I Finally Tasted Durian -- It Tastes Like Lemons!

But it still smells like death!

[here, on the email Dia has a pile of dung animated with flies flitting around it]

hee, hee, hee.

[Durian is called the King Fruit of the Orient and is banned from major hotels and restaurants due to its odour.]

Dear Family, friends, and beloved,

It was a great, hard emotionally, but great and miraculous week. It was such a weird experience staying in my "old" area for such a long time until the next Tuesday (usually we transfer on P-day right after moves/calls CALLS--so we typically only have one full day in our area knowing that we're moving).

I had a week! I was able to polish up all my records and really see how much we built up and worked on and accomplished in that miraculous Macau 42 or so days :) It was an amazing time. I'm really missing Sister Wong, older Sister Wong, Sister Hsien and Salenga and especially Sister Mercado, whose name I've been spelling wrong (but I write the chinese character right... go figure) for 5 moves (EIGHT MONTHS!!) (I just found out like last week, that I'd been spelling it wrong in English!  ha ha!

[Here she has inserted a blushing icon--where does she get these--ah, Hong Kong].

We had one miracle in particular where V., our landlord's daughter who was the sole attendant at the new Saturday English class last week, brought two awesome friends to this week's AND a street contact of Sister Mercado came, too! SO I invited them all to church the next day and they ALL came! No problems at all, I didn't even hear one "but it's so early"??!?!?!?!! Four girls at church after 5 weeks of no one in that ward was just TIU HOI SAM!

(so happy!)


It was an amazing Sunday. I also was surprised to find out that a couple people I've only had some contact with--a less active, HILARIOUS poh poh just coming back to church, a spunky LA girl  and two sweet Indonesian ladies at whose baptism I was invited to speak--were really, really sad I was leaving. They sent me off with notes and hugs and little weird trinkets and we took about 1000 pictures... who knew that in so short a time your heart could grow to include so many people??? Our hearts are on growth spurts in this weird, insanely fast mission life... so no wonder they ache so often. Growing pains.

 

Ways to know you're from Macau and just coming back to HK: 

• You walk out into oncoming traffic ... every time you cross the street.
• You are so excited that fruit and veggies are so cheap ....you buy out all the street vendors.
• You get hit by a handbag or shoulder... every time you walk outside (PEOPLE WALK SO FAST HERE!)
• You get confused at the early schedule... every night!

It's weird coming back to the city life. My new area reminds me a lot of my bb area--Sha Tin and Tai Wai, especially, even up into Tai Po. There's plenty of trees and hills (yay hills like Macau!) and it's basically a suburby, typical HK... thing. I like it a lot; the best part is how the church is HUMONGEOUS and gorgeous. When Sister Clements opened the doors to the chapel I GASPED! It's so big! It's THREE HUGE FLOORS tall and has it's own room for the chapel and cultural hall... it's huge. It's the biggest I've been in except for Wan Chai, for sure.

Well, I still need prayers! I'm getting more and more excited to be here but I need a lot more patience and love than I have now. No worries, God will provide as I do all I can.

I love you people!

Sister Darcey