What Matters Most :)

Aloha! 

I hope everyone's week was great! This week was just glorious. I don't know why Heavenly Father decided to bless me and Sis. Christensen so much but we are grateful! We picked up three new investigators this week! THREE!!! :) Just to put it in perspective, so far I've been lucky on the mission to pick up three in a transfer period, which is about six weeks. Haha. Actually on second thought, I don't know if there's ever been a transfer that my companion and I have picked up three new investigators. Haha oh man! But it's okay because this week we have three!!!! YAY! It's amazing because they each are incredibly amazing people!

I love being able to meet so many new and wonderful people! I love being in the Bay Area because there is just such a mix of different kinds of people from different walks of life with just amazing stories mixed here together! Even better, we're all God's children and even better than that... I get to tell them all! Haha! It's great! Even though some people just look at me funny because I can't stop smiling! They just don't know how great it really is! Haha....sorry I'm getting off topic!

Our new investigators. One is from Burma. She is great and so enthusiastic about the gospel! We have to go through things a little slower because there's somewhat of a language barrier but she follows along in her Bible in Burmese and it's super cute when something clicks for her. She gets really excited and then writes it down! :) Another is from Cameroon and she basically won like a visa lottery! Super interesting! Then, our last new investigator is from guess where?! Hollister, CA. Haha! Random or what?!

In addition to that, our wonderful Italian investigator is just great! We brought a member who served his mission in Italy to help us teach and it went great! She understood so much more because he was able to relate things to her culturally that Sis. Christensen and I just don't know about! It was just amazing! That's pretty much why I love members coming with us to lessons! They are just great! Even if it's not bridging a language gap, members are just this beautiful way to show our investigators that we're actually human beings! The Spirit was so strong while we taught and testified of the Gospel it was almost tangible! 

Then to top off this wonderful week! My little investigator from Hollister got baptized! :) It just brought it all home for me. That's what really matters most. The wonderful opportunity we have in this life to make covenants with our Heavenly Father so that we can all return to live with Him again! What could be better than that? 

Well, I hope everyone has a great week! You are all wonderful! I hope you all can meet someone this week as wonderful as the people I had the chance to get to know this week!

Love,

Sis. Ellis-Lui-Kwan

Ni Fengle

Aloha My Wonderful Family and Friends!

This week has been so totally great! I have met some of the most amazing sisters of Zion in the midst of Babylon. Such a privilege to be around some exceptionally great women! 

It all started with this wonderful sister who fed us on Monday night. She is great! We didn't have a dinner and she offered to feed us! So so kind! We both just felt this overwhelming sense of Heavenly Father's awareness of her and by extension his awareness of us!

Then on Wednesday night, we met a wonderful Recent Convert to the church. She is a single mother, with two children, who has already battled cancer twice and she's not even 40 years old yet! I was just amazed at her faith and her testimony. She was an example to me as she talked about how grateful she is to have the Gospel in her life and to have the knowledge that she does about the Savior because it has strengthened her in everything she's gone through.

On Sunday, we were able to meet with another Recent Convert and she is just amazing and we also had dinner with Pres. Mella and his wife and those two, they are amazing! Sis. Mella is such an example of a great mother who raises her children in righteousness. They are so down to earth and really just make everyone feel really comfortable. I feel like I can really talk to the both of them about anything and everything.

This week has been great. We ended the week teaching three Chinese exchanges students staying with members of one of the wards. It is amazing to see the immediate effect the Gospel and the Spirit can have in someone's life. I'm so grateful for this opportunity to serve!

Have a wonderful week,

Sis. Ellis-Lui-Kwan

P.S. Speaking of another wonderful person. Here's finally a picture of me and Sis. Christensen. 

Also, I figured I should probably explain the Subject line. Sis. Christensen has had lots of Mandarin speaking companions and was teaching me things and the subject line means "you're crazy." So this week we were out contacting and Sis. Christensen and I were speaking in Mandarin to each other and these Chinese ladies popped out of nowhere and were all surprised. It was really funny. It was kind of one of those you have to be there moments.

But in other news, for one of those you don't have to be there moments. Sis. Christensen and I definitely showed up at a part member family's home this week with a huge Italian flag for our member's husband to replace his old one and yelled, "Viva Italia!" He loved it so much he wrapped it around himself and gave us Biscotti and fruits! Haha! It was great! 

The wonderful Sister Christensen

Why Do The Weeks Move So Quickly?

Hi Everyone! :)

So the computer is acting really weird and I don't know what's happening so hopefully this works. (Obviously my technology skills haven't gotten any better. But oh well). Haha! I'm involved in more important things. Like, for example, finding out how to make time move slower. I don't know if this is happening in the rest of the world or just in my head but I feel like when my mission first started I was running uphill. Then slowly without me even realizing, the uphill turned into a downward slope and now I feel like not only is it a downward slope but it's like the side of a cliff that basically I'm just rolling down because as we all know... I'm not that coordinated either. Haha. But really though....someone's messing around with the clocks in this place. Time is moving way too fast!

Anyways, this week has been another amazing one! Sis. Christensen and I have been really working on building up our area and slowly we're seeing some really great changes. I'm excited to see how everything turns out! Something that I've really been thinking about lately is a quote I found. I may have mentioned it before but it says, "Never confuse a single failure with a final defeat." It's so so true. Even though things don't always work out the way we want them to, it's such a comfort to know that it wasn't the "final defeat". Luckily, we all have the Savior and His Atonement that make it possible to try again and again! 

I am so grateful everyday for this opportunity to be a missionary. Seriously the best decision I ever made. I can't count the things I've learned and the blessings I've received. Sorry this email is so short. Again... the time factor. Somehow I keep running out of it. I love you all! Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Sis. Ellis-Lui-Kwan

Ready, Set, Mella! : )

Aloha everyone! :)

This has been another wonderfully hectic week! With meeting our wonderful new mission president and his wife, to teaching all of our wonderful investigators, to helping to prepare for the baptism of one of our investigators this week! Life has just been so much fun!

On Wednesday morning, we had the wonderful opportunity to have a meet and greet with President and Sister Mella. Let me just say... they are AMAZING! I was quite skeptical after knowing how great President and Sister Watkins were but the Mellas are going to do great things. They are so filled with the Spirit and I can't wait to work with them even more. I'm so excited to have this great blessing of being able to have both of the BEST mission presidents and wives there ever were. (Seriously people, it's just fact.) 

The rest of this week has been great! We've been preparing our investigator for baptism and she is just doing wonderfully! She's going to get baptized this Saturday and we are so so excited! She already has such a sweet testimony of the gospel. She was telling us that she thinks the Lord has kept her here this long just so she could learn about the Lord and get to know us! It just melted me heart! :)

In other news, Sis. Christensen and I will be staying companions! :) We made it through the dreaded transfer calls! So I don't have a picture just yet... but we've made a goal to try to take one of us everyday this week! So hopefully we'll end up with one good one by next P-day! Haha!

Also, on Thursday night, we got leadership calls and I'm going to be a Sister Training Leader starting this coming transfer. How scary! I don't know who thought that was going to be a good idea. I'm so nervous. Seriously, we've got some really great sisters in the zone. I have no idea what kind of sister training leader advice-type-thing they think I'm supposed to give, all the sisters have already got it down! Oh man. But it's okay, it'll be great anyways...hopefully. Haha! 

Well, everyone...Have a great week! I love you all! I hope everyone's week is wonderful! Smile at someone, I know from experience it can really brighten someone's day!

Love,

Sis. Ellis-Lui-Kwan

A Whole Lotta Crazy!

Aloha! :)

This week has been amazing! So many things happening. Sis. Esikia left and Sis. Christensen came. I got to have an interview before President Watkins left. President Watkins and Sis. Watkins left. One of our beautiful, wonderful investigators got baptized and like the entire city came to witness it. So great!

Let's see. I started off this week with one companion and then her flight plans had her planned to leave on Tuesday so we with the other Temple Square sister and her companion go to airport Tuesday morning with Sis. Watkins...only to find out that the flight is actually tomorrow! Clerical error. Haha! We had an extra day together and we just had so much fun and were able to teach one of our investigators one last time before Sis. Esikia left. Our investigator told us that she is so grateful for us and the work that we do and since she's been investigating she finds herself thinking so much more about the Lord and her purpose in life! What a blessing to hear!

Then, Wednesday morning, we had take two and then got Sis. Christensen and the other Temple Square sister from the airport. I had also had my last interview with Pres. Watkins and that night was our baptism! It was so great! Our investigator had been investigating for a while and so she had  two wards who just absolutely loved her! They all supported her and there were so many people you couldn't even count! It was amazing!I just sat there in awe and thought about how wonderful it is to have such a support system behind as she grows and learns in life and in the gospel! 

Well, the rest of the week has gone great! We've been able to teach a bunch of people and Sis. Christensen is such a great misisonary! I can tell already! She's from Yakima, Washington and is at BYU! Go Cougars! It's been loads of fun already! Can't wait to see what this new week brings!

I love you all have a great week! Sorry I don't have pictures of Sis. Christensen and I just yet. The computer isn't working properly right now. I'll attach them next week!

Love,

Sis. Ellis-Lui-Kwan