Staying in Pok Fu Lam

Well, the transfer news is.....

I will be staying in Pok Fu Lam!!!!! At the end of this transfer (6 weeks) I will have served here for 11 months! I am so happy to be staying. We have some exciting things happening in this ward! So much has happened lately, I think I will let the pictures do most of the talking.

Some highlights of my life lately...

We met a girl named Jasmine in a park in Cyberport. I didn't know why I felt like that was where we needed to go that night, especially because Monday nights are not very crowded. As we neared the end of the walkway, I saw a girl sitting on a bench with her feet on a skateboard, looking at the view of the ocean. The first thought I had was about my little sister Araceli and her love for skateboards. So I just said, "I like your skateboard!" Turns out she didn't speak Cantonese, but has parents from Switzerland and Hong Kong, and has grown up in Hong Kong attending international schools. We asked her about her understanding of God and what she thought life was all about. She shared how she thinks about that a lot, but never arrives at a point of certainty. We shared a little bit about Heavenly Father, and how prayer is the way we communicate with Him. I talked about how it's like talking on the phone or writing an email: you know the other person is there even though you can't see them. I apologized for the seemingly trite or cheesy analogy, and she said, "No, actually it's not! I've never heard it explained like that!" We said a prayer with her in the park, and she said "Well, this is a first." She said her very first prayer with us! It was really, really neat. She said she would probably go home and pray herself! We testified that God wants and WILL answer her prayers. Even if all she wants to talk about is help with school, or confirmation that He is there. She also told us "I have never met someone so passionate about something." This is what the gospel does! It gives our lives meaning, and enables us to have conviction about the purpose of our lives! Words cannot describe my gratitude. 

On Friday we were meeting with our friend Daphne. We were going to talk about Christ-like attributes, so I decided to bring the Church's "The Living Christ". Here is a link to it: http://jesuschrist.lds.org/testimonies-of-him/articles/the-living-christ-the-testimony-of-the-apostles-of-the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints?lang=eng&_r=1

Then in the bus I met a girl from France, who has also spent most of her life here. I wish I could have spoken a bit of French with her, but Cantonese is currently crowding out most of the room in my brain, including crowding out English sometimes! haha Her name was Marie, and she was baptized into the Catholic church when she was 9. We talked about our baptisms and what they meant to us. I asked why she was baptized, and she said "Well, mostly cultural. My family all was too. And, because like...Jesus is a good guy!" I loved how honest and simple she was about it! I testified that yes, Jesus Christ is a really good guy, and that The Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints has helped me know him on a more personal level. I gave her my copy of The Living Christ, and told her I knew Christ lived. 

How grateful I am for small promptings and Heavenly Father's hand in the details of our lives!