April 6, 2014

We had another great week this week. It was a bit of a struggle for me though. We have had a lot of housing contracts end the past weeks and it we need to find new apartments. When a contract ends, the landlord can adjust the rent and it seems that each time a contract ends, they bump it up way too much. So we spent our entire week moving out of old apartments, finding new ones, signing new contracts, and moving in. The transfer is in a week and a half so we need to have 3 apartments open before then that we have yet to sign the contracts on. It is going to be a crazy week and a half.

The one day of the week that we really got to get out and be normal missionaries was on Sunday. We were able to get two less actives at church. Both seemed to have a great experience. It can be hard at times finding ways to motivate members and these less actives to build friendships, but i would say overall that our ward is really good at welcoming everyone. There were less people at church overall this week. Saturday was Ching Ming festival. It is a chinese holiday that I am struggling to find a way to explain so that it will make sense. So on Ching Ming, you usually go and visit your ancestors graves and burn them food and money in the afterlife. It is a common religion here in Hong Kong to do this normally, but this is a special public holiday. So a lot of the members of our ward went to their ancestors home towns in Mainland for the holiday.

Sunday night we were able to visit another less active at his home and share about the blessings of church. His brother was also there to hear the lesson. It went really well. We hope to see both Brother Lee's at church this upcoming week.

Since the time change, we didnt watch conference, so we will be watching it this next weekend. It is really awesome time as a missionary. You are doing all you can to help others while trying to stay strong yourself. Nothing helps more than hearing conference and working as hard as you can to apply all that was taught. I am learning to welcome chances to grow and learn.

Wish I had more to talk about, but that was the week.

Learning lots on the mission, maybe even some things most Elders dont get to learn. I am pretty sure that I could open up my own moving company here in Hong Kong. Or be a Realtor. Or a truck driver. I have also learned that moving in Hong Kong is 100x more frustrating than in the US. So I will happy to help anyone move when I go home. As long as there are no stairs or elevators involved, any dyou have a giant truck that can get everything in one trip, and you have a garage that we can easily store all the extra stuff in... haha the list goes on and on.

I am loving the time here, as well as this added assignement of the office.

Have a great week.

Love,

Elder Woodburn