Week 87 - Merry Christmas

Another great week in the Hong Kong!!! This last week we had our Zone Christmas party and that was a lot of fun and had some pretty good food as well! Me and Elder Frey decided to give the turkey a shot, so we made the turkey for the entire zone and for some reason people actually said it was good! So I guess I can call that a success! At the party we had a white elephant gift exchange thingy and there were some pretty good gifts and pretty pathetic ones as well. The worst was some athletes foot spray and a sister got it and was not very pleased!! So once again it was a lot of fun!

Honestly other than that not a lot happened, people are always busy during Christmas time so we didn't teach as many lessons as usual, so I guess everything is about the same when it comes to investigators. 

Yesterday we got to visit a member for Christmas which was a lot of fun, but other than that not a whole lot of stuff to talk about this week.

I guess it was nice to talk to the family bam as well! The next Skype day is Mother's day May 13! I'm coming home May 18 haha just thought that was a little funny!

well love y'all and merry Christmas!!

Elder Eveson

Turkey before

Turkey after

 we visited sister Lau last night!

Week 86 - 5 Months Left

Well I don't have alot of time today but this was a good week. I did finally get my release date for May 18 which is kind of crazy that there' is only 5 months left..

Well this week was alot of fun. On Thursday we had Zone Conference which was great as always, but this time I had to help give a training in front of like 60 missionaries. It was pretty scary, but I thought it went pretty good. Our Zone Leaderships topic was "You are what you eat" and the focus was on feasting on the words of Christ which is found in 2 Nephi 31 20. Our invitation was to have everyone one study the life and teaching of Jesus Christ and try to apply it in their own life, and also into their teaching, so I thought it was pretty good.

On Friday we had our ward Christmas party which was fun as always, and on Saturday we had an English class which included 2 pinatas of course. The funniest part was after all the kids had gotten their turns hitting the pinata it still was going strong so we called over a member and she destroyed it and the candy went flying! Yeah it was pretty fun.

This week has also been good finding. We got 2 new investigator this week, and the work seems to be moving forward!

Love yall and have a great week!

Elder Eveson

Elder Turley as Santa

Me terrance and Harold at the Christmas party

the group

me and Elder Stober at the peak

this wild pig scared the crap out of us

mirror selfie

Week 85 - MLC

Well this was a pretty fun week here in Hong Kong. A couple of cool and interesting things happened this week. Well let's start off with the good stuff. On Wednesday we had MLC (Mission Leader Conference) and that was a lot of fun we got into a big discussion on obedience and also on are we doing what Elder Evens taught us 1.5 months ago by talking to everyone and asking 100% for referrals. When I looked back at myself, no I didn't do that especially on the subway standing next to thousands of people on a single train. That's something I've become motivated to do better at, and even though I haven't been able to receive any numbers on the trains I have talked to several pretty cool people on the trains. Also during MLC we had a nice surprise, one of my last companions Elder Smith (now Calvin) was in Hong Kong for 1 day and I ran into him in Kowloon and I was super excited! Then that night I had a missionary meeting with the Stake President to discuss the status of the zone with him and that was also pretty fun. I said some things I didn't even know I can say! I had to lead most of the meeting because my ZL (Zone Leader) companion Elder Taylor has been here this area for a week haha. He was super stressed out!

On Thursday things got pretty interesting. Me and Elder Frey witnessed a mugging and a old man getting beat up by a couple of thugs, and even though hundreds of people saw it we were like the 1 of 3 people who waited to talk to the police, so I was interviewed for like a hour in Chinese about what happened! Yeah that was pretty stressful but I can check that off the bucket list!

On Saturday the Zone sang Christmas songs in a mall and that was a lot of fun. The best part was people actually thought we were good haha! Then Sunday was also pretty interesting we met with a new guy who turns out to be completely nuts we met his 4 personalities haha. That was also a experience to remember haha.

Well that's it, love y'all!

Elder Eveson

 me and Calvin! (he went to Malaysia for the weekend and had a layover in HK for a day)

The trio all made it to MLC!

Week 84 - Tai Po Biking

Sorry not alot of time this week, but I will just name a couple of the highlights from this last week. so last week we went to Tai Po to go biking, and I'm gonna say that was one of the most fun/ painful pdays of my mission! We rented a 4 man bike that was designed for Chinese people, and let's just say every time we pedaled our knees would hit a solid metal rod on the bike haha. It was alot of fun and some legs were sore for the rest of the day haha.

Um other than the regular we had dinner with our investigators the Au family and that was alot of fun and they pretty much committed to baptism without us really even talking about it, so that was pretty cool, so now its the process of getting them there now! I'm super excited to see this family grow into the church!

Love you all and hear from you next week!

Elder Eveson

Our adventures while biking!

Week 83 - Thanksgiving

Wow this week has been super amazing and the work in NTK is finally starting to get where I want it, but first we got move calls this last weekend and me and Elder Frey are staying together for another transfer, so that means I am now going on 10 months in NTK! The only thing really changed is that Elder Earls is moving to my aunts ward ZL Victoria 1 and my new ZL companionship is now gonna the Elder Taylor from England! So that's gonna be fun, The only annoying thing is I'm the only one out of the 4 zone leadership spots that are staying the same, so I guess Im gonna have to "hold down the fort" for a little as to figure out how the zone is.

This week we had Thanksgiving! It was a lot of fun and we ate a lot of food! We played some games as a zone, and the turkey was pretty good! Then that night we met with a referral from the new T's and she's pretty golden! She said she was gonna go home and read the Book of Mormon without us even inviting her, then that Sunday she brought her entire family to church and they liked as well! This is the first time and probably only time I will ever be able to teach a family on my mission and I'm so excited! Also Terrance accepted a Baptism Day on January 7, so pray for him because I think he is almost ready too!

Then on Friday I had the chance to go on exchanges to Tai Wai with Elder Stansfield and that was also a lot of fun being able to go to another area, and see how it is doing. I think they are doing good, and the work in Hong Kong is moving forward. It has also been about 1 month since Elder Evens visited us and told us the better way to find, and in 3 weeks in November the mission already surpassed last months NI number and last week was a 5 week month, and last week was the highest NI number President Lam has ever seen in 1 week! and that was 50! So good things are happening, and the mission should be able to build on this success for the rest of the year and into next year as well!

love you all for the love and support talk to you next week!

Elder Eveson 彥長老

Zone Thanksgiving Dinner

Exchange with Elder Stansfield

Week 82 - Finding

Wow another great week in the Hong Kong. The weather is now finally starting to cool down now. It's down to a low temperature of 19 degrees Celsius, which is like 65ish in Fahrenheit. but I love it! Finally I'm done with sweating 24/7!! Yeah if you didn't know I prefer cold over heat any day. This week we were able to get a new investigator named Ken he was found from a potential sheet from 2014 haha.  I was super surprised he remembered us and even met with us 2x! He's pretty chill, so he has already committed to come to church this coming Sunday, so we will see what happens, but I've already seen some cool things happen and having more people to teach since I started training. 

This last week we also tried to basketball finding again with the same group of kids from a couple of weeks ago, and even though it was a close game the Elders came up on top again, but this time after the game we were able to actually talk and get to know them a little better, and we even ran into a LA from like years ago and played with him a little bit as well, and somehow we were also able to get them to play soccer with us, so the hope is in a couple weeks or so we can get these kids listening to lessons some time soon. Sadly my jump shot was pretty cold that day, but I did get some nice drives to the hoop against these kids, and actually dribbled through like 5 people to score a goal in soccer too haha.

Then last Friday we had the chance to help paint a members house with a members non member husband, that was a lot of fun especially since I really haven't been able to any service since I got to Ngau Tau Kwok 8 months ago. Sadly you all know me there's no photo evidence this ever happened, so you're gonna have to believe me.

Then yesterday we had stake conference which was pretty good. I got to see some of the family again. I gotta see my nice grandma along with you know like all my moms friends growing up. So I got showered with food again haha.

So yeah that was the week! love y'all talk to you next week!

Elder Eveson

Got to meet op with Zero

10,000 Buddhas

It's that time of year

Week 81 - Would you rather have 100 chickens sized T rex's or 1 T rex sized chinken?

I couldn't think of a title so the title is a quote said by Elder Turley this last week.

Wow this was a busy and very fun week! Something we have been struggling with lately is finding people to teach, and we made that a priority at the beginning of the transfer, and now we are starting to see our hard work pay off. We were able to meet with 3 new people this last week and 2 of the 3 said that they had solid interest to learn about the gospel, so we are super excited to see what else can come from our efforts. Also for this last week we also have another 2 new people scheduled as well! So let see how the next couple of weeks pan out. There was a 12 year old kid and when I asked him "Do you know why we want to meet with you?'' he was like yeah I know you're missionaries and your gonna teach me about God so let's gets started. I was kind of mind blown and he accepted the restoration super well. After the lesson we talked to him for like another 30 or so minutes and so I think he has some solid interest and he already said his parents are ok with him meeting us, and as I asked if he had any friends that wold be interested in our message he said "yeah I gotta will try to bring them to church next week! Man this kid Jack is a stud, and he should be good!

On Wednesday I had the chance to have a stake correlation with President Lam and the Stake President in my stake. It's pretty much a massive report on how all the missionaries and investigators in the zone are doing, and how the stake can help them out and give some advice. To be 100% honest I was pretty nervous because the entire meeting is in Chinese and I'm kind of new to all these reports I need to do now, but it was super good. I got some good feedback from President Mak and language never was a problem. 

We were also finally able to meet with our buddy Terrance who has been hard to schedule the last couple of weeks, but he's been doing good we had a good lesson with him last night. It's more of a process for him. I really believe he will be baptized soon, so keep him in your prayers!

Love you all and thanks for all the support it's crazy to think I got less than 6 months left!

Elder Eveson

Apply Store emailing

Week 80 - Mission Tour

This was a great week here in Hong Kong, and it was a very motivating week as well. Elder Evans of the 70 visited us and the crazy thing is he didn't prepare anything specific he just prepared spiritually and just followed the spirit and it was sooooo good! He taught us a more effective way of finding and he said "I really believe this method will work you just need to faith that it will. We don't need to work harder for more people to teach, but instead to work smarter" and that method is on the 2nd page of chapter 9 of Preach My Gospel titled "Teach when you find and find when you teach".He said ask everyone for referrals especially the recent converts of the ward because they will want to share their testimony with their friends right after they get baptized. I also really liked when he literally spent an hour talking about the 1st 5 pages of the Book of Mormon. My favorite part of that discussion was he read the first verse in the Book of Mormon so 1 Neph1:1 and the first line says" I Nephi having been born of goodly parents" then he said the very 1st verse to the restoration of the gospel talks about the importance of families. I've read that verse a thousand times and that has never crossed my mind, and he did that with another 8 verses in that same chapter, so that just proves the power of the Book of Mormon because there were people in teachers when he talked about this.

Then on Tuesday we had mission leadership council with Elder Evans where we just discussed everything we learned, and established some new mission goals. So the mission goal for confirmations this year is 242 and we currently have 154. so 88 left for 2 months. That was a big discussion and at the end of the day we decided to keep the number and doing everything we humanly possible to achieve that goal, then pray for miracles. We know its probably not gonna happen but we talked about ending the year strong and keeping the goal for next year and actually exceed. Elder Evans should be a motivational speaker because when he talks the room is filled with the spirit.

Then on Thursday night we went basketball finding and I swear every person there had handles like Kyrie and they all started laughing when we asked to play, but they let us in. They had all the flashy moves but us Americans stuck with the basics and rebounded and knocked down our shots, and luckily my 3 point game was on point that day. We actually smoked both teams we played, and they invited us to play with them again, I see that as a success!

Well I'm running out of time but Saturday we had a ward party in Sai Kung.  It  was a lot of fun. We had a bbq, did some hiking and tossed the football. Also there is a members son who just graduated from BYUI and he actually moved into one of my old student wards, and knows some good friends of mine from BYUI, so small world!

Well that's it for this week love y'all and talk to you next week!

Elder Eveson

we saw a praying mantic

us and Daniel (the guy from BYUI)

me and Harold

Week 79 - 18 months

Well I have officially hit 18 months now, and that's actually super hard to believe!  Actually not a lot happened this week. We have actually just been hitting the streets talking to as many people as possible. We have had some success, but the hardest part is now turning them into investigators, so we are starting over and focusing a lot on finding. We still got investigators, but they are all super busy with school, so we can only meet with them on weekends, and that leaves us with a lot of time for finding, so wish us luck! Other than that we had a ward Halloween party last Saturday and that was a lot of fun umm yeah..

This upcoming week will be a lot of fun though. Tomorrow Elder Evans of the 70 is visiting the mission. On Thursday I have MLC with Elder Evans where all the ZL and STL discuss all the needs of the mission and President Lam trains us on what he wants us to focus on during the month. Then Saturday we have our "ward vacation" where they bus us somewhere for the entire day for run activities and we are going to Sai Kung, the most beautiful part of Hong Kong, so yeah its gonna be good week!

Love y'all!

Elder Eveson

Ngau Tau Kok Ward missionaries

Week 78 - Training

So this was a very good week in the China Hong Kong Mission! On Thursday I picked up my trainee fresh out of the MTC, and let's just say he has already made me a better missionary! His name is Elder Frey from salt lake and he is fresh out of high school, but he is already so diligent and wants to talk to everyone. We have already seen some cool things happen since we have been together. The coolest thing about him is he doesn't scare to do anything even though he really doesn't know any Cantonese yet, but he will do everything I ask. So something I have had him do is sit next to an old man in the park and leave him all alone to talk to him haha. At first it was more as a joke, but since he does it, it's some good practice because they can't run away from us like a lot of people do! So it's super cool just how enthusiastic he is for the work, and we have gotten several phone numbers in the last couple of days, so hopefully some of those people can turn into investigators!

So hopefully some good thing will come. I'm super excited for next week Elder Evans of the 70 is coming to visit the mission for mission tour, so some good things should come from that! Sorry not a lot of time left, but love you guys and thanks for all the love and support!

Elder Eveson

8 Elders in a small cave in Cheung Jau

 We got rained on Ii guess that's what happens when you go a day after a typhoon!)

Human pyramid!d 

My new son!

Week 77 - Let the Chaos begins

It's that time again transfers! So there are 28 new missionaries coming in this transfer, and like 6 leaving haha. So I know this transfer was a headache for President Lam! But anyways so Elder Rodriguez and I are both staying at Ngau Tau Kok and are both gonna train a greenie fresh out of the MTC! So there will once again be 2 companionships of Elders in our ward. Also I'm going to be the new Lions Rock Zone Leader! It should be fun and my Zone Leader companion is gonna be my MTC companion Elder Earls! So it should be alot of fun! Also some good friends are also opening some areas in my zone too! Yeah so pretty much every companionship in the mission is having changes but luckily I don't have to open a new area.

The rest of this week was really good except yesterday sucked. There was  another typhoon, so Church, Priesthood session of Conference were both canceled and we didn't get cleared to go outside until 7:30 pm. Let's just say we did studies and deep cleaned our apartment and did extra personal study and language study for another 6 hours haha.

We were able to meet with alot of people this week though! We met with an investigator we haven't seen or heard from in 4 months. Gotta meet with the coolest LA in the world who drove us from Kwun Tong to Kowloon Tong! Harold took a massive step forward this last week progression wise! Oh yeah yesterday was Elder Rodriguez's birthday, so we celebrated that on Saturday where a member took us to eat Korean bbq! So yeah it was a good week and we will see what happens in the coming weeks!

love yall!!

Elder Eveson彥長老

KBQ

 Last weeks Pday squad

One of the coolest people ever Aiden!

 gotta see my buddy Tyler from the new T's

 I had muffin mix and no oven so we steamed it and it worked!

Week 76 - When you're down you can only go up!

Well this week was a little on the interesting side. To start off our most progressing investigator blocked our phone number and me and Elder Rodriguez were super confused. After a couple days with no luck of contacting him, I finally asked our Bishop to try to contact him. Let me tell you this last week required a lot of praying on my part to allow us to get a hold of him and find out what happened. As the week went on nothing changed and honestly I was a little down at the time. I kept thinking "What could I do better". On Friday we got to go to the temple which was great by the way, but I prayed so hard for that guy. Then that night I asked the Bishop to try to contact him, and he was able to. But yeah everything is good now! He came to conference and was still as enthusiastic about the gospel. He told us the reason he blocked us was because he was busy with exams and didn't have anytime to talk to us. He apologized and admitted he was pretty dumb to do that haha. So everything is good now!

Also we got to watch conference over the weekend, and it was probably one of my favorite conferences. One of my personal favorite was Brother McCallister who just listed like 100 reasons why the Book of Mormon is true and it is impossible for it to be fake! Also Elder Anderson's talk to end conference had all the missionaries and President Lam in tears by the end, and just solidified my testimony of living Prophets! So in the end this week even though it had some struggles in the beginning really ended up being an amazing week and something I will remember for the rest of my life.

By the way, I got the see my entire family yesterday as well! It was a unexpected surprise but it was great to see them all!

Elder Eveson

Me and Harold after conference

District Temple Day

Family Attended General Conference

Week 75

Another great week in the beautiful HK! Well to start of the week last Monday we went bowling, and lets just say that I had a pretty good game! I broke my high score!!! It used to be a pathetic 125, but now its a respectful 145!! Well actually after the 9th frame we ran out of time and our lane shut down, and I was pretty mad, so I gave myself a respectful 9 for my final frame, so that's how I got that number. I even told Sister Lam about what happened and she also told me to tap on a 9 for that frame, so that how that goes.

This week we have had a lot of ups and downs with some off our investigators. Some have taken big steps forwards, but others have taken big steps backwards, so honestly only time will tell what happens with some of these people. Elder Rodriguez and I can only do so much to help these people, but in the end they need to act for themselves, and to be honest some of them have stopped, which is honestly the most stressful thing ever for a missionary. 

Other than that we have been trying to find new investigators and more people to teach, but right now the entire mission is struggling with finding  new investigators, but we are trying our best to find the prepared people in NTK (Ngau Tau Kok).

Well yeah that's all  really happening right now. We haven't had the chance to watch conference yet we still gotta wait until this weekend because they gotta translate the entire thing into Chinese and that's pretty hard. However I am super excited because we get to go to the temple this Friday!!! It should be fun!

love y'all hope you enjoy my 1 picture from the week!

Elder Eveson 

Bowling with other Elders

Week 74

Wow another great week in Hong Kong! I don't have alot of time, but actually not much really happened this last week. But I do have some good news! So the person I interviewed last week for baptism Mr.. Kwok, well he got baptized and confirmed yesterday!! So that's super exciting.

I guess I can talk a little about some investigators, so ummm our Bishop has been helping us alot the last couple weeks with what we can do to help our investigators, and he has taken some responsibility to talk with the parents that don't support their kids in coming to church. So yesterday we actually had like over a hour unofficial meeting with him about the situations on 2 investigators, and we got some super good advice and some scriptures to back up what we are trying to teach. It was honestly something I actually never have thought of, and he whipped out his iphone and found the scriptures real fast something that would have taken me hours to find if I was on my own. So now we have some direction on what we can teach, and I really think it can help our investigator Terrance overcome his questions. Also he really wants to meet another investigator Ivy's mom about letting her be baptized!! Man I love that guy. It's great I have always had an amazing Bishop to work with in every ward I have served in. Even though the number is only 2 wards and 3 bishops, but its always great to have his support and guidance!

Love you all and thanks for the love and support! Talk to you all next week!!

Elder Dylan Eveson 彥長老

 Bus selfie

First real burger in over a year!

 This is how Chinese lose their money!! (Popular gambling game in HK call Mah Jong)

Read the characters on the gate! (means I love you)

Week 73 - Zone Conference

Wow another great week in  the books. Of course the highlight of the week was that we had Zone Conference this last week, and as usual it was great! The topic this time was Faith in the atonement, and President Lam honestly just led a massive discussion with us missionaries, having us share our experiences with Faith. It was really a spiritual uplifting experience, and it was great to see a lot of friends from my previous zone. I was able to hear some "miracle" stories from other missionaries and how they had to act on their Faith, and only then did the miracles occur.

Another cool experience was that on Saturday I was able to do a baptismal interview with an investigator from Tai Wai. You could say he was kind of a "Eternagator" but he's getting baptized next Sunday. He was pretty funny. I asked him "why do you want to get baptized?" and his answer was great "well I want to go to heaven, and baptism is essential so that's why" I was kind of laughing on the inside and it put a smile in my face, but he has a super strong testimony,

Well those are the highlights of the week love ya all, and can't wait to hear from you next week!

Elder Eveson

Photos are from Adventures in Stanley last p day

Standing on water