July 11, 2016

Hey Everyone!! #The 4th (Last week)

Hey everyone, so we have had an awesome time here in Sham Shui Po! I suppose we can get into it! :)

So first on Monday we had a lot of experience after we were done emailing, and we first went over to a nice place called Dan Ryan's for eating. (Is it just me, or can he not speak English normally??) We had a recent convert there with us, and I really like this guy. His name is Jason, and he's really awesome. He's such a nice guy and he acts just like we were missionaries with hugs and stuff. Really good man who was really just looking for some friends when he started meeting with the missionaries but now has so much more. He's so proud of his membership and he's such a good fellow-shipper. We also played board games which was lovely, and then we also made pies. This week has been super crazy, we've been searching out a new apartment in Wan Chai, so we have been all the way down there a few times. We have looked at so many apartments I can't even keep my thoughts about them straight. We also have been fixing up apartments, doorknobs, hinges, anything. So by the time I come home I really will be able to fix anything. It's interesting how I always thought my computer skills wouldn't come in handy here. So often I had a lot of times now that it's just come in handy. It's amazing how the Lord really qualifies those who he calls. I still feel unqualified but I will continue to work. Good luck in all your endeavors my friends, and as always, Ga yauh (Add oil!)

Oh also, I've been starting to learn characters. I'm up to 100, it is quite fun
我是神的仔

See you next week!

--Elder Chance Farr

I gained 20 lbs in Ma On Shan (and now I'm trying to lose some), every time I had people our family picture in the barn, they're like, "Man you were so good looking in this picture!" Yeah. XD So funny!

We made the pie and it was amazing!! Oh my goodness it was seriously the bomb.com. Everyone enjoyed it and we have been eating it like non stop. It made so much so fast! It was so much pie.

Day-to-day life as an office elder:
We wake up, do studies and then come to the office, where we do office work for however long we need. Mostly we just try to schedule lessons during meals and then meet with the people. We still want to have a proselyting spirit, but we don't do it nearly as often as we used to because we have so many things that we need to do. Mostly I've been trying to just keep up on all of this stuff, Sister Lam loves to give new projects ;) It all varies so much, it just depends on how we schedule. In the office, what we do is completely up to us, and therefore, we have to be maximizing efficiency. Always moving, always pushing. I'm getting super used to being extremely efficient, so I'm hoping this will continue in my life.

So I haven't eaten too weird, but I did make myself fish balls (octopus and cuttlefish) Yeah, that was delicious. They are not like meatballs :P It's something I've learned to cook here. We also ate Mao Pu Dao Fu again. It has this taste that reminds me of home from like forever, it's got this Gu Jin Pepper sauce. When I smell it, it reminds me of Christmas in like 2011 and playing Maplestory. I do not know why.

We have been playing a lot of basketball for workouts in the mornings, and it's been a lot of fun. Elder Hui is really good, and he's one who does not like compliments. He's so funny. His companion and I have been constantly calling him #theHui and saying things like, "140 pounds of perfection" and stuff. Seriously great.

We've taught 12 people between the 2 companionships in this ward. Man, we have been working so hard and it really pays off, even though both the companionships here have office responsibilities (the APs and us).

Here are this week's pictures. I'm about to tell Elder Farr that the only pictures I want of food is if the food is on his face, so I can get more pictures of the kid and less of the food!

He gave no explanation for these, but I'm pretty sure they're from lunch on July 4th :)

July 4, 2016

Hey Everyone!! #CrazyTransfers

So because I was transferred like 2 weeks ago I wasn't transferred this week :) No need to worry at all. This has been such an awesome opportunity to serve in the office, and have a lot of missionaries that I truly really do admire. They're so powerful and strong missionaries and I'm glad to be able to serve with them, and hope to add something to their awesome power. ;)

So let's get started!

So Monday we just kinda worked in the office to prepare for the new missionaries coming in. Yep, super boring.

Tuesday we finalized their packets and taught a few less active lessons, and that's when I got my license. We had the last district meeting with Sister Dolben and Sister Shee, so they've left, and then we taught Kenneth. Kenneth actually has my same sing and my same name in the middle, which is super interesting. He's a nice dude. We then bought 13 sandwiches for the lunch the next day and Subway told us they'd have them ready. Wednesday we went and picked it up and oriented those elders and sisters about our mission. Then we taught Ngh SS, he's doing well but we found out he still drinks tea so he'll change pretty soon we think. He told us he'd be completely off it by next week, so I'm counting on it. His baptismal date will be pushed back to August. No problem :):) He has a testimony. Then on Thursday we went to lunch with Yoshi again, which was delicious as always! We sent off those missionaries and I gave my trainer Elder Merrell a huge hug, he's super awesome. Man that guy's gonna marry fast :) jkjkjk. It's been quite an adventure so far. I am so grateful for the ability to visit with him. We had to pick up about 35 sandwiches over the course of this week and I ate 3 6 inches. :):)

We went for another apartment as well (He and Elder Chan help do repairs on missionary apartments... I think that's what he's referring to here!), I'm so happy and excited to continue to serve here!

Remember that if you're not sharing your testimony you're losing it!

See you all next week.

--Elder Farr

I sent Oreo pie crust, sweetened condensed milk and Oreo pudding to Elder Farr in his birthday package ages ago so he could make Oreo Cream Pie... he said this:

We are finally making the pies today... We are celebrating the 4th of July by going to an American restaurant to eat some steaks. Then we will come home and make pie, eat pie and play board games! ^.^

Wonderful food, like Pig's feet, shrimp eggs, and Dung Gwa. It's like a melon but I don't know if it has an English translation.

This must be their district, he didn't specify in the email.

The sleepover in the main room of the temple because Elder Ng was leaving and we had 8 people for one night, so to keep us all in the same room we just built a fort of mattresses. Yeah, we are cool like that.

My selfie with Elder Ng, because he's the coolest dude ever.

Some members gave me a little Zoro action figure.

I found the Liahona in the temple. Yeah, it's the real Liahona. :) jkjk! 

June 27, 2016

Hello World! (Yeah that's Sword Art...)

Hey everyone! We're back with an awesome adventure of Elder Farr's craziness.

So as you know from last week, we are in the office. Yep, it's been insane and I've been working so hard to get all our office jobs completed so we can also do missionary work. We are really excited because Brother Ng will get baptized soon. The 10th, pray for him. He's right on target and he's doing so well, and we are so happy and I am so humbled and blessed to be able to teach him. He's been searching for the truth for a long time now. I love teaching and learning with him as he strives to make the baptismal covenant.

Alright, into the fun stuff. So in the temple we have been doing a lot of fun stuff, and I've been enjoying myself. Our workouts are killer, and we are able to constantly keep each other in check by hitting. It's been pretty awesome. It makes me laugh, anyway. :P Elder Chan's English is improving, here are some of the words he's learned (Warning, I didn't teach him any of these)

Plump
"You have too much fat on your body"
"I think Marriage is the grave of love"

Yeah. I don't really know how he learned that. Actually, he was just reading a phrase book. I have no idea why that's in there but in case you're unhappy with your marriage and want to vent to Elder Chan, his English now has all of the vocabulary for it! Hahaha!

Honestly, it just feels like such a blessing to be serving in such a good place. This is the best place in the whole world and I'm truly blessed to know all of the people here. I cannot wait to continue serving and working hard to help other people to come unto Christ. Thank you all for your support and love, and I'll see you next week. :)

--Elder Chance Farr

Other stuff:

Elder Chan tried to make his own translation, because we like to hit each other all the time in the temple so he decided to translate a sentence. It came out as "SHOW ME YOUR BUTT!" Man that was probably the best thing that happened in the office. "SHOW ME YOUR BUTT!" Just like that. And now the whole temple is saying it. Yeah, we did a good thing.

And when I got after him for goofing around in the temple:

Haha, don't worry mom, it's not making the temple irreverent. We are saying it with love. ;) We also always call each other "DU" which is actually in a dialect of Chinese called Huo Jia Wen (That's Mandarin Pin yin) for "Pig". Super funny.

I told him not to teach Elder Chan anything naughty...

Yeah, we didn't teach him any bad words. The worst thing we taught him was "come out of the closet" and he knows what it means.

Soon we will have new missionaries in, so we are working super furiously to take care of them!

This is a picture of (left to right) Elders Tseng, Farr and Chan posted on the China Hong Kong Mission page that Elder Farr helps moderate. If you'd like to link to it through Facebook, it's here: https://www.facebook.com/LDS.SSPW.lampoil/

Elders Farr and Tseng

Not entirely sure who these guys are, Elder Farr didn't elaborate at all.

Elder Farr contacting people

Mmmmm... fooooood....

I've been asking for a name tag picture, this is what I got! :)

June 20, 2016

What happened...? #OfficeElder

The news seems to spread out quickly, but just to start off this email I guess, I am the new Online Coordinator in the China Hong Kong Mission. That means that on top of being a missionary and teaching repentance and baptizing converts, I am constantly working on building new fliers, new ways to contact other people, giving out online referrals, stocking the place chalk full of Book of Mormons, and driving the Housing Coordinator around to work and fix on apartments. There is so much to do and so little time to do it in, so I am anxiously excited to continue in this good cause. I'm so happy with what's going on right now. There's so much to do and I'm hoping I won't fall behind.

So this week we did get to meet with 2 investigators which were both really good. Apparently it's hard to teach and do Online, but we will do it :)

We did do a Tim Tam Slam this week, if you don't know what that is then you have to ask my mom. :)

--Elder Chance Farr

 Since I monopolized his time last night, here's a bunch of the other details from my emails!

We live in the Temple. Mom, that apartment is literally the best in the mission (it's on the 2nd floor of the temple and President and Sister Lam live right across from them.). And we always can run the AC all day. Also we get AC in the office. So yeah, life is really really good. My new companions are awesome!! Elder Chan is a native, and so he's really fun to talk to. Elder Tseng actually leaves today, but he's super awesome too! They're both converts of like 3 years. Neither of their families are members, and they're super powerful. They're so much fun. Seriously, we just hit each other in the temple all the time. Also the work outs are in the temple which feels weird but it's ok. :)

Norton was baptized but I didn't go. Hou chaahm. So sad, but that's ok.

I do work a lot with President Lam, I have to do all of the online work, but hey that's fun. :) I build fliers (Yes I use Photoshop, I wish I would have done more in that before my mission) I take care of the Facebook page and all of the referrals as well. It's so fun, but it's super difficult.

Elder Chan works in the office with me, 2 pairs of couple missionaries, the assistants and President Lam of course. It's super awesome, I love it over here. We still do regular missionary work, we are always trying to make our time efficient so we can do things like that.

Funny story: We all hit each other so much in the temple. Man, it's so funny to watch. Elder Chan hits the hardest though, it's pretty great! (???)

Spiritual story: These days I've been thinking about miracles that have happened on my mission. Days where we were led by the spirit, like the day we went to the library to see JR, and the things I've been able to do and experience here.

Next week I start driving. I have to drive Elder Chan around to other places and apartments, but right now I don't have my license. Yes, I'm going to have a HK license here that lasts for 10 years. We also both have iPhones. A lot of people in Hong Kong don't know how to drive, it's like New York. They drive on the opposite side of the road. I've not met anyone in the mission that's from Hong Kong that can drive (not the elders or sisters anyway).

This is Gordon Lam and his older brother. He's super awesome. I miss him already!

Tim Tam Slam... Yep ^.^

Angelo and I one last time in Ma On Shan.

Angelo, Elder Farr, Elder Chu and Elder Wilcoxson

This is Ian, he's a less active in Ma On Shan, he's a nice guy. I love him so much. We're really close friends, he likes the same music as I do. He's super awesome, we've been teaching him a lot and take him to lessons pretty often.

Elder Chu, Elder Farr, Ian, Elder Wilcoxson

This is the view out the apartment window in the temple in Kowloon Tong. I will never look at my Hong Kong Temple picture the same way again :)

Chance and Yoshi Yu at the mission office

From left to right: Elder Farr, Elder Chan and Elder Tseng

And I got this picture randomly in email this week. This is Thomas.

So in the MTC we do a thing called TRC where we either visit with members or we Skype members to talk to them, and they let us teach them in Cantonese to help our language improve. So Thomas and his wife went there for us and helped us to learn. Right now he's visiting Hong Kong, so he saw me and we started talking about all the stuff going on and how crazy it was, and asked me if my parents knew. I told him I wasn't sure so he took a picture with me and sent it back. He lives in Utah, in Provo. He and his wife both served missions here.

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