MISSION TOUR WITH ELDER RANDY FUNK AND ELDER SAM WONG, DODGED A BULLET ON THAT ONE & KIND OF INTIMIDATING TO TEACH WITH A GENERAL AUTHORITY

August 10, 2014

Hey, so this week was pretty busy. Really busy. It's hard to keep up sometimes, especially when you're still trying to do missionary work as well as your other priorities, but it was still really good. We had Mission Tour with Elder Randy Funk and Sam Wong of the Seventy and the Area Presidency. They are both really awesome. They interviewed us and brought up some ideas they had for mission tour. We set everything up, got everything together, dealt with all the last minute things that you always deal with that are never expected and went for three days. Two zones per day. It was cool to be there for all three days. Even though the general layout is the same, it's surprising how much it actually changes by the end. 

They also wanted to sit in on us for a lesson on Thursday at 6:00, but we couldn't schedule anyone, right up to the time we were supposed to teach. It was pretty embarrassing, not having ANYONE who could meet. Made us look like lazy missionaries who didn't have any investigators! BUT, right before we were scheduled (we thought we were going to have to take them finding with us...) a less active called who had called the night before and was able to come down so we could share a message. Dodged a bullet on that one! We were assigned to teach with Elder Funk, who doesn't speak Chinese, so we kind of translated for him a little bit, but it was still good. Kind of intimidating to teach with a general authority. Anyways, I'm glad mission tour is over. It was great but exhausting. Now we have a week of normal instanity before it gets bumped up again for transfer week, which is mind blowing insanity. It's a big move, too, with a lot of sisters coming in. The logistics are pretty hard to conceive.

We did have an Leih Fei Yeung get baptized which was awesome! It was especially cool because his older brother, who got baptized two weeks ago, received the Aaronic priesthood on the same day and was able to baptize his younger brother. They are both super solid. When A Fei gave his testimony after his baptism, it made a ton of people cry. He is the most mature, intelligent, quick 10 year old I've ever met. Super cool kid. 

Anyway, that's about all for this week. Love you guy, keep the faith, never quit, just keep swimming.

Love,

Elder Mak

EATING BALUT, 48 BAPTISMS FOR THE MISSION IN JULY, SUMMER MISSIONARY PROGRAM AND EEFY

Helloo. So this week was good. We were really busy with the summer missionary program that we're in charge of... it takes a lot of time and effort into getting everyone with who they are supposed to be with at the right time and with the proper training and with a bed and everything... but it was good. Yeah, Elder Fong is great. We don't normally have time to go on many exchanges, but we're doing a Zone 24 next Wednesday, so hopefully I'll be with someone cool. 

Elder Klein just got in, he was supposed to get here with the rest of his group a few weeks ago, but tore something in his knee or something, so he was late. He's super funny, though, all the Elder's from England are really funny, they have a dry, sarcastic sense of humor. We are getting a huge group of sisters coming in the next move, though, so we are trying to prepare for that. Who's training who and where they will go. There are a ton of sisters in our mission now. 

We were also able to help some members from Cambodia out this week as well as one of the Filipino branches doing baptisms for the dead. I did like 25 crazy sounding Cambodian names and Elder Kho helped a Filipino sister do some of her ancestors. Yes, I go to way more meetings than normal now. 

We had this crazy goal of 65 baptisms in the month of July that we've been working towards for a long time... We weren't looking good at all coming up to the last Sunday of the month, but on that Saturday (the 27th) we had 32 baptisms throughout the mission, crushing any existing record that we may have had. Though we did over double our monthly baptismal average, we were still short of our goal. Overall, we had 48 baptisms in the month of July. President Hawks gave a great training in MLC about Zion's Camp. What the original goal was and what the Lord's actual purpose of the entire thing was. It's pretty much exactly the same for our goal. It was more about what we became rather than the number we achieved, but we decided as MLC counsel that we needed to go for round two. Take what we learned and strive for it again. So, we are going for 65 in December, but we are bumping the goal up for not only 65 baptisms in December but also 65 re-activated less actives as well. Basically doubling the goal. Yeah... but we realized as we looked over the numbers for the last few months that because we had this goal, our less active work has been steadily declining. So it's pretty daunting, but we'll see how it goes. Everyone seems to be fired up for it. 

Sister Moody goes home today. She's here in the office re-packing. She can't get her luggage down to 50lbs a piece, but it's pretty close. We actually had to go and get her luggage from the house and drive it to the mission office because they are both broken. I don't know exactly what she did to them, but I think one of them had something to do with a ride on an escalator gone wrong... 

It was a good week with the work too. A Tin's little brother Fei Yeung will be baptized this Sunday, so we are excited about that. We also found a cool Filipino lady on the street who is a member, moved to Hong Kong 10 years ago and couldn't find the church, so she went lost sheep. We ran into her on the street and took her to the chapel. She was pretty excited. Turns out she married a Hong Kong man and they have a kid. We are working with the Filipino sisters to try and find out the best way to get them taught. We potentially found a part member family to be baptized. 

I have to go now. We are doing a big EEFY (english, especially for  youth) activity and they want white people there to promote it and teach English... I just get used for my skin, haha. We also have a mission tour this week, so it will be pretty busy right up to moves. Thanks for everything, love you all! Keep the faith, never quit, just keep swimming. 

Love,
Elder Mak

This is called balut, it's popular with the Filipinos. It's as gross as it looks. A fertilized chicken egg that they boil alive and eat before the bones get solid.