So, there were actually some big changes this week… I am now in a trio! Well, at least for the next couple of days until my companion, Sister Curtis, leaves. There are some visa waiters in Hong Kong starting their missions so there were some emergency transfers and calls in the past couple of days that kind of switched things up a little bit. I am so sad to see her go because we have been together for 5 months and had so many good times and seen so many miracles! But I am also excited to stay in West Point with my new companion, Sister Martin–she is the cutest! We are going to keep working hard here!

This week I also went on exchanges to Causeway Bay which is THE most city area in the whole mission–it was crazy! It was such a good experience to go somewhere else and see what the work was like and how missionary work was being done. I think that I have some good new ideas of how I can improve my own area! We also did some English class finding which is one of my favorite things, just because we get to walk around and talk to so many random people. We asked one guy if he was interested in our free English class and he said, “thanks, but I’m already Christian” ^_^ it was so funny! Also, everyone apparently thinks that they already have perfect English because they didn’t seem too interested, but we’ll keep trying!

We were in Wan Chai on Saturday switching back from exchanges and our mission president, President Lam, and his wife came there for some meeting and we got to see them. We were joking around with them asking when they were going to take us out for dinner, and they actually did! We all walked over to a restaurant and got some really delicious food! I really have the best mission president ever, they are such great examples to us all and really love each and every one of us missionaries!

We went to a member’s house last night for dinner and it was so fun! We shared a message about the importance of scripture study and how it gives us a firm foundation so that we can resist the trials and temptations that come our way. Sister Martin remembered from when she was little that some missionaries visited her house and did a little demonstration where they put a finger on their scriptures and then hit it with a can and it dented the can without hurting their finger. We tried it at home once to make sure it worked (and luckily it did because I was the guinea pig) and then used it in our lesson with the family. We asked why we needed the scriptures and then I pulled out the can and whacked my finger and they all started freaking out and making sure that my finger was okay, but it was, because I had the scriptures! It was actually really funny, and I’m sure that they’ll remember to read their scriptures tonight 😉

I also am very blessed because when we go to members’ houses they love to just give you tons of food to eat and expect you to eat it all, and then they give you even MORE food to eat, but since coming out on my mission I think that my stomach has just kind of turned into a bottomless pit. We go to members’ houses and they tell me to eat more–and I do! All of my companions think that I’m crazy and the members are always surprised by how much I can put away hehe! I might sign up for some food eating competitions when I get back home after all of this training….

In my scripture study this week I got to Jacob chapter 5, the one that is forever long and talks about the vineyard. But this time when I read it through it was a quite different experience. Here is the Lord of the vineyard, and he loves these olive trees and cares for them so much, but despite all of the long hours that he has spent slaving away under the sun, the trees never do what he wants and always seem to yield bitter fruit. He has worked in this vineyard for a long time, hours and hours, days and days, and still it makes no difference to the trees. He at last decides that there is nothing more to be done. The trees must be hewn down so that he can start anew. After all, he cries, “What could I have done more in my vineyard? (verse 47)” But the servant who has worked by his side this whole time pleads with him, please master, “spare it a little longer.(verse 50)” Despite all the the pain and grief that these trees have caused them and all of the rotten fruit that they have borne, he still sees the potential that lies within each and every one of them. Is this not like us? Have we not every one of us at one point or another turned away from the love and care of our Father in Heaven? Have we not, all of us, let him down? But despite the the disappointment and pain that we have caused him, he still loves us and continues to reach out to us. We have a Savior, Jesus Christ, who will plead our case for us and go out in the vineyard, and suffers it to be so in order for us to at long last be fit enough to bring forth fruit pleasing to our master. How blessed are we to have such a love beyond reason and comprehension available to all who put their trust in Him, and allow him to prune away our weaknesses and faults! Don’t be afraid to be cut down a little bit so that you can become even greater. So that you can reach your full potential; the potential that the servant sees in each of us.

Keep pressing forward! Keep humble and keep working hard!

Love,
Sister Crockett

18 Dorset Crescent
Kowloon Tong, Kowloon
Hong Kong
Pictures:

1. face masks that we bought
2. the tripanionship!
3. a Navy ship that docked in our area for a few days–there were so many white people that I felt out of place!
4. exchanges with Sister Yost in Causeway Bay
5. dinner with President and Sister Lam