CHRISTMAS/ SINGDAAN JIT

Merry Christmas!!

This week has been super busy and I don't have too much more time on here but we have had a lot of meals at members houses this week because of Christmas! They also gave us way too much chocolate! We literally have like 20 bags of candy and noodles! The members are the best!!

WE went to the Poon Choi Festival to do service with our ward and it is a huge festival where they promote assimilating different cultures because Hong Kong is a huge place with many different cultures and people!

We have done a lot of caroling to less active members! Very fun!

I don't have too much more time and this internet cafe doesn't allow pictures so I will send all the pictures next Monday!

I love you all! And I would love to hear from you guys!!

Gu Jeunglouh 

 Christmas Day Skype with Elder Gubler.

 Elder Gubler bearing his testimony in Cantonese.

Christmas Day Skype with Elder Gubler.  We all couldn't wait to see and hear him.

 Elder Gubler and his companions on Christmas Eve (photo courtesy of Brother Tam).

 Josh having a little one on one with Abram on Christmas Eve.

BUSY WEEK

 

Gamyaht hou ma!

This week has been a very busy week! It started off last Pday! We went and hiked the peak on the Island! It was super cool because the view was amazing and I got to hike it with Elders Frey, Adams, and Hughes who all were in my MTC group! It was super fun talking to them! They are all great guys! It was a super fun hike!

After, on Tuesday, we met with our investigator and he introduced us to his friend who we have now started to teach! We taught the plan of salvation and he really loved it! Later that night we invited him to a dinner that we had with a member and the member shared a very powerful conversion story centered around the Book of Mormon! He said that the Book of Mormon literally kept him out of jail and from going down the wrong path! It was super powerful and because of that this investigator came to church! It had previously been really hard to get him to church too!

The next day we had zone conference in Kowloon Tong which was really good! I learned a lot from it!

Later,on Thursday, we had two meals with members! Since it is close to christmas members have been wanting to feed us all the time! And at one of these meals I got to try a fish that is super famous here but I cant remember the name of it in English haha. It is literally a steamed fish and you eat it with the scales on and everything. It was surprisingly pretty good! And the good news is I am getting better at using chopsticks!

We have done a lot of christmas caroling as well but people don't really listen to us unless we have somthing free to hand out haha. But that is always fun!

Other than that nothing really happened this week! I would just say that the Book of Mormon is true and it really has the power to change people's lives like it did to this member that we met with! IT is very cool to witness this change!

I would love to hear from all of you!

Elder Gubler 

 

 This is another view from the hike.

 This was at the top of the peak. It is a wax statue of Bruce Lee haha! The guy on the left is named Stanley and he is a less active but loves the missionaries and spends every Pday with the missionaries. He is very funny and really nice!

 More pictures from the hike to the peak.

 This is the view from the Peak! This is Elder Frey who went to Skyline and was in my MTC group! He is an amazing friend and missionary!

 This is the member who shared the extremely powerful Book of Mormon story! Our investigator is on the right side in the middle!

Getting close to Sing Daan Jit (Christmas)

 

Dim a!

This past week has been pretty busy for us! During this time of the year it is super busy for the mission! We started off the week by going to some history museums last Sing keih yat. It was super cool and I learned a ton about Hong Kong. For example, for fun sometimes they would make 6000 little buns (bread) or baau in Cantonese and then they would make like a 15 foot tall tower with the baau on it and then they would fight each other for the baau that was on the very top. Very funny and cool!

After that we had a normal rest of the week a lot of our investigators were busy in Mainland China this week so we only met with one this week ( Lam Sing Sang or Mr. Lam aka Thomas) and he is super good! He says that the only reason he is still so healthy is because of God and he is doing amazing! We are going to try to extend the baptismal invitation this week!

On Sing keih Saam we went to a wedding of this girl in our ward. She is only 19 years old and her husband is 20 years old but he looks younger than me! But that was super fun because it was a Chinese wedding so it was super cool to she the different traditions!

Then on Sunday we met with a blind person in our ward! she loves the missionaries and has the strongest faith I have ever seen! it is amazing to see her every Sunday! In our Yuen Long ward there are also around 10 people who are deaf and they also love the missionaries so I have had the chance to learn a few Chinese sign language words to communicate with them. they are honestly some of the sweetest people you will ever meet even though they can't speak. It is also really cool to see them in sacrament meeting because they all just sign to each other.

Here are some cultural things:

1) here you call can call elderly males "Suhk suhk" which means uncle and elderly women "pouh pou" which means grandma and you can call the little children "sailouh" which means little brother and the little girls "muih muih" which means little sister. It is super cool because it is like everyone is one big family.

2) It is impolite when you are eating to ask someone to pass the food so you just have to reach over all of the people. and when you are eating you can just spit onto the table. So if there is a bone in the chicken you just eat it and spit it right on to the table haha.  

That is all for this week! i would love to hear how all of you guys are doing!!

Love you all!

Gu Jeunglouh

 

 This is Mong Kok. In this city you can bargain for pretty nice items. My companion bought a tech wear backpack where you can charge your electronics and has all these super cool electronic gear for 200 HK dollars which is super cheap for American money.

 This is what a street looks like. There are always all these farmer's market things set up everywhere.

 Some of the traditional Chinese clothing.

 This is in the history museum.

 This is a beautiful park in Tin Sau.

 The wedding that I had mentioned.

 Some of the different ranges in wealth.

ANOTHER WEEK DOWN

Leihdeih hou!

This week has been a very good and busy week! To start it off we just started a new transfer, so a little bit of our zone and district have changed. But I am still serving in Yuen Long and still have the same companion!

Last week we were trying really hard to get new investigators in our teaching pool and so we went finding a lot and nothing happened. But this week we miraculously gained 3 (which is a lot in a week for Hong Kong) new investigators! It has been the biggest blessing! and we taught all of them! It was super cool because all of them seem super interested in the church and they all are very different. One is 13 years old that found us on the street and asked us if he could meet with us. Another is  about 22 years old and he is super cool trendy guy that is really sincere about everything and said he would try to move his work schedule so he could come to church one Sunday. and the other is a 75 year old guy that has amazing English and loves to talk to us about Jesus and tell us his life stories! So this week has been really good teaching wise!

Other than that nothing really interesting has been happening. We did our service at Crossroads which is always a very cool experience!

I would love to hear from you all! I hope you have a wonderful week!

Gu Jeunglouh

So this week I have been really working on my tones (Cantonese has 7 tones) so I have been saying this sentence a lot. All the words might look the same but they all sound very different and have very different meanings.

I didn't take any other pictures because I forgot to carry my camera around haha.
​

Leih hou!

This week has been really good! It started last monday when we got to go play some soccer on the courts with all the other missionaries. We have started to do this every single monday and it is super fun! I love playing with all the British missionaries they are pretty good! Later that day we got together with a few other missionaries and played some board games and then went back to Yuen Long to go look around.

Later this week we met with Donald who is the kid that had the Bible and came up to us and asked to meet. I explained a little about him last email. He is 12 years old and we taught him the restroation and he really liked it! This lesson was super powerful. I have been starting to understand a lot more and speak a lot better which has helped me a ton and I was just super happy I could understand almost everything he said. After we taught him to pray and my companion offered to pray and right as he was about to start, Donald started praying and his prayer was so sincere and real! It was super cool!

Later we met another investigator named Steven. He wants nothing to do with the church but he likes missionaries so he took us out to dinner at an American Pizza place (american pizza is sooo much better than chinese pizza.) At this dinner we were filling up our drinks and a random old dude named Thomas Lam came up to us and said he had a real interest in learning about Jesus. Then he started speaking english and said, "I want to rekindle my knowledge about christ." it was super cool another answer to our prayers. we will meet with him this week!

Now for some chinese culture. It isn't rude to spit your food out onto the table. So when you eat meat (almost all meat has bones) you can just eat it and spit the bones on to the table. Also here it is rude to ask people to "please pass the food." it is rude becasue they have to put down their chop sticks and give you the food so you just have to reach over them and get the food you want. I still am not very good with chop sticks so eating with members is always funny because they make fun of me for how bad I am with teh chopsticks haha!

We also had thanksgiving this week where we met with our whole zone and cooked some cobblers and then a turkey! it was super fun! I really love my zone so much! We also had a member that owns a cha su faan resturaunt cook us some food as well and the food he cooked us was amazing! it was this pork with this amzing sauce and some rice! super good! We were then challenged to think of things we were thankful for and and fill up 2 pages in our journals with them. It was super cool 

Other than that nothing much happened! I would love to hear form all of you and how your weeks went!

Gu Jeunglouh

 Christmas time in the mall that is under our apartment

 another ward thanksgiving party that we cooked a turkey for! this was a first for all of us. none of us had ever cooked a turkey before!

 there are a lot of parks everywhere, but you dont usually see young kids playing in them. you always see the elderly people playing on equipment like this

GIVING THANKS
 

Leih hou!

This week has been a very fun and busy week! To start it off, last monday we went to another BBQ place for Elder Siddoway's birthday! It was super fun and there was a ton of weird foods, some of which I didn't even bother to try! Elder Siddoway is the best! Make sure to wish him a happy birthday even though it was last week! Then after we went to the Hong Kong history and science museum! It was super cool to learn about the history of hong kong! I also got to lay on a bed of nails while it raised me about 2 feet and it didn't even hurt!

In Hong Kong they don't celebrate Thanksgiving but the Yuen Long ward really likes the idea of giving thanks and being grateful and humble so they decided to do a thanksgiving party and we were able to make brownies and a turkey!! During this event the ward members invited firends, less actives, non members, or anyone else to this event. They then put on a play about being thankful and humble! Most of which I didn't understand but it was really cool to see! I could just feeel the spirit of how thankful all these people were for what they have! It is honestly super cool to see!

We taught a few lessons. We continued teaching Yeung Hingdaih (the master from karate kid). He comes to all of our engligh classes and he loves the gospel! He always tells us that when he is with us or the members of the church he always feels super good! He is doing really great and is really thankful for all that we do for him!

orther than that we studied a lot and went finding which is always a good time! This last night while we were finding a 12 year old kid came up to me and I thought he was looking at the english class fliers that i was handing out but he was reading my name tag and he stopped and told us that he believes in christ and then he pulled out a chinese bible and he told us he is really interested in Christ! it was super cool because he said he was the only one in his family that is chirstian! Super cool kid! and the cool part was that we had been praying for a miracle to happen because no one stops when we try to talk to them. So this past week has been really frustrating in that aspect but we prayed to find people who had interest and right before we were about to go home for the night this kid came up and started talking to us about his beliefs! The power of prayer and faith is real!!

Well that is about it for this week! Please let me know how you guys are doing I woulsd love to hear from you all!!

Gu Jeunglouh

 

The BBQ for Elder Siddoway's birthday!!

 These mirrors were at the science museum! We all thought they were hilarious!

 Our wonderful ward at the thanksgiving party!!

 The Jeung family! They are the nicest people. They always give us food and love missionary work! The orange rose picture is actually a traditional chinese cake with mangoes on it! Super good!​

 

GOOD WEEK

 

Leihdeih hou!

This week has been really good! Last Pday we went to a Korean BBQ place to eat! There were a ton of random foods there which I will send pictures of later!

We had a bunch of lessons set up this week but about 60% of them didn't show up. that is normal here. We did teach a few lessons and we taught the importance of the book of mormon! It weent really well! We also met with a few memebers. One of the families we met with (Wong Gatihng) fed us american pizza and chicken wings. American pizza is 1000000 times better than the chinese pizza because the chinese pizza has like squid and sea weed and other gross things on it. So that was the highlight of my week! They also have a little son who is the funniest kid he always comes up to the missionaries and punches us hahah!

This week we taught english class and normally we have a good amount of people show up but this week we had 4 people show up. One was a little girl who already had perfect english and spoke cantonese, the others were people who spoke Mandarin. This was super hard because I know a little cantonese and then very little mandarin. My companion also doesn't know too much mandarin either so we had to try our best to communicate with them with a mix of cantonese and mandarin. This was super hard and kind of frustrating but it was really fun! I learned some more mandarin as well as cantonese which was really cool!

We taught Yeung Hingdaih (the karate kid master) and he really wants to come to church but his wife doesnt because she doesn't want to wear dresses so this week we taught them that we just need to wear respectful clothing to church. He really loves our gospel and will continue to progress!

Other than that nothing much happend! Please let me know how you guys are all doing!

I love you all!

Gu Jeunglouh

 Here are some octopi that we ate at the Korean BBQ

 We taught a really poor farmer and this was his yard

The squatter toilet

NEXT PDAY

Leih hou!!

This week has been really good!! Just a few questions my mom wanted me to answer: For breakfast we usually eat cereal or oatmeal. We go out to eat about 3 times a week but then members usually invited us over for dinner 1 to 2 times a week and I really appreciate those! The weirdest things I have eaten so far are pig ears, and pig kidneys. They were surprisingly not too bad. For exercise we usually walk to a basketbal/soccerl court and play basketball or soccer or we do push ups or sit ups. The language is coming along super slowly!! But I did pass off my language evaluation on prayer!

This week was really cool because we did a lot of things! We served at cross roads putting packages together and sending them to Cameroon! IT was super cool becuase one of teh peopl we worked with was from Cameroon and he was super passionate about putting as much as he could in the huge shipping crate! I was really impressed by this!

This week we aslo got a new investigator named Yeung HingDaih. He is the classic chinese old man. He has a full on beard and he was a stunt man and he really loves Kung Fu! He looks like the old trainer guy from the old Karate Kid movie. But we met him at our english class and he came up to us and told us he had never felt anything like this before. He said his heart was burning. This was really cool! We met with him one more time and the nwe took him to church and we are going to continue meeting with him!

I still don't understand very much of the language especially when they speak really fast but I have been learning about 20-30 vocab words a day and I will keep moving the number up and up. But I have been slowly improving on my understanding of what people are saying. So that has made me really happy!

Other than that I played soccer with Elder Siddoway and a few missionaries form ENgland Which made me super happy! We are going to do that every monday morning!~

Please let me know how you guys are doing! I would love to hear from every one of ;you!!

Ngoh Ngoi leihdeih!

Gu Jeunglouh

 We learned how to make balloon animals.

 Soccer court at night! Every night there is a game going on!

Soccer with all the Elders! We can buy full soccer kits here for about 5 american dollars so that is really cool!

 ​some nice chicken legs!

I Don't Know What Week I am On But My Birthday was This Week!

 

Leih hou!

Well this last week was my birthday and it convieniently was on last Pday so to start off the week some members took us to a really good steak house that had some american food! That was really good and it made me really happy because they bought me some dessert as well! The members here are so nice!! we also went to 10,000 buddhas which was insane! there were literally a million buddha statues that lined both sides of a hiking trail all the way up the mountain!

After that we went back to our normal schedule which is:

wake up at 7 adn then go exercise which is usually playing soccer on the outdoor courts or playing basketball

we then eat breakfast and study for 3 or 4 hours

then we have lunch

then we go out finding or go teach a lesson

then we come back for dinner

and then we head back out to go finding or teach another lesson.

Finding is really hard and long work becaue I can still only have simple conversations with people but I am getting better! other than that nothing really happened this week. We did have a bunch of people that we were going to teach just not show up for lessons. This happened like 4 times thsi week so we didn't really get to teach that much.

We also went on a hike with the members on thursday and went through the nature part of my are which was really cool it was unlike anything I have ever seen!!

Please let me know how you all are doing! I love you all!!

Gu Jeunglouh

 The people in Hong Kong like their cars!

 10,000 Buddas

 Me and Wyatt at the top of the hike.

 Some members took me to a steakhouse for my birthday and bought me dessert!