333 I love you!

Hi!!!! :) :) I love you!!!

Haha well this week has been fun! Sister Cheung and I have had a lot more comp unity. I'm really good at getting stressed and staying stressed, so I made it a goal to put my vocab words aside and just crack jokes with Sister Cheung and tell fun stories. And it has been wonderful! This started all because of the most awesome Grandma in the world, Grandma Thomas! I remember at my setting apart the advice she gave was "love your companion like a sister." thank you Grandma! :)

Also, thank you all for your emails! I wish I had time to respond to all of you!! I love reading them though and love hearing from you. Remember you are in my prayers.

Mom. I GOT THE PICTURES!!! I ABOUT DIED!! OKAY-- soooo clever and cute about the "then" and "now" in Ohio! you and Steph are so young and beautiful! haha man, i love you all. please continue sending pics! can i have some prints of Sammy's blessing please? And when Brooke has her baby girl can I please have prints of those? keep sending them please! :) oh, and I know this is a total Elder Welch move, but they don't have Adam's peanut butter here. and i still kind of cringe whenever I eat skippy. when Dad  comes in Oct, can you also add just one jar of Adams? but mostly green powders and protein powders... OH YEAH!!! thanks so much!

Also, Mom. Can I just talk about you real quick? One of the most amazing things about the mission is that it's taught me how much I love my family. I can't even believe how blessed I am to have you! I think about how beautiful the temple is and that--because of this restored church with Christ's original Priesthood power--we will be sealed together forever. I know this is true. I am so grateful for this! Mom, I'm just so grateful for you. Thank you for caring about me so much. I wish I could explain myself better, but basically my scripture study one day was almost just about you and the family! The Lord is so mindful of us and loves us all so much. Eternal families are so important and so real! :)

Well about this week! Helen didn't get baptized. She didn't even go to church the week before. We felt SO sad and had no idea what happened! We had a few lessons with her this week, and then yesterday, she was at church on time, and came to a baptism! (Ken! S Cheung and her old companion found him and turned him over to the elder's! and he got baptized yesterday! yaaaaaaaaaayyyy!!!!) Anyway, when she walked into the baptism, she was just glowing. we have no idea why. we can't wait to meet with her again! S Cheung and I just looked at each other and both got the most comforting feeling that she truly will get baptized this month... plus she turns 18 on the 3rd no big deal.... WE'RE STOKED!!

I loved seeing Ken's baptism. The spirit was so strong. There's nothing better than seeing someone take that huge leap of faith in Jesus Christ and following His example by getting baptized! It's such a beautiful, beautiful blessing and opportunity we have!

Oh, Bishop Chan's parents! So his dad totally accepted baptism! he is SO CUTE!! We just laugh with him and his wife. I love them. This wednesday she's going to teach us and a investigator Christy how to make a sugar soup I'll probably hate, but I'm super excited! :)

Missionary affirmation for the week:

I love my fellowmen. I love the Lord and His Son, Jesus Christ. I like and appreciate myself. I look for qualities I like in all people. I smile at everyone I meet.

Never stop smiling, never stop praying! :) We have so much to be grateful for.

I found this picture on the wall at church! This was at FHE. That woman in the chinese-y shirt is Mia. The blue shirt girl is Sinead (pronounced Shanae) and she's Bishop Chan's daughter.

 WE FOUND FRO YO!!!!! <3 life is so good. :)

I got S Cheung hooked on do terra!! we use it all the time now! haha actually i can't fall asleep without lavender anymore. but a couple in the ward gave me mini bottles so i gave them to my comp! isn't that cool?? and Bishop Chan gave me On Guard beadlets! I actually got sick this week and kept eating them and now I'm all better. the magic of on guard. it's true. ;)

 Here's big buddah. of course a classic yoga pose, right? :)

 Last P-DAY we hiked to Big Buddah and even took a cool gondola back!!

We met up with Sister KArtchner again! (I keep praying we'll be companions again)

 Gondola ride!

YAY!!! Mom, keep having the missionaries over for dinner PLEASE!!! Love it!!! Best family ever!! You make them so happy!

We are one :)

HIIIII!!!! Fam. Hello, I love you all. I am SO grateful God gave me you! I've always known our purpose on Earth, but the past couple weeks I've honestly realized... wow! We truly all are God's children. He sent us to Earth to learn, grow, find happiness, and become like Him. Become like Him! Can you imagine how happy that must be? I'm just so grateful for this opportunity on Earth to grow closer to God, constantly use Christ's Atonement and grace, and love everyone. I love being here and helping others realize their purpose, too. We are so fortunate to have endless opportunities to repent, find forgiveness, and change. Ah. So lucky! Love you all!

Anwway, this week was so fun. FULL OF MIRACLES!

The highlight for sure was yesterday. Bishop Chan told us he's having FHE at his house and wants us to invite people. Everyone we wanted to invite weren't available. SO we had about 2 hours to find, and we thought, "Expect miracles. If you expect miracles, God will give them to you." AMEN. Literally 3 minutes out, we met the cutest Mandarin girl named Mia! I just love her!!!! And we invited her and she said she'll come! we spoke English w her bc she married a guy from America. she is seriously adorable. so we continued finding and we met a cute little woman (i should've scheduled her a visit at Dr Bosler's) named Sally, shared with her our fav verses in the BoM, taught her how to pray (and when an investigator prays for the first time, my heart fills with SO MUCH LOVE and excitement and happiness! ah! it's the first time they ever talked with God! so incredible.) and then rescheduled her. Stoked to see Sally again.

And theeeen! best part! So, everywhere we go we hold our Book of Mormon (gosh I just LOVE THE BOOK OF MORMON. ps. my personal studies now consist of literally only like 6-10 verses at a time. i can't believe how much truth, doctrine, and happiness each verse contains! and i can literally apply every verse to my life! I love it!). so i walked through a market and this woman yells "MOmanGAUU!" which is a demeaning nickname. so we started explaining how that's a nickname and shared 2 Ne 25:26 about how we preach of Christ. boom. her heart softened. and she came to FHE that night! and brought her son named Michael! Michael is probably 17ish, but he is mentally handicapped.

SO here's who we had at FHE: Mia, the Mandarin who is super sweet, beautiful, and adorable; Rosa, a Christian and her mentally handicap son Michael, 4 missionaries from USA, a topnotch Mormon family from Hong Kong, 2 deaf investigators, 1 deaf woman and her 2 wild sons, and a man with turrets. talk about a diverse group! Well, we were SO stoked that Rosa, Michael, and Mia came, but once William, the man with turrets came in, I got a little nervous. I wanted them to feel comfortable and already having deaf people is a little bit different for those who aren't used to it, especially coming to a random person's house with random American missionaries. Well, I instantly felt so ashamed. We started introducing ourselves and saying our favorite foods, and when William, turrets guy, tried explaining in Cantonese his name... I almost started crying. Because I looked around, saw all these people having fun together, all these DIFFERENT, DIFFERENT people, and thought "wow. We are all equal. We are all children of God."

I've never seen something more beautiful. We ended up playing charades, eating tomatoes, drinking sugar water with quail egg (S Cheung drank mine for me. still can't handle sugar water), and then sharing a simple message how we don't ever need to worry, because Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the light. and then we all shared one happy thing we learned that day. My happy thought was, "even though we speak 4 different languages in this room, we are all still able to communicate and have fun together." We are all God's children. This is why we have the gospel, so people of all types can come together, feel God's love together, and strengthen each other.

I love our ward so much. It's the most humble, loving ward! It's incredible to see how our ward has reached out to everyone. Almost everyone in our ward is learning Sign Language for the few that are deaf. It started with that one woman, Sister Chan, the one I sent you a picture of singing that song about the Word of Wisdom. I can't tell you how much I admire that woman! She raises her 2 wild sons on her own, and she has brought more people into the church than anyone i've ever seen. Whenever she talks, she ALWAYS talks about the gospel. She even invited our investigators at FHE to church. she's the best! Anyway, i'm going off on a tangent about Sis Chan, sorry!

Oh, but last night at FHE, we wrote down someone's name who we admire and wore it on our shirts. She wrote down mine! I don't even know why!!! I can't even talk with her except smile and thank her! haha. (OH! Mia's sing is my sing in Chinese!!! Cool huh! expect in Mandarin you pronounce it "Bye", with a falling tone).

Soooo, I'm sorry my letters are always so scrambled, but moral of the story is, this gospel is so true! MY comp and I are still on a spiritual high from the peaceful, beautiful spirit that was at FHE last night! No matter what trials you have, no matter who you are, where you came from, what language you speak or what mistakes you've made, the gospel of Jesus Christ is for you. We are all God's children, and the only thing He wants is for us to rely on Him, accept His gospel, and let Him change us and find pure joy! So we can return to live with Him! It's so beautiful :) I love this gospel!

Don't forget about all your friends you can share this incredible message with. They all need you :) I'm so excited that Tim is the ward mission leader! Yay! Can't wait to hear about that goes on at home!

I pray for you all every day. I'm so grateful for you.

Love always, Sister Bosler

Missionary affirmation for the week:
 "I know that God lives and that Jesus is the Christ. I exercise faith. I visualize my prayers being answered and see myself reaching my goals."


WE MADE HUMMAS!!!! This is Sister Smith, she lives in our apt. She's incredible! I'm so glad I brought that Magic Bullet! haha ooooh mom, i'm totally craving some green smoothies made out of green protein powder btw... love you so mucccchhh :)

 Here is our area btw Dad! Pok Fu Lam







 Here is Bishop Chan's parents! We teach them twice a week. Sis Chan has no interest, but will let her husband accept the gospel if he wants! He prayed for the first time with us and it was SO cute. We had our member help him pray and it was the cutest thing I've ever seen. Unfortunately, Sister Chan loves to make me food i've never had before... so this is sugar water egg with weird soggy foreign nut things. swwwweeeeet.

Here's the dessert! woo hoo.. but afterwards, the member took us out to japanese and i got veggie sushi :)

This is Jyu Wihng. Haha Sister Chan's (deaf woman) son. he can be soooo crazy, but then sometimes a little angel! one day during language study he sat there while I taught him the plan of salvation! It was adorable.

MIracles happening AS WE SPEAK :)

YESSSSSSSS the best week by far!!!!!!!!!

First of all can I tell you the craziest miracle so far? Well AS WE ARE SPEAKING, Sister Cheung and I are emailing in the apple store on the island, and a random guy who speaks Mandarin came up to us and said he wants to come to church!! AHHH! and we're actually an hour behind schedule-- thank GOODNESS! What a miracle! Sister Cheung is talking to him right now - literally right now - and she's getting all his info and the Mandarin elders are on there way! I have no idea what they're saying though because it's not Cantonese.... well... i probably still wouldn't know if it was cantonese, haha but this is INCREDIBLE! My heart is pumping and I'm so excited for this man! The work is hastening! wow! we both keep looking at each other freaking out! :) he just left and she told me he's meeting the Elders tonight at 7 in Wanchai! hahaha ahhhh so cool!!!! love this place!

Have i ever told you how INCREDIBLE HONG KONG IS?! it's seriously the coolest place in the world! I love the weather, too. it's so stink in hot and humid, but i honestly love it. we sweat like crazy every day, but it's so fun. we finally made up the phrase "Sweat is Satan crying." haha oh man, missionary jokes... the best...... but especially at night, the weather is just gorgeous! and everything over looks water and the buildings are just so cool and the people are SO UNIQUE. haha the people. you have to come to hong kong and just people watch. haha. it's especially fun trying to contact them. sometimes they actually scream because I'm a random white girl who stops them on the street to happily talk to them. or sometimes they just start running away from me. haha this week i have a funny story about finding. so there was this nice looking dad on a bench, so we came up to him to talk to him. and here's the convo:

"hello sir! how's your day going?"

he smiles and says, "bye bye!"

"great! well, we have a wonderful message to share with you about--"

"bye-bye!"

"Jesus Christ and--"

"bye-bye!"

and then I meant to just bear testimony about how He loves us, but I accidentally said "and I love you so much." ....and then it was silent and Sister Cheung and I just turned and walked away. hahaha she just grabbed my arm and was shaking of laughter and said "do you know you just told him you love him?" haha it was so great, because I so sincerely said it. man, they love us here! ;)

This week I had a huge miracle! We were on our way to Wanchai bc we had our first exchanges! So when we got on the bus, i sat next to a woman and literally held conversation with her the whole entire bus ride!!!!!!!!! Okay, i can not tell you one thing about her, nor could i understand her, but i can pick out certain words and ill just repeat them back and nod my head, smile, and laugh. then start talking about either my family, ask her more questions, or just refer back to the gospel. or just give her a different flyer and invite her to another activity. it was so cool though! But Sister Cheung was so proud of me!

I have SO MUCH to thank Heavenly Father this week for! actually... praying is my most favorite thing. i literally smile and cry of happiness while praying sometimes. God hears our prayers! man, I feel SO much closer to Him than ever before! I truly know He lives and loves each and every one of us. He answers our prayers through the most amazing ways. We just have to be patient and have faith. This week I have been strengthened SO much. I am loving it here! I absolutely LOVE scripture study. if you want to make your scripture study more effective, use Preach My Gospel! Right now I'm working out of the last pages of ch 5, the Book of Mormon. it's incredible!!!!! The Book of Mormon is the biggest blessing we have here on Earth! I know with all my heart it is the word of God. We are so blessed to have both the Bible and the Book of Mormon. We are so blessed to live in this  time!

Another miracle! So i still haven't been able to teach the whole Restoration yet. Finally I made it a goal one day to just hold the Restoration pamphlet and be able to teach it to SOMEONE. and boom. a nice, 20 year old girl listened!!! And I got to recite the whole First Vision and everything! wow- I felt so excited, and the spirit was so strong. yet she still wanted nothing to do with it. It's crazy though, she ended up respecting us SO much. There's another woman named Jenny  who just LOVES us, and she hates her life and says she has no money and no one loves her (yet she lives in the most expensive place in Hong Kong- Cyberport) but both these woman respect us so much and say they feel so peaceful around us--but they can't see how it connect with the gospel. they say they're too busy worrying about themselves to worry about a God. ahh. come on... "take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself." "for your heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of all these things! Byt seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." wow! I just know with all my heart that when we lean unto God and give ourselves wholly to Him and recognize how much we truly need Him, He will take care of us. He will strengthen us. He will guide us and shape us into stronger, more valiant and happier people! He is incredible. This is His plan for us-- not for us to just live life miserably, not for us to not know what to do, who to become, but for us to feast upon His word, lean unto Him, and become like Him! it's so beautiful! 

After I taught the Restoration on the street, we got a last minute scheduled turn over with a woman named Pamela and guess what we taught her? The Restoration :) so awesome! 

Okay I have to talk about Sister Yeung real quick! AHH! I love her! she's the deaf one and she's progressed so much! We did a fun interactive lesson where I was blindfolded, trying to find Christ and how Christ is lightt. it was so fun! SHE LOVED IT!!!! And CAME TO CHURCH and is COMING NEXT WEEK!!! And she prayed probably like 5 times throughout our lesson! And then she even tried teaching her son to pray! that made my heart melt. it was the happiest moment of the week, to see her progress and know that Christ is light! It was so awesome! Pray for Sister Yeung! And please keep praying for Helen! Her mom still isn't letting her receive baptism, so we pushed her date back a couple weeks. man. but please do not lose faith! :) she's amazing and loves church and loves the gospel! also, if any of my awesome sisters have some good FHE ideas to simply teach the gospel for little kids, please let me know! (It will be for Sister Yeung). we need ideas! 

OH! and pray for Bishop Chan's parents! We meet them twice a week now (she made us a DISGUSTING dessert and I hated it. oh btw, i also ate a piece of HK cake on sunday ahhh.) So Chan Mama is super against the church- she only listens to help me with my Cantonese, but Chan Papa is SO CUTE and said he'll pray on his own! I love him. yay. :)

Love you all! this gospel is absolutely the BEST! families are forever. 

Here's a missionary affirmation i'm going to think about all week:

"I focus on Christ. I think and act in Christlike manner. I soak myself in the scriptures and feast on the words of Christ. He is the center of my life. I love Him. I am so grateful for His sacrifice for us."

Family, I am so grateful that we can live together forever. What a miracle. Miracles happen every day!

Love always, Sister Bosler

PS HAPPY FREAKIN LATE BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!! How was it? what did you do? I love your letters! it's so true, the most important thing in the world is family! Please send more and more pics in the mail and email! We don't pick up mail often but whenever we go to Wanchai we do :) I love you! 

At the temple 2 weeks ago!

 And Mong Kok! Fam -- we've been here together!

No words to describe this week - sorry!!

Wow, I sure wish I had more time to talk to you all. But wow, let's just say how life changing just 2 hours ago has been for me. 

When I got my call to Hong Kong, I knew it would be hard. But I didn't know HOW hard. And let me tell you... this. is. so. hard. I've stayed up late at nights, shaking and crying to God on my knees. Now this sounds SO dramatic, but hey, it is a dramatic time in my life! I've never been so helpless, weak, confused, stressed, anxious, even feeling unworthy to be here, not good enough, and just in the way. wasting time. wasting my time, my companions time, our investigator's time, and even worse-- the Lord's time. 

Finally today I met with our mission president, President Hawks. This man is changing my life, and I mean that with all my heart! He talked with me for an hour today, and together we just cried. This week I felt like I lost all my faith, I felt like a hypocrite telling others that God can help them through anything, because I wasn't letting myself receive His help. Finally he read to me DC 1:23 and 35:13. I don't have scriptures on me now, but it says how this work is for the weak. this work is for the weak and simple, the broken hearted. whoa, that is ME! I have literally gone from feeling like I'm awesome, to feeling like I literally am nothing. And all of a sudden, the biggest miracle in my life has happened thus far! Just literally 2 hours ago! And nothing dramatic even happened, it's just been my change of heart and mind set. You guys, I CAN DO THIS! I am weak, I can't speak, but this just shows how preaching the gospel is literally ALL the Lord's work. This just shows how miracles literally happen ALL because of the Lord. nothing is from me! 

My whole life I've thought, "yeah, God did help me buuuuut i'm also pretty awesome so...." (haha this is so embarrassing to admit, but i'm sure you all saw it, too.) but now I know with all my heart that God is literally the reason why I can do anything hard. He is my strength, through Him I can do all things! Through Him and Only Him! Please family, please listen to this... even though you probably already know it, but God hears your prayers. And He truly does answer them. Have FAITH, meaning be patient, preserver, act, and quit feeling sorry for yourself. He is on our side. and you know what? Jesus Christ, the Son of God, knew suffering for all of our sins and weaknesses would be hard. But He didn't know HOW hard. And even in the midst, He too thought, "Oh God, why hast thou forsaken me?" 

In the times where you feel the most far away from God...the times where you feel at the bottom of the abyss... these can be the times in all reality, where you are closer to God than every before. He loves each and every one of us. This life is the time for us to change and become like Him. This mission is for me to become the woman He wants me to be. He knows I can do this, so I know I can do this. I thought this mission would be a way to sort of slightly 'pay Him back' for everything He has given me, but no. I am even more indebted to Him, because I know now more than ever before how much He cares and loves each and every one of us. Never stop praying :) never lose your faith. And if you think you've lost it, this can be THE most beautiful moments of your life.

I told President Hawks I haven't been the missionary I've wanted to be. And he asked if he could add just one word: "Yet." The future is in our hands! Study the Book of Mormon, every page has testimonies of prophets that can and will change your life and bring you closer to God! 

well real quick, I know you probably want to know about some miracles? 

Well one- I met a woman on the bus named Sandy, and got her contact info and even scheduled her for the next week! and I called her twice to confirm, and she was SO happy to talk and so excited to meet and talk about Christ! (WHAAT?!) (she also spoke some english haha) well, turns out she's not in our area, so we did a turn over to sisters in our apt. well the sisters came home that night and just thanked me. I was so confused. they asked her why she wants to meet with them and Sandy said, "because Sister Bosler was so happy. Christ makes her happy, and I want to be happy like Sister Bosler." ohhhhh my gosh I about died. I am so excited for Sandy. I am so grateful the Lord helped me smile on the bus that day and share my testimony of the Savior! never stop smiling! :) 

Real quick - Helen. PRAY FOR HER PLEASE!!!! Her mom told her she'll commit suicide if she gets baptized this Sunday. and Helen doesn't want to break the commandment of not honoring her mother, after all her mother has done for her. Man. We have the faith. Miracles can happen. She may not get baptized this sunday, but I know she will. in Ether, how can the prophets move mountains? it's not all of a sudden like they lifted the mountain and threw it over their shoulder. well maybe! but i doubt it. The Lord has His own time, His own way, and the best part about it is struggling and leaning on HIM. It'll happen :) will you have the faith?? THANK YOU! Love you all! here are some pics! 

at my second "cheng out" - okay, i didn't eat THOSE MUSHROOMS EW SICK WITH BEEF??!?! blaaah. haha but, I actually really enjoy these cheng outs! They always start with a soup, you drink it all, then in the same bowl they'll fill it with rice, and with your chopsticks you'll just pick out whatever toppings you want! EVERY house always has choi, and every house I've been to so far has tofu and/or fish! boo ya baby! this cheng out was so fun. they spoke little english, and they're just the most awesome family! 

 Look how gorgeous!!!! this was our hike last week! with the HUGEST SCARIEST SPIDERS EVERYWHERE

ps. yesterday we had FHE at bishops. dessert was melon (HOW AWESOME?) and i was leaning over getting a piece and every one starts screaming things loud but i didn't understand obviously, so i just slowly looked up, and all of a sudden a spider (not too big) was crawling up MY ARM!!!!) you can only imagine what i did. the bishop looked at me and said in english "chinese kung fu" hahahaa oh man!

 Sister Kartchner's head next to a spider! haahha

 i thought this shirt was funny for some reason... bc they're on opposite sides of the country.. haha maybe i just thought it was funny. whenever i say I'm from Cali they always say in english "ah, sun-shine!"