

5 - How is missionary work the same and how is it different? 

I feel like we will get to teach more since we cover 3 areas, it is pretty busy, we typically try to schedule to be in one area on a given day, but usually we're in one area in the morning and another in the afternoon. It keeps us busy.

I am almost officially a Cantonese language scholar.  I just need to do my pinyam pass-off and then I can start learning characters!!!  Actually, since I just have to find a time when Sister F. is free to do my pass-off, I'm going to start learning characters tonight when we pick up our flash cards in Kowloon Tong (The mission office) I'm soooo happy to be done with pass-offs, but scared that my spoken language is going to deteriorate as I start learning to read, but I can fight it!!!  Sister H. just finished her scholar too, so we're going to learn characters together!!!! and do a 2 week English Fast at the beginning of May!!! ok I've got to go, I want to e-mail you some pictures and they kick us off at the hour here!!

Love,

Sister Nelson

PS, I read Romans 8:31 - the end today I really like it. "If God is with us, then who can stand against us?"