CONTACTING ALONG THE COAST, UP 25% FROM LAST YEAR, CHECK OUT "HE IS THE GIFT" ON YOUTUBE

Hey! Yeah, my area is suppper pretty. We contact people along the coast a lot. It's been really cold, though, the last week or so, especially because it's right off the ocean. Yeah, seeing Sister Gok get baptized was awesome. She was the second of two Popo's (grandmas) that were baptized this month in Ma On Shan. The first was Sister Lee who is 91 years old. The oldest active member in Hong Kong, haha. Ken is scheduled for the 14... it will be awesome. 

The work has picked up here in the last year. There has been a huge push from a lot of people, and just the attitude and spirit of missionary work has changed here in Hong Kong in the last year. We are up 25% from last year, and the year isn't over. We are striving for another 65 in December like we did in July as a Gift for Christ. By the way, have you seen what the church is doing with "He is the Gift" initiative? It's pretty huge. Total YouTube takeover in several countries for several days, ads all over the work and a huge push with social media. They are hoping all get involved. It's super cool. If you guys haven't seen it, check it out, and SHARE it!! It's a great way to do member missionary work! The Church is pushing more social media/internet missionary work.  

YouTube "He Is The Gift"

That's soooooo cool that you guys are doing all that stuff for missionary work!!! That's by far the best gift I could ever get. Yeah, Lions Rock was super fun. It took about an hour to get up. I'm in SUCH BAD SHAPE! I almost died, haha. It's really sad, especially when I think about what I could do when I devoted so much time to exercise, that it's all gone, haha. But, anyway, no we only went with one other companionship. We aren't allowed to go in big groups. Christmas is good here. It's not a huge thing, though. In the Church it's more, but most people don't really celebrate it. New Year's in February is HUGE though. The best thing is to be able to sing Christmas songs, haha and remember the Savior. Also, I love being cold. It's sooo much better than being hot, haha. 

As assistants we didn't really eat much different than any other missionary. Here in Ma On Shan, though, the members love to feed missionaries. I've eaten more food from members here, than in my entire mission! Thanks so much for the blades!! I love you guys, keep up the good missionary work! Keep the faith, never quit. Just keep swimming. GAI YAUH! Love you!

Elder Mak

NEW AREA MA ON SHAN, DOING A LITTLE RECON FOR PRESIDENT, CAME IN RIGHT AS THEIR 81 YEAR OLD INVESTIGATOR GOT BAPTIZED!

December 7, 2014

My new area Ma On Shan.

Well, I got kicked out last week. I'm in an area called Ma On Shan. It's an absolutely beautiful place. I've always wanted to serve here, though I was told I will probably only be here for a couple weeks. I'll most likely get moved at the transfer. I was put here because one of the Elder's, Elder Pincock, went home with the early group in the move. He's been having some health problems, so he just chose the early of the two transfers. He's a boss, though, he went 8 months with only one lung in Kwun Tong before the doctors figured out what the problem was. It's a super hilly place, too. Walking those hills is hard by itself, and I assume having one lung is too, but together is crazy. Anyways, I was sent to fill his place until the move and to do a little recon for potential trainers in my area. I'm serving with Elder Lam right night. I was actually with Elder Lam in Aberdeen about a year ago, haha. It doesn't happen often, especially in Cantonese work, that you go back with old companions. In Mandarin it's more frequent, but it still doesn't happen a ton. So far, it's been great.

I came in right as their investigator got baptized! She's an 81 year old grandma and mom of some members in the ward. She actually reminds me a lot of my grandma, haha (EXCEPT OLDER!!!  I know, I know..) It was cool to see, though, because she had been investigating for two years and had strong ties to ancestral worship and tea drinking. But, now she's working on getting sealed in the temple with her family. Pretty awesome. Well, I love you guys, keep up the good work. Never quit, just keep swimming, GAI YAUH!!

Elder Mak

TRAINING MY REPLACEMENT

11-30-2014

Lions Rock

I have started training my replacement this week. He actually was in my MTC group, Elder Smith. He's super cool and a great missionary. He'll definitely do a better job than I was doing. He actually grew up in Korea for half of his life and the other half in America. His dad is white and his mom is Korean, so he speaks both fluently which is super cool. His Chinese is really good as well. I still don't know where I'm going... I will probably find out this week. 

There was a ward split just a few weeks ago up in the new T's and President told us there should be more, so it's a good sign of the missionary efforts in Hong Kong. I know that the area (Asia area) and the brethren are really pushing for a new stake here by the end of 2015, so hopefully that will happen. There used to be 5 stakes (not including Macau and International) here back in the day, but because of inactivity (it's a crazy high percent) they had to consolidate back down to 4. But, they are making the push to get it back to where it was back in the good ol' days. So, other than that, just trying to get my replacement ready for the move. I will miss Ken's baptism which is a bummer, but it doesn't matter. Thanks for everything! I love you guys! We went to Lions Rock last P-day and it was SICK! Coolest view. Better than peak in my opinion. You can see from the northern part of the island all the way to Ma On San. Crazy. I'll send some pictures. Keep the faith, never quit.

Elder Mak

GETTING THE BOOT, KEN DOING GREAT, PRAY FOR BROTHER LAU

11-23-2014

This is our investigator Ken. One of the coolest guys ever. He's blind but really smart, studied in England to be a physics teacher, loves The Strokes, Pink Floyd, Elvis and all the good old stuff! He has a baptismal date for December 14th and is working on memorizing the route to get to church, so he can get there by himself. Listens to the Book of Mormon every day. Just a Boss!

Hey, so we had an activity the other night, and one of the members took pictures. Here is me and my companion.

Well, so last week President, in preparation for our board meeting (the meeting where we meet for like 3 hours to discuss how to make the transfer work) asked us to prepare three names for new assistants... and seeing as I've been in for 6 months, and I still have a good amount of time in the field, I'm pretty sure I'm getting the boot. So, I'm just trying to get ready for my replacement who I'll be training in a few weeks.

We also had a really cool meeting with Elder Wan, who is the seventy inside mainland (he lives in Shanghai) and several of the leaders inside. We are also continuing to teach Ken, he's doing great. We taught him keeping the Sabbath day holy and even though it will be a really big struggle for him, he committed to keep it. Because he's blind and lives alone, he normally goes out to eat, but on Sunday he said he would stop. Huge act of faith. We are worried about our recent convert, Brother Lau (the miracle story that we had when I first got here back in June. Elder Walter and I found him in the last place you would expect to find an investigator, a big industrial street with factories on either side, off a hunch that Elder Watler had. He was the one who lived in Sham Shui Po, and I ended up turning him over to myself  because I ended up going to Sham Shui Po. Well, he was doing really well, but his family is anti-ing him a lot and his two jobs are keeping him from coming to church, he's starting to go less active. Please pray for him. He's probably going to have to move to mainland to find work which might be a good thing, and it might not depending on where he is and if there is a branch close by. More than anything, pray that he will stay in the Book of Mormon consistently. Thanks. Well, I love you guys. Keep the faith, never give up, just keep swimming, Gai Yauh! We are going to hike Lions Rock today which has one of the coolest views in Hong Kong. I hear it's even better than the peak. I'll send pictures next week!

Love,
Elder Mak

MISSIONARY TRANSFERS AND PREPPING FOR ZONE CONFERENCE

11-2-2014

So, this week was good. Last week was crazy because of the transfer. We moved a ton of missionaries and their stuff. Some of those sisters have a lot of stuff... It was especially weird because I helped take the sisters who started with me home. This week we are prepping for Zone Conference. We were assigned a training, so we are working on that. Other than that, it's the same stuff. We just had Stake Conference. It was really good. There were some rumors of the TST ward splitting, but it didn't happen. Love you guys, thanks for the pictures! Keep up the good work, never quit, just keep swimming and gai yahu!

Elder Mak

HOW WE SAVED THE TEMPLE FROM BURNING!

10-19-2014

Hey family! So, I don't know if I have told you this story or not, but if I have I'm sorry, my memory is bad. Anyways, this is the story about how we saved the temple from certain destruction. So, we are eating lunch in our apartment when all of the sudden, the fire alarm goes off... and of course, the first thing we think is "so annoying... can someone turn that off! It has to be a malfunction or something". So, we walk outside the hallway and one of the temple workers comes running up the stairs and asks us if our apartment is on fire... and we were like "uhh, no, I don't think so..." and then asks if President's apartment is on fire, but they haven't been home all day, so we told him probably not. So, he goes next door to Elder Wong's apartment (the temple president) and knocks on the door. No one answers, so he uses his keys to unlock the door to check it out, and by this time, we are really interested in whatever is going on because it's obviously not a drill... so, we walk into the apartment and it looks normal at first, but then when he turns into the kitchen all you see are flames.... So, of course we all just stand there for a few seconds watching it, then the temple worker tells us to go get a fire extinguisher... so we snap out of it and start running down the hall as fast as we can, all try and get in the door to our apartment at the same time, and find the fire extinguisher. I knew that there was one in the closet, so I open the door and see two. One was about 8 inches tall, the other one next to it was about 24 inches tall. You can probably guess which one I grabbed! We run back to the Wong's apartment, and I go to spray the fire, but the pin is still in the handle, and I couldn't pull it out because I had one hand holding the nozzle and the other hand holding the tank. So, I yell for someone to pull the pin, someone does and I sprayed until they yelled at me to stop. And then some... we got the fire out and the fire department came. We told them not to worry and that everything was under control, we handled it, but if they wanted to check out the remains they were welcome to, haha. Turns out their stove fan was left on, and it overheated catching the grease in the fan on fire. So, now we tell people that we saved the temple from burning to the ground, which may be a little bit of an exaggeration, but it sounds good, haha.

Love you all. Keep the faith, never quite. Gai Yauh.

Love,
Elder Mak