March 30, 2016

Hello Everyone! Back around again! #templetrips

Hey everyone, so awesome to see all of your emails and I'm super appreciative of everything that you all send me, it really means so much. Thanks for reading along as well, I also appreciate that :)

So last week we went to the mall to shop and we just had some fun on Pday!

The next day I switched with Elder Love and was hanging out with him (Yes the dude from Beyond 5, he's super talented) and he taught me how to play the Uke during our lunch hour! We had district meeting and that was awesome, we also met a girl named Check in (Yes that's literally her English name) and she said she was super interested. Haven't been able to get a hold of her yet but everyone in HK is super Mohng (Busy) so I'm sure we will get in contact. On that Friday we had an awesome activity with the whole ward and we got to go because Alex went with us! It was an amazing thing and I'm super glad we got to go, Alex really felt fellowshipped and the food was delicious (Hk food always is :P :P) And we got to hang with Angelo who is super awesome. I found out his favorite song, and just what a cool guy he really is.

During English Class Norton prayed for his Husband in Law (meant Brother in Law) which made us lose it and start laughing like crazy. He also thought Sparingly was pronounced (Spraingly) which we couldn't stop laughing about. It's interesting because Norton's really taken a liking to Angelo and they've been talking back and forth. Apparently Norton called Angelo out of the blue and they talked for a half an hour.

Then we talked to Waly which was super awesome, he's a SS (Seung seui/Sheung shui) man who was just baptized last week. Elder Love and Elder Anderson taught him and he was so cool! Also met Angus (Yes Angus, you get a shout out in my email) Who's SUPER COOL! I'm so excited because he's headed out on a mission here soon, and I've never seen a person more excited than he is. I'm so happy I got to meet him.

When we went to church I saw someone with an AWESOME SHIRT! It was all blue, it had 2 coffee cups on it, and one of them had "Writer" on it and one had "Police" on it. They had Castle and Beckett's face on them too! Super awesome.

Also last shout out, CONNER HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Love you all!

--Elder Farr

(I just wanted to add that the investigator that came up to them on the street last week has been very busy, but they are going to meet with him this week, plus they were meeting with Johnny (the Lionhead Kendama guy) that evening. They did meet with the pot-smoker guy (I don't know his name) and he said he believes that what the Elders were teaching him is true :D They also got to go to the temple with their district on Wednesday.)

The view off the bay of the water :)

My district at the temple!

Reuniting with Elder Caloobanan (MTC companion)

Lion's Rock

The view from Lion's Rock

Elders Farr and Merrell at Lion's Rock

Dragon Bushes!

The masterful creation of bridges built of paper!

Angelo and I

The sunset out my window

March 21, 2016

Hello everyone! Week 4 (I think?) #HK!

Hello everyone, it's good to send yet another email, the Adventures of Elder Farr (I'm going on an Adventure!!). This week has been a crazy one, so grab your popcorn, grab your soda (or water if you prefer) and sit back and see the crazy that unfolded!)

So Monday right after emailing, Elder Merrell, Elder Ship, Elder Chu, Elder Daplin, Elder Sargent, Elder Jiu and I all went to hike up Lion's Rock. It was a hard hike but it was so worth it for the view (Let me know if you want that picture, it's awesome) and it was great. So apparently just recently someone fell off the cliff and died, so of course we as missionaries were not careful. None of us died which was a relief, but there were some epic pics taken. When we were coming down Elder Wilcoxson was slower and so Elder Chu was waiting for him. Elder Wilcoxson had someone try to lead him the wrong way and promised him that 7 white guys (the rest of us) had gone a different way. But luckily Elder W listened to the spirit. So listen to the spirit everyone! So after that we had a good time shopping and we went to a lesson that fonged our fei gei (Chenglish for "Didn't get on our airplane" or ditched us).  Later that night for whatever reason Elder Merrell was a robot that just had to make cookie dough. So we ate some, that was awesome. Also that day was 3/14 and I bought a pie without realizing it was pi day. Apparently my body knows the math better than I do! ;) It was funny and super coincidental!

So on Tuesday we walked up and met with two guys that were both in caps and one smoking a cigarette. We were talking to them and one showed off his Lionhead Kendama tricks (which was awesome) and then we started teaching them the Plan of Salvation after one told us he wanted to move to Florida and smoke weed (which I don't think is legal there still). We gave a teaser of the Word of Wisdom, and they listened to our message and we are meeting with them Wednesday. So hopefully he will be converted to the gospel, I've got faith that they will both :)

Wednesday we went to do service at what the Elders call the "Banana Farm," which is weird because the dude is not even growing any bananas. He's growing a lot and he believes that he should build a self sustaining farm, and he wants people to join it. Kinda like a combine but not really. It was nice to meet him and he has an adorable little dog, apparently we will do that every week now. It was fun to help him establish the farm and I learned how to grow rice. ;)

We met with Norton and taught the Law of Chastity and the Word of Wisdom. He brought up a question from last week, and asked us about "inducing to the end". Of course Elder Merrell and I were like, "Uh... what??" "Why does it say Inducing to the end? Why do we have to do that?" His English is hilarious. he committed and has been to church 3 weeks in a row now.

Then we ate with Yoshi the next day, and went to ice cream after. Yoshi's was already sorta melted when he got it, and it started to pour out of the cone. Not just drip, but to like pour. So he was eating as fast as he could as it was like literally falling out, taking care of it or at least trying to super hard. Elder Chu was like, "Hey Yoshi, it's dripping on the back." Yoshi thought that was funny. When we asked him if he was okay, he was like, "Mhaih hou ok" or "Not exactly really good" which caused everyone to laugh. (Side note: I ate Honey Melon and Lychee scoops of ice cream. So. Good.) After that we met a kid who literally stopped me and asked us about the church and if we were Christian. He told us he had a lot of interest and told me that my Chinese was pretty bad so we could just speak English. He told us that he wants to meet us and so we were like, "Uh... Okay!!:D" and so that will happen this week!

We got to go SINGING FINDING ON SATURDAY! We stood out on the street with banners and sang our hearts out with the Mandarin Elders and Ma On Shan Elders. Oh my goodness that was fun! We also met someone who was really cool and believes every blessing comes from God. How cool is that! We also met Au yeung who has a thick Guang Dong Province accent but he's cool, he's a mainlander and we gave him the English name Kyle. So we had Paul, Kyle, and Norton at church which is more than Ma On Shan has had in a long time at church simultaneously. So overall the work is going well and the Lord is blessing us a ton. It's been so much fun to be around here and to experience so much! I'm sure I'll have many an adventure to share with all of you next week. Oh, I almost forgot! Today we met with Lee si fu who taught us Kung fu. He's super cool and has a diamond knuckle, he hit it against metal and stuff until it was rock hard. It hurts to be tapped on the head with. He also is an expert in literally every Kung fu style, and teaches those he selects to be his students for free. It's pretty sweet.

That's all I have for you, Hah go sin keih gin! (See ya next week!)

-Elder Farr

Ice Cream Time! (This picture was from Yoshi!)

I got this one thanks to Elder Taylor's Mom! :)

Kung fu with Lee si fu. Chance says he's awesome.

March 14, 2016

Hey everyone! #Activities!

Hey everyone! It's so good to send out another email this week! I'm not sure who really reads this anymore but I'm gonna keep sending them like the entire world reads them ;)

This week has been a fantastic week, the work has been going hard but good, and I'm so happy that I'm here in Hong Kong. The food's amazing, the people are DEFINITELY amazing, and everything is just great!

Throughout the week we've been able to meet 5 new people and have 5 new investigators (Seriously, that's a miracle it seems, considering we had one new investigator last week and he already dropped us) and we were able to teach some of them twice this week. We are so happy to have all of these investigators and I am so blessed to love these people, and feel a bit of what the Lord feels for them, even if it's just a tiny portion!

On Thursday, Yoshi took us out to this awesome Taiwan based restaurant. That was delicious, it was a bunch of kinds of soups and fried chicken (which is kinda expensive here) and that was super good. Then for dessert we had some toast with a LOT of ice cream on top, and of course out of rocky road and mango, I chose mango. ;)

Yoshi has been a power house for us so we have prayed for him a lot, he's super cool and he has basically a photographic memory. He learned my birthday like 2 weeks ago and this time he was like, "Oh yeah, around Elder Farr's birthday, whatever P-day is closest to May 1st, I'll take you all out to a full buffet on the Island." So yeah. That's no good. ;)

Then that morning I was really craving sweet stuff, so I bought a bag of cookie dough on P-day and made it. Then I used some of it and made myself a peanut butter and honey and cookie dough sandwich. If you're wondering, yes it was fattening. Did I love it? Yep! ;)

Some funny things I've learned in Hong Kong -
They have sort of a slang thing here, which translates to literally "Wat gei" or "bend the machine". It's basically just being over powered. So in League, Fizz is Wat gei, but not only video games are wat gei, you can be wat gei in sports and stuff too. You can also wat someone's gei, which means you'd like wipe the floor with them. That's the best vocab I've ever learned :) Haha, jk jk, but stilli t was fantastic.

We had an awesome activity on Saturday with the kids in the ward where we took missionary flyers and taped them to KitKats and then had them take them all out and hand them out. Initially, the kids were really afraid (Like all new missionaries are) to talk to others but by the end we had them running so hard to give other people candy, it was awesome. And at one point we got to see a tender moment of two kids bearing their testimony. We thought it would just be a moment of kids going "Want some candy?" to other kids, but it ended up they started talking about the fliers on it and how important it was in their lives. It was really a testimony to me, and I was so happy to experience it.

Norton went to church yesterday, and of course it was about the Law of Chastity, which we hadn't taught him yet. so we were pretty anxious but of course the Lord knows what he's doing, and so the lesson really helped Norton and he seemed to understand. :)

That's all I have for you all now, I'll see you all in a week!! Bye!!

-Elder Farr

(Extra stuff, from Mom's letter)

It was funny, we were going over to teach Lilly her second lesson, and we went over to her massage shop (she owns it) and she told us that we had to wait for her son. So we were sitting talking with Vashti back and forth and then her son finally arrived, and then he sat down and Lilly had to go back to work, so we just taught her son. When we sat down he told us that we needed to only speak English because Lilly doesn't understand English. We were super confused, and then he told us that he had secretly become a Christian and that his mom was strict Buddhist. Then we explained that we had already met with his mom once, and she had accepted our message, taken a copy of the Book of Mormon, and she was like 1/4th of the way through it, which AMAZING for HK people. His jaw dropped when we told him that. He was so confused. Looks like the Lord works in mysterious ways!

Always remember that witness comes after a trial of your faith. we have so many things that increase our faith (General Conference, church, seeing an angel) but like Laman and Lemuel, if you don't strengthen it (by staying faithful, having patience in trials, looking to the Lord) then you'll lose it and murmur so quickly. It's like trying to build a sweet armor on video games. You've gotta enchant it, you gotta gem it, you gotta star it, you have to do all of these things to build it to the best it can be. Just having an empty socketed armor piece won't do you anything.

(Funny Story!)

So Vashti (A girl in our ward who just came back from serving at Temple Square) was talking with us and she'd mentioned how frustrated she was about how her little brother never texts her back because he's always playing League of Legends (if you don't know, this is one of Elder Farr's FAVORITE computer games). As you can imagine, my eyes hit the ground instantly, sort of embarrassed. She then told me she'd break the game if she could. Elder Merrell started laughing and told her that I had played an excessive amount of League of Legends and that I was super good at it. She smiled at me and asked me if I could explain changing from a League of Legends player to a missionary and how that conversion process happened. So she recorded my voice on Sunday, talking about how I decided that League of Legends, although is super fun and that I'd probably still play after my mission, wasn't the most important thing and that it was family that was really important. She was super happy with that, so I 'm glad I was able to help her. :)

Please say prayers for Elder Farr and Elder Merrell's investigators... Norton is scheduled for baptism on April 14th, and Kira is scheduled for the 27th of April!

Yoshi Yu sent these pictures to me...

This is the awesome french toast/ice cream thing they ate this week. YUM!

 Elder Farr with Elder Taylor, these boys went to High School together and now see each other at the Apple Store when it's emailing time. Makes me so happy to see them together. Of course, Chance didn't send this picture, but Elder Taylor's awesome mom sent it to me!

Zone training, my splits partner Elder Love from Beyond 5 

(I didn't get this before, but his splits partner 

(in the middle of the picture) is in a band called Beyond 5.

 Batman exhibit for the new movie coming out. Batman VS Superman!

(Hey Chance, we have Batman VS Superman here too. We want to see pictures of YOU, you DORK!)

March 7, 2016

Hello Everyone! From Hong Kong! (Week 2) #Miracles!

Hello everyone, how is everything going? It's been wonderful here in Hong Kong, and the work is pretty hard but I know that with the work I've been putting in we will help other people come unto Christ. It's funny, because we read the powers of heaven every day, a small little step thing of what we should do every day. One of them is "Work. Pray as if everything depends on the Lord, and work as if everything depends on yourself." Man, does that apply to missionary work, but it also applies to life. It's an awesome thing to keep in mind, and I encourage and invite you all to do the same thing. Consider the scripture D&C 6:36. It's helped me!!

So many adventures in Hong Kong that I'm so excited to talk about, but the week's gone so quickly that it's hard to remember everything!

Yesterday we got Norton to come to church. That was AWESOME! He wasn't really our investigator at the time but he was coming to our service at Ying maahn baan, which is English class. He told us he wants to know more and asked us if it would be all right if he could come to church. Chyuhngaausih LOVE that. "Can I come to church?" Uhhh, yes you can. (Chyuhngaausih = missionaries) Especially because that is literally the hardest commitment in Hong Kong. Nobody has time, and most people are unhappy because they never have any time. But Norton came to Sacrament and Gospel Principles.

Funny story of yesterday: So we were sitting in Gospel Principles class and the teacher had decided he needed to teach eternal families, and eternal marriage. We are all sitting there, it's Me, Elder Merrell, Elder Wilcoxson, and Elder Chu. We are all sitting there, we have Leih hing daai (Who is married, the only person who this actually applies to right now), Yoshi (been dating Yoyo for 12 years, not married), Yoyo (been dating Yoshi for 12 years, not married) and Norton (Never been married, 56.). Halfway through the lesson, Elder Merrell wrote me a note, "Yoshi and Yoyo have been dating for 12 years. We're missionaries. Norton's 56 and hasn't been married. Awkward lesson." It was so true and so funny! I was laughing pretty hard on that one.

On Saturday we were proselyting when we sat down to talk to a man who was Buddhist. We were talking back and forth about religion and he told us he was so happy we were in Hong Kong because the people needed religion here, but he informed us that we would not find any success and he wondered why we had chosen to serve here. Nothing came of that meeting but as he was talking he looked out over the bay (this was on the pier) and we all watched this dude wake boarding and totally biffed it. He busted out into laughter, Elder Merrell busted out into laughter, and I couldn't help but laugh super hard.

We got to meet with a girl named Lily, she's about 40 gei (forty something) and she wanted to meet with us because we are hou leng gwai louh (good looking foreigners, but not in the weird way. Just like calling a friend good looking.) and she wants her son to be more like us. We taught the restoration and that was great, so Gau yahn gaai waahk is next (Plan of Salvation) and that's looking good. We are hoping they will come to the truth.

Thanks for always taking the time to read about me and know about me, I appreciate everyone, and I feel your prayers and support.

With Love,
Elder Farr

(A few other notes from the mom...)

There's this little girl named Anna in our ward who is about four years old, surnamed Yuh. Her, Yuh Ji muih is so funny and she has us over every Tuesday for dinner. Anna is like the biggest fireball I've ever met, just so crazy full of energy. She took my ring and was rolling it around on a pencil and kept talking about how pretty her horse is, "Ngoh ge ma hou leng gama!!" at the top of her lungs (My horse is so pretty! DUH!!) !! And when her mom told her to pick up the couch, she told her it was so "Maahn Faahn" (Annoying, or inefficient). Man, that got a good laugh out of us. Yesterday during fast and testimony meeting, Yuh Ji muih was bearing her testimony when Anna walked right up and started yelling at her, "Moooooom. Mooooooooom. Mooooooooooooooooom!" So funny! I also got to help them fix their product key on their computer, so yeah my PC skills already came in use.

Also Elder Love and I (the guy from Beyond 5, we go on exchanges because our companions are the zone leaders) walked into a shantytown the other day and I laughed so hard because we met this old lady with like 2 real teeth and 3 gold ones. She couldn't understand a word we were saying and we asked her if she needed help and she was like, "Naw. Walk that way." I'm pretty sure she was crazy.

I'm SO happy. I can't explain it because it's the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. But I'm the happiest I've ever been I think, and although I miss all of you and League of Legends (which is HUGE here, gonna teach some LoL players) and my brothers and spending time with them it's so worth it to be out here serving the Lord.

Oh my goodness, the food here is amazing. Everything I've eaten has been awesome, except for this dish Sister Yuh gave us, it's like a spicy tofu Korean thing and it was so weird. I pretended it was good so I could get Elder Merrell to eat it, and he did, he did not appreciate that. Yuh ji muih knew Missionaries wouldn't like it because we are gwai lou. She just wanted to see our faces.

The ward members are the nicest people I've ever met. Treating us out all of the time, learning about us, taking time to learn our names, taking time to know us as people, it's been so nice. I love all the people here. A lot of people are really nice here and listen to us and let us give them a flyer but aren't really interested. A lot of mainlanders want to bash our church because they believe in Buddhism. Which is okay, it's kind of funny. We had an experience with some guy who wanted to know when God had felt pain, because if He hadn't, then he didn't know Joy. We explained that it was deep doctrine but God was once like us, and we will someday be like God. He was mad we had an answer to his question. He wanted to shut us down. So he left. Love that guy! XD

Also, sorry about no pictures, I forgot my camera. Next week will be full of pictures! :)

So no pictures this week, but here is the video of transfers if you didn't get to see it on Facebook!

I'm just going to leave these right here....

These are a couple pictures posted to Facebook by Yoshi Yu, a member who lives in Ma On Shan where Chance is serving. He takes the missionaries out to eat often and takes care of them. What a blessing, that he tracked me down!

Elders Farr, Merrell, Chu and Wilcoxson

I'm including the screen capture above so that, when Chance gets home,

he can see that Yoshi thought he was great at Cantonese even when he 

first arrived in Hong Kong.