MADE IT TO THE BIG SCREEN, HAHA!

So, I hopped onto lds.org, and this was on the front cover. Pretty cool.
Unto All The World... The Gospel In Asia


The boat in the beginning of this video is what we take everyday, Sister Propts (the red headed missionary) came in with me, this is all up in Tin Sui Wai which is pretty close to my first area. 
Matthew Mak's Story


This meeting was really cool. He gave me a noogie when he walked in... the 4 missionaries in the picture are all in my zone. Elder Barker, the tall white guy, was really embarrassed when he saw his picture and that it had his shirt all untucked, haha, the dopey looking kid in the scout uniform in the video was my companion for two weeks for the summer missionary program last year. He'll be leaving for his mission soon. We have the same last name, so it was Elder and Brother Mak!! Haha! 
The Church is Wonderfully Well In Asia... Elder Holland Reports

SUPER COOL POPO & HER HUSBAND, ANOTHER DEAF REFERRAL FROM SISTER CHAN, AND TWO GOLDEN MANDARINS

We've been good here. We found a cool, super old PoPo (grandma) a couple weeks ago, but we couldn't get a hold of her because her phone was always off. She told me she only turns it on to call people... reminds me of grandma, haha, but she called us the other night, and she wanted to meet with us, so we took her to an Easter activity. She brought her husband, and they are super cool. Even though they are 80 years old, they are both super sharp and really smart. We are hoping to get them to church which would be cool. 


We also have another deaf investigator (ANOTHER referral from Sister Chan, who is awesome). He's cool, but he speaks some kind of different dialect of sign language, and it's really hard to understand what he's saying. Even Brother Tang, the best translator I've seen doesn't understand a lot of what he says... but Sister Chan understands, so she translates from his sign to the one that we understand, haha. His sign is super cool, though, it's like some kind of ninja or something, haha. We are going to Tung Chung today which should be cool. I'll let you know how it goes. 

                          Panorama of Tung Chung Bay and Tung Chung New Town                                         

We also ran into this guy the other night who says that he believed in God because He helped him stop doing hard core drugs, which is cool. We also found not one but two GOLDEN mandarins lately... both are for sure getting baptized... too bad we can't teach them... but it's still moving the work along. We're finding a lot of unusual people, but we take what we get. We also had moves. I stayed with my comp, but Elder Au left to Butterfly in Tuen Muhn, so Elder Walter got a new comp named Elder Groberg. He's cool but white... so this is the first time I'm not living with at least one local... I don't like it. Well, I can't think of anything else that happened. Have a good week. Keep the faith, never quit, just keep swimming.

Love,

Elder Mak

PIZZANOES CHALLENGE, EATING AN ERASER, SMALL APARTMENT & MUSEUMS

Hong Kong is a jungle. They just built the city right out of it, it's pretty cool. Yeah, the pizza at Pizzanoes is super good. Next Monday me and Elder Au (a super funny local that I've lived with forever) are going to do the Pizzanoes challenge. It's a 24" pizza, 2 people, in 20 minutes. We've been training for it, eating a ton of veggies and drinking a ton of water to expand our stomachs. Elder Morton and his comp did it a while back, they said the biggest problem is that they start the timer as soon as it comes out of the oven, so it's too hot to eat.. sneaky. He said the trick is to tear the cheese off and just eat the bread of the first one and then by then the others are cool enough to eat. Then you stack them on top of each other and eat the left over cheese last. So, that's the strategy. 

Yeah, the tentacle could either be squid, octopus or cuddle fish... I'm not a big fan of any of them, but the cuddle fish is the worst. It's like chewing one of those pink erasers that you have in school. The markets here have them all alive in buckets, when you buy them they kill them in front of you, unless you want to do it yourself, then you take it home and eat it fresh. There are some weird looking stuff that comes out of the ocean that I've only ever seen on the discovery channel that people eat here. 

I don't really have a lot of updates on investigators, we don't really have any right now. Well, we may have one, he's Sister Chan's friend, she has given us like 6 referrals, it's awesome. But, we've only met with one of them more than once. His name is Mr. Chan (no relation, there are only probably a dozen different surnames in Chinese, so a lot of people have the same last name). 

My apartment is really small... I took a video tour of it, but it's on the newer SD card, so you don't have it yet. I'll send it though. There are four of us living in it instead of 6, though. It's only us and the other companionship in our apartment. Elder Water, who I lived with in Kam Tin and Elder Au who I also lived with in Kam Tin but at different times ( I was there for a while). It's a huge coincidence that we all ended up on the complete other side of the universe here in Abderdeen. We used to have the Abderdeen Sisters in our district and the Mandarin Sisters but they are both gone. Our apartment is probably about the size of the family room at home, not including the kitchen, but not as open. My companion, Elder Phillips is cool. He's from Arizona originally but has lived in Wisconsin and Michigan. His dad is a pilot and wrote a cool book that I want to read when I get back. His Chinese is super good. Our district just got smaller cuz we combined zones and people got moved around. But that's fine with me cuz I'm responsible for less people! 

We bought a museum pass for $50 (that's like $7), so we can go to all the museums in Hong Kong. We've been going to a lot of them, it's really cool. We went to the history museum which was really cool. They had a lot about the Hong Kong culture and stuff, but it was funny cuz I had already seen this stuff ou on the street and knocking doors and stuff, so it wasn't anything new in that section. 

I read the Liahona sometimes and look for stuff I can help people, I'm also in Judges in the Bible, but most of the time is spend in the Book of Mormon and Preach my Gospel. I read Jesus the Christ a while back, and I think it's my favorite book of all time. I've pretty much memorized Preach my Gospel, but I still get new stuff from it when I read. Obviously, the Book of Mormon is great. I just went through the Isaiah chapters and compared them to the Isaiah verses in the bible. I read them side by side and underlined everything that was changed and it is actually pretty cool. Some things are pretty insignificant but others things change the entire scripture. 

The members are great and help out a lot with teaching lessons, etc. We are just trying to get them to invite their friend/family member/acquaintances to activities and stuff. Food is a lot of ramen and rice. Nothing too crazy, normally. Well, I hope you have gotten a little more insight into the world of Elder Mak. Sorry it's not super exciting, but it's important. I'm still keeping a daily journal. I haven't missed a day yet. I figured I've gone too long to stop now, haha. 

Love you! Thanks for everything and the updates and pictures and stuff. Keep the faith, never quit, just keep swimming. Hope conference was good. We will see it this coming week cuz it needs to get translated. Love you all, thanks for all the support.

Love,
Elder Mak


  

MY FIRST WHITE COMPANION, COOL STAKE CONFERENCE & BLACK RAIN!

Elder Mikesell's Adventures in Aberdeen

Sister Chan is doing great! She has been really excited about missionary work and has given us probably over 6 referrals, haha. They are all deaf, but I don't mind. Not very many want to keep meeting, but it doesn't matter, it's the effort that she is making that makes it worth it. She's given more referrals since being baptized than any member or ward combined in such a short amount of time, haha. 

My companion is really cool, his name is Elder Phillips. He's a move younger than me, but his Chinese is way better, so it's pretty humbling. He's my first white companion, haha. It's weird to think I've been out a year, I still feel really new. Especially with the language. Chinese is a whole different animal. Just when you think you are starting to get it... you get humbled. The members are great. We are really trying to get them to give us more referrals. We just had stake conference and literally the entire adult session was about missionary work. It was cool! Our mission president spoke about how the prophet says that it is the members responsibility to find investigators and the missionaries responsibility to teach them. I hope something comes out of it. We have a couple investigators right now. March, honestly, has been pretty rough. We are hoping it picks up in April. Aberdeen doesn't have a ton of good "finding spots" where we normally go to try and contact people, like parks and stuff. The street itself is impossible cuz there are too many people and their isn't enough room. Plus they are all busy going somewhere. 

Last night I experienced something I've always wanted to since I got to the field. Hong Kong has a series of warnings for the amount of rain fall when it becomes dangerous. It starts with yellow rain, then amber, then red and finally black. I'd never actually seen it get to black before. It is the only time we can't go out. During red we are just supposed to stay close to somewhere we can get safe if it turns to black. So, last night we had a huge thunderstorm roll through. It was literally a wall of water like I had never seen before in my life. It was dark but with constant lighting flashes and so loud we couldn't hear each other. It was the most water I've ever seen. Super cool. I can't remember what qualifies for black, but it's something like a few inches a minute or something crazy, and I believe it. So cool. Anyways, we are safe. 

Thanks for everything, love you all, keep the faith, never quit, just keep swimming.

Love,
Elder Mikesell

Yes, I really did eat the spicy duck tongue. It kind of taste like jerky but not nearly as good, haha. 

STILL WORKING HARD, KNOWN AS THE SIGN LANGUAGE MISSIONARY & FIRE BENDING

Hey, Mikesell Clan! So this week we are still working hard. Been having a hard time getting our investigators to keep commitments, but we are still plugging along. We had zone training this last week, and they announced that because this year is the 65th anniversary of the Church in Hong Kong, President Hawks wants us to celebrate by hitting 65 baptisms in the month of July. Now, to those who have gone to other missions, that may or may not seem like a big deal, depending on where you went, but let me put it into perspective. Our mission has, for a really long time, been consistently hitting an average of 20 baptisms a month. So, this will be over 3 times the norm. It has been done once before back in 2009, they hit 66 which is the mission record, so it's possible. We are to work twice as hard as we are now, and the third part will be made up by the Lord in pure miracles... so says President. How we work twice as hard, I'm not entirely sure. My companionship decided to cut meals and our nightly bed prep time to work, but unless we break rules and work more than 16 hours a day, we can't really do more than that. Pray for us. We've seen some blessings. Sister Chan, the one who we just baptized has given us some referrals, and so we have met two other people who are deaf and are meeting with another one today. (We also decided to cut part of P-Day), so hopefully they have an interest. 

I personally like teaching the deaf better than hearing people, but that's just me. Even though it can be hard at first because there are so many different ways of signing the same thing in Hong Kong, it can get confusing. Normally, in the church we use a lot of ASL for gospel terms because Hong Kong doesn't really have them. But a lot of times, they don't understand them, so the first couple lessons can be difficult cuz we have to teach them new words. But it's good. I'm known in the zone and other parts of the mission as the sign language missionary now, which I don't mind. I kind of want to be assigned to being able to teach any and all deaf people throughout the mission! 

Oh, also, the other day, I saw the coolest thing. So for those of you who watch Avatar: The Last Airbender, in Hong Kong there are a ton of people who will water bend in parks, mostly because the south eastern part of China is where water bending originated, also because it's fluid and people like it because it's pretty looking. I had never seen any other type of bending done before, but the other day we saw a guy fire bending, and it was pretty cool, so yeah. Those martial arts are real and people know them (I mean obviously not the actual bending of elements but the movements behind them). I really want to take it up when I get back. There is a water bending class that a member teaches at the church every week, but we don't have an investigator who goes, so I've never been. I have to go, love you all, keep the faith, just keep swimming, never quit!

Love

麥長老

PULLING TEETH, HEARTACHE AND MUSEUMS

Hey, so not much to report today. We've been having a harder week. Trying to get people scheduled to meet with us, keeping commitments, it's like pulling teeth. The devil is really good at what he does. A-Wayne just fell off the planet. I haven't been able to contact him in over a week. It's common here for that to happen... it's easy to disappear being that Hong Kong is what it is, but it's heart breaking. I've prayed and fasted for him, but that's all I can do for now. It's impossible to find him if he doesn't want to be found. I had the same thing happen to a solid investigator in Kam Tin. It's the uncertainty that's so hard... Anyways, we are still working hard.

Hong Kong Science Museum

We got to go to a science museum last Monday and see a dinosaur exhibit which was really cool. There was one part where you can control this super real looking T-Rex robot. I used it to scare some school kids, haha. We bought a museum pass, so we can go to any of the museums in Hong Kong. Today, we are going to the space museum, so I'll let you know how it goes. Especially B-rad :) Love you guys! Keep the faith, never give up, never quit. Just keep swimming. 

Elder Mahk

MY FIRST BAPTISM! I WAS GLAD I WAS ABLE TO BE THERE START TO FINISH!

 

 

So, this week was pretty crazy... We had moves and none of us thought we were moving, but it ended up being that about half of my district left... My companion was replaced with Elder Phillips, who is cool. I served in the new T's with him last summer, so I know him a little. Elder Martinez left, which made me sad, but he was replaced by Elder Walter who I lived with in Yuen Long, so we are like best friends, and one of the sisters got replaced.

 

I'll be honest, I was a little scared to find out that my companion was white... it will be the first time I've had a companion who hasn't had perfect Cantonese! We'll see how it goes. He came in 1 move after me, but his Chinese is really good. It really wasn't the best time to have moves though. One, because it was pouring rain on move day which made it supper annoying and hard. Two, because we had 4 baptisms on Sunday! My companionship had Sister Chan, Aberdeen 1 had Justin and Heidi, and the sisters had Sarina.. so to change right before the baptisms was hard, but we got it done. The ward did a great job helping us get everything together and ready for the baptisms. I don't know if there has ever been 4 baptisms in a day before, in one ward, but they handled it really well. Originally, Elder Lam (my old companion) was supposed to baptize Sister Chan, but after he left she wanted me to do it. It was scary but really cool. I didn't want to mess up the Chinese, but we only had to do it once, so it was ok. I'll send you some pictures, it was a great experience! She was super prepared, and I feel like I didn't really do much, but I'm grateful to have been able to meet her and introduce the gospel to her.

 

 

Last week we went to her house to help her change one of those big long light bulbs on her ceiling.. I had never been to her house before, but when we got there I was pretty amazed. Her entire apartment is about the size of my room back home. Maybe 10ft x 10ft including kitchen and bathroom. and she lives there with her two kids. She has to sleep on the floor... anyways, it was humbling. She is doing well and is already a great missionary, inviting friends to her baptism and teaching them the gospel and everything. Super cool. Very few missionaries in the mission actually find, teach and baptize the same person because it takes so long for people to accept the gospel, it usually overlaps moves and missionaries leave, but I was glad I was able to be able to be there start to finish with her. We are hoping to get some more success in the future, need to work harder for sure. 

 

Thanks for everything. Love you all lots, keep the faith, never quit, just keep swimming...

 

Love, Elder Jay