You Know, I Think Of The Funniest Subject Lines All Week...

And then I walk in the Internet Cafe and the brain-sucking, wind-knocking-out Indonesian spices (IF WE EVER GET INTO A WAR WITH INDONESIAN WE WILL LOSE! They can just drop a barrel of WHATEVER they're cooking back there into the middle of Kansas and the East to West coast will ALL DIE from BLISTERED LUNGS) and ....gone.

I'm posting a video of the preparation area, that is not behind a wall, just out in the center of the cafe... imagine this:  

Dearest Everyones, 

It's probably a good thing (the crazy spices) this week, actually--- because yesterday I lost my voice. Totally randomly... we chased down a TON of records and finding less-active members and following up on families that bishop wants us to visit and playing with my recently acquired NEW TOY, an updated member list.

(Missionaries have WAY different ideas of "fun" than normal people... yup), then I opened my mouth at 4:30 to tell Sister C we needed to finish up and head out soon--and nothing came out. My voice has been squeaky, super quiet, smothered-sounding and screechy since ---??? I seriously have no idea why or how to help it get better---BUT it IS forcing me to shut my mouth more and let/force Sister C to talk! 

Does anyone really realize how important a missionary's VOICE is? "The sound of a trump" aside, it's my instrument to get into the hearts of people!!So it's really, really rough when it's broken. BUT everyone's been praying for me (seriously, a RC [recent convert] today who came to the Kwun Tong church to help us teach Yani right after we all watched Lion King prayed for my voice about 4 seconds after she heard me say "leih hou" )  and it's seriously making me aware of a) how much I talk b) how important talking is and c) how often sometimes I need to STOP talking! 

We have some kind of biting bug or spider in our room or maybe in my bed? I wake up each and every morning with between 4 to 8 bites spread all over (and I MEAN all over ) ... I've tried washing and ironing bedclothes, curtains, clothes, and spraying "BIO KILL" under my mattress... any other ideas?  It's not that big of a deal because these bite sites don't get infected and disappear after a day or so. And hey, spiders have to eat, too.  [Buddist leanings?]

We have a new best friend in our shower! A lizard! Named Ji Ji. I wrote Sister Cami in Peru, I mean Hermana Cami with more details, tee hee.

Our beloved President Chan is finishing his mission TOMORROW!!! I don't even know what to think about that. I adore him and Sister Chan so much. I have more to say on that...

but no time... so I'll fill my journal.

We're planning EEFY (which means that the entire zone sits in a room for 10 minutes and thinks up ideas and shouts them out randomly, then Sister Darcey tells everyone what the syllabus, activity and schedule of each day is.) I'm not exaggerating, it was hilarious. Planning Girl's Camp with Sister Ramsey back in 2008 really prepped me well!!!) I am so sorry that I will miss it by weeks that it's like planning my own funeral. YET, A Fiesta! 

I saw God's most amazing miracles this week.

1.   M. will only be in mainland for 1 week instead of a month because a church member got her a job, 

2.   Two members sent us home with Dragon Boat Festival "jung" rice cake (=we got dinner that day!!!),

3.  And milllions more but the most amazing was with A., my sweet RC [recent convert] from Shatin. She has had such a hard time and there's no time to explain but BASICALLY I called THE DAY AFTER a big misunderstanding with missionaries who didn't know her situation and couldn't read the Chinese texts they were forwarding to her everyday for 6 months.   For this entire time, SHE thought the notes were specifically written to HER and the situation finally blew up---and the miracle was that through the Lord's intervention, I was able to figure out the whole situation and fix both sides and it was so, so, so amazing. 

God is so aware of us, and I just stand ALL amazed.  I'll tell more of this story later--WHEN I AM ON THE NEXT PHASE of my life mission.  In NEARLY ONE MONTH!!!!!!  

It's getting hotter and hotter and I'm getting HAPPIER AND HAPPIER.

I love you people.

Sister D

A MAY ZING!

My people,

The most amazing experience this week was getting to share the entire message of the Restoration--direct line of authority, Book of Mormon to support the Bible's testimony of Christ, even the reality of continued revelation to the apostles in the New Testament and the widespread apostasy already happening in the early church--with a new friend, Joanne, on Monday evening at a miracle place named Tiu Keng Leng. 

Her whole family is Catholic, and after we shared together, then realized we'd been standing, talking for 45 minutes I apologized for keeping her from going home and she said, "No--thank you. I have learned so much about you Mormons. I have always just heard things about you, but now I know---and I'm so glad I met you today." 

We both felt so much Spirit and joy as we talked, and she took the Book of Mormon to find out for herself if what I told her about God's plan and God's church is true or false. I was inspired that day to really, really dig deep and share from my heart by reading a couple Conference talks that morning--Elder Christofferson's "The Doctrine of Christ," Elder Anderson's and one more... I don't remember... but it was just amazing. 

Sometimes my heart just opens up and the Spirit can testify unrestrained. I love this work. 

We're healthy and happy and out of time! Sorry! 

Love,
Yours in the saving redemption of Jesus Christ,

Sister Dia Darcey

**Picture is from a dawn hike back in Tuen Mun**

Water the Crocs! ! ! ! ! It's HOT!

Hi DAD!  Happy Father's Day again!  A little after the fact.   

I wanted to put my note it a cute color, too... I love blue. 

It's straight up hot here. Sometimes I pour some of my water bottle into my crocs to cool everything off a little (it's amazing; if your feet are wet, your whole body cools down--I guess you taught me that back when you taught me to wear wool socks skiing... and dry socks camping), and I have an old fashioned fan that my last companion Sister Wong taught me to open real-Chinese-SNAP style. It's so cool. BUT STILL HOT.

 Thanks for the photographs, Sister Mercado!

We had a couple new miracle students (one was just walking along and I said HEY! DO YOU WANT TO LEARN ENGLISH? and she said... really? and then CAME ALL BY HERSELF to where we said we'd meet the next day.  

Two others saw our English class poster and called US looking for "Baahk Siu Je" which means "Miss White"--we made an appointment, but then the girl telephoned us in the train station even though she was LOOKING right at us because, ---

--her words not mine, "I thought you were Chinese on the phone" YES!)

One of them is only 9 and long limbed, skinny, super energetic but still pretty quiet--and I realized fondly that he reminds me of Aidan. THEN I realized... oh no. Aidan doesn't look like that anymore! ;)

 I'm so thankful for the opportunities the church gives me to serve and help and give to others. You always taught me how important that was... and the church has given me the time and place and opportunity to put that concept to work. The gospel part of the church has taught me to have patience and love for others--I think that knowledge comes from sacrificing for them, I think... It's funny how connected the gospel is to "family values" ... and sad how selfishness and vanity can just empty people out.

I see that all the time here... people just emptied from being too worried about image and wealth and status and angry birds and blah blah blah. 

Thank you for teaching us the value of pure goodness for its own sake.

I love you! And I took a video for you... mb it will work?

Sister D

Okay, it didn't work :P

Second part:   AT THE PARK YESTERDAY--We prayed on Friday for confirmation about where and when to schedule to go find. We got to the park and it was BLAZING HOT (4 to 6 times hot is pretty hot now, starting at 5:30 it cools down a lot) and no one was out. But we met O., a really quiet kid just sitting studying on a bench--form 1, means he's only like 13, usually we don't talk to kids and especially not boy-kids, but the park was EMPTY of human life and we're "talk to everyone" missionaries.  

It all started out with "No, no thanks, I don't believe in anything, fine, you can sit down, but I have no interest" but then --as we kept testifying and talking and smiling--he eventually opened up enough to let one little sentence of his soul peek out:

"Do you think God could help me find friends?"

I JUST ABOUT STARTED CRYING. It was so ...stinking amazing. Here we are thinking we're just bugging people sitting next to this kid who doesn't want us there in the I WANNA DIE heat and sweat is running down everything, but then he just shares this one little sentence.

 And I know that God sent me here to find O and assure him that God can be his bestest friend EVAH!

 I'll follow up on that story when more story happens. ----------

Happy Father's Day! Fu Chan Ji Faai Lohk!

Dear Family,

I'm thinking I'm gonna sell my ipod touch to Sister C when I "move to my new area" in August (the area where I won't need any missionary clothes... where they won't have mango pudding packets so I'm packing 100... where I won't need an Ipod ...where it's OK to swim and hold babies).   

This deluded idea of going to a new area is to help me wrap my brain around the fact that "I'm not dying, I'm just moving to a weird new area".  The thought that "It's not June right now, it's May" mentalities so far have saved my mental stress so much! Denial: everybody's NOT doing it! ha ha, I joke. Oh, so let me know if that's OK if I sell it to her.

Anyway. Good afternoon from the Far, Far, Far East or Maybe It's Just Even Further West Orient. We're loving, loving the work and the area and seeing tons of miracles. You've probably heard that my extension request was denied... phooey... so I guess I'll just ... refuse to pack until the very last minute and then take off on the fastest bike I can find to mainland! ha haaaa! Renegade RMs, not a pretty image.

oR... I'll come quietly. I guess. I don't know how so I won't think about it.

[Mom is getting first indicators of the return of Dia from Sister Darcey-dom with the next paragraphs.]

Sunday I did have a battle of wills with the member in the pew ahead of us. Brother Dang---He actually used to live in Yuen Long--he was the 2nd counselor and made me eat ginger pig's foot at his house when his wife just barely had her baby (my companion was a native and able to politely refuse and it's especially good for WOMEN so the Elders were off the hook.  SO, it was basically just an evening of everyone else sniggering while the poh poh (grandmother) forced Sister Darcey to suck down pig's foot after pig's foot).

As pay back I asked him EVERY SUNDAY after that if he had prayed for missionary work that week... so we go way back. He's so awesome, served his mission in HK and really has tons of advice and wisdom about the area. But also thinks it's funny to place his UNFAIRLY ADORABLE BABY at EXACTLY THE RIGHT POSITION where bb's gorgeous ALMOND EYES are just gazing into mine and his little toothless mouth is chewing on his little toys and he's GIGGLING through the talk and I'm trying simultaneously to focus on the speaker and translate hard words for my companion while impossible-to-deny Asian baby power is melting my frozen Sister missionary locked heart... and... my... focus.. is... failing... noooo! 

Fei Fei, A's daughter back in Yuen Long

Fingers... itching... to hold... baby... DON'T coo at the baby, Sister Darcey! (The ward members behind us are starting to snigger, too, they've totally figured out Brother D's plan)  :D The speaker eventually saved me by quoting D&C 4:2--see that ye serve him with ALL YOUR HEART, MIGHT, MIND AND STRENGTH and I came back to sister missionary-dom. It was a close call! ;)

Anyway. Happy Father's Day, all! 

I realized how I could get Dad's card to him in time when I was taking a group up to the YSA FHE at a member's apartment on Sunday night--someone said, "It's Father's Day next week! You missionaries aren't going to be able to get mail home in time!" and then I realized the beauty of email and ipods! Ha ha! So here's my awesome card, Dad. Please don't have anyone who speaks Chinese read it... ;) The inside is going to be even more awesome. But it's not done yet!

We've had neat miraculous referrals--one of our "conscripted ward missionaries/mercenaries" (our 2 ward missionaries are both MIA--in Utah and China--and we need help, so we found those awesome no-job quirky people in the ward and call them all ALL the time--and I pay for their help in mochi!) 

A. brought her friend S. to church (you're still changing names to initials, right mom?) and she turned out to have such great desire. She needs the gospel so much! Her English is almost perfect and she's had lots of hard, hard experiences in life, but you can see the glimmer of a really happy, beautiful woman underneath all the worry and pain she's gone through. I hope we can help her find Christ, and find herself again.

A's also been helping us with T, who is showing great signs of emotional and spiritual healing, too! She's stopped telling the same three stories over and over (she was just too lonely before.. and too heart hurt).  One day,  walking from our appointment with her back to church I told Sis C. the storyline of "Lars and the Real Girl".  It reminds me of Tracy and what can happen to us when we are just too lonely... but she's doing so much better! and she smiles and even BEAMS sometimes when she sees us. I hope we can help her get a testimony, too, but I really believe it will come. (so far she just doesn't understand the RESTORED part of the restored gospel--she thinks she already learned it all in Sunday School when she was little). 

Another "ward mercenary" F. is on FIRE for missionary work. She took the mochi we made together last Thursday home to her mom and her mom liked it so much she invited us over for dinner! (F.--super dramatic, super hilarious, almost 20, used to be a PUNK before she was baptized and is now somewhat of a... righteous punk--was like, "LOOK! Sacrificing my beloved mochi actually brought blessings!!! But now I have a big problem... no mochi" :).  She also went to Y. (another sweet investigator)'s school and put right the teacher who was teaching scary lies about our church to the classes---just by sharing "For the Strength of Youth" pamphlet. SO amazing.

Please pray for me to have patience, I need it so so so much. God really is so merciful to us and gives us so much help.

I love you all my sweet family! Be safe and happy and smile. And seriously pray for me and Sister C.

Love Sister Darcey

Happy 30th Anniversary!

Hi my wonderful family! Leih deih hou ma?

 

I'm doing wonderfully and loving my mission. I see Heavenly Father's help and guidance and hand every day! Everytime we--two totally white girls who, only five years ago, were still in high school worrying about tests and zits and boys and cars--find an address in a Chinese town in the middle of nowhere in HK, or open some complete stranger's heart and eyes to the warmth and joy Jesus Christ wants to offer them, or even find something sorta GF and cheap to eat on the run from the church to the train to the bus to the church as we're picking up people, meeting others, helping and serving and running around crazy. 

I love this time, and I'm also learning that it doesn't have to be a crazy, senseless and frantic stressed-out rush to be "successful"--sometimes busy doesn't necessarily mean "anxiously engaged in a good cause". 

This week my companion's been even sicker, and for the past 2 days we've been almost entirely at home (or in zone conference in Kowloon Tong). Pray for her health.  BUT we've still seen so many blessings--one miracle should be included on this picture of a letter I will send a friend today (Mom, you can transcribe it--I hope--and put it on the blog). I know God helps us in every moment and is infinitely concerned with our lives troubles and cares. We can do so much good in the world!

Oops, wasn't finished.
No worries about forgetting to write letters, I didn't even notice. Everyone should prob stop writing within the next ...6 weeks or so, anyway, or I won't get the letters before I go home! Tee hee. Although I guess I did subconsciously wish that someone was caring about what I wrote YOU, because this week I was happy to realize I have big news that SHOULD get a big reaction:  I'M asking to extend but Pres Chan will probably say no as everyone has purchased tickets.  

 

If there's one thing I've learned here it's that God works in ALL good ways. The call to serve is not a 'WRONG' reason to get baptized---or to serve a mission, or even to get married. Sure, the feeling and the drive and the "testimony" is essential--but baptism is the first step, not the final. We can't progress without it, and lots of times investigators get STUCK waiting. please read Pres. Uchdorf's talk, "Waiting on the Road to Damascus," with Aidan?

 

I love you and I"m thankful for you. SOrry you're going to have to piece together a blog post this week from the letters I've sent to you, dad and Ian. Thanks for doing that for me.

Love ya

SMILE!  (To be Spiritually Minded is Life Eternal)

 

Sister Darcey