Lychee is in Season - And I Just Ate My Weight In It!

Ha Loh, = hello

Here is our Chinese lesson for the week:

aluminum foil = sehk ji

literal translation: rock paper

(I needed to learn how to say it to teach a FHE lesson at Bishop Mak's house using that "finding gold flecks" talk from Elder Ballard at Conference)Finding Joy through Loving Service

(go ahead and link it to my blog ma :)

I love the literality of Chinese!

One more Chinese lesson:

To lie, deceive, dishonest =gong daaih wah literal translation: to speak big words

OkOKOK One more I promise just one:

Be careful, carefully =siu sam

literal translation: small heart.

I find that English spoken by missionaries is hilarious--I was laughing AT them for a while and now, more and more often, I find myself joining their atrocious-English-speaking ranks.

(MOM: THE EDITOR: I have left the following unedited so you too can have an example of the grammar problem to which she refers.)

We are translate Chinese into English in our brains when we need switch in English, our English ends up with Chinese grammar and words we'd NEVER use if our...brains...were...working (example, we use "convenient," as in, "is that convenient or not convenient you?" because convenient's translation, "fong bihn" is all the time used in Chinese). Thus, we sound stupid in BOTH languages.

(This is Mom, Editor now again fixing grammar of the English major, so we in America can continue to read sensibly.)

Ahhh, it's another sweaty day in HK. Actually, I'm pretty sure it's getting hotter. Yes, you didn't think it was possible, but OH YES! THERE'S EVEN MORE! Just like your favorite infomercial advertises!

July in Hong Kong..."If you will make that telephone call now, we'll even give you more free! We'll pour pig's blood over your fish balls...!" I wish that were a joke...

But anyway, the work's going great. I admit I've always been a little skeptical when returned missionaries talk about how wonderful it was--and even a little irked when Brian wrote to me in the MTC that his last six months on his mission were the happiest of his life.

("Hey!" I thought, "You didn't know ME yet!" Gam yeuhng... um, gam yeuhng's translation is... "like that" or "you know what I mean").

BUT WOW. This work is the most amazing, the most mind-blowing awesome and definitely the happiest time of my life. I mean, no comparison. It's so easy to say. Not even a doubt--I'm so grateful for the years that have prepared me to be here and the accelerated growth and learning and humble-i-fying that I get to be a part of here.

Things like... a few days ago I called one of our families, the Chan family--to see if their baby had been born yet. Chan S. S. (Mr. Chan) held up gurgling baby to the phone saying, "Wah Je Je Leih Hou ah"= "Tell Big Sister hello!" and that is how I met Chan Yuen for the first time. Best experience ever.

Yesterday one of our newer investigators named Faahn (this lady was born another religion and has experienced answered prayers but has been out of work for 6 months and has run the gamut--drugs, alcohol, other things I didn't sic ting) finally walked up to our church, desperate for some reassurance that God was still there. She found the church by herself which is a pretty big deal because it's kinda hard to get to, and she listened to us. Faahn finally understood the Restoration. We read through Ephesians 2:19-20, Amos 3:7, Acts 8 and finally part of President Packer's conference talk (Ma, please stick it in here--that part about the apostasy and restoration in the middle).

An early revelation directs “that every man might speak in the name of God the Lord, even the Savior of the world.” ¹¹ The work in the Church today is performed by ordinary men and women called and sustained to preside, to teach, and to administer. It is by the power of revelation and the gift of the Holy Ghost that those called are guided to know the Lord’s will. Others may not accept such things as prophecy, revelation, and the gift of the Holy Ghost, but if they are to understand us at all, they must understand that we accept those things. Elder Packer-2011 Conference

As we finished reading, she looked up with a new light in her eyes."Oh," she said, (but in Chinese,) "Your church is here because God still loves us?" Best moment of my life. This keeps happening, it's amazing.

My testimony of prophets has been so strengthened this week--on the phone with Elaine (poor Elaine--she needs this so much, she's so disillusioned and sad and alone and can only see the evil in the world) she'd been regaling me with news stories about pastors committing crime and preachers abusing women and teens killing grandparents and drugs and evil and misery and filth when I finally burst out, "THIS IS WHY WE NEED A PROPHET. We know God loves us. We know He STILL loves us--and has there BEEN a time in the history of the world when we need His guidance MORE?"

I know God has called a living prophet to receive guidance for this Earth right now, and I know He has given this prophet the authority to help us make covenants--covenants that can change us from our selfish, prideful, miserable selves into something eternal and dazzling. C.S. Lewis mentions that if viewed on an eternal scale, our progression or degression means everything and this is how, eventually, we achieve our own heaven or hell. I believe that God gives us the opportunity to make real, lasting and life-changing covenants with him and I am seeing more and more and more while I'm here the need for them.

God is so amazing--he works with us where we are, yet expects far more than we can imagine for ourselves. He is patient and loving but requires our whole heart (Mom, stick in Elder Christofferson's quote about the God in the Hebrew scripture requires everything etc--from Conference).

"Sadly, much of modern Christianity does not acknowledge that God makes any real demands on those who believe in Him, seeing Him rather as a butler “who meets their needs when summoned” or a therapist whose role is to help people “feel good about themselves.” It is a religious outlook that “makes no pretense at changing lives.” “By contrast,” as one author declares, “the God portrayed in both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures asks, not just for commitment, but for our very lives. The God of the Bibletraffics in life and death, not niceness, and calls for sacrificial love, not benign whatever-ism.”

Ahhh, overall and in spite of it all, I must say I had such a good week. I love being here. I am so thankful to everysinglepersonreadingthis for your goodness and love and service and prayers. Keep praying! Keep serving and keep trying and I know your faith will be rewarded.

:) :) LOVE SISTER DARCEY

ALL THE WAY FROM HONG KONG

P.S.

Please tell Cousin Cami I had a dream last week where we had a day off at the MTC so I went with her family to the beach (in... Utah?) and we swam with killer whales. It was terrifying, but really awesome.