Great Great Great

Sick week this week! Lots of good stuff, but I still don't have a lot to write, so I apologize haha. This weeks email may be a little lame due to our lack of time. So, super quick, ignore all of the Typos and all of that, try to enjoy/understand this letter and know that I love you despite all of my bad grammar and spelling! Sick! So. This week starting with a few of our Lessons, We met a few Less actives and investegators (As usual) The one that comes to mind, is our lesson with Brother Tang (Less active) so we met him at 3:30, the time he said would be most convenient, when we got there, just to be safe we asked him what time he had to leave, he said 4:00, so that he could pick up his son from school. So, we thought it was perfect, we had a 30 minute lesson planned. Great stuff! Anyways, the clock hits 3:35 and we just finished the opening prayer, and his face all the sudden panicked.... Says "Oh No! i was supposed to pick my sun up at 3:00 today!" so then he runs... So that was our first lesson this week... haha bad story but no time to change it! 

Next story! starting 5 minutes before sacrament. The person who was giving a talk was sick and couldn't be here. as President Nelson Says "Ask the Missionaries" Elder Hansen and I, are both asked to give 5 minute talks, with no direction, we have no Idea what to talk about and it was a disaster on my part hahaha. I think I bore my testimony like 4 times and then almost closed like twice and because I hadn't hit 5 minutes yet just started telling stories about my family.... Yeah!! Great time!! Hahaha it was alright actually (I think)

Cool, this week, we were able to see one of our investigators, Timothy, doing really well, well, he wasn't for a little bit, we hadn't seen him for a few weeks which was a little bit worrisome,  but we finally scheduled him.So, Because Elder Hansen had never met him, and I was not sure to expect, we made a plan to go over and review all of the previous lessons he had been taught with our Ward mission leader Brother Fung, we talked about the Book of Mormon, and I believe all three of us felt impressed to speak about the three fundamental parts of gaining a testimony which are Reading scripture, Prayer, and Church attendance. In the lesson, I was able to bear my testimony, after all of us testified, We could see a change on Timothy's face, he committed to do all of these three things, he rescheduled and he actually showed up to church on Sunday, and stayed the whole time! 

Anyways, if any of you are wondering... Elder Hansen and I are doing Awesome. Still hahaha Homies for days! hahaha We talk in weird accents to each other... I don't know we turn up to primary songs... We Go ham Anyways. I'll try and make more time for this email next time!! Love you guys!!

Love,

Elder Chen 

陳長老 

Pictures... The three pictures we took this week hahaha oops

1. Its hot but we thought it would be a cool picture

2 and 3. Elder Hansen and I are starting our porfolios... We going to be models 

3 Attachments

 

 

Elder Hansen... WE HAVE TO FIND THE GOLD PLATES

So. This week was pretty uneventful hahahaha, but it was still awesome because why wouldn't it be??  Things are always awesome when you are part of the sickest companionship in Hong Kong/ The World. Hahaha no, but seriously life is good when you're happy... Haha Anyways... The topic has nothing to do with the email... But I guess I can explain it... So, about a week ago, we decide that we would wake up at 6:00 instead of the regular 7:00 to get more exercise in than just the half an hour.  Lets go back a little bit... Elder Hansen is 200 pounds and I am 150... we made it a goal that I could get up to 175 and he would go down to 175 so we can be Swolldiers together... Anyways, back forward. So because we wake up so early sometimes he has to wake me up... The days he has to wake me up are the days that I have the must funky dreams... Anyways I had a dream that I told someone I met at the MTC that I would find the Gold plates. So when elder Hansen shook me awake, I slapped his calf and screamed "ELDER HANSEN... WE NEED TO FIND THE GOLD PLATES"... I ran really fast that morning... (bad story)

Anyways sorry for all these stories, they are only good if you are there... Whatever... So anyways this week we finally met with another investigator, Ms. Daai. I met her once with Elder Petersen and then I met her again finally this week with Elder Hansen, because she disappeared to go do work... So, she is a tutor for autistic kids and she's super super nice. But due to the fact that she is only in business during the school year, during the summer months, she goes out and finds around 3 different Part time jobs, so she just disappears, with very little contact. So we called her, and school started a few weeks before and she was super will ing to meet.. So we did, and it was great :) we taught her the full Restoration, and she promised to pray about Joseph Smith and The Book of Mormon... So that was on Wednesday... then on Saturday, we invited her to an activity where members and investigators could come and clean the church, unfortunately she was the only one who committed to come, and showed up (of our investigators of course) the Bishop and some ward missionaries also came out. But she just hit it off with all of the Ward Members, they all love her a lot, so like we were able to teach her the Plan of Salvation and it was really good!! 

Sorry this week really wasn't super crazy or anything it was just full of awesome  blessings that we have. Someone told this to me, that Hong Kong Mission is a mission of Obedience and Miracles, and as I have kind of observed how work happens here, that all of the baptisms that we have are miracles that would not happen if we weren't in the places at the right times, with that being said, I'm going to turn into "Stereotypical Missionary Elder Chen" and say that "Obedience brings blessings and Exact obedience bring Miracles" Elder Hansen and I have set a lot of goals to be better in the sense of obedience, we weren't blatantly breaking rules, however there is always room for improvement.  As we have noticed that, Elder Hansen and I were able to set prayerful goals in places where improvement was needed, and we have already seen the blessings from it. Stephen's Baptismal date, Meeting Ms. Daai, amazing Ward support. All these miracles have come because of our strife to be more obedient to the rules that we do have.  With that being said, obedience and sacrifice are truly the things on which all of Gods blessings are Predicated. He blesses us for our obedience to his commandments, and he can help us in any aspect of our lives. And I am glad that we get to promise that to others  as we halve them come to know the Gospel.

Before I go, I do want to share something very quickly. There is a mormon message series called "Mental Health" And its by Elder Holland, it focusses on people with Mental health issues, and how they have used the Atonement to overcome their problems. There is a quote that one of the affected people says where she says "My Heavenly Father and Savior won't give up on me... So don't you quit" And as i have failed on my mission and as I have struggled to become better, I have felt that work through me. As long as we try, The Savior and his Atonement will be there, I love that so much and I just wanted to share that with you all! I love our Savior, and the support he gives to me and provides to all of you as we all strive to be better. The Church is True! 

Love,

Elder Chen

Pictures... Due to the lack of good pictures... This is what you are left with... Sorry 

Records on Records on Records On Rain

So this week was SIIIIICK, not cuz we were sick or anything, but because it was DOOOPE! not cuz we got high, but cuz it was just An absolutely awesome awesome week!! hahaha. Cool, so this week, we had the realization, that the member book in our apartment is like a million years old, we decided to get new binders, and new member sheets and recreate the  whole thing, because recently the mission has given us a new way to create member records and its actually super sick! So if we spend maybe an hour every day recreating this member book, and it looks really really good. But that was a bad story, but that was what a lot of our week consisted of, making records and telling stories hahaha companionship unity is strong thoo!! (Bad Story)

Cool anyways, this week, we had an unplanned service activity, well it was planned, but it wasn't, so once a transfer, we go out to the front of the church and we weed the little plot of dirt in front of the sign, and we throw all the weeds away, and try to make it look nicer than it was before. Anyways, it was raining really hard... like really hard, there was a typhoon, and it poured lots and lots of rain! So we took the opportunity and just enjoyed the rain, we were in working clothes so,  we just got super wet... Elder Hansen is 100%! Shout out to Mama Nancy and Papa Kendall for Raising him! It was a fun fun time! (Bad Story)

So, another fun thing that Elder Hansen has been doing is teaching me Ballroom... i guess he did ballroom a long time ago, so he's been teaching me the Cha Cha, FoxTrot, Swing, and sometimes after daily planning, we just chill in our office and I learn how to Ballroom dance... (The Girls Part) so, if anyone wants to learn the girls part of any type of ballroom dance, YOU GOT IT! (Bad Story)

 

Honestly... I am so sorry for this email, but hopefully the pictures will make up for it! So, a few cool miracles before I go, or a really big one before I keep wasting your time with really bad pointless stories... So First Stephen, we finally found out his full Chinese name (Lo Yee Long) Literally translated into "Two Dragons" So sick anyways, aside from his dope name, he just solidified his Baptismal date, by keeping every single one of his commitments, and he meets us twice a week now, so its been really cool. On top of that, the Ward has a mission plan where they will pick one person specifically to be his fellowshipper, and the Bishop volunteered to be his fellowshipper, so we have been able to teach him so much with a ton of members, and pretty much we don't see anything wrong with his baptismal date so I'm really excited for him.

Another cool story, last night, we were able to visit with a family from our ward, the Fife Family, now the Fifes are really special, because the dad is white, and doesn't speak a lick of Chinese. And the mom is From Hong Kong and speaks both, and the kids all speak both as well, so we had this visit all in English, which felt really really weird... It was awesome! But we shared a lesson with them about families, and all the kids were being wild, but we were able to express the fact that the Happiest times and the Saddest times are always in the family and that the Gospel blesses the family in a way that we can't really imagine! I love you guys! Thanks for the emails. Hope to hear from you guys soon!

Love, 

Elder Chen

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Pictures: Sorry I couldn't find the ones I wanted to send, so this is what you get! Love you@

9/4/16 Juice Cleanse?

Hey Everyone!

Sorry that last email was an absolute fluke.... don't worry hahaha

Awesome Awesome Awesome Week.

Everything is awesome with my new companion hahaha, I don't even know where to begin, from the New companion, the Baptismal Date, Zone Conference, Meeting Less Actives, All these amazing things happened this week, and I don't even know where to begin!! Am so happy and so grateful for about everything that is happening in my life right now. Life is just 100%

Cool, since it’s more fun, I can talk about all the fun stuff that Elder Hansen and I are doing together. So first off. In Case you don't remember Elder Hansen, is literally my best friend in the Mission, we started in the MTC together and we have literally felt every emotion, from crying from sadness to crying from happiness/ laughter. So we are super tight. you could say we are HOMIES! hahaha But cool, so first day he comes into the area, we just make a ton of goals, about how we want this area to be when we leave it. Also, some goals about how we want our bodies to be when we are done with being each other’s companion. He wants to lose wait, and I want to get swoll so hahaha weird start. We are deciding to do a juice cleanse for this week, Where you only drink juice, no solid food except for Conji. Now let me back this Idea up.... Due to a lot of people being sick, President Lam, had suggested to stay away from some solid foods, and to clean out your system, try doing this "Juice cleanse" So we are doing it.... It should be exciting.  Another thing we are doing. Because the Records have been absolutely messy, something that we are doing is we are recreating the area book, it should take a little bit of time, but we will be able to know what is happening all the time!

Elder Hansen is seriously the coolest person... So, pretty much everyone in the mission knows that we are best friends hahaha so whenever we tell people we are companions they all are just like "What is President lam Thinking!?" or like "The world is ending" all jokingly of course, but a lot of people expect us just to "Waan" (Play) and so we made it a goal to work this transfer harder than ever, and it sounds good to me! Our ward absolutely loves us! We are just scheduling tons of people and we are so excited to get started again!!

Anyways, so. This week we were able to meet with one of our investigators, I'll send a picture next week, when we get one. But his name is Stephen, We used to meet him once every two weeks if that, and then he dropped off for a little bit, we didn't see him for like 3 weeks, due to work, or laziness, we weren't able to meet with him, Elder Petersen and I met with Him once before He left, and then I was able to schedule him again for another lesson with Elder Hansen, we gave him a baptismal date of November 6! So Everyone Pray for him.  The cool thing with Stephen, is that he has struggled with Word of Wisdom and various other problems, but he has been using the Nicotine patches to help him quit, however, he still smoked a 2 or 3 cigarettes a day, However, when we met with him w/Elder Hansen, he had forgotten the Patch, and he still didn't smoke that day, when we asked him how he felt, he said "I Know that God loves me because he has helped me so much with smoking." That lesson we continued to encourage him, and now he is willing to meet up to two times a week, looking forward to his baptismal date! He is powerful.

So this week, we had zone conference, and it was centered all on the Atonement, in particular how we can apply it to ourselves. It was full of note taking and writing down of feelings and promptings, the spirit was there for sure. However, upon further study, and discussion with Elder Hansen, we came upon a hymn with really fitting lyrics. Rock Of Ages: "Not the labors of my hands Can fill all thy laws demands; could my zeal no respite know. Could my tears forever flow. All for sin could not atone, thou must save and thou alone"  The lyrics to this hymn show so well the need for a savior, that it is only through him and nothing else that we can be saved or changed. There's a quote in the Addiction Recovery Program that says something along the lines of in any addiction recovery (Change) There is always a connection made to the savior. I don't know how the real line is, but to me it seems so true and so clear, that because of the savior, we are now able to put ourselves in a situation to change.

I love you guys! Thanks!

Love,

Elder Chen

We are fine.

8/28/16 Brother Fung (Ward Mission Leader) Is my Marriage Counselor...

YES! So this week!!! SOOOO SOOO SOO DOPE!!!! RRRAH! T-Rock! Hahaha Anyways, cool, so the subject of this email, begins yesterday. in Gospel Principles class. The Topic: Eternal Marriage The teacher: Brother Fung (The Ward Mission Leader) So in this class, there are only 4 Unmarried people in the class, Me, Elder Petersen, Sister Lee (Ward Member) And Ng Jeun Yin (Ward Member 17 years old) So as we enter the lesson, Brother Fung talks about the ordinance, what it means to be a good and honest spouse etc. etc... Then he asks me... "ELDER CHEN, Youre not married right?" "Right." "What are you doing to prepare yourself for marriage??" A little thrown off by the question, cuz. Marriage... Ew. I say "JOUH CHYUHN DOUH!" (Go On a mission) and then he asks "What are you looking for in a spouse?" Once again, barely gathering my bearings from that first question, start stuttering.... "Uh. Uh... Ngoh, mh Ji dou wo" (I don't know)  "Mei Lam gwo" (I haven't thought about it) And then he goes off. "Elder Chen, I started looking for my wife on my mission, when I was about a year in my mission, I started meeting people and seeing what I liked and what I didn't like! You know why I have such an awesome wife?? BECAUSE I Started looking early" I couldn't help but laugh.... But after a considerable thought... I decided against looking for a wife... Sorry for a terrible start to the email, but its the first story that came to mind... I mean it was funny if you were there...

Anyways! Cool! Powerful week! This week was so so so so cool, because Elder Petersen and I were able to organize a ward finding activity! Where we could get all the youth and whoever else wanted to come and go and street contact, and go Less active finding, a really cool activity actually! We have been preparing for about 2 weeks for it, calling all the people, we even got 25 ish members to sign up to come out, when the time actually came 10 people showed up, a little disappointing, but more than enough to get the work going, so that was a tender mercy already! Anyways, We split the people up into companionships, and some went and visited less actives with Elder Petersen and then some came street finding with me, and man we went hard for it, in 1 hour, we gave away a total of 25 book of Mormon, 13 Restoration pamphlets and more fliers than I can even count, it was awesome, got a lot of cool numbers Elder Petersen and i get to call now to follow up!! It was a blessing and a huge testimony builder that when the ward gets together in the work, the missionary work gets amplified infinitely, it was super cool to see all of the success, and how awesome some of the youth in the ward are at finding.

There is one in particular, that surprised me, A-Bill, one of our recent converts, of about a year, started off being so timid, he's 17 and he likes to play video games... Like a lot. Super quiet, but yeah, after like 15 minutes of street finding, he had no problem sharing his testimony, and he wasn’t afraid, I guess its not that hard to get over when you’re speaking your own language! hahaha but yeah its cool to know that the best missionaries are never wearing name tags, Elder Petersen and i have never seen so much success in finding for one hour. Powerful... Just Powerful hahaha.

Anyways, this week has been quite exciting, in a morning finding session, we were walking around, and some guy calls us over to a bench, he has a bag with a lot of stuff in it, and he's playing a Chinese flute... First thought that goes through my head.... "It’s a crazy... it’s a crazy... we'll stay for a little bit, share a message, and get gone..." hahaha turns out, he's just a master flutist... Taught elder Petersen and I how to play the flute... and in turn we were able to share a little bit about the Book of Mormon, we gave him the book. And in turn he said "I have something for you too" reaches into his big bag of stuff and fear starts to rush back into my head, "He's going to pull out like a dead rabbit or something, or like some weird Chinese herbs... I guess the same thing" Anyways. turns out he gave us two Chinese flutes... turns out I was a terribly judgmental person, he was normal, and so we continued to share a message about the book of Mormon, and yeah.... That was that... Now I play a flute to wake Elder Petersen up, so its a good time.

Ay! So moves calls came this week... Moves calls... Moves Calls... Moves Calls... So Elder Petersen is leaving. to Pok Fu Lam, in the Island zone, he was afraid of the Island because one of the missionaries in the apartment once upon a time said that there is a lot of finding to do on the island, but after telling him of my amazing Experiences in Chai Wan, he got over it... Hahaha But my new companion. for Two months at least... is... ELDER HANSEN!!!!! BLAAAH!!!! CONNIPTION!!!! HAHAHA I am way excited because he is literally my best friend in the mission, way excited but hey! Good things to come. Right? haha emails will be very exciting, filled with more exciting stories.. But hey. Good stuff. 

Anyways, good week! I love you all!! Stay safe!

Love,

Elder Jonathan Chen

Picture 1: Me and a Giant Gift That Man Sin got me, She's the best

Picture 2: On the way to the stake activity #Dope Hahahaha The hat was on just for the picture...it doesn't look like a Pokémon trainer hat, but it is a hat indeed... (TBT... Didn't take any pictures this week, so hey"