BEING ABLE TO SEE THINGS FROM A BIGGER PERSPECTIVE HAS CHANGED MY UNDERSTANDING OF THE MISSION AND MISSIONARY WORK

Hey! 10,000 Buddhas was pretty fun. I'm hoping we can go to the Bruce Lee museum sometime soon because I hear it's awesome. This week wasn't too bad. Elder Falk and I are still just getting used to our new assignments together. Without Elder Kho we sometimes just run around like chickens with our heads cut off. On Saturday we had a big group of 30 people come from the Sham Shui Po Peace Evangelical church to tour our chapel and the temple grounds to see what the Mormons are all about. It went okay, but we couldn't get the stupid computer to work with the projector in the chapel for the video, and we just had some technical problems which was a little frustrating, but it was still good. They weren't really too interested in the gospel so much as they were about us missionaries. They think we are weird white guys in suits that walk around all day speaking Chinese, and the inside of the temple and what goes on and stuff. Because they can't go in they were really interested. Elder Falk made a joke that we would start telling people that our church has an amazing book called the Book of Mormon and that it was incredible, but you are not allowed to read it unless you were baptized and active for a year. We would have EVERYONE lining up to get baptized, haha. Just cuz people want what they can't have. I't pretty interesting.

Other than that, it wasn't too busy. We are prepping for a smaller transfer next week. We have a local, a Malaysian and an ABC flying in next week, but President and Sister Hawks won't be able to pick them up because they have a mission president seminar to go to. That means we are just going to go get them ourselves. We'll see how it goes. It's always weird going to the airport. Lots of flashbacks. 

We also have Mission leadership council next week that we are prepping for. My new companion is pretty awesome. We've known each other for a long time and have lived together before becoming companions, so it's good. I think I enjoy just having things to do and being busy the most. Also, to be able to see things from a bigger perspective has changed my understanding of the mission and missionary work. It's not just my little corner of Hong Kong anymore. It's all of Hong Kong and the Asia area. My language is terrible. We don't speak it nearly as much as I did before, so I'm trying to keep it up, but a lot of times we don't have time for language study which I hate. President Hawks served here in the 1970's, so he does speak Chinese but not super well. Like, he can have a simple conversation and he'll give talks that he's prepped for in some meetings and things, but he doesn't do interviews or anything. He gives those to his counselors. Sister Hawks can say things like "missionary" and "blessing" and stuff like that. She's really nice and a realllly good cook. 

Love you all! Keep the faith, never quit, just keep swimming.

Love,

Elder Mak

Gave the Buddha statue a Book of Mormon... not sure what the monks there thought of that...

Apparently, it's a serious problem

Bigggg ol Buddha

One of the temples. Inside one of these temples was a monk who had his entire body coated in gold to keep him "preserved" and live forever, but we weren't allowed to take pictures.

1,000 handed gun yam

Thought he looked good with a tag, haha.