Jooousahn! Daaihgaa hou!

Went to Ten Thousand Buddhas last week and man were there, well, a lot of buddhas! You walk up this train and there are just statues of Buddhas everywhere on either side of you. If I had to guess, I would probably say that there are somewhere around 10,000 of them! A lot of them also have very interesting faces or poses. I’ll include some 😉

What a week, what a week! With the Christmas season coming up, my first one as a missionary, everyone told me that missionary work would pick up so much and I guess that it has in some aspects, but we have also had a lot of our investigators say that they are too busy to meet with us until next year…. But that’s just more opportunities to find new investigators!

Speaking of which, we found a couple people this week who really seem to have interest! We met this guy, Dicky, while we were out finding on the streets, and he let us schedule him and we got to meet with him early this week. We were teaching a simple lesson, trying to get to know him more and set expectations when he picks up he phone in the middle of the lesson and says that his friend was on the way. We were like, “that’s awesome”, and sure enough a few minutes later his friend popped over and joined us. They were really interested in our message and what exactly this Book of Mormon was that we showed them. It was kind of hard teaching both of them at the same time, so we taught a simple lesson and then scheduled to see them again that week and give them a church tour and share more of the message of the Restoration. And it went so well! The friend, Leo, thought that it was all so interesting and couldn’t stop flipping through the Book of Mormon as we were teaching them!

Our investigator, Sister Yuen, is still doing well, but we have hit some road blocks with her. We invited her to be baptized and she said that she would have to think about it first before she could commit to anything, which is understandable. But in our next lesson when we followed up with her, she told us about some dreams she had had about Jesus coming and visiting her and then she started talking about spiders and rats and bugs and I got kind of lost. Turns out that she thinks that God can only communicate with her through dreams and omens, and still doesn’t quite understand that prayer is a form of 2-way communication. And in order for her to be baptized, she thinks that God has to visit her and tell her that baptism is correct. So we’re still working on the whole faith and prayer aspect of things! But we have great member support with her and she still loves meeting with us to learn more!

We haven’t been able to get in contact with Ron for the past week and a half, and he leaves for America tomorrow 😦 I am so worried about what will happen with him, because we never got his contact information for where he’s going to be in America! I am still praying that we will be able to talk to him one last time today before he leaves!

We have some English class junkies who come every week, and one of them is a 90-something year old lady who travels around Hong Kong trying to go to every single free missionary English class. If you tell her that her English is good, she scowls a little and says, “No. It is poor. I must keep learning.” She is so dedicated, I love it! There is also a guy who works in our building who sees us come in from exercise in the mornings and says, “You just got done exercising? Great! Studies show exercise daily promotes health.” And then he gives us a big smile and 2 thumbs up!

Taught a less-active this past week who we have been trying to get hold of for the past 3 months and the lesson went really well! Sister Percival also did such a good job in the lesson and even cracked a joke that made everyone laugh, I was so proud! We talked about sacrifice and read the story of Abraham and Isaac with her and how Abraham was willing to sacrifice his only son simply because God asked him to. Things seemed to really click a little more with her and we talked about how we aren’t usually asked to make big sacrifices like that, but are asked to make little ones each day. Sacrifice is a necessary part in growth and faith. I’ve been working this week on not only looking for more things to sacrifice to the Lord, but also doing it with a happy and willing heart. Someone needs my help or I’m asked to do something that I might not want to? Great! I’d love to! I am realizing more and more each day that we really can choose to become the kind of person that we want to be.

Love you all! Hope that you’re getting in the Christmas spirit!

Love,
Sister Crockett

18 Dorset Crescent
Kowloon Tong, Kowloon
Hong Kong
Pictures are all from Ten Thousand Buddhas- enjoy!