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Thursday, September 15, 2011

News From Hong Kong After One Week in Country!

Hello!

Hong Kong is incredible! The food is amazing, the people are interesting, and it is nice and humid and warm.

So Last week we had 0 investigators. Before I came, the Elder had medical things so they were always out of commission. Now, we have... Idk how many, but a good amount.
Finding is a blast! We basically walk around and talk to everyone we see.
Cheuns are these groups of skyscrapers that people live in. In the middle of every cheun is a plaza thing where they have chinese chess boards, ping pong tables, basketball courts, etc... Those are the best areas to go finding.

Two days ago while finding, we were walking past these stone ping pong tables, and some old guy yelled out "Momuhngau". Which means Mormon church. So we turned around and he was laughing and so we started talking to him and then they invited us to play ping pong with them. We told them if we win then they have to let us teach them... Well neither of us won. I lost by two points... So I guess it wasnt meant to be.

Chinese people are very superstitious. Unfortunately, Momuhngau also means "Devils gate". So that adds to the thinking that we are a cult. Also, the Chinese book of mormon happens to have exactly 666 pages in it :/    Woops. Whoever made that translation should have added an extra blank page in there somewhere.

My ward is really cool. But kinda crazy. there are a bunch of crazy girls who are super loud and I can hardly understand what theyre saying when they all are talking at once. They are amazed that I know spanish for some reason. All they ever want me to do is speak spanish. Then they go, "Wooooow".
The young men LOVE basketball. so every Saturday and Tuesday night we have sports night. they bring their friends and we bring investigators and play basketball. I never considered myslef good at basketball until I got here haha :)
They also LOVE the NBA. So my Jazz jersey amazed all of them. In fact it amazed them so much that when Sunday came around, they all came to the investigator class we were in for sunday school, and kept asking about the few NBA games I have gone to. They just couldnt get over how cool that was. It was pretty difficult talking to them about it because of my Cantonese, but luckily the bishops son John has pretty good English because he has gone to the USA a lot.

Speaking of Sunday, I bore my testimony and introduced myslef to the ward. I didnt really know how to start so I said, "Josahn" which means good morning. I was pretty surprised when the entire congregation yelled back, "Josahn".
They all just stared up at me the rest of the time nodding their heads. So hopefully that means they understood me and I didnt mess anything up too bad. :)
there was a random white business man who showed up before sacrament. He looked online to find a chapel and found ours and was passing by the area and wanted to go to church. He took my comp and I's picture in front of our chapel and told us he was going to send it to oru parents. So mom may or may not get a picture of me from some random guy. According to the other missionaries, this is a very common occurance.

Monday and Tuesday were Mid-autumn festival. A holiday complete with dragons, parades, and mooncakes. Mooncakes are these lotus paste things with old raw duck egg inside of them. The missionaries here all dont like them, but I didnt mind them so much. This lady at church was trying to feed me one, so I finally ate it. She was laughing so hard because afterwards I smiled. I couldnt figure out why that made her laugh so hard. She kept pointing at my teeth and grabbing other ward members. Apparently they think my vampire fang teeth are hilarious.

A recent convert, Tomoko was in the elevator when I was going upstairs. She was just staring at me, then almost in a scared voice said, "Hou Gou". Which just means "Very tall". I thought it was pretty funny.

Whenever I get onto the double decker busses or MTR subway, I feel like a giant. I look all around me and I can see from one wall to the other. I am at least a foot taller than the next tallest person.

While finding in Wong Tai Sin, I saw this boy. I swear I knew him from somewhere. He looked like a Chinese version of someone I know. Not sure who though. Well anyways, he was walking so I approached him and then we asked if he had a second to sit down at a bench and listen to our message. He agreed so we taught him for about an hour. This experience is nothing short of a miracle, but at the same time is an extremely common occurance. Among all of the people blowing us off left and right, there are always a few people really willing to listen to us. I love it.

The members here are so awesome. A family with an inactive teenage son invited us over for dinner the other night. We showed up to this big cheun and went up to their apartment. Inside their humble abode, there was a little table FULL of food. We would eat, and they just kept bringing out more, and it was GOOD. There was fresh shrimp with the eyes and everything, squid, octopus, fish balls, these rice paste candy ball things, mooncakes, ice cream, mochi ice, chocolate fondue, a big hot pot full of stuff, dragonfruit stuff that looks like a bunch of little floating eyes, sushi, and a ton more. It was soooooooooooooo good. They are sooo incredibly humble and nice. It made me almost want to cry.

My favorite drink ever is Melon milk. It is this soy/melon milk stuff that is incredibly good. You can buy it in asian supermarkets in utah. I would suggest trying it.

Mainlanders are some of my favorite people. Many times while finding we will run into people that jjust by their looks we can tell are from mainland China. Some speak cantonese if they are from the south, others only speak mandarin. Luckily, elder jolley and I can kind of speak a little mandarin. Him more than I. But I remember the first night meeting a mainlander. She was amazed at what we were doing in Hong Kong and jsut kept syaing, "Thank you for your amazing spirits, they are just so warm feeling." That, as you know is the spirit.

I have already used my arabic a little bit here even though I am not in International. The international elders apparently say that is incredibly useful if I ever go international. Also, they have been teaching a few Spanish speakers from columbia. Pretty cool stuff.

People here are amazed that we know Cantonese. Because NO white people know cantonese according to them. They meet me and they say how long have you been learning cantonese. I tell them three months and they are shocked. they start freaking out like crazy saying its way too good for only three months. Even though I know its not that good. most of them say something along the lines of, " I have been studying English for 10 years and I cant speak it at all. But you have learned cantonese for 3 months and know it so well."

Well I am off to a buffet where you grab raw meat and your table is a giant round hot stove thing that you cook it on before eating it. So have a great week! hopefully I can send pictures, if not I will just send you my SD card sometime with pictures and videos on it. Love you all!

Love, Elder Bingham

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