MTC has finished and we are already FOUR days into Hong Kong!! Welcome to my mission field, where I will spend the next 23 months!
Pdays/preparation days/days where I get to email are now Mondays instead of Saturdays, and I will be 12 hours ahead because of time change.
Lots to get into but not a lot of time since my Pday ends at 6:30... So heres the run down!! Enjoy :)
Join photos!!
https://photos.app.goo.gl/qkaoEe965etiYQuj7
MTC
MTC farewells were hard. Everything went really fast until Wednesday, when I departed at 3PM. Right before then, I went into the barbers for a free haircut, which ended up looking a little rough.. Great first impressions lol
Anyways, I woke up at 3:30AM to deliver Elder Balakrishnan to his flight, who's call time was 4 AM. It was a very tiring but fast day, and I got to perform an awesome last musical number "Peace in Christ" with Sister Jaring before I had to leave on my flight!
Before I knew it, I was departing to Hong Kong. I initially thought I was flying alone the whole way, but I was completely wrong. I journaled about it on the long flight, and since I don't have too much time to write about it again, I have attached it to this email! It is lengthy because I had a lot of time.
HONG KONG!!
After a long, long flight, I eventually landed in Hong Kong where I was received by the APs Elder Knapp and Elder Crane. Elder Knapp is super tall, he's like 6'4, and def stands out in the average 5'6 here lol. I also found that I knew Elder Crane's cousin in the MTC, which was a small world moment.
We made it to the Kowloon Tong church, which is the mission HQ where I was able to meet mission President Hill and Sister Hill, who were super kind. Since it was a transfer, I also got to meet a lot of missionaries who were moving locations.
Eventually, I met my trainer, Elder Smith!! This guy is super cool, and has learned an impressive amount of Canto for being out here for just ten months. It was a crazy first day, with so many new things.
As I had arrived in Hong Kong at 4AM and had been awake on the plane for hours before, it was so hard to stay awake during this first day until our schedule permitted us to rest.
If any of you are from Hong Kong, I am serving in the Tai Po Ward! It is a blessing to be assigned here because it is one of the biggest wards in HK.
On another note, the mission has been nothing near easy, and the days are definitely longer here than in the MTC. Serving in such a different environment has been tough. In a normal schedule, we are outside for the majority of the day, since we are trying to find people to teach. As I just got here in the beginning of the summer, it is so so hot and the humidity is really high. Within half an hour Elder Smith and I are usually drenched in sweat and are so for the whole day, from usually 10AM-8PM. It's pretty inescapable.
In addition, Hong Kong is a very busy and business centered place. I have never seen so much foot traffic for daily commute. With so many opportunities to talk to people, it is tough when they treat you like an object to be avoided. In a way, I can understand though, as everyone is just trying so hard to stay focused and do what they think is best.
However, as I have had a tough couple days, something that Sister Jaring from my MTC district said rang true to me;
The Atonement was never, never easy, so why should we expect our missions to be? Christ sacrificed so much and went though so much pain that we can be saved, so I can do the same.
Through the past four days, I have worked hard, and have embraced these hardships.
It becomes a game of trying to talk to anyone who I make eye contact more than once with, which signals potential interest, and finding creative ways to create conversation out of literally thin air. I guess it really is all psychology.
Either way, I have given my 100% for the past four days and it has been amazing. There have been so many blessings just in this mission so far, and I would like to recount my favorite so far, as I am running out of time.
On Sunday I had the opportunity to attend church with the Tai Po ward for the first time, which ended up also being the baptismal date for two eight year old twins that Sunday!In addition, one of the friends that Elder Smith had found in a train station earlier that week, came to church for the first time! His name was Mark, and it was so amazing to get to know him and have the opportunity to experience his first sacrament and baptism with him. He stayed attentive and positive the whole time, and we were able to schedule him for later this week for a lesson-- which will be my first one in Canto.
It was truly special to be able to have this first Sunday where I was able to experience both a baptism and a new friend come and see.
Canto:
Has been hard. I'll keep it real, I think I know maybe first grade Cantonese, and most of the Elders know a lot more vocabulary than me. BUT that only means I can get better from here, and I have been able to memorize how to write some characters such as my own name!
There was a lot more I wanted to write, but there simply is no time! Hopefully my Google photos will tell the rest of the stories but I hope everything is doing well where you all are at.
As always, tell me if anything cool has happened this week, and I will reply next P-day :) I am so glad that I am able to share both my challenges and highlights with all of you and will talk more next week!!
Stay dry and comfy!
Elder Zhao
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(from attachment)
Draft
There have been so many things that have happened today and I want to take the opportunity to record it so I do not forget. This will not be sent in my main email, because it is really long. The first four paragraphs recount my last day at the MTC, the rest on the road or in the sky. This is being written during my flight to Hong Kong, which ended up being only a 14 hour flight.
7/(1-3)/2025
This morning at 4 AM, I dropped off my companion Elder Balakrishnan to T4, the building where he would be taken to his flight. Elder Smith from next door, who was going to Japan, had not yet recieved his visa yet so he had been temporarily reassigned and ended up having the same departure time as my companion. Due to this, he and his companion, Elder Ford, went with us, and we were able to see each other off.
With both of our companions leaving, Elder Ford and I became temporary companions! We saw the majority of the sunrise and went to play one last hour of volleyball in the morning with Elder Takagi and Elder Lee, then went to get ready for breakfast.
Following breakfast, the day went pretty slowly as we took the time to pack and prepare for departure. Elder Wong and I went to return some textbooks, where we were able to find the Cantonese district on break and talk with them a little bit/ say final goodbyes. Since you only have a ten minute break between each 50 minute class section, it was really a tender mercy that we were able to catch them between classes. I realized how little gospel language I knew when I saw their board with multiple vocab terms and only knew one. Either way, we were able to finish our delivery and then headed downstairs, where I printed some black and white copies of our district photos to give to our district members to keep. Across the hall from the printing room we found the sisters in our district who were attending their Visitor Center classes, and left a quick hello.
Then we had lunch, which was spicy chicken patties and some sort of keobasa rice. It was decent, but not fit for a last meal haha. Elder Ford and I went after this to play "Peace in Christ" with Sister Jaring on piano. It was an amazing opportunity to finally be able to get a recording together. I forgot to send it, but I will send it soon. Time flew after this. Elder Ford went to get some things from the package store, and then he split to go with Elder Lee and Elder Takagi. Elder Wong, Olson, Roldan, and I all then went home and got our things and left to T4, as it was now time for class. We brought all of our things to class and had a hour with Sister Bosco before I was given a short farewell.
And then it was time to go!
I was so scared that I had to travel by myself, but I have been so so blessed. Originally I thought I was taking this journey by myself, but that is not true any longer.
In total, there are three parts to my journey. MTC to SLC Airport, SLC to SFO Airport, and then SFO to HK.
In these three legs, I have met three separate groups of missionaries on the way to Hong Kong, each of which joined me on a different part of the trip. In this, I was never alone.
First, I recieved notice that a sister that had been injured while she was in Hong Kong, was now returning to the field from home, and would be joining me on the flight to HK. Although she wasn't coming from Provo, she would be meeting me in San Francisco for the longest leg in my trip!
At around 3:30 PM, I left the MTC with a Japanese district plus a Vietnamese elder. About 15 of us went together onto the UVX (Utah Public Bus), then onto the Frontrunner (Train) and then the TRAX (SLC Trolley) and safely made it to the SLC Airport. On the way to SLC on the Frontrunner, we met a return missionary that went to the Phillipines that had so many experiences to share. He gave us a lot of solid advice, and emphasized the need to journal every day, and take pictures of people rather than sunsets or objects. He was actually related to the mission president of the Salt Lake City mission, which was dope.
Unfortunately, once we made it to the airport, everyone but me was flying Delta (I was flying United), so I said my goodbyes and went to a separate counter to check in. I never saw them after this.
However when I got to my gate, I met a huge group of newly called missionaries going to the Phillipines MTC! It was so funny to see how nervous/excited they were, anticipating what just the MTC would be like. Since they didn't have tags yet, they immediately realized that I was not part of their group and I was able to explain a little bit about my own MTC experience, even though it was at Provo and not Manila.
Through connections, I knew some of their friends at the Provo MTC, and let one sister talk to her friend through my phone (they didn't have phones, and will recieve them when they get to the MTC). In that same gate, I met a family who was from a Hong Kong missionary's home ward! Through some crazy timing Elder Enoch Lau had requested to connect on Facebook a day earlier and I remembered his name when the family asked about it. Even though I had never spoken a word to this missionary, I was able to send him the picture and make a new connection.
Then the flight from SLC to SFO was pretty quick, but I cannot believe what happened near the end. I slept through most of the 2 hour flight, but when we landed, we ended up taxiing the plane for a while. And when I say a while, I mean, 20 some minutes! This was so out of the ordinary that I cannot deny that there was some sort of divine intervention. Ths is because I got a prompting to talk with the lady next to me, and after what felt like ten minutes of debating (cause I'm not trying to invade her privacy), I started a simple conversation about where she was headed.
It was cool when I found out that her moms side of the family was from Hong Kong! Since she was returning to SF from a SLC day trip for her job, she barely knew anything about the gospel and what missionaries are. She looked like she was in her early 20s and explained how she helped a start up company with evaluations in customer care. We talked a while about careers and what she wishes she could've done better, and gave me some insight about whether I wanted to go into finance or business. She knew about the computer science landscape and talked about the pros and cons of business vs engineering jobs. Of course, we eventually talked about my mission since I was in full attire. She really did not know much about what we did, and I talked very briefly about what I believed and how I was introduced in the church. I think she really connected with me since I was Asian and from the church, and was super interested since I was also not from Utah but far east in Maryland, haha.
In the end, she requested to follow me on Facebook! Although I did not have any material to provide her right then other than lds.org, I have been thinking non stop on this flight on what to share with her when I get to Hong Kong. She explains that she is non-religious but has been curious to learn more about religion, as she thinks it would be nice to know more, and find hope. She was searching for answers, and was ready to hear. It was such a genuine conversation where she opened up about her religious background and I felt so blessed to have this opportunity to meet her. I barely shared anything about what we believed in but instead conveyed the trust and happiness I felt from knowing the gospel.
Hopefully when I get to Hong Kong I can reach out and allow her to get in contact with missionaries nearby. I think she has a genuine desire to learn, even if it isn't to be converted yet.
This was the highlight of my whole trip.
After getting off the flight, I grouped up again with the other missionaries going to Manila. What happened next had to be God's timing too. The moment I said goodbye to the Manila missionaries, I literally ran into Sister Cannon, the sister that would be accompanying me to Hong Kong. Although our flight from Provo had been literally a half hour late, her flight from Arizona had arrived at around the same time, and within maybe a thirty second window she saw our big group of missionaries passing by and decided to follow. The experience was so unreal. The Manila missionaries turned to go to their gate, I said goodbye, turned around, and saw her two feet away from me. The Lord's work.
Everything since then has gone super smoothly, although it really has been smooth the whole way. Sister Cannon and I found our gate, and since the plane was packed, stood and talked for the whole hour layover before we boarded. In a stroke of luck, Sister Cannon was promoted to business class and got a nice recliner in the front row which has extra leg room.
For the first seven hours of this flight, I slept very uncomfortably. Our flight departed at 12 PM Provo time, and having been awake since 4 AM, it was good that I was tired enough to sleep a little on the plane.
Ever since waking up, I talked to Sister Cannon at her seat in row 20 (Im row 54) and then have returned to my seat to write this record. I was expecting internet on the flight but unfortunately the United website that allows free wifi is blocked on this phone! Will be back to report soon, hopefully, but I am super glad that I was able to write about my trip so far. It is 10 AM MST already, so the rest of the Elders in my district have begun their own journeys to their respective flights. Wishing them safe travels. Elder Wong to Calgary, Canada, Elder Olson to Thailand, and Elder Roldan to New York City.
Currently flying over Tokyo. Japanese missionaries, good luck! Shoutout to Elder Ford and Elder Smith, who were the coolest Japanese missionary neighbors at the MTC.
I have been so blessed in counting my blessings. Thank you for all your prayers :) Especially mom. I know she was worried.
Count your blessings,
Elder Zhao
Time in Provo:
11:10 AM
6/2/25
Local time in HK (+14 hrs)
1:10 AM
6/3/25
Just skipped Wednesday on the plane 😉
Time remaining:
3 Hours 21 Minutes
Estimated Local Arrival Time:
4:34 AM
Good timesss
Jet lag is gonna go crazy
Thx for reading all of that
Comment
Smash like
Subscribe
