Pics or it didn't happen!

I just remembered that I had forgotten to upload the pictures of my last couple of adventures so here they are!

Second hike up to Delicate Arch!

In Park City with my beautiful friends :)

This wasn't on the list but I thought I'd share it anyway

congrats to Nicole for receiving her call to 

the Ohio Cincinnati mission! 

Terve!

Hei! 

Minum nimeni on Emily, hauske tatuskua! 

Suomi on vaikea ya mina olen hidas. Apua! Ha Ha olen vain vitsailin!

Mina olen Amerikkalainen. Kotimaavii on Kyna. Minulla on tumma hiukset ja tumma silvat. 

Hello!

My name is Emily, nice to meet you!

Finnish is difficult and I am slow. Help! Ha ha, i'm just joking!

I am from America. My home country is China. My hair is dark and my eyes are dark. 

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Ta-da!!

That folks, is how much Finnish I've learned since auditing a couple classes in the past few days. My head has been wanting to explode every single time I leave the class, so I'm not exactly looking forward to the full day of classes at the MTC! Hopefully the days go by quickly! 

Time has been moving so quickly, only about 50 days until I enter the MTC! I am beyond excited but also scared for my life! Only 50 days until I leave for a whole 18 months into the unknown. 

I've been able to complete a lot of my bucket list items. I recently got the chance to...

hike to the Delicate Arch in Moab

go on a trip to Park City with my closest friends

teach a lesson about the Word of Wisdom with the missionaries (so cool!)

go on a (single) date

and I just bought tickets to the BYU Homecoming game! 

Woohoo! So many down, so many to go! 

The Pre-mission Bucket List

As time ticks by, I've compiled a list that I would like to complete before I leave to the MTC

• Go to a BYU football game.
• Go on a last trip with all my friends
• Go hiking somewhere cool
• Go on some dates
• Go to a crazy college party (ok, not too crazy)
• Be able to do baptisms in at least 3 different temples 
• Finish the Book of Mormon again. 
• Hike the Y again 
• Cook a Finnish dish
• Take a picture with someone famous (the degrees of famous-ness can vary)
• Teach a lesson with the missionaries 
• Bike 10 miles in a skirt (for practice reasons) 
• Drive somewhere spontaneously 
• Have a bonfire with my friends 
• Re-learn the piano and be able to play simple hymns 
• Go star gazing 

This list is constantly changing, but I hope that I'll be able to do some of these things before I go. One adventure after the next, right? 

What would you add to this list? 

Anticipation and Motivation

Welp! I've hit the twenty day mark since receiving my call, I officially report in SEVENTY-NINE days to the Provo MTC!!! And because this is a celebration I've decided to FINALLY upload some pictures of my mission call opening, whoo hoo!!!

(1. Photo with my dad 2. Photo with my parents 3.The lettter!! 4. With my sister Helen)
I have so many more photos than this and I want to thank everybody who came, I just haven't found the time to transfer the photos from my dad's iPad to the computer. Hopefully I can upload them soon!

Anyway...
Recently, I've been having difficulties focusing on tasks that I need to do. I'm not sure if this is normal pre-mission anxiety or if it's just something I've developed over the past couple of weeks as a result of not going to school for 4 months. Don't get me wrong, I still clean the house, take showers and exercise, I'm not a total wreck but I just cannot seem to read the Book of Mormon or study Preach My Gospel for more than 10 minutes at a time. This makes me a little nervous because these two books are basically staples in the missionary diet, if you haven't thoroughly studied either of them, then the MTC is going to be rough. (or so i've heard)
It's not like I don't want to study them, I know having a solid foundation is crucial for the upcoming months, but it's like I physically cannot sit still for that long, which is quite shocking given that fact that I am a total bookworm and a devoted student at school.
 
Adding on to all of this stress is the idea that I will have to learn FINNISH along with everything else. Not a day goes by when someone I know will congratulate me on my call but then tell me that Finnish is the hardest language to learn in the MTC, and all I end up doing is just nodding my head and smiling because really, I have nothing to say.

What am I supposed to say to that??

Instead, I'll just let the legendary Sean Bean do the talking for me.

Greetings from Utah!

Hello everyone!

My name is Emily Kwok and I have been given the privilege to serve a full time LDS mission in the Finland Helsinki mission!!! This blog will harbor my weekly updates while I'm in the mission field, personal tidbits, and just about anything else that will be heading my way within the next year and a half!

So I guess I'll introduce myself a little more, I am from Utah but my parents are from Hong Kong. I speak fluent Cantonese and English and I am studying at BYU. I love music and almost everything to do with art and literature. I also have another blog, it's more of a personal one with weird stories and awful poetry but hey, if you're interested, feel free to check it out http://aninfinitenumberofideas.weebly.com/