June 13, 2015

Hallo!! #Miracles

Hey everyone, first things first: yes, I wrote Hallo because that's really how it sounds here. :) It's definitely a ha, not a he. :)

So this week has been awesome, it's been a lovely time all around and we are excited! But first, let us get into it!

So this week, we met with Norton a lot to prepare for his baptismal interview. It's interesting because some days he has such a strong testimony, and sometimes he's kind of not caring about it. That wasn't how this week went, he was really just ready. That made us excited and he passed his baptismal interview. So this Sunday Norton will be baptized. After working so hard, I'll be honest, this does feel good. But it's not about me at all. It's so awesome to know Norton and see that the Lord does have a "Field [that is] white, already to harvest" in Hong Kong China. I feel so blessed to serve here and to help these people come unto Christ.

2 Miracles of the week:
Okay: so in our ward we have a less active named Lahm daat han. He served a mission in Arizona but we aren't sure exactly why he's less active now. So one of his sons has the priesthood and passes the sacrament every week, or rather often. And his brother, who is 10 years old is not baptized. Apparently he strode into the bishop's office a few weeks ago and asked him how he could be baptized, and told him he wanted to. So this week we got in contact with him and taught the first lesson. It was such a different experience, considering the fact that usually people don't understand the first lesson when you teach it here (Nobody knows anything about God.) but he started asking us questions about Joseph Smith receiving the melchezzidek priesthood (I feel bad but I only know how to spell it in Chinese... :/ ) and what makes our churches different from others. We invited him to be baptized and he said, "Of course I will, why would I have asked the bishop about being baptized if I didn't want to??" So that's exciting. His father is super nice to us, we ate dinner at their place after the lesson and they made us pizza and chili. Like American style, it was so good and they gave it to us to take home!! (Actually the pizza is overall better here. More stuff on top :P )

We also called Au Yeuhng (Kyle) and asked him on Saturday if he could come to church. He was excited to tell us that he is off on Sunday now, and he can come! He came and went for longer than we did, although he did ask us if he could take a picture of the baptismal service held yesterday. (Which we had 2 investigators at. Yeah!!!) and we are excited about him.

The last thing is, today, Yoshi took us out to lunch. Not just a normal thing (I feel bad calling it that because every time Yoshi takes us out it's special) but seriously an all you can eat buffet. The food was all super expensive and pricey but it was all delicious. He took 7 missionaries and Norton to this place and we ate a LOT. Racks of Lamb, Crab legs, Fish, Sushi (cooked kind of course) Drinks, Everything was there.

I told Elder Powell (Elder Merrell's companion) that he'd be on Elder Wilcoxsons team and I'd be on Yoshi's team to eat ice cream challenge. And yes, this was after eating Lamb, Crab, Fish, Sushi, Clam, Oyster, Eel, the whole lot (You should have seen the amount of seafood Yoshi ordered for himself.

From my letter:
Yoshi and I ate 5 cups (of ice cream) each, Elder Wilcoxson ate 3 and Elder Powell ate 1. Hahahaha! Man that was fun, and we took pictures of our ice cream towers. :D

Anyway, that's all I have for you now, and until next time,

DRAGON HORSE ENERGY. :)

--Elder Chance Farr

(A little more? OK....)

Also, 1) Better have my doughnuts. (Probably only my weird brothers and Dad will understand this.)
and 2) This week we did an interview with President Lam, it went really well and when we were buying dinner after in Tai Po, Sister Lam ran right up and was telling us she wanted to pay for our dinner so she kept telling the lady to give her back the money. The lady wouldn't give her back the money I had just given her (Seriously like 1.5 seconds ago, it was hilarious) and so she cracked open her wallet and gave me the money back for my food. We talked about how Sister Lam was the fun parent and Pres. Lam is the serious parent, but in reality they're just both fun. Man I love them! hahah. Then Sister Lam was like, picking on the other two (E. Wilcoxson and E. Chu) like, "How much did you spend?" and as soon as they told her she paid them back. So the best part of this story is really the fact that afterward, I wanted to go back to the shop but sister Lam was buying from there and I didn't want her to pay for any more of my meal so we awkwardly stood there in the street waiting for them to pick and walk away before I could go back up and get my potato bread and custard bread. Mmmmmhhh. :)

An awesome view from where we are at in Ma on Shan

Yoshi's raw fish buffet he ate

the clam I ate today

Our whole crew out here. Look at all that table space occupied. And that was after they had taken most of the plates away :P

Stacks of cups of ice cream we ate after eating the buffet. Yeah, it was totally an add oil moment.

This is one posted to Facebook this morning by Yoshi. Congratulations, ice cream champions!

June 6, 2016

Hey everyone!! #RainstormsWithoutUmbrellas

Whomever just looked at my hashtag and thought, "Man, that's a really good band title," (Which was probably none of you) I'm sorry but it's mine. ^.^

So this week was pretty great, we met with Norton 7 times this week and were able to really just resolve concerns with him which was pretty good overall. It was a lot of fun to talk to him, especially because every time we go he gives us a piece of paper that has 9 words on it, and we have to make a picture including 3 words. So basically we make 3 pictures. It's to help his memory I think? He explained it to us, as if you can remember 300 pictures that's 900 words you can keep in your head. Seems neat, but I'll stick to the mind palace, it seems to be working just fine for me. My memory's improved, by the way. I'm sure most of you remember me as a scatterbrained twit, and although I'm still a twit I'm not quite as scatterbrained ;)

So another thing that happened at Norton's was he suddenly brought out a box and asked me to sit. He then locked in basically a bamboo post and told me to lay down. He then pulled my leg up and put it up against the post, so I could stretch out my leg. He's been a Chinese Medicine Massage Therapist (Yes he knows how to do acupuncture, no I've not asked him to do it.) and so he told me that if I can stretch my legs out they won't always be so tight and my legs won't ever hurt again. Sounds good, but the treatment is painful. Basically, I've decided I will be able to do a full splits by the end of my mission. :P

We went over to Tai Po for language pass offs (Of which I passed) and of course when we were trying to get back to Ma On Shan it was super super rainy and stormy. Gam chaahm (So miserable). So we decided it would be more fun to go run and play rather than be peeved about it (Which we were right, it was much more fun). As you can imagine we were jumping through puddles, flying through and saying hello to all of the people on our way out.

So I've decided to start doing video journals rather than writing them, because this is the 21st century. :) So those have been fun.

Other cool stuff that's happened: We have made hot fudge and tried everything in it. I mean everything. Like raw onions. Okay maybe that was just a dare. But Cheetos! Yeah, that wasn't too great either. (He also mentioned that they dunked potatoes, rice and pretzels too. Crazy boys.) Aaanyway, this week's been awesome, hope everyone else's week has been awesome too.

All righty everyone, take care, I love you all, and so does the Savior.

--Elder Farr

 (More from Mom's letter that he wanted me to share:)

We also ate black grass jelly which was delicious (but only because it was covered in unprocessed sugar and evaporated milk :P

Mostly my spiritual experience have to deal with the enabling power of the Atonement. It's funny  how often we assume that the Atonement just heals our sins when in reality it also enables us to be better, to perform miracles, to change our literal nature. We can change who we are through the Atonement. Don't like being anxious all the time? Ask the Lord to give you the enabling power of the Atonement. You don't like eating all the time? Ask for the enabling power of the Atonement. Lots of people must have done that on the street here because whenever we ask them if they've eaten yet they always answer with "Not necessary". "Huh?! Mh sai sik yeh man??" (Huh? You don't have to eat??)

Funny stories:

So we've had twice now where we have literally been sap saai this week (completely soaked) and it's been really funny, actually. I love playing in the rain so of course I didn't miss out on the chance to jump in puddles regardless of my church clothes ;)  (This is SO CHANCE... jumping in puddles regardless of what he's wearing. I can just imagine how wonderful it is for him to have warm weather and rain all the time! He's never going to want to come home :) )

We got to go to the farm and walk around in the water. We collected stones and sifted sand out of ti because Kelvin likes to work green and wants to make more cement. So we got to go play around with minnows in a lake which was pretty fun!

One more note from mom: Norton's baptism has been rescheduled to June 19th because Norton has had a bad ear infection. Please pray for our friend Norton to get better so he can be baptized!

"When you're soaking wet and you're scared they won't let you board the MTR"

(We went to Daaih bo and it rained so hard. We forgot umbrellas so we were literally soaking wet. It was super fun to run through, hahahaha!)

Elder Chu standing next to a happy man.

A giant tea bag full of 5 flower tea. Man that stuff was awesome!!

Don't worry, "flower" tea is the same as "herbal" tea :)

June 2, 2016

Hey Everyone #LostASock...

So we have been working really hard with Norton and I'm pretty sure it's paying off. He's so awesome, he's been doing so well and learning more and more about the Prophet through The Lord's Errand, which is a great watch so I recommend it to you all :D

We have been pressing on less active work which really turned into our favor with the reactivation of Samuel Laaih. He's such a nice guy and I'm so happy to see him feeling the joy of the gospel again, and really being able to work for it. Other things keep happening so often and I'm so blessed. We also met Uncle Beer who "REALLY LIKES SWIMMING" And has people just randomly give him free beer. That was interesting.

We also forgot umbrellas in a storm in Tai Po, which was rather difficult as we sprinted around. Of course I've loved playing in the rain since I was a little kid, so I enjoyed jumping and splashing in my church clothes ;)

I also had a sock roll out of my window on the 34th story... Oops. Can't find it now.

Sorry about the short email everyone, hope everything is going well :)

--Elder Chance Farr

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!!