This week was great! I enjoyed talking with you all yesterday! This email may include some repeats for you, since I told mom some things and dad others, but oh well.
The missionaries in our district/zone (all 9 of us) went caroling in the touristy part of town for some Christmas finding. A bunch of people took pictures of us and with us and we got a ton of emails and phone numbers, a large majority of them being from mainland. We're not sure whether our mission's allowed to email those people or not, but I really hope so! It was a lot of fun, and we could see it brought people a lot of joy.
We had a couple of other interesting experiences this week while finding. One night we were talking to a hobo on a park bench, when another guy walks up to us, and is like "Ah, you believe in Jesus?" in Cantonese, so when we responded to him in Cantonese, he was like "WAH! You speak Cantonese???" And we were like "yeah, we do," and explained a little bit about who we are and what we do as missionaries, and he was like "How long have you been studying Cantonese?" So I told him 7 months, and he says, "7 months?? I've been studying English for 7 years and your Cantonese is better than my English!! Who are you?? Teach me your ways!" We told him we have a free English class, and he was like "I will come! Teach me everything! You will be my gods!!" and we were like "Woah, calm down-- praying to God and learning the gospel can help you learn English faster-- can we exchange phone numbers so we can get in contact with you later?" and he's like "Yes!! Please! My name is David Chan!" So Sister Cook writes down his name, including the character for his last name, and gives it to him to write his number down, and he looks at it and says "One year and you already know how to write?? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU??" He was so funny. It's definitely one of my favorite finding experiences so far. Hahaha. We also had a dad and daughter almost come up to us in the park the other day when they saw that we were missionaries, so we started talking to him a little bit, and he told us, this is a Chinese man, mind you, that he's looking for a church to go to on Sunday, because he feels lost and like he has no friends, etc. So we brought them back to see the church, and he wants to come to church-- he even called us to ask us if it were ok even if his daughter wouldn't come to church if he could still come! So prepared! We're excited to start teaching him.
So I should probably tell you all more about my companion Sister Cook, since I kind of neglected to do that in my last letter. She's from Florida, has 4 months left on her mission, is my same year in school, has 3 little brothers and a little sister, and is super funny. We've been having a lot of fun here together. She plays the guitar and the banjo and the string bass and probably other cool instruments. She's cool! Our apartment has 4 sisters in it, and the other 2, Sister Law (who was in my younger MTC group) and Sister Nelson, serve in the international/English branch. Our apartment is quite spacious and we have a lot of fun together, in a good sort of missionary way, of course.
As you all know, the world ended last Friday. It was quite eventful and scary, as we all saw. We had this 13-year old returning less-active boy who loves the sister missionaries call us 2 or 3 times to tell us about how scared he was, and how the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse were going to come, and even if the world didn't end, everyone would be crazy and light buildings on fire and stuff like that. He was like "I'm not going to leave my house! I can't go to church on Sunday!" and I was like "Ji Fung, the church is a holy place, God's not going to let it be destroyed, it'll be very safe," so he was like "I'm going to come to the church then!" And I was like "You don't need to go to the church! Just stay at home if you're afraid, it'll be safe to just stay there," since we didn't want him at the church all day interrupting all our lessons and never leaving us alone. So I was like "I've got to go, see you on Sunday!" and he was like "But if home is safer I can't go to church on Sunday!" and I was like "Ji Fung, if you don't go to church on Sunday you won't be safe at home!" haha. Then he and his mom ended up coming to the church anyway to watch that Joy to the World dvd to help calm him down. Haha.
All in all, it's really cool to be a missionary at Christmas time. What better way to celebrate the birth of Christ than proclaiming his gospel? I feel like that's the best gift we can give Him, like it's the very best way to express our love for Him. We were excited to be able to go finding on Christmas, to talk to people about His wonderful restored gospel. I know this gospel is true, and that having a relationship with Jesus Christ is the best way to find true joy in life.
Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!
Love,
Sister Heaton
So I don't know what the order of these are, but there's some Christmas party pictures, including a picture with my MTC district, my favorite picture of Sister Cook ever, Christmas gifts from mom and dad, a Christmas gift from one of our investigators, a giant puppet lady that's been in the big square by our apartment that was put up for the celebration of the anniversary of Macau being returned to China, and maybe some other stuff, I don't remember.
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