Week 31 - Thanksgiving

Well let's start off the week from the very second I ended emailing last week. We went to Sham Shui Po where we were able to find the coveted Manchester United jerseys on the street. They were buried in the back in a bag because you know they were fake and had the Adidas logo on the bag, but they look 100% real and we got them for like 7% of the real price in a store!! 

Zone Thanksgiving Dinner

Nothing really happened out of the ordinary on Tuesday and Wednesday. We had district meeting and taught a couple of lessons, then of course Thursday was Thanksgiving!! It was so much fun, and I'm gonna be honest the turkey was super super good, and all the other traditional foods made for Thanksgiving had to be made from scratch and having some replacement ingredients such as pumpkin squash for pumpkin pie, and making a crust from scratch and baking a pumpkin in a toaster oven. A lot of people had to be very creative with some of the foods, and  we were the ones who made mashed potatoes, like 20 pounds of it!! It was a lot! We had some rap battles (about missionary work of course) listened to Elder Chen's recording of himself sleep talking and going on a rant on how district leaders are better than zone leaders haha and some other stuff. and the highlight was a zone wide Ping Pong tournament where me and Elder Jensen lost 7-0 in the finals to TSW, and I still blame Elder Jensen for the loss, but yea it was a lot of fun.

Elder Yeung and me

On Saturday we were able to visit our buddy Shawn and teach him and his kids. He seemed really interested in the Book of Mormon, so we are hoping we can continue to teach him and his whole family. After his lesson we went to our our stake's youth talent show, and it was probably the most fun I've had on my mission outside of Thanksgiving. They had some people sing, but they also did some skits. All the missionaries were all in the back corner and starting chants, waving our arms, and just laughing like crazy (most of the skits were hilarious we aren't that immature) one of the skits they did a Cinderella Parody but with a Mormon twist. Instead of a shoe it was a Book of Mormon that converted the guy, and while he's on his mission he is searching for the girl. and all the missionaries in the back are all yelling no thats MH DAK!!! (not ok) haha everyone turned and looked at us at that part of the skit. and your ward youth totally formed a band and killed it on stages. You could say this week was a a lot of fun!!

Also for some weird reason sister Tsang decided to enter the HK famous mental hospital. We weren't really sure why, so we went to visith her. She does have some mental problems, but not that bad, so we wanted to figure out why and shared a message. Also since smoking isn't allowed in the hospital, she's stopped!?

So yeah those were the highlights of my week, and today I finally get to pick up my new suit, super excited!!

Love you all!!

Elder Eveson

Trip to HK famous and only mental hospital
(not for me, just visit a sister)

Thanksgiving Dinner Food

  

  Trainer getting a taste of his own medicine!!

Week 30 - Chaos.... well not really

The title is kind of misleading but also true at the same time. Nothing really special really happened this last week, other than our other zone leader got moved and so they are white washing zone leaders right before Thanksgiving and meetings with the Stake President. So the majority of the week has been meetings and hitting the streets during those meetings.I did have to give a training in district meeting about the atonement and I thought that went pretty well. It's crazy because I was panicing that it had to be 20 minutes long, and when I was like halfway through we needed to wrap up and I didn't get to share everything I wanted. It's crazy how time flies when you are feeling the spirit.

Sorry but not alot actually happened in the Tuen Mun companionship this last week, but I will have alot more next week because of Thanksgiving!! Alot of people have asked what we are doing and we are getting together as a zone and having a massive dinner in our stake center. The only thing we have to worry about are the companionships that have to make food with ingredients that can't be found in Hong Kong!! but that's not my problem to worry about because we got the best cooks in the Mission worring on that stuff!!

Love you all and I'm thankful for all your love and support!!

Elder Eveson

彥長老 

 When the winds blows down your board and it hits you in the head

 note to all future missionaries do not fall asleep on the couch!! -Elder Fakatou

Week 29 - We are Christians

Hey everyone coming to you from Hong Kong, or I guess Tin Shui Wai Library! Well anyways this week was a lot of fun. The weather has finally cooled down! On Thursday it was a good 66 degrees F and all the missionaries were wearing sweaters under their suits, and big jackets and I was like " I would go outside in just short sleeves if it wasn't againest the rules." but of course 2 days later it was in the mid 80's again, so ehhhh thats ok. but anyways on Tuesday we met up with 2 college students who are doing a research project on the church for their sociology project, and we taught pretty everything we believe in 2 lessons, roughly 1.5 hours each (we met with them 2 weeks ago during P day ugh) they even went into myths and assumptions about the church that they found on the internet. At the end of our meeting they said they had to think of a new thesis or something like that because we aren't the cult that they thought we were along with the rest of Hong Kong! They didn't have much interest, but now they actually respect us as Christian religion!



Dinner at Bishop's home

I guess the only significant event that took place this week was we went all the way to Sha Tin to visit a member in the hospital. Don't worry we got permission, so we traveled about a hour each way to visit him. We got the times mixed up for visiting hours and we showed up 2 minutes after, but the receptionist was nice enough to give us about 8 minutes to talk and leave a small message. He was super happy to see us, and it made the trip worth it because he has gained even more trust in the missionaries. So the trip was worth it.

We did get to visit some members as well. Our super cool Bishop made us the dumplings with soup on the inside, which is suuuuper good, and we also made a cheese cake to share!! And I love me some cheese cake!! Bishop Wong also has a huge collection of airsoft guns and he just had to show them off to us! We also visited the Lau family and they are also super cool, so this week was super great! We are also getting ready to invite one of our investigators to have a baptismal date for January so the work is moving forward in Tuen Mun!

Love you all,

Elder Eveson

Don't worry they're air soft guns

Dinner with Lau Family

Week 28 - Big Transfer

 My Portland buddy Elder Cornilles is the new office Elder!

Well me and Elder Jensen will be staying another 9 weeks in Tuen Mun, but there were so many changes that happened in my zone. There were like 7 people that left, and every district has a new district leader, and Elder Jensen is also a new zone leader, so I'm going to be on exchanges a lot this transfer. We also have a new addition to the Tuen Mun apartment. Elder Mongrobang was transferred to international on Hong Kong Island and my buddy Elder Oquist who is on his last transfer is training Elder Fakatou who is from England, so I finally got someone to talk soccer with! 

Well after looking through my planner nothing really happened this week. They are filming a documentary on the church here and are following around missionaries alot, and they filmed Elder Oquist and Fakatou when they first got to the apartment. While they were in Kowloon, they told us a camera crew was coming and to clean the apartment very fast. And when they walked in my tie was down, so while I was on camera I turned around and pulled up my tie and yelled WELCOME! So when the documentary comes out I'll probably be that one Elder that is adjusting his tie haha. (Sadly I didn't make the documentary'a cut)

 Best quote ever! #teachpeoplenotlessons

Also I guess I can say this real fast but I had to teach 2 lessons with Mandarin Elders and I had to teach the entire thing because they have no idea what people are saying, and I have always struggled to understand this specific person, but the gift of tongues really does kick in when you needed it most because I understood almost everything and was able to answer all their questions with the Book of Mormon, so it was awesome. (the person was a RC so we retaught some lessons and made stuff a little clearer)

Not a lot of time left, other than I love you all!

Elder Eveson

Last Zone picture before the transfer

Dinner at the Leung's Place

Week 27 - Miracles

Well to start of this email I want to talk about an experience that happened during district meeting last Tuesday. We were reviewing everything that was talked to us about Elder Wong and I gave a little training on helping others overcome concerns. The main reason I chose that was because one of our investigators Sister Tsang said her sister won't let her be baptized and she really relies on her a lot. So I wanted some ideas from the rest of my district. Then in the middle of our role plays to help with the concerns she calls us twice ,so Elder Jensen answered it the second time, and she says that she got permission to be baptized from her sister, and received revelation on how she can stop smoking!!! We were both super happy and excited. We later met with her that night and she was super happy to share a little more, and we read Alma 32 about continuing to build on that particle of faith. and then on Sunday she came to church, and loved it! We are super excited and she gets along great with the rest of the relief society. I never knew how important member presents were until now because missionaries would come and go, but members stay. We also told her transfers were this week, and she was super nervous because she really likes me and Elder Jensen together but I'm gonna quote what she said " God knows where we need to be, so if one of you go I know another great missionary will come" She is sooooo powerful!!

On Friday, me and Elder Jensen taught a pretty bomb English class I'm not gonna lie. and we played the game telephone and when some people don't know a single word of English we were bound to get something completely different, and yes that happened. and we also had the amazing opportunity to go to the temple, and right after something crazy happened. We went to the mission office to hang out for a little, and walking back to the subway station there was a young American couple just getting out. When I got close to them I'm like "hey I know you!!" and after asking a couple of questions he's like best friends with someone that was in one of my wards at BYUI and I played basketball with him like everyday until I hurt my knee! Man small world. He told me he lives in Beijing teaching English now. It's crazy, but totally forgot to take a picture totally a Elder Eveson mistake.

On Saturday we had the 3 wards that meet in our building had a combined youth Halloween party. The missionaries planned the whole thing because Chinese people don't really know what to do but it was a lot of fun. A great missionary opportunity. There were like 7 or 8 non members there. My buddy Jacky who is 12 and a recent convert right before I got here said doughnuts on a string would be super easy and failed horribly and also said apple bobbing would be super easy and really struggled until he almost drowned himself getting an apple haha!

Transfers are this week and me and Elder Jensen are gonna stay together for another 9 weeks. that'll be 27 weeks and the end of the next transfer, so crazy!

Love you all!

Elder Eveson