Elder Taylor: Valentine's Excuses week 26

Well, yesterday was my first Valentines as a missionary...anyways, we were at church, I had to give a talk about member missionary work with the rest of the missionaries in the ward (super awesome and I really felt the spirit). We also had Elder Wong of the Seventy speak to our ward right after us. He's a really nice man, and fun fact, he was the first general authority to speak in general conference in his native tongue...CANTONESE! You can even look it up.

We have officially been given 600 HK dollars in red envelopes by members and strangers we meet on the street. That all goes into a fast offering because we're not allowed to take stuff like that.

We also called a new investigator about why he didn't show up to church. I quote the conversation in translation to english:

Me: Hey, so sad we didn't get to see you today, is there something wrong?

Him: Don't you know what day it is?

Me: Uuuuhhhhmmmm...Valentines day???

Him: YES! I couldn't go outside to day because I am a single man and I don't want to be cursed.

Me: Oh...uh...

Him: I will see you this Tuesday though okay? You can give me a tour of your church at 3 o'clock. BYE!---

Yeah, that was weird. Never knew that was a thing anywhere, especially in China. After Church we met Brother and Sister Ng who talked to us about missionary work in China.

Their house was also SUPER nice. Huge and the property has 5 clubhouses that are all MASSIVE and amazingly decked out. My camera died too early to get very many pictures, but yeah. The house was REALLY fancy. Super high security too. I felt like someone was going to shoot me from nowhere.

My scripture this week is 2 Nephi 26:23 about God not working in Darkness. I know that is true, and I hope that I can seek more light in my life and help others do the same. Love you all!

戴長老/Daai Jeung Louh/Dai Jiang Lau (i think that's the mandarin pinyin but I'm not sure...)

That's my missionary name by the way (I figured out how to put characters in a computer because it's awesome like that...)

From mom: Elder Taylor and Elder Powell live in an apartment with 2 other missionaries, Elder Walker and (as of this week) Elder Chen. Ian met Elder Chen this summer at a mutual friend's farewell and then they (Elders Walker, Chen, and Taylor) entered the MTC together on the same day!
Events from this week included the following (an excerpt from Elder Walker's blog): Then Sunday night we had an interesting experience. I woke up to a bell ringing. It sounded like one of the alarms we have set for the morning. Except when I got out of bed I realized that it was coming from outside our room. I also noticed my watch which informed me that it was 1:30 in the morning. So it was hte fire alarm in my building. I stuck my head out of the window to see if I could see anything and I didn't smell anything other than the normal amount of smoke. However, I did see some people congregating outside. So I flipped on the lights and announced to my roommates that the fire alarm was going off. So Elder Taylor jumped out of bed and came and looked out the window and we watched 2 fire trucks pull up and the fire fighters jumped out, but they were walking really slowly...not running with hoses or anything. Then the fire alarm went off and people started going back inside so we got back in bed and went back to sleep. We were really tired the next day."

Elder Walker and Elder Chen now companions:

Ian to the right of the Dragon at the Sha Tin mall. Apparently it goes around the mall, into the shops, blessing them and all of the old people

Additionally, from mom: I asked Ian a few questions recently, which included wondering about his retainer. He answered with some interesting information I wanted to include. "I'm still wearing it every night. I clean it about every week (unless something goes terribly wrong. I also leave it in water during the day when I'm not using it. My container broke, but that's why it's a good thing I brought duck tape (news flash: Hong Kong doesn't have duck tape so I treat that stuff like pure gold). If I lose it I'll tell you. I definitely don't want any more mouth stuff than required, trust me.

I hope Carrie showed you the Valentine from Calvin for me. I actually can't really, uuuhhh, read it. It's still super nice of him to remember me though. Definitely felt the love:)

Also, tell those rascals (otherwise known as the Hobble Creek 6th ward Priest Quorum) that they have no idea how amazing it is to have so many powerful young men in a room like the bishop's office every sunday. It blows my mind when I think of Hong Kong reaching that point someday (though only God knows when). Remember every blessing and make the best of them. Use your skills, not for your own benefit or pleasure, but according to the Eternal Will of our Eternal Father in Heaven.

Lastly, tell all the youth there that I love them and hope that they are striving to maintain happiness in the home."

Elder Taylor and Elder Powell at the Ng's home: