The One Where Mindy Talks About Her Investigators

Hey people! sorry it has taken me so long to get this up! I have no idea why i was put in charge of all of this! haha
here is last week's email from our lovely missionary. i will be posting this week's email to her blog tomorrow.
i hope you enjoy! :)

Hello Everyone!!

This week definitely had its ups and downs. i feel like I've felt the highest of highs and the lowest of lows this week. We wen district English class finding this week and it was fascinating to watch as people rejected the first pair of missionaries, hesitated at the second pair, and then stop and listen to what the third pair of missionaries had to say. i think it's the same with hearing the gospel, it usually takes people a few contacts with the church before they really stop and listen. Planting seeds or sewing seeds, it's all a part of the harvest. 

We had an investigator drop us this week, we experienced on of our miracle finds get anti-ed overnight and our pohpo investigator is sick. But amidst all these trials, we were still able to meet or exceed almost all our goals and we had many tender mercies along the way. i was amazed as we were counting numbers last night to see the shower of blessings that the Lord had given us even though we were going through some trials. The song "Count Your Many Blessings" really does express how i felt last night while reflecting on my week.

Our investigator, Sister Liu, is the investigator that dropped us. She's had a lot of trouble with her husband recently and to be honest, her faith isn't strong enough. sister Mendoza and I have been praying hard for her recently and I think (although it hurts) that this is the answer to our prayers. God needs to humble her first before she can become a true disciple of Christ. I trust God completely and I really hope that she finds her way back to the missionaries someday. Our investigator, Grandma Yu, is the investigator that is sick. Her baptism is supposed to be this Sunday, but with her really bad cough, her daughter wants to cancel it or move it further back. Sister Mendoza and I really don't want this to happen because she's already very old and she also is ready to be baptized. She loves Jesus Christ and wants to follow Him. Her daughter will ask her to stay home from church sometimes if there are too many people going or if it is a little rainy, which is frustrating but i know it's only because she loves her mom. We're hoping that this trial, and keeping the date the same, will help Sister Yu exercise her faith and help both Sister Yu and Grandma Yu learn how to trust God's timing. Who knows though, maybe Sister Mendoza and I will be the ones learning to trust God's timing. We're praying hard for these two. 

We went to lunch with a less active this week and while we were at lunch, this less active talked a lot about Jesus. He has a loud voice and so he could be heard from around the restaurant. As we were leaving, a little boy ran up to Sister Mendoza and said, "I know Jesus too!" As we started talking to the boy and his mom, we found out that they are very strong Christians and we asked to meet up with the again the next day. They agreed and Sister Mendoza and I were super excited. We were late getting to the place that we were supposed to meet them at but as we were walking there, we ended up seeing them on the crosswalk going the opposite direction of the restaurant that we were going to meet them at. As we got talking to them we found out that they had been anti-ed hard by the boys father. The boy would ask us questions or say things like, "I don't want you guys to go to an evil church, i want you guys to follow Christ!" It was really sad. We ended up being able to sit down to lunch with them for a little bit but the mom was very closed off. We were able to testify a lot about how this church has blessed our lives, how we follow Christ, and even about the Book of Mormon. Although she would not take the Book of Mormon, I truly believe that we made her doubt some of the things that she had been told about our church. I truly believe that if she is truly a follower of Christ, a seeker of light and truth, she will find her way back to us. It was sad that our little miracle turned sour but i'm grateful for second chances and i'm grateful that i have the chance to fight against Satan every time I bear my testimony of truth and leave people questioning all the anti things that they come across here in Hong Kong. 

Despite all the opposition, the Church is growing strong here in Hong Kong and i'm grateful to serve here in Tsim Sha Tsui. The ward is incredible. They are very generous to us missionaries and try hard to fulfill their callings. I'm proud to serve here and i'm excited to be able to strengthen them in whatever way the Lord asks me to.

Funny this week: Our pohpo investigator, Yu Pohpo, doesn't understand the chinese gospel terms so we have to use as many regular chinese words as we can to describe the terms that the church uses. This week we taught about prophets and as we were explaining it she said, "OHHH! I get it! So, Jesus Christ hired Joseph Smith to be His high level (boss type thing) servant." I'll admit, I laughed a lot (because it's a funny statement in chinese) and then testified that yes, Christ called Joseph Smith to be His servant and that he truly had Christ's priesthood power and that we still have it on earth today because of him. It's been a joy trying to teach her as simply as possible and it's been funny to see how she remembers the things we teach her. The church is true and the gospel changes lives no matter what age they are. 

Thank you so much for all your love and support.

I love you all!

Sister Adams

The One Where Mindy Talks About Her New Companion

Lovely email from our lovely missionary! few days late, but better late than never, eh? hope you enjoy! she's killing it out there is Hong Kong :)



My Companion Ate a Whole Fish Today

Hellooooo! How are you all?

Sorry I didn't send out an email last week. I got to skype my family and then didn't really have time to send out a big email. But here am I, safe and sound and loving Tsim Sha Tsui. I don't really have any new pictures for you all because my camera has been dead for the past two weeks and I haven't had time (or the will) to buy batteries yet. Sorry. 

Let's see... what fun thing can I share about the mission this week? Sister Mendoza and I are still trying to get a feel for the area. We've actually only been able to see about half of our area because it's so big! We have most of the population of Hong Kong living in our area, so there's a lot of souls to save! ;) We're hoping to be able to see the rest of it in the next couple of weeks. 

Sister Mendoza and I are having a lot of fun. I've been teaching her english idioms and she's been teaching me how to be a better cook, a better person and a better missionary. I definitely get the better end of the deal in this companionship. In China (and apparently the phillipines), people eat the whole fish, except for the bones and fins. It's been a fasinating experience for me to watch just how much of one fish people can eat. I wish I'd taken a picture of the fish that she ate today before she ate and then after so that you could see what I mean. It was quite impressive (I'm not a fan of fish so I just watched her eat it while I ate my pasta. To my credit, I did try a couple pieces). 

Sister Mendoza and I have three solid investigators that we are teaching, one is a grandma, one is a 10 year old and one is a mom. We've got quite the wide range. I'm learning a lot about planning and teaching lessons according to needs and circumstances. It's VERY easy as a missionary to get in the habit of teaching according to your lesson plan and your knowledge, not based on the promptings of the Spirit and the needs of those you teach. Teaching by the Spirit is so necessary when you are trying to help people become truly converted. You truly cannot bring people to Christ without it. 

I'm grateful to be a missionary when I have so many tools available to me and I'm grateful for all the trials, fun times and crazy things that are helping me grow and become more like my Savior. 

Adventure of the week: I actually have two. Hong Kong has some interesting people in it, to keep it short and sweet, a pohpo hit me with her umbrella this week while we were less-active finding. The other one is that while I was trying to send this email, the internet at the library went out and after waiting 45 minutes for it to work, we were told that the internet in all the libraries in Hong Kong is out right now. We then sprinted across the city to an internet cafe. All the adventures of being a missionary in Hong Kong. :) I'm loving every minute of it. 

I hope you all are embracing your adventures and that you are taking the time to listen to the Spirit and letting it guide your life. It's just as important for you to become more deeply converted through the Spirit as it is for my investigators to become converted through the Spirit. 

Love you all! 

Sister Adams

The One Where Mindy Got Her First Transfer

Sorry i haven't posted this yet! it's almost time for this next week's email. i know, i'm a slacker. but hey, i'm on vacation, so cut me some slack.
anyway, here is this last week's email from our beautiful missionary! enjoy :)

Surprises, surprises.... but never coincidences.

Hello everybody!

To start out, I got moved areas in the last transfer call. I'm now serving in Tsim Sha Tsui with Sister Mendoza, who will be going home after this transfer. I don't know how I got so lucky to be companions with two people going home but I'm not even being sarcastic when I say that I love them with my whole heart and it's HARD to send a companion home.

So, Tsim Sha Tsui. Sister Mendoza and I are actually opening the area for sister missionaries, which means that we will be re-establishing sister missionary work here in the ward and area. The elders that have been serving here are absolutely amazing. If I were their mom, I would be so proud of them. They were taking REALLY good care of the area and all the investigators, members and less-actives. The ward is VERY excited to have sisters back in the area and is already setting up plans and actions to feed us and help us meet their friends. Sister Mendoza and I are stressed but blessed (which I think is going to be the statement that describes this next transfer, or better yet, my whole mission).

Tsim Sha Tsui is where the true heart of Hong Kong is. There are A LOT of people here, a lot of apartment buildings, a lot of businesses, a lot of museums and just a lot of everything. Sister Mendoza and I are having fun trying to get everything organized and trying to figure out the layout of our area and the Elders have been a huge help.

I'll be honest, when I found out I was moving areas or in reality, when I found that my previous area, Sham Shui Po, was being shut down for sister missionaries, I cried HARD. Sham Shui Po is a unique area because the missionaries that take care if it are also the Office Elders and the Assistants to the President (aka: VERY busy Elders). Those elders already have SO much to do during the day that I really didn't understand how they were going to be able to take on our work as well as their own work. I honestly didn't think I would ever cry while I was on my mission but when that love and worry for your area and the people in it hits you like a wall, there's no holding back.

I have full trust in Heavenly Father. He wouldn't ask Sister Mendoza and I to open an area if he didn't trust us and he wouldn't ask the elders to take on the entire Sham Shui Po area if he didn't think they could manage it all. I also know that Sister Mendoza and I cannot open this area on our own. We are relying heavily on the Lord's help and on the help from the ward. I'm grateful that Heavenly Father has put so many wonderful people in my life to help lift me and

My week has been full of looking at files, goodbyes, meetings, greetings, exhaustion and a new witness that God knows His children perfectly and He knows how to help us progress, even if it's through hard things.

Funny of the week: While explaining to the Elders in Sham Shui Po about one of my investigators, I said "You can be bold with her when asking her the repent" and one of the Elders thought I said " You can be bold with her when asking her to WEAR PANTS" and he said, "Wear pants??!? What kind of situations are you getting us into?" It was really funny. I think being bold with both situations is the best thing to do ;). We were all a little over-tired this week.

There have been other funny moments because my new companion, Sister Mendoza, is just as awkward and silly as I am. She's from the Phillipines and is VERY loving. I'm incredibly blessed to have her with me. I can already tell we're gonna have some fun together. She used to serve in Kowloon City which is right next door to Tsim Sha Tsui, so she already knows most of the members really well and they have been asking her to come serve in their ward for months. I truly know that the Lord answers prayers because one of the most said phrases by our members is "We've been praying for sister missionaries to serve here for months!" God answers prayers on HIS time, never doubt that He's got it all figured out for you.

I love you all so much. Here's a picture of my cute Pohpo investigator.

The One With The Wise Man And The Foolish Man

Hello fellow readers! here is Mindy's email this week! enjoy :)

The Wise Man and the Foolish Man

Helloooo!

Not much to say this week because I don't have much time but wow, this week went fast. It was Sister Takahashi's last full week here in Hong Kong so we were busy saying goodbye to people, eating food and preaching the gospel (of course!). Saying goodbye is ROUGH but I'm excited to hear of her next adventures. She leaves this thursday so you'll be hearing next Monday about my new companion.

Let's just say that the realization that I am now the only missionary in my area that has been there longer than two months is a little terrfying. Sister Takahashi has served in this area for over 11 months total in her mission and I will admit that I relied on her expertise A LOT. God knows us very well though because with Sister Takahashi being the Sister Training Leader, I've had to do a lot of the work in the area without her help, and that's probably going to be a lifesaver once she leaves. The amount of trust that God has in His missionaries is overwhelming to think about, sometimes you feel like you're not worthy of that trust but I know now that if God has called me to do something, He knows I can do it and He'll support me in my efforts.

The theme of this week (accidentally in our case, but guided by God for sure) was the story of the wise man and the foolish man from the Children's Primary song book. The wise man builds his house upon the rock and because he had that firm foundation, when the storm hits, he was safe and so was his house. The foolish man builds his house on the sand and because of that choice, when the storms hits, the foolish man loses his home. We all know how important having a home is and we should be doing everything we can to protect our homes and to make sure that we, ourselves, are built on a firm foundation so that when the storms hit our homes and our families. When temptations come, when tragedies hit, or when trials come your way, you are able to withstand anything AND help those you love withstand all those problems as well. I encourage you all the read Helamen 5:12 and 3 Nephi 14: 24-28 (? something like that) and think about how you can strength your foundation on Christ.

I love you all. I hope you all have the chance to do something amazing this week!

Love, Sister Adams

P.S. I hiked Lions Rock again this week and remembered to bring my own camera so I'll give you some pics. We were sitting on clouds today.

The One Where Sister Mindy Shares Her Wisdom

Mindy has been out for 6 months now! can you believe how fast the time has gone?! only one more year left for this wonderful missionary. Here is this week's email. It's a really good one! enjoy :)

10 things I've learned on my mission so far

10 things I've learned on my mission so far

Wow! 6 months down and only 1 year to go. The days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days. I cannot believe how short the time has been and how much I have grown and learned in such a short period of time.

Since I have six months under my belt and I'm SUPER experienced now (HA!), here are some things I have learned so far:

1. You may be a missionary, but you are also still a person and your taste is style and food does NOT change. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE bring clothes that you love and that you feel comfortable in. Bring enough bras. Bring enough T-shirts and bring p-day/barbeque shoes (i.e. vans or converse). I will forever regret not bringing my converse and not bringing enough bras. It's not fun to have to ask your mom for stuff because you didn't pack well. Also, dresses, skirts and shirts that you don't have to wear undershirts with, or slips with are heaven sent. If you go shopping, buy the quality stuff that you don't need all the layers for, it's not worth the sweat or the discomfort.

2. On that same note, PLEASE invest in some waterproof stuff. The Hong Kong mission call packet will tell you to bring rainboots, DON'T. That packet is lying to you. You will not use big, heavy rainboots here. It's too hot and you'll be wasting precious suitcase weight. Invest in waterproof flats or short, waterproof boots. Also, waterproof makeup is NECESSARY. You sweat, you cry, it's humid everyday, and it RAINS. Also, thin rain jackets are amazingly handy in the winter/spring-time. Buy one.

3. Panda Express is NOT real chinese food. Sorry. It's just not. They eat weird stuff here. Fish bladders, fish eyes, chicken feet, pig intestines... you name it, they probably eat it. That being said, there are some INCREDIBLY yummy foods here so don't freak out too much. (I promise I'm well fed, Mom.)

4. You're not perfect and you never will be. Mistakes happen, EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Learn from them and move yourself right along. There is no use holding those things inside and letting them eat at you. The power of the Atonement through repentence is real. It's hard but it's worth it. Have faith, have trust and LET IT GO.

5. The places that you teach in are not always going to be the best places to feel the spirit. You preach on the train, the bus, the bathroom, and in the store next to the pigs faces. You preach in dirty, dark houses where kids are running around and screaming. You have to either make it work or find somewhere else to teach. If you are trying your best to bring the spirit, they will fell it. But I'm warning you now, it's not always easy. It takes effort, concentration and prayer but you can do it.

6. Commitments are important. If YOU as the missionary are not giving these people commitments or things to do until the next meeting, then you are failing at your purpose. These people cannot change until you help them know how to do it. They can only recieve a witness after the trail of their faith, so TELL THEM TO EXERCISE THEIR FAITH. And please follow-up at the next visit. Following up is crucial and can lead to some powerful and spiritual lessons.

7. The powers of Heaven are real but you need to be willing to make some sacrafices in order to really see the benefits and to be able to use them. We all come on our missions carrying unnecessary things. We have specific diets that we like, boyfriends/girlfriends,nicely shaved legs, sick or troubled family members, or clothing that we just can't give up.. whatever it is, you know what I'm talking about. It's standing between you and your success as a missionary. Let it go. This is something that I am still working on because as it turns out, there are many things that need to be sacrificed when you're a missionary and some things are harder to give up than others. It's worth it. The changes that I have seen thus far are incredible and the light that shines in others eyes when they feel God's love and use the power of Christ's Atonement is worth the sacrafices.

8. "This work can be summarized into one word and that is LOVE". This was a quote said at my zone training (which are awesome) by a missionary that is going home this month. It is 100% true. Why else would we spend 18 months to 2 years in a strange place, eating strange food and missing our families? Why else would we walk around in the rain, in the snow, in the 100 degree, humid heat? It's because we love our Savior. We love our Heavenly Father. We love every single person on this earth because they are our brothers and sisters and we want to see them happy and home with us again. If you don't love, you can't do this work. There is no way. The testimonies won't have power. The time here is wasted if there is no love involved (See 1 Corinthians 13). "Charity NEVER faileth." and that's a promise.

9. "This is not YOUR work". Sadly, this was said to me by my trainer the other day when I was feeling fear instead of faith. Sometimes it takes a slap in the face to get you off the ground and loving others again. As I said earlier, you WILL make mistakes, but God trusts you. He knows you can do this or He wouldn't have let the prophet call you. This is His work. He is at the head of it. HE is the one preparing these people, baptizing these people, helping these people find truth. YOU are just the instrument. You are nothing without Him, so get off the ground, shake it off, say a prayer and keep moving. Remember how blessed you are to have been given the privilege to help God in His work. The be a part of His "work and glory". It's not about you anymore.

10. Jesus is THE Christ. There's a song that the Mormon Tabernacle choir sings called "He is the Christ". The lyrics were written by President Faust. Part of the song states' "HE is the Christ! The holy Son of God. The Savior and Redeemer of us all." I cannot tell you how often that song rings through my mind and my soul as I walk the streets of Hong Kong everyday. I do not have the words in English or Chinese to tell you how much that statement REALLY means to me, but I want you to know that I KNOW that Jesus Christ is our Savior. He is our Brother. He is our Redeemer. He is the LIGHT and the LIFE of this world and of my life.

I'm grateful for these last 6 months. I'm grateful for the trials I've had. I'm grateful for the joyful times I've had. I'm grateful for the times I've been humbled, been amazing, been uplifted and for the times that I've been able to "feel my Saviors love in all the world around me". Being a missionary is hard, but I'm loving every minute of it.

I hope that you all have a fantastic week. My invitation to you this week is to so something to support the missionaries in your area. Feed them, help them teach a lesson, pray for them... whatever it is. We are ALWAYS grateful for whatever help we get.

LOVE YOU ALL!

Sister Adams

The One Where Mindy Talks About General Conference

Hello fellow readers/bloggers,
here is Miss Sister Mindy Mint's emails for the week! i didn't forget this week :) i hope you enjoy


Out with the cold and in with the heat
Hello Everybody!

How's everyone doing this week? 

General Conference was incredible and inspiring! I hope that all of you felt the same way! General Conference on the mission was definitely different than General Conference at home. The whole stake gathers here to watch the Conference recordings, which means that all the missionaries also gather together and we get to watch it together in English. The members watched it downstairs in the chapel in Cantonese and we, english speakers, gathered upstairs in the primary room to watch it. In between sessions, we missionaries would wander downstairs to check on investigators or to mingle with members and would eat the food that we all packed with us. It was really incredible to see people from all over the world mingling together to watch the Prophet and the Apostles preach about Christ and guide us closer to Christ. It was a spiritually and physically uplifting weekend. 

I don't know how many of you have had the opportunity to see the General Women's conference yet but WOW. That choir brought me to tears. The messages were very powerful as well but when the choir made up of girls, young women and relief society women from ALL over the world stood there and sang "I am a Child of God", I'll admit, I was in tears. I'm pretty sure the whole room was. THAT right there is EXACTLY what it means to be child of God. Everyone was equal, singing in the same language, there were women and girls holding hands, there were women with cancer, women with disabilities. It was incredible. It was beautiful. I am proud to be a child of God. I am proud to be a women. I am proud to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

The whole message of the General Women's Conference was about service. It talked about using your talents and gifts to do what you can for those around you. Because we are all children of God, we need to understand that we all have the same goal as every other person on this earth. Our goal, which is chose in the pre-earth life, it to become like God, Eternal and Almighty. In order to achieve that goal (which is a HUGE goal) we HAVE to have help. There is no way that we can achieve that goal on our own, we're too mortal, we're too unintelligent (sad but true) and we're too prideful. With the help of those brothers and sisters around us and with the help of our Older Brother, Jesus Christ, we can and WILL achieve that goal. We, as brothers and sisters, need to be more willing to lend a hand. We need to have more charity. We need to look for more opportunities to serve and we need to be less judgmental. This world is hard enough without all the criticism that flies around. 

My challenge to each of you this week is to join me in studying about Charity. Read some talks, read 1 Corinthians 13 and insert your name into the verses, it will show you where you have room for improvement. My second invitation is to watch the General Women's Conference and ponder about what gifts and talents you already have. Pray for ways to develop and share those gifts more. And ask Heavenly Father to help you develop more gifts. 

My funny for the week is that because General Conference is past, we missionaries can start using our air-conditioning units and the Elders are allowed to walk around without their suit coats on. This is funny because it was literally two or three weeks ago that I was still walking around with a coat, wrapped in a blanket with the heater on in my apartment and now we HAVE to have the fans on in the apartment or we die of heat. So, out with the cold heart and in with the warm hands, ready to care and ready to share what gifts we have to give. 

I love you all. Never doubt that you ARE a child of God. He's well aware of you. He's given you special, and unique talents, spend some time to think about them and I promise you'll recognize them. 

Love, 

Sister Adams

The One Where I Spaced And So You Get To Read Two Emails From Mindy!

Sorry everyone, it's been a hectic two weeks. YOU GET TO SEE TWO EMAILS THIS WEEK THOUGH!! yay?? hahaha
enjoy! we love this missionary sooo freakin much! we're so happy she writes diligently every week!

last week's email...

The Magic of Prioritizing

Hello Everybody! 

HAPPY EASTER! I hope everyone's Easter was restful and full of remembering our Savior. 

I forgot my planner this morning so I can't give you as many specifics as I usually do but I'll do my best. This email will probably be pretty short because you'll hear from me again on Monday. I had a weird P-Day this week because I got to go to the temple today! :) I never thought I would miss a place as much as I miss going to the temple. As a missionary, I'm only able to go once a transfer (9 weeks), which means I'm much more spoiled than a lot of people in the world but boy do I miss the temple the other 60 something days that I can't go. Those of you that have a temple near you, I hope and pray that you are taking advantage of that gift, especially for those of us that don't have it so readily available to us. You have the opportunity to serve so many people and you'll be doing yourself a service as well. 

Alright, so, other than temples because incredibly sacred and spiritually magical, my week and a half has been awesome, but I'll admit a little slow. We had so many people cancel on us and/or just not schedule us all together. It was a little frustrating but, it was a good faith builder because that meant we had to spend our time street finding, less-active finding, and doing administrative work that we haven't had time to do in weeks. The lessons that we did end up having this week,  were all lessons that I think will stick out in my mind for a while. We have a lot of investigators and less-actives in our mission that will meet with the missionaries every week but won't make any progress. Sister Takahashi and I have been working really hard to break this streak and get them to keep at least ONE commitment. 

So, we've had to take a look at our teaching style and figure out where we can change, what we can improve and how we can teach more like the Savior does. There's one lesson that we had yesterday, that sticks out to me today. It was with a less-active named Ann. We've been meeting with her almost every week since I got here and I have yet to see her come to church (this sadly isn't uncommon). This week we focused more on her, on talking to her about her life, her interests, her struggles. Rather than teach her about doctrine that WE thought she needed to hear, we ended up teaching what GOD needed her to hear. We taught her the magic of prioritizing. When we put God first, put His commandments first, everything else in our day falls into place. If you start your day with a prayer, end your day with a prayer, read your scriptures, and keep God's commandments everyday, the difference that it makes in your life is astounding.  I had a lesson like this when I was in high school, I was struggling a lot with balancing time, I was constantly sick because of lack of sleep and my grades were quickly dropping. My young women leader challenged us to take a look at our life and see what small changes we could make, and then testified to us that prioritizing God first makes all the difference. 

I, too, can testify that when we make the small changes in our life and show God through our actions that we love Him and that we're willing to TRY, He will bless us with the time we need to do everything we NEED to do and even everything we want to do. This is all because He is a loving Heavenly Father. He wants to bless us. He wants us to have happiness. He wants us to achieve our dreams. We just need to be humble enough to accept that we need His help to do it all and we need His help to have true happiness. 

I'm grateful for my Savior and for His perfect example. His example in how to be a better teacher, leader, friend, sibling, child.. better everything, is one that we should strive to emulate. He's already given us so much guidance. I invite you all to analyze your life and see what small changes you can make to bring you closer to following HIs example better. 

I love you all, 

Sister Adams. 

this week's email....

"It's not an exchange unless you have an adventure."

Hello Everybody!

How is it already April? I have no idea. I ask myself this everyday.

CONFERENCE WEEKEND!! For all of you stateside people! How was it? I'm so excited to watch it this weekend even if it is a weekend behind. Words from God spoken by the mouth of a LIVING prophet. What could be more exciting than that? If General Conference does not show you that we have a loving Heavenly Father than you haven't prepared yourself properly. I will admit, before my mission, I took General Conference for granted. I'd get on my phone. I'd fall asleep. I can't tell you a time where I watched all of the Saturday session on a Saturday, but don't make my mistakes! Don't take this incredible blessing that God has given us for granted. It truly is incredible that we get to hear a living prophet tell us God's will and that we get evidence that God still speaks to His children today and is VERY aware of our earthly situations. He's very aware of every question, doubt, fear and joy that we have. If we prepare ourselves properly, God will answer our every questions, help give us courage and build up our faith.

If you haven't noticed, every lesson that I have been teaching in the past week and every lesson that I will teach this coming week is centered around prophets, God's love, faith and General Conference. Every single one of these topics is related in such a way that it's hard to teach one without teaching about the other. My testimony and undertanding of these principles is strengthened and enlarged everytime I share about it, it really has been an incredible week.

My companion, Sister Takahashi, is a Sister Training Leader. Which means that she has to go to A LOT of meetings. A LOT. So, I get to go on exchanges with other missionaries A LOT. It's been quite the growing and learning experience for me. I've learned a lot about my weaknesses and a lot about my strengths. I feel like I have three companions rather than just one. It's interesting to see how other people do missionary work, because as we all know, there is not just ONE method of doing missionary work, but there is only one way to have success and that's the Lord's way. I have had many opportunities to learn from others methods and to try to apply them into my own work.

This week (actually is may have been last week) Sister Ng, my "second" companion, got to stay at my apartment with my for the night. When we got home that night to prepare for bed, we went into the bedroom and found that the walls were covered in moss and little flies (very weird and gross). We thus decided to move all of the mattresses out of the bedroom and put them on the floor in the living room (See picture above). When Sister Takahashi came home the next night, she and I had the pleasure of bleaching the walls to prevent the moss from growing further and killing all the bugs. We had to sleep on the floor for a couple of days until the bleach smell went away, it felt like camping. LOL! Welcome to Hong Kong where it is so humid that if you aren't careful, moss will grow on your walls while your out proselyting. Sister Ng and I now have a saying when we're together (because crazy things like this always happen to us), "It's not an exchange unless you had an adventure".

I hope that you all are taking the adventures in life as they come and finding some way to learn something and to get a laugh out of them. Life is tough but if we're positive and try to understand why we have the trials we have, we are much more likely to have happiness in our lives and we're able to grow SO much. I hope that you all know that God will never give us "adventures" that we can't handle. He loves us to much to do that. But on the other hand, He knows us so well that He knows what we need to grow, to learn and He knows how we are going to handle the "adventures" we are given. Trust in Him and lean on Him and you will ALWAYS be able to get through any trial you are given.

I love you all. Enjoy General Conference and enjoy lifes "adventures".

Love,

Sister Adams

P.S. excuse my pajamas, we were prepping for bed when we fought the bleach that night.

sleeping on the floor of their apartment

ready to tackle the gross moss covered walls!