Week 18 - FULL COURT SHOT FOR THE WIN!!

Yeah the title for this email really doesn't mean anything other that my sweedish buddy Elder Quist hit a full court hook shot on his first try this morning. We all chased him down and tackled him. we are all pretty sure we scared some people when it happened, so it was pretty awesome! So yeah today didn't really go as planned, we kind of ended up buying new watches and went to a Museum we already went to because it was free and we were short on time, so that's my pday today!

So I am staying put in Tuen Mun this transfer, but sadly my buddy Elder McGrath is leaving the apartment. I guess the only pro to him leaving is I can take his bed, and no longer be on the top bunk!

Tuesday was kind of a stressful day because I knew I was gonna go on splits with a Priest and had to take the lead in the lesson, and I was super nervous, and still don't really know the language, but everything worked out great because we got a baptismal date out of that lesson! Then Elder Jensen's lesson went on to be 3 hours, so I sat outside the door and did flash cards for another 2 hours, and no I didn't break the rules of being alone. The door was open and I sat outside, so we were within sight and sound, we just didn't want me to disrupt the lesson.

We did get 2 new investigators this week their names are June and Mrs. Tsang. They are probably in their 50's but they both really want to learn about the gospel and they feel like their churches now just aren't true and me and Elder Jensen are like YESSSSSSSSSS they want to learn!! We both feel they are super prepared, We are excited to where things will go in the next couple of weeks! 

(It's me again 3 years later! so we taught sis Tsang for a long time, but she never could overcome her smoking problem, and actually she has so mental issues too, but more updates will come later. June ended up turning into one of my worst nightmares! She was extremely creepy! apparently she has some rare disease where you can feel electricity through her body and was allergic to it or something. Anyways she always wore rubber gloves to avoid "feeling it". During my first lesson with her, I was saying the first vision and she interrupted me and told me to pretty much shut up, told me my Chinese sucks and told Elder Jensen to do all of the talking. He didn't really know what to do, so he kind of finished the rest of the lesson. I'm pretty sure I gave her the death stare the rest of the lesson and I hadn't been that mad in a long time. Elder Jensen just encouraged me and told me it takes a lot of time, and my Chinese was really good for how long i had been out, but looking back now he was just encouraging me haha. Well a couple of days later June called, and requested if Elder Jensen could teach with Lok Yuen on of the wards YM because she liked him when he taught her on exchanges. Elder Jensen said no and defended me like crazy. June told him she got "bad feelings" around me and compared me to the devil haha! After a 1 hr conversation and a lot of testifying, June was dropped and i thought we were done with her forever! Well 5 months later or so, Elder Jensen has left, and I was with Elder Smith, June shows up randomly to English class... I told Elder Smith everything about her, and we decided to just avoid her. Well she starts annoying us like crazy because she needed a light bulb replaced. We tried to push that as long as possible until we could. Eventually we called up a member sister Yeung to go to June's apartment with us. The entire was there was extremely weird and honestly i got "bad feelings" about this "service". Elder Smith just wanted to get it over with and be done with here. Well we get to her apartment, and she immediately slams the door in sister yeung's face and tells her to wait outside. She was a massive hoarder and her place was disgusting. I had my fist ready to sucker punch her if she did anything because we both were getting really nervous. Luckily nothing happened and she pushed us out of ther apartment the second we were done.)

June is the one in the back left

On Saturday there was a ward karaoke night and we were able to go, and got 2 investigators to go to! It was great they were able to talk to the members a little bit, and they both stayed for about a hour!

Well I'm running low on time, but love you all!

Elder Eveson

this place is alot sketchier than the picture makes it look like. This is the street where we do skype calls in Tuen Mun!

a random sign

Week 17 - First Transfer Check!

Well tranfers are this Wednesday, and I'm probably staying put in Tuen Mun, but everyone in my apartment thinks I'll be on the move to Macau because very few people are allowed in. You either need to be from Hong Kong, or England to stay there more than 1 transfer, and even though I am neither of those things I have a Hong Kong permanent residency card, so wouldn't have any visa problems and could stay as long as they wanted me. and an Elder there is going home and the only person that I know of that can go has already been told he's staying, so yeah. It's actually kind of funny everyone is stressing about move calls and I'm like if I leave I'm going to Macau which is where every missionary wants to go haha. Also Elder Jensen is now the district leader in a new district in our zone, so just our companionship is getting pulled out of our current district and we will be with the other Mandarin Elders, which kind of bummed be out because I loved my district, this transfer and district meeting will not be as fun anymore. (I stayed with elder Jensen for 6 months haha)

We are not fighting, just try to take a cool picture by the harbor

So this week I had dinner at members' apartments for the first time on my mission and they are so much fun! On Tuesday we went to the Lo Family's place and Elder Jensen didn't tell me what I ate until after I ate it, and it turned out I ate pig feet for the first time, and I kind of freaked out a little bit and the members started laughing but the rest of the food was really good. on Thursday we went with the Castle Peak Bay Elders to a member in their ward and the food was really good, and it was the fullest I've been since I got to Hong Kong. When I was full the member would yell SIHK DODI!!! which means eat more and yeah I ate alot of food that night. We actually had a really hard time getting into their apartment. So here in HK every building has wannabe security guards and they really hate missionaries because they think we'll knock on every door which is "illegal". Well anyways the guard refused to let us into the building and kept yelling at us to "get lost" and I'm pretty sure they called us a "cult" too haha. The Castle Peak elders were yelling back saying we were visiting a member but other people in the lobby kept yelling at us and telling the guard to not let us in. After a minute or 2 of arguing someone else needed to get in and we walked in with them. He still refused to let us up and refused even to call up to the room to ask them. So we called the member and they sent down their neighbor's daughter (also a member) but he still wouldn't let us up! It was because we weren't going to "Her apartment". So the member eventually came down and absolutely chastised him before we went up. Yeah he should probably get fired for the scene he created!

Oh and last  Monday after a lesson with a recent convert Brother Tam took us to a super good Chinese plate near the church and it was one of those places where they give you a pot of boiling hot water and you clean your own dishes!! That's how it's done in China!  And what's crazy this was the first week I had meals with members at a place other than McDonalds and it happened 3 times!

Even though we only taught 4 lessons this week we were  constantly busy. Absolutely no time for any finding this week. I taught English class pretty much by myself on Friday because Elder Jensen was helping someone the entire time. It went really well and was a lot of fun as usual. When we had time with 1 on 1 with people I was able to have a real simple conversation with a recent convert named Jacky who is 12 and we like to mess with each other.  Then on Saturday we had a Stake activity and my now former district  did a Pokemon skit. I threw on a Brazil jersey and called myself Pikachu, Elder Tseng grabbed 2 spoons and called himself Alakazam, Elder Jensen dressed up as a rattat and dressed as a rat, and Elder Chen had a dinosaur costume, and he was a random Pokemon! Pokemon Go is really big here right now, so that's the reason for the skit.

Today it's one of those chill p days, we're just gonna hang out with some Elders in our area and are just gonna hang out all day in a mall for Elder Oquist's birthday!

Love ya all and thanks for all your love and support!

With Brother Tam

The Chinese charter means Tragic and that's why I had sad face

With Loh Family

Tyler from Hung Shui Kiu Ward

Our Pokemon skit

At Hong Kong Museum

TST

Elder Eveson

Week 16

Well another great week here in the HK. Last Monday our adventures to Mong Kok were a success where I came away with 2 soccer jerseys. I didn't bring any of my massive collection with me to Hong Kong, and I have been craving some since I got here. I came away with a Brazil jersey, and a Mario Gotze Bayern Munich jersey. So that's another 2 to add to my collection of like 20 jerseys!

This week was once again very interesting. on Tuesday we had zone training and we talked about the atonement of Jesus Christ and how we can receive strength and comfort through the atonement. You can never go wrong when talking about the atonement right? Then that night was probably the funniest and grossest event to happen in our apartment. It was about 8 pm and me and Elder Jensen were about to head out and go finding, and all of a sudden Elder Oquist comes running out of his room and yelling where is the Raid!! turns out a 2-3 inch cockroach crawled out from behind his desk on the wall. As he was getting the spray, us other 5 Elders all grabbed our cameras and tried to take pictures of it and we decided to point a powerful laser at it because we have killed smaller ones with it before, and of course the big ones can fly and we all started screaming like little girls. It took a good 3 seconds of Raid on it to kill, and its supposed to be instant kill. So yeah it was pretty big.

On Wednesday when we were volunteering at Cross Roads we swept a massive room covered in dust. It was about the size of half a football field so it took forever, but as missionaries you find out how to make anything fun, but this one it was just impossible, but they did feed us some good food afterwards so I guess it was worth it.

On Saturday I went on my first exchange in Hung Shui Kiu which is the next ward over. I spent the day with the oldest missionary in the mission. No like literally Elder Tseng is from Philadelphia and is 24 was a convert at 20, graduated already from Penn State, and goes home next week. So yeah he really is the oldest. I learned alot from him in those 24 hours, and it was a lot of fun. I learned some new finding techniques with him and we gave out 2 Book Of Mormon in 2 hours. Yeah that's about how many me and Elder Jensen do in a week, so we are excited to apply what we learned.

Well today we are off to the Tsim Sha Tsui Museums for the day. Apparently they got a lot of cool stuff and they have a Pompeii exhibit right now. I've always been a nerd for old stuff so it should be fun. Then after that we are gonna meet up with a priest in our ward who is doing summer missionary for 2 weeks and we are gonna go to the Hong Kong Hollywood Walk of Stars!

L

Special fruit 

Special fruit "Dragon Eye" grow from their investigator's yard

I don't think Elder Jensen enjoy it, but I do

Love you all thanks for all the love and support you give me!!

Elder Eveson

Week 15 - Apparently there was a Typhoon

So to start of the week, last Monday night we got a text that we needed to return to our apartments immediately because there was a level 8 typhoon coming. So we all did and we got cleared to go out at around 2 the next day. Yeah it was nothing just some rain and some wind. The most damage I saw was some small trees and branches on the ground. It was a good idea to stay inside but I was kind of disappointed in my first typhoon. Oh and we had district meeting at night which was extremely weird, and me and Elder Jensen tried to stay exactly obedient and we ran a good 1/2 miles in like 3 minutes to get into our apartment on time so that was kind of funny because we honestly didn't need to.

On every Wednesday we volunteer at a a charity called Crossroads and we were assigned to clean the roofs from all the debris from the storm.Of course it was pouring, but I was smart enough to bring my raincoat, but I was eaten alive by mosquitoes which was something I wasn't expecting to encounter in Hong Kong. But yeah that was really fun to clear out drains and yes it was actually fun getting drenched in the rain. Some of the roofs had over 1 ft of water on top, and we would have to "fish around" to find the drains and grab whatever was clogging it at the time!

HK Fam

So Sunday was my birthday and I wasn't expecting much but then my family that lives in Hong Kong decided to visit me and I really didn't know how to react because i'ts technically against mission rules, but also I'm not going to tell my family to leave. It was great to see them all and I'm going to quote President Lam "yeah don't worry about it" haha. He actually knows my grandma pretty well. So yeah Sunday was actually a lot of fun, and we also got an investigator there too!! which is the first since I've been here. We are making progress!

So today is the day I'm actually gonna celebrate my birthday, I'm going to Mong Kok which is the place to buy everything, so it should be fun. Oh and also this morning we had a trainer trainee meeting and I got to see all my MTC friends again!

Also this week we finally got our numbers up to where we wanted to be. The last couple of weeks we struggled to get lessons, but the last couple of days have been crazy. Friday and Saturday we taught 7 lessons in 2 days, That's not very common here in Hong Kong!!

So that was my week I love you all and thanks for all your love and support!

inside my apartment

My MTC friends buds

Week 14 - War of the cockroaches

So this week was kind of interesting we kind of are in that transition mode between sets of investigators right now. We really only have 1 progressing investigators, so we spend a lot of time on the streets, but the people who sound really interested never answer their phones!! It's so frustrating!! 

 So like i said we have a lot of time on the streets, and a sisters apartment in our district has a really bad cockroach problem, so we got it approved that the Elders would go kill as many cockroaches and try to get rid of the problem. and the day we scheduled it was perfect because it was raining. We were there for like 5 hours and we sprayed Raid in every single crack in the apartment. In total we probably killed close to a thousand cockroaches at least! There was one window that we knew was really bad, and Elder Aldridge was like Elder Eveson when I spray this spot, a lot of cockroaches will fall and your gonna crush them. When he sprayed the area it started raining cockroaches and I didn't smash them because they were falling like crazy and I didn't want cockroaches falling onto me. So when I was crushing them I would slap and sarcastically scream like a little girl. We were all yelling KILL THEM!! DON'T LET THEM GET AWAY!!! It was actually a lot of fun, but I'm grateful we only see 1 or 2 cockroaches in my apartment a day. It's actually kind of sad because that was probably the nicest apartment in the entire mission. 

Old Angel Moroni

My trainer, Elder Jensen and I in front of old Angel Moroni

Today they replaced the Angel Moroni on the top of the temple which was actually really cool. I saw them take off the old one but didn't stay to see them put the new one on because they were taking forever, but I got a picture with the old one which was cool, and I saw the new one in the box. President Lam said it was probably a once a lifetime experience and probably a 1/4 of our mission was there. It was a great experience.

Last Friday I had the opportunity to go to the temple which is always a great experience especially in Hong Kong. It's a great blessing to live within a small enough mission where I can go to the temple every transfer. 

Lessons are slowly becoming better for me. I feel like I talk a little more now, and can understand a little better, but at church it's gotten to the point where I've become good friends with some members, and they really help me a lot. 

Love you all and thanks for all your love an​​d support!

Elder Eveson

New Angel Moroni

Week 13 - Not much

So there is a couple of things i forgot to mention that happened last week, but it was a little crazy. So Tuesday 2 weeks ago we had a lesson at the church, and when it was over we smelled something a little funny. It smelled like birthday candles so we went into the kitchen, and there was a fire on the stove! The entire room was filled with smoke, and we had to spray it with a fire extinguisher! Funny story but me, Elder Jensen, and sister Chan really didn't know what to do. First, we tried to scoop the flame into the sink, but that actually made things worse! I think there mus have been some oil or something on whatever was burning. So i turned to the fire extinguisher and handed it to Elder Jensen. He was like "you do it!" then i said i have never used one before! He then replied "Either have I!" So yeah that was the first time I've ever used one before haha. There wasn't any damage, but since there are a total of like 5 windows in our building we had to just sit there and let the smoke slowly roll out, but there was no damage, and no one was hurt so I guess its just a fun story to tell. Sister Chan's 2 grand kids were there, and the older one was supposed to watch the younger one, but that didn't happen haha. We didn't know what to do, so we called brother Lin of the bishopric, and he had a little "chat" with the grand kid on the phone haha!

Another thing. So every Wednesday we volunteer for like 4 hours at a charity near my area called Crossroads and there I saw a centipede that was a good 8-10 inches long! It was massive, and one of the workers was like KILL IT THEY'RE POISONOUS!!! so Elder Ledingham got a shovel and destroyed it, and to finish it off he dropped a decent size boulder on it like 5 times. So gross bugs are kind of a thing here. Also every night we get into a mini war with cockroaches in our apartment. They like to hangout in our kitchen where our food is, and we will not allow it, so we team up with our flip flops and just kill every cockroach we see. 

So today is not actually my p day, it was moved to Friday because we get to go to the temple this Friday!! and they were nice enough to allow us to email today because everyone's' families would have gone insane because they didn't get an email.

Well onto my week, it was kind of a down week. We didn't teach a lot of lessons, and it was a lot of walking around to try and find people. We did get a lot of potentials, but we are hoping to do a little better this week. I have to make a lot of phones calls which really sucks because our phones are super old and you can't hear, and to add onto that I don't know how to just talk to someone. About the only thing I can do is say can we meet.... so that's always really stressful. 

Well I'm running a little low on time, but I love you all!!

Elder Eveson