May 23, 2016

Hey Everyone #Cookies and Fried Chicken

Hey everyone! Feels nice to send a short little email and let ya'll know I'm still alive and still working as always. Let's get right into it!

So we've been working with Norton a lot and Alex a bit, we couldn't really schedule anyone else but we are still working on it, it's been awesome though. Norton's really progressed, it was a very sacred experience as he told us that he's changed a lot from who he once was, and how much he has felt happier. He's got a baptismal date for 12 of June, and now I am fully confident he will make it. It's been interesting to feel a change, to go from thinking he was ready to truly knowing it. That's been awesome and being able to see him change is really really good.

Alright, time for our funny story:

So we ran into a Pakistani man and he totally started telling us about how his religion believes there are people and three eyed elephants on the sun which, during the second coming, will come down and fight with us. and the Muslim ruler at the time will contend with them and he'll be praying a lot and then Jesus will come down and kill the monsters, and he'll kill them all day. And in one day they will be all dead, and we will all be under one religion. He also believes that Jesus was not crucified, but they took someone who looked like him and crucified him, and that Jesus was translated instead of dying. He told us that he believes Jesus is the Sun of god, not the Son of God. I couldn't stop laughing as he was telling us that we were gonna war with fire three eyed elephants, sounds like a video game. So he told us we need to read the Koran, and we told him we have another book of scripture. Needless to say, we scheduled him. :P

Yesterday we decided to fry chicken (Because who needs health? (It's missionaries that need health!)) so we ate that for lunch and afterward we had members give us steak noodles, give us soda, and then one gave us a full cheesecake. I don't think it fully makes sense to all of you but cheese here is EXPENSIVE, and she made it herself. Cheese. Cake. MMMMMMMMMMHHHHH.

Also we decided we wanted to teach cooking for English class adults, and we made cookies for them all. No bakes were awesome because they went so quick, and then everyone enjoyed eating them. "This isn't a cookie," one of the little girls that came to adult English exclaimed. "Uhhh... it's an American cookie?" Yeah I might have just really confused her. Oh well!!

See you all next week!!

--Elder Farr

This is me and Elder Chu in a selfie. Super fun to take but I look a lot fatter than I am :P

This is all the fried food we made... yeah that was one of the biggest mistakes ever. :P

This is one of the three shirts I bought last P-Day... Yes, they are all Monster Hunter. They remind me of Payton and Conner so I miss them XD

Lunch with Yoshi 5.24.16

Lunch with Yoshi 5.24.16

Another great picture from Yoshi 5.22.16

May 16, 2016

Hey Everyone #TacoSaladsInHK?!

Hey everyone! Nice to send out another email to all you lovely people. Hopefully life is going well and I hope you're all happy and successful. Today's a bit shorter one because I got out of hand emailing my Mum (Blame me if you like, I've been a Mother's Boy since I was born) (and for my part... sorry!) ;) And right out of the gates I realized I didn't tell the mold story and I got some emails reminding me of that. Whooops. Anyway the attack of the mold story is that everything molds here. Clothes, couches, suit pants especially. So I woke up on Sunday morning all thinking that I could just put on my suit pants but it just so happens they were covered in mold. So I washed them out with Clorox wipes and it's working out pretty well, we dropped a dehumidifier in our closets after that. Also our couch gets eaten sometimes Ewww.

So this week we had a lot of good things happen, and our friend whose parents live in Venezuela (Angelo if you remember) helps us literally any time we need so we decided to give back by buying the stuff to make taco salads and we ate taco salad together. It was an awesome trip, and the taco salads were delicious. He's the funniest guy, he's super awesome, my mom has pictures :P Maybe I'll upload a picture here haha!

We were able to work really hard with Norton, he's still trying to apply the scriptures to himself and I can feel his faith building. Man it's such a blessing to teach him!

Also I got to eat a baby squid that was just all of it's stuff just right there. It was yummy. 

See ya!

--Elder Farr

Just pictures of my new hair. Nothing Special.

(Although, it is kinda special: I told him I loved it and he says, "I love it, and people are pretty jealous that I could actually speak fluently enough to get it cut a way I wanted it XD" )

Here's our District before Transfers. Long time coming but here that is :P

(I think the 'grumpy cat' face is because he didn't want to be parted from his trainer, Elder Merrell!)

Alright everyone, I finally got a picture of Norton on my hands. This was the surprise birthday cake he bought for me that we ate up at his apartment, and it was seriously one of the best times we've ever had!! Oh my goodness that cake was super good. We're also drinking some super weird Chinese Medicine Herbal Tea (It keeps the spleen from being wet. I have no idea how that helps me but it tastes ok!) and he's super awesome. He's our rockstar right now! And also he is one of the funniest dudes on the planet.

These are both shots out our window. It reminded me of Diablo 3 :) :)

This is Taco Salad Wednesday with Angelo. Man that was a fun trip, he's such a cool dude. He helps us with basically any lesson we want so we decided we wanted to give back. Also he's super Wat Gei (overpowered) in Dragon's Nest so we are gonna play post mission :P

May 8, 2016

Hey Everyone #Mothersday/Attack of the living Mold

Hey everyone! Here's me, just shooting out another email like I always am, it seems. Always nice to send out another one :) :) Keep on everyone!

So last Monday we went to #7 and I bought a nice watch, which is now broken (Luckily I have a warranty so it's not too bad :P) And of course that was fantastic, but on Wednesday we met with Yoshi. There is seriously nothing bad to say about Yoshi, There's nothing you can even think of, he's just that good of a guy. So he treated me out for my birthday, which was very nice of him and I appreciate it deeply. We had a birthday cake and he sent me an awesome Sword Art Online pin. Proudly hanging in my room now where I can see it occasionally! He ate with us and of course we ate until we were more than full, and then a cake came out, and after that ice cream. It was one of the best things I've ever had for my birthday!!

We also got to meet with Bryan, who can't get baptized right now because his wife doesn't want him to. They still have a good relationship despite that, which is good, and he truly truly is ready. It's so heartbreaking but I'm sure he will ga yauh, he'll press on and we are working to help him share the gospel with her as well. We got to meet with a member on his birthday when he told us that he's had trouble sleeping and asked us for a priesthood blessing. Of course, both of my companions (Older than me in the mission and in age) looked right at me and said, "Of course, Elder Farr will do it." I nervously got up and pronounced a blessing in my Cantonese, hoping that it would just be comprehensible let alone good. It seemed that this member's mom and him both really were excited about the blessing and I'm hoping it can help them.

So this last week I was asked if I was half Asian.... Interesting. :)

As we were walking around, we started talking to people and one old lady stopped us and told us that she could read even though she was 95, and proceeded to read the newspaper to us. Afterward she "Chenged us sihk tohng" which means that she invited us to eat candy. Woah, it tasted so gross but she didn't know that. Seriously, sometimes the candy is terrible.

In other news, someone asked Elder Chu why he was hanging out with two oi gwok yahn, or foreigners. "Ngoh Haih Keuih Deih ge go go," I'm their older brother, was his reply. "Adopted of course!" and of course they believed him after that. Hahaha, they were so confused at why we were laughing, none of us were prepared for that. :P

After eating fish guts, and then going to eat pizza, we have been eating really well over here and I'm sure I've gained weight.

Thanks everyone for everything that you send me. I truly appreciate it all! :) :)

Thanks so much!

--Elder Farr

All the pictures I have lately are from Yoshi, since Elder Farr keeps forgetting his camera at home when he emails. Thanks so much Yoshi! Here's the most recent:

I got this one just yesterday, Chance told us on Mother's Day that they were meeting with Yoshi and were actually going to eat Chinese food - he usually takes them to Korean or Japanese :)

From Yoshi's Facebook post, because he's hilarious:

Elder Farr's birthday.

I bought the cake. I planned to take it to the restaurant first. On the road I saw the Elders. I ran into another route. I reached the restaurant. I asked a waitress for help. I put the cake into a refrigerator. I ran back to the train station. I met the elders. I had food with them. We had the cake as a surprise. I managed primary school level English... Haha :D

Hooray for birthday cake!

Birthday Dinner, Elders Farr, Chu and Wilcoxson

Now THAT is a birthday dinner!

May 3, 2016

Hey everyone! Transfers!

Well it's been another week, which came and went very fast. I'm surprised I'm already back at the apple store sending another email (Macintosh... Eww...) It's all good though because I'm just sending emails, there's nothing else to do xD

So let's get right into it shall we?

So last p-day we went out to eat Korean Barbecue. I'm not sure if any of you have tried it but seriously it's fantastic. It's the weirdest thing, you basically get raw meats that have been marinated and then sit down at a table with a grill on it. You put the food in the grill and cook it yourself, and it's a $20 buffet ($150 HKD). It was pretty great, for sure. I enjoyed the food and they did have some things with sweetened condensed milk inside (My weakness!) So I may have eaten 5 or 12. :)

This week we had transfers, so Elder Merrell moved to Tai Wai, and I stayed in Ma On Shan with the other two elders who live in my apartment (Elder Wilcoxson and Elder Chu). It doesn't feel like too much of a change except I don't go finding with Elder Merrell anymore, it's with the other elders instead. It's a bit weird, Elder Merrell is awesome and so are these companions. :):)

Funny story: So we went to visit Norton the day Elder Merrell learned he was moving and we went up to sit by him at his house. We were talking back and forth and Elder Merrell was feeling pretty sad that he's leaving Norton before Norton gets baptized. So Elder Merrell was bearing his testimony to Norton before he told him and said, "I know that this friendship--" and was cut off when Norton said, "Come on!! We aren't friends." We stopped for a sec and he continued with, "We are brothers." Wow, that was an awesome experience. And then Elder Merrell told him he was moving to Tai Wai and Norton was like, "Oh come on!! That's not that far, I'll come over and see you every week at Sha Tin English class! We'll have a tea, have a Keg!" I'm pretty sure he means what HK people call "Yam Chah" or drink tea. Which is really just like a lunch thing. So funny.

Also, I may have hit my companion on the first day he was my companion with projectile Mango juice. :)

We have had so many awesome experiences as we work hard to help Norton understand more fully the Book of Mormon, and it's been a real treasure to see his testimony be strengthened, and gain a true conviction of the Book of Mormon. He told us these days he reads at least 2 chapters a day, and finds it very interesting. He's been strong and he's going to keep on being strong. There have been so many experiences that I can feel the spirit and things will truly touch our hearts that I could not count them all up. It's been wonderful to serve here and I'm excited to keep doing so.

Well everyone, Ga yauh.

Love you all!

--Elder Farr

(P.S. DEVIN AND BROOKLYN! LILITH IS SO CUTE!!)

Oh also, thanks for all of the birthday wishes everyone. Super appreciate them all. :):) You all are the best!! :):)

Sorry, no pictures this week :(

Also just wanted to note that one of Chance's good friends, Ian Taylor, who is also serving in HK, was just transferred to Chance's district. Hooray for Springville boys together in Hong Kong!!