Prayers, Hard Work and Miracles--Ga Yao!!

Dear Family and Friends of Elder Siebach,
This week is Spencer's birthday, and next week is his one-year mark on the mission! Will you please consider sending him a quick note? I think he'd love to get the show of love and support from so many back here at home:) His email and mailing address are listed to the right--use whichever one you prefer. Thank you!!! <3 Tasha

Hong Kong dedication for missionary work
date inscribed on a rock on Victoria Peak:
"Elder Matthew Cowley dedicated the Colony of 
Hong Kong on July 14, 1949 at a site on 
Victoria Peak that faced Mainland China."
Read more about it here.

Hiking to the top of Victoria Peak

What a week! I can't adequately express through email all the emotions that I had this week! Super highs and super lows! Lest you think that I am bi-polar, rest assured that it was all because of our investigators.

Two weeks ago my companion and I sat down during our weekly planning and had a rather sober conversation about our current investigator pool. We had 5 investigators with baptismal dates, but then in recent weeks 2 or 3 of them stopped progressing. So during our planning we felt like the Lord was maybe telling us that we should put them on the side burner for now. So as of this week we only had 1 baptismal date. We found him 1 day before the General Conference broadcast and he was pretty darn golden. Everyone else we dropped their dates and pretty much decided to only see them once a week or so for now. Because of this, we really needed to get our investigator pool back up, and so every day this week we spent most of our time out on the streets finding. We got a few lessons here and there, mostly just some numbers though. Then on Wednesday we met a mother, A-J, out on the street. She didn't have a lot of time but we managed to get off a quick lesson about Heavenly Father and prayer and then rescheduled her for the next day. She showed up the next day at the church, so we gave her a tour and taught the complete Restoration. She really liked it, felt the special spirit of it and said that she wanted to start working towards baptism and that this coming Sunday she would bring her two children with her to church! What an absolute miracle! Her prayer was phenomenal and so sincere!

Friday we had a few more lessons but nothing really noteworthy. Then on Saturday we had 3 hours to go finding and felt like we needed to go up to this random part of our area. It was near a playground, so there were lots of moms around. A few of them were polite enough to listen, but then declared that they couldn't possibly believe in a God and Jesus Christ. Most everyone else I approached just waved me off/ignored me. Those are super aggravating lessons for me because I feel like I teach it so simply and clearly and then they just go off on how Chinese traditions conflict with this and how they will only worship their ancestors.... GRRR!

Meanwhile, Elder Ward spent most of his time with a mom and her daughter and was able to  teach them a really good lesson and commit them for church the next day! Woot Woot! That makes it all worth it for me, even if I didn't really have any of my own immediate success.

That afternoon we had been scheduled by a family, that we hadn't met, to come to their home where my companion was going to teach their daughter piano. It was my job to help with any English and build our relationship with the family. An hour later we walked out having done just that, as well as taught the mother, 2 daughters, and the son a simplified Restoration lesson. Not to mention we also commited them for church the next day!

Come Sunday We managed to get A-J there with her two kids, and then this last mother, A-C, and 2 of her 3 kids. It was a total miracle and definitely an answer to our prayers and hard work! Incidentally, it also happened 6 weeks before the end of this next move (6 weeks is the shortest amount of time an investigator can investigate and then get baptized in the China Hong Kong mission). So Elder W and I are still praying and trying to do everything in our power to be exactly obedient and to have the Spirit with us always so that we can help these families come unto Christ! Along with those two families, we also had a handful of other investigators at church (9 in total!).

Randomly last week, some Elders (not us) were on the street and got approached by a less-active man. This man lives in our area and so yesterday he came to church with us! It was the first time he's been back to church in 15 years! He was baptized in 1998 and immediately stopped coming. He really enjoyed the lessons and says that he wants to continue to come to church as well as bring his wife and son! God really does work in mysterious ways!

Last but not least, one of the young men that we put on the side-burner a few weeks ago miraculously developed a newfound desire to investigate the church and is working towards a baptismal date of June 2nd!

Seriously? Ok:) Whatever!

Needless to say, the ward was pretty pumped up yesterday and after some prompting from us, they became excellent fellowshippers for all these new investigators! On top of it all, we got 12 new investigators this week from our street finding too!

Ga Yao!

Anyway, I'm cutting this letter short so that I can send some photos! I love you all! Keep reading and praying daily! It's so simple but so important!

GA YAO! (Add Oil--meaning "keep going")

Love,

Elder Siebach

A Chapel Tour and a Beer? Hmmm...

Dear Friends and Family,

Good week here in Kwai Chung! We worked hard and spent a lot of the week wet from the heavy rain or when it wasn't raining, the stifling heat and humidity. Summer is certainly on it's way.

Contemplating in Cantonese:)

Recently President Hawks has been asking missionaries to take some time and make sure that their planning is in code with what Preach My Gospel Chapter 8 says. It's a good chapter that I have read many times and has caused me to reflect on how Elder W and I do our planning. I'm always pleased that we have every minute of the day scheduled. However, this past week I felt like we needed to change up our schedules a little bit and do more things during the day. So this week most days we did our studies in the morning, ate lunch and then for the afternoon (if we didn't have lessons) we would spend an hour or two street contacting, an hour doing less-active work, and 30 minutes updating member records/organizing our area book. We then would take an early dinner, and most nights we had lessons that we'd do from about 6:30 to 9. At 9 we would come home and try and schedule people/call potentials and then at 10 we would plan. Maybe I'm a little ADD or something, but I felt so much more effective when we broke up and did a variety of productive things in a day! Because of this, I think that this week was one of the best weeks I had on my mission!

With the start of a new Sisters companionship in our area it's my first time working with sisters and it's been fun to talk to them and see them out on the street sometimes. We've also been working closely with them on member visits and managed to visit 2 or 3 families this week which was really good! One particular night Elder W and I had an hour to kill before going to go visit a member so we went to their apartment complex and did some finding. One of the first people I contacted was a super cool 20 year old who is a 1st year student of Philosophy. We had a kinda philosophical discussion that stretched my brain, but at the very end he said he'd be willing to learn about God. He's scheduled for tomorrow so I hope it all works out. The next guy I stopped was a 30-something-year-old Chinese man from Hong Kong. He doesn't really know Cantonese so we talked for a bit and he wants to take Elder W and I out for a beer after we give him a tour of the chapel this upcoming week... He has family in Canada (2 little kids and a wife) so hopefully we can see him and get him interested in the Plan of Salvation. Randomly while I was talking with these guys a gaggle of old Chinese women (we call them PoPo's) started following me and chatting. They actually proved beneficial because they started pointing out to me the people coming home from work who were already Christians. It was kinda funny because they REALLY didn't want to talk to me, but were willing to give me "referrals" I guess. The last guy I stopped turned out to be from Thailand, but he didn't know a word of English or Chinese. He wanted to sit down with me and then we just talked through gestures. Miracle of miracles, I remembered 4 words from when I had a Thai investigator in ChaiWan. I remembered God, Jesus Christ, Plan of Salvation, and goodbye. We talked about BangKok, ChiangRai, ChiangMai, and

Tuk-Tuks in Thailand

Tuk-Tuks. It was pretty cool. I pulled out a Plan of Salvation pamphlet at the very end and told him to look for us missionaries when he goes back to Bangkok next month. That was a super cool conversation! :)

Besides street contacting Elder W and I had a fair amount of scheduled lessons too. Most of them with people we contacted from last week. All are at various stages; one has a baptismal date already, another is trying to accept that God exists, and another has great faith and love for God so now we are trying to show to him that God has again revealed his gospel. It's really interesting for me to see all my investigators are all on the same path but their needs are so different. What works for one won't work for another. It's not frustrating at all but just an eye-opening experience to learn that even though we are all different, this gospel is for everyone.

I can't remember where I was reading in 1st Nephi this week, but I can tell you it was one verse from the end of the chapter on the riight page, right column, almost to the top and it was Nephih talking about the need for 'faith', 'diligence', and 'heed'. I've been thinking a lot about these this week and it's worthy to note that in everything we do we need faith. Then with the faith that we have, we diligently work. But work is not enough. We need to Heed to the Lord. Heed to the Spirit. Be willing to listen. Our faith and diligent work qualify us for the Holy Ghost's guidance. We then need to listen or we won't be moving forward.

Yesterday was the Kowloon Stake Stake Conference in HoManTin. We had 3 investigators go with us and I was really impressed with the speakers who spoke of fulfilling and magnifying callings, as well as put heavy emphasis on preparing for missionary work and helping the full-time missionaries. The stake leaders who spoke all did really well, but there was real power and authority in that meeting hall when President Hawks got up and gave a talk in very fluent Cantonese. He sounded awesome and his words really resonated. No one particular thing stood out to me, but it was all just filled with the Spirit. It made me really grateful to have the Holy Ghost witness to me that he does recieve revelation for this mission and knows what and where is best for me. My job is to live up to what he, the Lord, and I should expect of myself.

Hoping and praying for another good week here in Hong Kong! Keep reading and praying everyone!

Love,

Elder Siebach

General Conference Extravaganza

Dear Friends and Family,

What a week of ups and downs! There were a lot of really good things that happened this week! Namely the rebroadcast of conference. Among other things there was a lot of rain--not something I think of as bad until it keeps EVERYONE from stopping to talk with us and gives investigators an excuse to cancel appointments on us.

Our numbers were really bad this week. What little productive finding we could do was done next to apartment buildings which have a convenient ledge that keeps all patrons from getting soaked, as well as most of the time they have covered walk-ways.

Because of the rain, Elder W and I spent a fair bit of time calling and confirming or rescheduling investigators. Over the course of 3 days this week we got 'fonged' (the investigator didn't show up/answer phone) 8 times. Few things are more aggravating to a missionary then to have spent a long time praying for and discussing how to teach a lesson, pulling teeth to schedule a fellowshipper, and then to get a text 2 minutes before the lesson starts saying that something came up, or worse yet, to have the investigator not answer the phone when we make that, "You're 10 minutes late. Where are you?" phone call. Oh, well. In the words of a musician whose name now escapes my mind, "Oh yeah, life goes on." I think we only had like 6 lessons the entire week (missionaries should average about 20-25).

Watch it online!

To turn the tides on what would have been a very crummy week, conference came! Boy was I ever excited to go to that! Seriously though, I looked forward to it all week long! And I wasn't disappointed. The talks were SO good! I learned a lot and took copious notes. Some of the talks that really stood out to me were Andersen's and Nelson's who talked a lot about missionariy work. Elder Eyring also talked a TON about it and about the need for member referrals. You think I'm kidding but I can count on 1 hand how many people have given me a referral on my mission. And believe me, it's not because we aren't asking and working for them. Even if they aren't great referrals, we don't care. We want to teach! And we want to have a natural fellowshipper so that we aren't scrambling around trying to schedule members who might be a good match.

Read The Liahona!

I also reall liked Elder Bednar and Perry's talks. Elder Bednar just said it straight. Didn't sugar coat anything about the importance of morality and virtue. Elder Perry is 90 or 95 (I don't remember correctly) but he is so full of fire and of the spirit when he talks! He was so inspiring to me. I felt like conference talked a lot about commandments and using our moral agency to choose God's will. Thankfully conference also proved to be a lot better for investigators and we got 7 investigators to come out for at least one of the five sessions. I'm excited for the Liahona to come out next month with all the talks in it so I can review again.

@ the Big Buddha with Elder W.

Last Monday after I wrote you guys I headed out to Tung Chung (the island that the airport is next to) and with a few members and other missionaries we rode a bus out to the Big Buddha! It was so cool! Thankfully it wasn't raining, and the views were spectacular. I won't go into great detail about everything because I'm going to try and post a few pictures at the end of this email. Super fun activity though!

Today for P-Day we are going to Victoria Peak! I'm pretty excited since it will be a first for me. We're going with the Sister Missionaries who serve KwaiChung with us, as well as a member who really wants to take us there.

Yup--he sent it home:)

I may or may not have told you, but the 2-column tags that the Hong Kong mission uses are no longer approved by the Church. So, we will be getting new ones. They will be in all Chinese. In case any Elder or Sister serves in the international zone they will be issued all English tags too. I'm a little bummed about it, but it's OK. These tags were fun while they lasted. Recently I've been looking for my MTC tags which had Chinese on bottom and my name in English on top. Did I send those home? I don't see them in any of my luggage here.

I heard this week from another Elder that there was a shooting in Texas. Any truth to it? What happened?

Threads--very nice!

Of special interest to Sterling: Yesterday I was walking the streets of Mong Kok on my way to the HoManTin chapel for conference and saw a music poster. It was the band 'This Will Destroy You', and apparently they are coming to Hong Kong for a concert in May. Are they touring to Texas? (That's where they are from you know). Are you going to try to go?

Hope all is going well for everyone! Thank you for your prayers for me and for my investigators; they are needed and I know that the Lord hears and answers every prayer on his own time-table. I have a testimony of that and have seen on my mission how the Lord tests our faith to prove us, and then answers us. He always does. Keep reading and praying!

Love,

Elder Siebach  

Praying with a South African in McDonalds

Dear Friends and Family,

Wow, has the time flown! I just sat down and realized that its April! It feels like yesterday I was back in ChaiWan doing my first street contacting. Anyway, that's not the case now. I've been here in Hong Kong for 8 months now which is also super crazy...

First off I'll update you on transfers. Contrary to missionary rumors and popular speculation here, I stayed with Elder W in KwaiChung! I'm happy with it. I knew I obviously wouldn't be the one leaving, and I love working with Elder W. We get along great and work well together. Among changes though are our apartment mates, and a new set of Sister missionaries who serve KwaiChung ward with us. Our new apartment mates are Elder A and Elder K. They serve CheungShaWan which is the next area over from us. It's really fun to live with them because when I was serving ChaiWan, Elder K was a member in the Causeway Bay branch. In fact I was with him when he opened his mission call! He's super awesome and has a lot of 'missionary fire'! And Elder A is actually one of my MTC companions! He's Senior companion now and the District Leader over the AP's! He's doing awesome too, and it's so much fun to get caught up with him!

As for the Sisters; one, Sister F, has been out in Hong Kong a little over a year now, and she is training Sister M. Sister M is the first 19 year old sister in our mission, and was also in the first wave of missionaries who stayed at the MTC only 9 weeks! It's a lot of fun working with them and the ward was super happy to have Sister missionaries again! (The sisters companionship got closed down about 6 months ago because there weren't enough sisters in the mission).

Among some of the highlights this week were some good street finding and some good less-active finding! I had a really long conversation with one guy on the street. He was what you might call an 'intellectual'. He tried to give me really rehearsed reasons for why Hong Kong people's culture won't allow them to accept Jesus Christ, and how we shouldn't try to learn about God, but should rather find out about human nature and just live as humans. He even pulled out some phrases from Confucius (I was happy earlier this week I took time and learned basic phrases and words for Confucism). Finally at the end I just told him straight up that I could tell him everything he needed to know about this life, Pre-Earth Life, and Post-Mortal Life in 15 minutes. He didn't have much to say to that.  Eventually I commited him to come try out church with us sometime. Hopefully he'll schedule.

This week it rained REALLY hard one day! It was monsoon like rain and there was not much that we could do outside. So, we went and did some less-active finding. We went out to one apartment complex that was in a remote part of our area and tried to go up and visit some LAs. The guards at the bottom of all the apartments were all super unhelpful and told us that they wouldn't help us or even let us in. The conversation with one guard got super heated so we just walked away and let her keep screaming at us. That same sort of story happened in 4 or 5 of the buildings we tried to get to. Finally though, the very last apartment we wanted to visit, the guard let us up. When we knocked the man's nephew came to the door and we chatted with him for a while. He was nice and Elder W was bold and asked if we could come in. He let us in and as we were about to share a message with him the doorbell rang. 2 of his friends came in and so we sat them down as well and taught them too! They were really respectful and it was an absolutely miracle lesson! Turns out all 3 of them are 15 too. They then scheduled for this past Saturday to come to our Games Night and take a tour of our chapel! Elder W and I were dumbfounded and so happy for the experience we had with them! There is no doubt in my mind that the Lord prepared that choice encounter for us. And what made it so much sweeter was how much rejection we had had just an hour previously. It really strengthened my testimony and taught me about the principle of perseverance.

At a different point this week Elder W and I went out to get something for lunch. We got soup and then afterwards went to a McDonalds to sit down and do our language study. I felt like sitting by a window for some reason. A few minutes into our language study 2 guys come into McDonalds (A South African and a guy from New Guinea). They said that as they were out on the street they saw our tags with the name Jesus Christ on them. Turns out that the two of them work for some Missionary Group. It was kinda a complicated story, but it sounded like they live/work on a ship selling Christian books and inviting people to learn more. Their boat is dry-docked right now undergoing some maintenance so they were up in KwaiFong doing some exploring when they saw us. We had a great conversation with them and then it was time for us to go. They said that they would be staying in McDonald's for lunch so we left, ran to the church, got to Book of Mormons, wrote our testimonies in the front and ran back to McDonalds to deliver it to them. They didn't know anything about the book and only one of them knew the name "Mormons". Before we left one of the guys asked if we could do a prayer. He offered it, and we all held hands too haha! :) We swapped contact info too before we left.

Besides these experiences things are OK on the progressing investigator front. All school students are testing right now and so for the most part we've been unable to schedule them. 2 of our baptismal-date-investigator's parents won't let them get baptized. We're working a lot with them and helping to strengthen their faith and be good examples to their parents of what the gospel has done to change them. It's hard work for them and us though. I often have a hard time relating to their situation. Any advice?

A few other of our investigators have been sick so we haven't met with them recently. Hopefully this upcoming week will prove to be better and we'll get a few more lessons in.

I finished the Book of Mormon for the 4th time on my mission this week! I've restarted and am really trying to ponder every verse I read. I've been moving a lot slower and in the last 3 days I've only gotten through 1 Nephi 2. Its all really great stuff though! I'm impressed with Nephi. In chapter 2 he expresses that he had some doubts as to the visions of his father, but instead of arguing or murmuring he works through them and asks God. All he needs to know is if God's hand was in it and then he will do it. Really submits his will to his father and Father in Heaven's will. I like it a lot. I need to work on it.

I hope Conference was an uplifting experience for all and that all took time to watch it! I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am to watch it this week! I'd love if you guys sent out your notes to me, let me see your insights!

Stay Spiritually safe with CPR (Church Attendance, Prayer, Reading)!

Love,

Elder Siebach