From the Land of Cockroaches and Oasis

ok, time for something food:

ok, so i thought it was hot before and i was wrong. i didn't think it could get more hot, but it did. and to make things more hot, wherever we go, the chinese like to give us HOT water and HOT food and all sorts of other hotness. why? i have no idea. they like hot water and tea and all that, so maybe that is why. but you think that if it's 32 degrees celcius outside and 90 % humidity, you would want something cold to drink, but no, they want hot boiling water. these crazy chinese people. they also walk around in sweaters while i am sweating from every pore in my jody dress. i think they just cope better than we do. lately i have been buying only fruit at the grocery store so i have cold things to eat that are refreshing. that and yogurt. i freeze it in the freezer and eat it, so good!

something exciting!!!!:

so the good news is that the mission office called and said that it is now hot enough and that time of year that we can turn on our air conditioning! that is, for 10 hours a day. we put it on last night while we were sleeping and it was glorious! i actually kept my pajamas on! ha! just kidding!...:) it was crazy though when we woke up this morning and went from our room to the living room and hit the wall of humidity. the difference was almost freakishly scary. in the meantime, i'm making a paper thermometer to keep track of the temperature and humidity levels here. just for kicks. i have to find some way to enjoy this weather. when we;re not outside swimming in our own sweat, we are inside trying not fall asleep from the heat drowsiness. sister vance and i have decided to do all our finding on buses and the mtr! wahoo!

something sad:

so, our roommate, sister kong, died today. yes, after 18 months of faithful service as a missionary, she is now kicking the bucket. we held a living funeral for her last night and sang a song, read a eulogy and i wrote this really cheesy poem about death as a missionary. we also made sushi and tim-tam-slammed it up! she's a native from hong kong and one of the most amazing missionaries ever! the apartment was decked out with black balloons, a tombstone and everything. she doesn't wear a lot of makeup or anything, so we did her hair and made her all beautiful for her death. it was great. her and elder draney from our zone both die today, so we did a sunrise hike as well this morning. it was fabulous! and unlike most of the hikes here in Hong kong, it wasnt a bunch of stairs, but an actual cimb throug the bushes and dirt trail hacking through jungle kind of hike. yeah! i ate a lot of spider webs along the way too. goodbye sister kong and elder draney!

something gross:

so, with the weather as it is, a certain bug has been making itself known in our apartment. many in fact. many, many cockroaches. luckily, they are not large in size like the ones in mexico that lived in my bathroom, but they are large enough to cause concern...especially when they are in your kitchen and by your food! blgh! i have become a professional cockroach killer and delight much in the shedding of their blood! wahahaha! last night i killed 8 with one tissue. that's pretty good. hopefully our spray stuff starts working!

something miracle:

so last moves sister vance and i had a lot of grueling finding hours and time spent searching for those lost tribes of Israel as i like to call them. (check Jacob 5, but it specifically says that the Lord goes and "Hides" the other branches in various places in his vineyard....i believe him! these elect people are sometimes very well hid!) BUT, blessings come after the trial of your faith, and that blessing came in the form of 2 people, 2 days in a row. sister vance and i were on our way to a lesson, in a somewhat deserted part of town behind a chyun. i was privately thinking to myself, man, there is no one here! if we want to run into people that the Lord has prepared, we should probably walk where there are more people and our odds will go up! then, out of nowhere walks Alice. she had an i love hong kong shirt on. sister vance leaned over and whispered. "look! it's a girl! and she...she likes hong kong! lets talk to her!" so we did. she'd already learned about the church and read a little of the book of mormon. we didn't have time to teach her right then as we were on the way to another lesson, but she really wanted to meet with us, so we scheduled her right there and then. crazy! same thing happened yesterday as we walked out of an old popo park. her name is mickey and she was willing to go all the way to ma on shan to have a lesson since we don't really have places to teach people with our church under construction. now that's a miracle! anywho, these 2 new investigators have rejuvinated my faith and helped me realize, that it's never anything that i do to meet this people who are so prepared. they are just there and the Lord leads us to them. this kind of goes along with my...

something quotable:

we had 18 black balloons for sister kong, 1 for every month of her mission. for every balloon she had to tell us something about her or something meaningful, or some sort of advice or a fond memory. one of the things that i really liked was this: "every desert has an oasis." that is how i feel about tai wai. a lot of people say it is a hard area because it is small and not a lot of members, etc...BUT, even if people say it is a "desert" somewhere in that ward/area is an oasis waiting to be discovered. sister vance and i are on our 3rd move together here in tai wai and we are going to find that oasis and make it as big as we can if it's the last thing we do! yeehaw!