Hi Family!!
It sounds like you all had fun Thanksgiving celebrations! Especially Daniel. I quite enjoyed the letter dictated from Grandma, and will be sure to write her a letter soon. Thanks for the Thanksgiving package, Dad! You were right when you said it was unexpected. Our office secretary popped her head into our district meeting on Tuesday and said "Sister Heaton, did you order groceries from Park 'N Shop?" And I was like "What? You can order groceries from Park 'N Shop?" And she was like "I don't know, but we just got 2 big boxes for you from there!" So we've been enjoying the spoils, so thanks!
For Thanksgiving here we had a Zone + Mandarin missionaries Thanksgiving dinner/lunch celebration, which included a ton of real Thanksgiving food ordered by Elder O'Gara's Dad who lives in mainland-- we all quite enjoyed it. Each companionship also made food for it-- we made funeral/Relief Society potatoes with way too much butter, which of course made it delicious. Haha. It was fun. I still have a really hard time believing Thanksgiving is already over, seeing as I've just had to start wearing sweaters this week. A huge Christmas tree has gone up in the mall by the church, and I'm pretty sure it's actually still October and this is all just a big joke, because it is way to warm and normal feeling to be the Christmas season already. Speaking of, I hit my 6-month mark last week! So fast! Mind-blowing. 18 months seems so much shorter than 2 years.
Sister Wong and I found out on Saturday that we're losing one of our wards, and we're now only covering Sham Shui Po Ward. I was sad, as I love that ward, but at the same time kind of relieved, because covering two wards is quite difficult sometimes to juggle. Luckily Cheung Sha Wan Ward meets at the same time as Sham Shui Po in the same building, so I'll still be able to see everyone.
Last night Sister Wong and I taught an English lesson, which was weird. We have this one family in Sham Shui Po ward, the Frys, who are Americans, but want to learn Cantonese and really immerse themselves in Hong Kong culture, so they attend our ward. Brother Fry is a professor at a university here, and is very open about sharing the gospel with his students. He originally wanted us to teach her, because we're sisters, but then decided to have the international ward elders teach her, but after further consideration he decided it would be best if she met sisters first, so last night we taught this Swedish girl Sophia in their home. It's weird teaching white people-- I'd say it's scarier, at least b/c it's very different from what I'm used to teaching in a cultural sense, but I think it went pretty well-- she agreed to see us again! It felt more like teaching a peer or classmate, since she wasn't much older than me and is very intellectual-philosophical. It was interesting.
Also, our investigator Tom is just the most tender little soul-- he's so great! haha. He's probably be embarrassed that I just wrote that, but oh well. He's still struggling to recognize what the Spirit feels like, so on Saturday we were teaching him about how the Spirit works and how we receive revelation, and we told him that he doesn't need to worry if he's not getting an answer right now, because God tests our faith and sometimes requires time, and he will eventually get an answer. The he was like "I'm not worried for me, I'm worried for my little sister." It was so tender!! Before he would just complain about how she was annoying, but he started talking about how he's worried about her because of some bad habits she's picked up. It was seriously the most adorable thing ever.
Some other odds and ends-- I saw a Jimmer jersey the other day, even in Hong Kong. I can't believe Russell's a teenager?!! Kind of scary. Dad asked if learning characters is part of the language program, and figure that's probably something most people would be interested to know. Apparently it used to be a few months before I started my mission, but they discontinued that program because missionaries would just focus on memorizing a ton of characters instead of building language skills that would help them preach the gospel. President Hawks especially doesn't want us focusing on characters, as Cantonese is a spoken language and reading doesn't enhance our abilities to teach and speak very much. He said he doesn't want us to start studying characters until we've been out here for at least a year, which means if I do decide to start studying characters it won't be until at least next August. I have learned a few that are frequently occurring, like I and you and gospel and at, etc. Actually, I've learned most of the characters I know from my hymnbook that has the characters and the pihngyam printed, or from when I forget my hymnbook and have to wing it from characters, because I'll listen to the pronunciation as I read each character. Also, I do run into quite a few Mandarin speakers, especially because a lot of the Mandarin missionaries (there's 10 in total) work out of our building, especially when there are Mainland visitors who come here to be baptized. Since Kowloon Tong is near a university, we do run into a high proportion of Mandarin speakers, which seems to especially be the case this last week.
Love you all! Remember the best way to be a member missionary is to invite!
Sister Heaton
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