If It's Going To Be Funny Tomorrow, May as Well Laugh Now

Dear Friends and Family,

Meet Sister Lee and Her Two Sons, Kyle and Kyle--that was a real introduction I heard this week.

It is Sunday night and I am lying on my mat contemplating the best way to describe and eat a chicken's foot, and I think I came up with some pretty good answers.

There are actually two types of Hong Kong chicken foot preparation: broiled/baked/fried and boiled. The first sort is infinitely more preferable to me than the second, as the first is actually very similar in texture to a very scrawny chicken wing and the second resembles more of a prickly skin bag wrapped around or filled with a thick snotty substance with tiny little bones swimming around inside. Oh, and I can't forget. WITH CLAWS.

The reason the first option is better than the second is because the first kind of chicken foot can be eaten by gingerly picking off meat and skin with your teeth and sliding the bone underneath the edge of your plate asap. The second option is much more all inclusive--one must first pluck off the claws with the teeth, and then suck all the snot and skin off the tiny little bones while thinking of your happy place...

I'm developing so much faith in my stomach acid here in HK.

We participated in a WATER FIGHT in Tai Wai with the leuih/lahm ching lings (YM/YW) on Friday. It was ridiculously fun AND we had a couple investigators, less-actives and recent converts there. We squirted each other with water guns for about 10 seconds...then moved to the hose and buckets. And then we pulled out the big guns--the water balloon catapults we had prepared beforehand.

Our leader, Bishop Mak is so fun--he was a gangster before he was converted in his 20's. He's the one who hosts a huge FHE at his house every single Monday night--and . He kinda reminds me of Bishop Anderson; I love him (them both!) so much! He is so good with our investigators--it's neat how much he radiates love and how comfortable it makes you in his presence. He can also, I've noticed, ask more of people because they know how much he loves them (even immediately--at first meeting!). I think that's how God works with us, so it's a fabulous quality in a leader (or a Dad, or Mom, or anyone, really).

My companion, Sister B is so wonderful--she sticks up for my food needs so well! On Saturday night members from MOS (the N family) wanted to chang us out last minute. We met them at the mall and they told us that we'd be going to (drumrolll........) PIZZA HUT! Ayiyaaah--Sister B really tried to convince him to pick somewhere else--anywhere else--but thinking it would be a real treat for the Americans, he reassured me that they could find me dak (ok) food there.

That was not a fun night--Pizza Hut in HK is more like Olive Garden or nicer in the US, and they used flour in everything. I don't know why that stresses me out so much, but it is really difficult for me to be a mah faahn (best translation... bother? to be a bother? or an annoyance?)

YET to know that pretty much everything I ate was going to make me sick later. It was much worse though to watch everyone else eating pizza for two hours or so while I sucked Sprite...) The whole time Sister B kept whispering--think how funny it'll be tomorrow!

I wonder if I probably have developed some kind of psycho problem being in China; Such situations really shouldn't stress me out that much. So I have the Solution!

Pray for Pizza Hut to suddenly go out of business in the whole of China!

OK, I know, I know, maybe that's too big. So pray for me to work through my food anxieties that have been building for about three years now :) I need to have more confidence. I must open my mouth, put my worries aside and be strong! I will be more powerful in my convictions that I JUST CAN'T EAT THAT! Ha! Good Practice for a Missionary!

Oh, yeah, Sister B is wonderful! That's what I am talking about. We have the most fun companion studies/discussions over dinner or at night ever---this last week we found a free Old Testament study guide at the mission home-- (Imagine such a phenomena akin to basically letting Ian loose in a GF pizza bakery).

Since then we've tried to figure out how old Daniel was when he got taken to Babylon, we've acted out Jeremiah's prophecies (he was so awesome! And hilariously caustic, who know?!), we've discussed atonement theory and Mosaic law and these conversations with someone so smart in the scriptures is wonderful.

I love her so much! She's also doing an English fast right now--[Going without speaking it?]

Ah, a couple days ago I bought a mango the size of a papaya. I think THAT this food may be the best way to describe Garden of Eden happiness (maybe I will use it as a metaphor when I contact--"Hello, have you ever learned about how you could have REAL happiness--mango-the-size-of-a-papaya kind of happiness?").

You know when Daniel gets taken out of the lion's den and then the king puts in the bad people and the lions gobble them up in a frenzy? That's pretty much what happened with me and the mango... I think there may have been mango on the ceiling...

I received a couple of letters in the mail at the mission office today; I'm so excited to read them! I haven't even had time yet to see who they're from, but one is a Dear Elder. At least one, I think...? Has anyone gotten Dad a wall calendar yet--the ones where you put a sticker on every day for your missionary? I think that'd be HILARIOUS ...and that he'd actually secretly use it.

AAAAHHHH I have to tell you more about Angel's baptism!!! She didn't come to church on that day YIKES-- she'd only come 2 times and you have to come 3 tiems b4 you get baptized. I called in a panic--she said that she just couldn't come. She has a son w/ a heart condition and her daughter couldn't be there to take care of him--absolutely no way she could be there, but that she was really looking forward to her baptism at 2.

Yikes!! So we had Chan H D, our ward correlator who also happens to be the mission president's 23 year old son, call Pres Chan--oh, but Pres Chan's in MACAU (like calling... Puerto Rico. From Florida. Sorta). So Pres. Chan says he trusts the judgement of the sister missionaries and that it's UP TO US (gulp!) if she's ready to get baptized or not-- yikes! So we pray and take Sacrament and this is all happening WHILE we're taking care of other investigators at church, and we pray some more and call her and talk to Bishop and finally decide that she is ready. And she comes to get baptized--just beaming, so beautiful, even wearing a dress!!! so exciting--and even has invited the member referral she knew who helped her learn about the church 10 years ago.

So she's in white, in the baptismal font, so exciting, the lahm ching ling (YM) does the prayer to baptize her---and then he starts lowering her, I swear inch by inch, into the font. What is he doing?! She's a good 6 inches taller than him, for sure, but ---oh, no. (this is so hard to describe without actions, but basically try to picture someone floating on their back and someone else alternately pushing down their shoulders and then their feet start coming up, so he starts pushing on her feet and her head starts to come up and he's had her under the water for what feels like at least 10 minutes and I'm as white as the wall behind me and the whole room is starting to swim and people are starting to shout cheut laih (bring her back out!!!) and he so does WHEW!

And we start over. Whew. Deep breathe. Prayer. Amen. ... then he does it AGAIN. aND THEN he does it... (drumrolll........) FIVE MORE TIMES. So basically, after 7 drowning/baptisms, Angel is finally baptized. And I think I aged about 30 years.

I was so stressed out.

And Yes, like Sister B always tells me, it was HILARIOUS... later.

lOVE YOU eVery One! sISTER dARCEY