Another Day in Paradise, Wait -- Hong Kong!

Hey!

This week has been pretty uneventful actually, it's been busy, but I can't for the life of me think of what we did.  We've got so many missionaries here from England. Also, we haven't watched the Women's Conference yet, I think that's this Saturday for us. I'm super excited! We're going to try to get Echo (our investigator) to come with us! 

Fun fact, Sister Hoghseno, a sister in our apartment is from Germany! Maybe I'll have her talk in German and send you a video.

It's so weird to me that it's getting cold there! It's still so hot here! 

So this week has been an interesting one. We went to a potentials house and he made us amazing American style food, then threw in some pig knuckle too, just for fun. It tasted pretty good, but the texture just about got me. But the food was amazing. Also, we are now drowning in Moon Cakes. Tis the Season. We were able to meet with Echo and Sophia, and we had a snack from a dim sum place. 

This picture was of the cute little table set up just for us! In the middle of the sidewalk. So fun. 

Echo's doing amazing, we're hoping to see her again this week. She's so in tune with the Spirit and has so much potential.

We also met with Sara a bit and she's getting ready for her baptismal date. it's coming up fast!

The next picture is of a cute little yellow pom pom tree. It's so cute and made me so happy. Reminded me of you Linz!

So today, the reason I'm emailing so late is because we actually met up with Jenny for lunch!!! She came back to Hong Kong for a few days and so we came all the way back to West Point to see her. It was so fun to be able to talk to her, which I thought wouldn't happen for a long time. What a tender mercy!

That was basically my week. Just working and trying to get better at the language and teach people about the gospel. Just another day in Paradise! No wait, that's you guys... Just another day in Butterfly! Hope this week is great for you all! Talk to you next week!

All my love, 

Sister Peck

Mission Inception!

​Hey Family!!!!

The missionaries emailing their families.

Wow, what a week! It's been super busy and really nice actually. We hardly had time to slow down. Some fun things this week:

We went to the giant Gunyam statue on Monday! It's a huge white Buddhist statue in Tai Po.

 Legend tells of a white woman who visited China a long long time ago... The members here love to think it might be Jesus and that people just got confused... Who knows? Maybe. It was even taller than the Big Buddha statue. 

And we got to write scrolls with calligraphy pens. Super fun. It was so peaceful there. Oh, and I went with Sister Ramboz!!!!! We were celebrating our 1 year since we met at USU! Who'd a thought we would celebrate it at a giant Buddhist statue? Super fun!

Also, I got the package!!! Thank you mom!!!!! Everything was like Christmas!!! It was all exactly what I love!!!! You know me so well mom. ;) Even down to the big sharing sized candy bags. You've obviously done this missionary thing before... Our apartment is very grateful. We had mac and cheese this week and I thought I would die of happiness. 

We had an amazing dinner with a couple in our ward and the Elder's investigator.

It was his birthday, so we got a cake and celebrated. Lui Jm is an amazing cook. 

She's Filipino and her husband is Chinese. We had chicken and spaghetti and potatoes, it was all so yummy. And NO chicken feet. :D Lui Jm's (Jimuih) conversion story is amazing too.

We also got a traditional moon cake this week! The first of the season!!! It was super good. The kind with the egg yokes inside. So fun!

Other things this week, Sara and Nico came to church this week! She's going to make her baptismal date!!!!!! We're so happy! It's been so cool to watch them develop faith and build their testimonies.

We had a meeting with a less active and ended up fasting with him yesterday that his wife would open her heart to the church and to the idea of meeting with us. It was such a cool experience. Sis. Webb bore a really powerful testimony about the lost sheep. So cool.

One of my favorite parts of being a missionary is seeing people notice that our church is different. There are so many churches in Hong Kong, and religion is viewed as more of a side thing, under education and work. So it's cool to see them take notice of our church and tell us that there's something special about it. 

The title is Mission Inception because Sis. Webb and I were talking about how really this mission is just a mission within a mission. Our other mission is this life on Earth. We spend time away from our Heavenly Parents to learn and help others come back to live with them again. It reminded me of the sign in our foyer while Chris was on his mission.  It says something about how missionaries leave their families for two years (or 18 months) so that others can be with their families for eternity. That's our mission. I'm so grateful for what the gospel has done for me. I hope I can help someone else have that happiness too.

Love you all so much! Hope this week is amazing! Thanks for all the prayers, I do feel them.

Till next week!

Sister Peck​

What Even Happened This Week?

What's up?

So yes, It's been one of those weeks. No idea what happened... So glad to hear about how everyone's doing! Yay for Alaska, it looks beautiful!! And I could use some of that cool weather if you want to send some my way... Today's a doozie, Hong Kong's summers are killer.

Last P-day we went to Sara (our investigators) house and she taught us how to make fish and squid and stuff. I mostly sat and talked to Sister Martin's trainee Sister Scott. It was pretty fun. I have to admit, squid is a little rough for me, and the big black pieces of fungus aren't my favorite either. The fish was super good, though watch out for the bones! She's a super good cook, it was so sweet of her.

Oh, to answer some questions, we're working with only a few people right now. We've got Sara and her son Nico, Echo and her daughter Sophia, and Sam. Those are our main people right now.

We invited Echo and Sophia to a concert night called Let Your Light So Shine, it was super super cool!!! There were all sorts of different songs, some church related, some not. A girl from BYU was there too! Sidney Walker performed Wishing you were somehow here again, and Colors of the Wind. It was beautiful. There was a super cool drum group too that played the drums that you hear in Avatar!!! I got so excited. All the instruments were super cool and half of them reminded me of Avatar, so that was cool. Sophia loved it so much! I loved it too!!!!!! And Echo said she's curious to hear more about the church!! So that was cool.

A cool moment this week was when we were walking home from church and we got to the bridge when a voice from behind said "Sisters!! We've been looking for you!" ok... weird... So we turn around and are super shocked to see this ginormous white guy behind us. Like way tall. Like normal guys from idaho, but compared to these tiny Hong Kong people, they definitely towered. He and his friend had just flown to Hong Kong, then were going to China for work for a few days. They looked up a church service and came straight from the plane!! They had their suitcases and were in shorts and a t-shirt and said that they'd chased us to the bridge. Apparently I'm not used to people yelling "Sisters!" at us cause we didn't even hear them yelling! Oops. So we walked them back to the church since Tuen Muhn was about to start their meeting. We walked into the small foyer and man I wish you guys could've seen the poor ward member's eyes. They just about popped right out as they saw these ginormous white guys from Idaho walk in. It was great. Needless to say, we don't see many white people here... I was so impressed by their decision to go to church in a different country. It just goes to show how important going to church really is. The sacrament is so so important. I was so grateful for their example.

We also had sister Hogsheno's birthday!! so we had Tim Tam slams. so fun!!!

Oh and Loren, you'll love this part, we had a Filipino dessert FHE and Sis Webb and I helped two cute Filipino girls get there. We made these little milk banana crepe things that are fried with brown sugar stuff? I figured you'd probably know it? I thought you'd be pretty excited about that. :)

That's about all the time I have for now! Love you all! Remember that no matter what, Heavenly Father is watching out for each and every one of you. Miracles happen each and every day if you watch for them. Love ya!!!

Sister Peck

(Pics of the apartment):

An Interesting Week. . .

​Hello!

To answer your question, typhoon recovery is good, Hong Kong is pretty used to it for sure, though I guess this last one took them by surprise a little. Poor Macau is a wreck, I guess the China military had to go bail them out and help them clean up. Then we had that other level 8 right after, so cleaning up has been a nightmare. So everyone's just praying that the one hanging right off the coast doesn't hit too hard, they were predicting another 8. Right now it's just a 1 and it looks like it'll miss Hong Kong. Phew. It's already been super super unusual to have this many huge typhoons in a row. Crazy! And everyone here is talking about Texas and how it's pretty banged up. Yikes! So much crazy weather!

So this week has been an interesting one, as usual I don't know where to start... I guess I'll go in order of the pictures. 

We had FHE with a young couple and their adorable baby boy! We had pizza for dinner and it was amazing. 

And guess what... YUP! Little bitty octopuses!! I've had the pleasure of trying these a couple of times, but it's still a little weird. If you thought Pineapple was a weird topping, try this!

Trying to memorize D&C 4 in English and Cantonese...

Sister Groberg doing her amazing doorframe pullups! (Sarah, she loves rock climbing too!)

Then giving Sister Webb a haircut.

We had dinner with the Yuen family and they have three adorable kids. The elders did a fun activity about the Stripling Warriors and the kids were the warriors tackling the Lamanite (Elder Lutkin). It was hilarious.

We had a dim sum with Julia and Amy and Mr. So. Then went downstairs and they had some very large promotions for the emoji movie.

The elders sent us a text one night and I think they're turning bundeih (native). They're English is slipping...

We also had a crazy lightning storm that was so pretty. The lightning was so pretty and so frequent. I took a video.

We had a posture fixing activity, so that was fun. I think my posture's ok, but man my shoulders hurt afterwards! 

That same day, we met with a woman named Echo. We called her the other week on accident and she'd just barely dropped her other church. Complete miracle! She seems very nice, not totally interested yet, but we can tell she's definitely been prepared, so we'll see! She has a super cute daughter named Sophia too.

Church was a little weird this week. Sara, Echo, and Marco all didn't come to church, we missed half of Sacrament cause we were waiting for them, then a guy came and sat behind us during Sacrament Meeting, he sometimes comes to English class and has a HUGE crush on Sister Webb. Awkward. He's got a little bit of a mental problem as well, so it's kind of sad. And also a little creepy. So that happened. He waited the entire time we were at the church and halfway walking home, he came up and started walking with us. Sister Webb was super straightforward with him. Apparently this has been a problem for a long time. So that was exciting. Something about Hong Kong is that they just kind of let all the people with mental disabilities go uncared for, so they're everywhere. Super sad.

But on a happier note, we made banana bread to take to members probably today, and yesterday we had dinner with the King family! They're so cute!!! The dad is from America and half Japanese, the mom is from Hong Kong. Brother King served his mission in Hong Kong. They're kids are so cute! The made us apple pancakes and it was so so good.

That's basically my week. Lots of crazy things happened. But Sara is doing amazing, she's accepting all the lessons spectacularly and she basically taught us the Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson. We think she's really going to reach her baptismal date this time!!

So that's me for the week, I hope everything is going well for everyone! I love you all so very much! Have a great week!

Sister Peck

Paak Jimuih