Can you say triplets?

Dear friends and family,
Had a really good week here in Kwai-Chung! Elder B and I worked hard all week long. We managed to see a few of our investigators multiple times, including all three of our baptismal dates at least twice this week.

Speaking of those dates, one of them is Mr. L. He's been investigating for about 6 weeks now and had a date set for September. The reason it is so far out is that we want to make sure that he is understanding these things because it he a bit of a slow learner, but more importantly, he can't make it to church very often. He is very sincere and wants to be at church, it just so happens that most Sundays he is called to work. We've talked about the commandment of Keeping the Sabbath Day holy and he expressed how he really does want to get to church, but he needs his job right now, especially since he has been having financial problems for the past few months/weeks. We're working hard with him, his gospel understanding and interest seem peaked, and now its just a matter of finding a new job or trying to work something out with the company he is currently at. Because he wasn't at church yesterday he is going to come to Family Home Evening tonight so that should be good.

Mr. W, our other investigator with a baptismal date is doing OK. We visited with him this past week, shared a few commandments and read some scripture passages and then rescheduled him for the next day to read with him since he doesn't always understand everything he is reading. We got to his home that day (we had a member fellowshipper along with us) and had just finished the opening prayer to start the lesson when, seconds later, he told us he was having some health problems and asked that we stop talking. His son, smoking in the next room, told us kinda just to get out. The atmosphere just felt weird! We left stunned without a closing prayer. We tried calling him the next night to see if there was anything we could do and his wife answered, said he was in the hospital and would let us know. We weren't able to get his hospital address but we'll continue to try to contact him and support. I hope we can help this man. He, like Mr. L is very genuine and you can just tell that when he knows and understands these gospel principles it really change his life and family for good. Honestly I'm a little nervous that his LA wife and unsupportive son aren't helping him very much... :(

Our 3rd baptismal date is for September as well. He's a former investigator from a few years back. We've been working with him and trying to get him prepared for baptism but he still has some time and some things to get straightened out first. I have no doubt that if our investigators get serious about our message they can all make their dates.

Besides these lessons we had a number of other lessons and managed to get a good number of member-present lessons, in fact 10 this past week. We are so pleased that we were able to reach the double-digits! 

Church attendance suffered a bit with Mr. W and Mr. L not being able to get there, but we did get 4 investigators there, an LA, and then another LA showed up right after church.

This past Friday Elder B and I had just finished up a mid-morning lesson, lunch, and were sitting down to finish up our weekly planning when we got a call from the AP's--I didn't think too much about it since I had been communicating the last couple days with them to clarify some information on some baptismal records--they asked how my companionship was doing, how training was, and then asked me what my plans for P-Day were. I said we had none and they then asked that I be in Kowloon Tong at 10 so that Elder B and I could pick up our new Summer Missionaries! I was, and still am, a little scared about the whole thing. It's kinda like having a new or 'baby' missionary, and then putting two more even newer missionaries with him. Can you say triplets??

We will be packed like sardines these next few weeks and some of us will undoubtably end up sleeping in our study. It will be a good adventure though. So yeah, Elder B and I are in two different companionships for the next two weeks but sharing the same investigators. Sounds like a good recipe for endless hours of STREET CONTACTING! Not that that's a bad thing; it's just a very hot, humid thing.

We have now been with our Summer Missionaries for about 3 hours. My companion, Elder L is from Tai Wo Ward, just graduated high school, 18 later this year, and a life-long member. Elder B's companion, Elder N, is 16, baptized in April, but has been going to church and investigating for about a year and a half. Good stuff! Should be fun and a good opportunity to help our Chinese. We're looking forward to another good week ahead of us and hoping that we can get a good number of people added into our investigator pool.

Last thing, I was reading in 3 Nephi and was impressed by verse 20 where it outlines that when we pray we need to pray for what God would have us pray for (i.e. we probably can't pray for his help in defeating a video game), have faith in him, and then he will give us an answer. It's so simple but hit me hard this morning and something I want to share with investigators whenever I share Moroni's promise.

Love,

Elder Siebach

P.S. Thank you so much for the package! Its AWESOME! I love the painting from Grace too! It's posed right next to my Captain Moroni figurine.

Ever Working, Ever Learning...

Dear Friends and Family,

Things are going so well here in KwaiChung! I don't know what it is about this week, but I just find myself falling more and more in love with my area and with Hong Kong! If I could stay in KwaiChung for the rest of my mission I would be happy. What's interesting is that nothing super remarkable happened; I just kept working like any other week.

Kwai Chung: what's not to love?

Here are some highlights: during my language study this past week I decided to read some of the Less Active member records and try and 'decode' their Chinese addresses. I was scanning specifically for less actives that live in one particular estate; Lai Yiu Estate in Lai King. Later that afternoon I knew that we would be there visiting with our investigator Mr. W. I was surprised as I went through the lists of literally hundreds of names, I ran across the address of a lady who lived in the same building and room as our investigator. A little skeptical I headed out to the apartment for the meeting with Mr. W. The meeting went very well, we taught the Restoration completely and he is very interested in learning! In passing I asked about his wife who is usually out of the home when we go over to meet with him. Through my explortion I found that 20 years ago when he and his wife were investigating the church, she got baptized!!!! Unfortunately she also went less active very soon after. So with that new knowledge Elder B and I have been working hard to schedule a time when we can meet with him and her. If we can get him baptized and her active next year they could get sealed possibly! Anyway, that's our long term goal. The Relief Society president knows and she actually sat with them yesterday when they came for church. If all goes well he'll be baptized this August.

Another person that has been making some good progress is Mr. L. He's been investigating for a little over a month now and making slow but steady progress. Because of his work schedule he never knows if he will be able to make it to church or not. He's very willing to meet though and reads and prays. With both Mr. L and Mr. W I am blown away by just how willing to listen and learn they are--I guess it's their humility.

Among other things this week, it rained for portions of every day which was a lot of fun! Lots of times it just gets to a point where we stop caring about bringing an umbrella because you know you will be soaked anyway. Thank heavens for waterproofing on our shoes!

One evening we had a couple hours to go finding and though it was raining we did our best and actually stopped a really nice man. We talked with him for a little while outside his apartment building and then huddled under a tree during some rain, and then out of the blue he just invited us into his home. So we went in, he tried hard to give us some alcohol but we won the fight and earned a cup full of water instead! He was very nice, originally from mainland, works in construction, and for that reason doesn't have a lot of time (the day we went finding happened to be a public holiday so he was off). We left a pamphlet and I hope he gets a chance to read it. For the last 25 minutes of our finding that evening we tried to knock the door of a less-active but the guard told us he had moved out a few days prior. We used her office phone and by some miracle he picked up, he had indeed moved, but it was nearby and he invited us to go and visit him. We went immediately, found him and scheduled him for the next day since we had to leave for our missionary correlation meeting. His name is Brother C, he's gotta be about 70 or 80, and hasn't been to church in 10+ years. We went the following night, Saturday, to his room and had a good conversation about church and scriptures. He may be a little bit crazy, can't tell yet, but he scheduled for church the next day!

Yesterday, Sunday was another great day. Elder B and I made a lot of calls the night before and were able to confirm a handful of people to come to church with us the next day. We had 9 people tentatively scheduled. Sunday morning we made some more calls to confirm yet again, and confirmed most of them. At church yesterday we had 5 investigators; J, Mr. W, Mr. L, A-G, Mrs. J, and then Mr. W's less active wife, and Brother C was at church with us too. We got fellowshippers to sit by all our investigators and I sat with Brother C. Our party of investigators, fellowshippers and less actives took up about 3 rows and I sat somewhat 'perched' over them in the back row corner. I was just so happy to see them listening intently and reverently! haha :) It so happens that Mr. W's wife brought her mother too. We didn't have a chance to teach that family yesterday because they were feeling a little under-the-weather and so they left right after Sacrament meeting. After the 3 hour services were finished Elder B and I went on splits and I taught Mr. L the 10 commandments. He loved it! He also loved church! he felt like church was a great opportunity to feel closer to God and he now knows that it's a commandment. After that lesson we were able to teach A-G and we read in Ether 12 and talked about how we show our faith. He has so much faith! He shared with us that though his mother won't sign the form to allow him to be baptized, he is still preparing, comes to church weekly, reads and prays daily. He's such a great example to me! If I'd been like that when I was 16 I'd have been so much more prepared for missionary life!

On the week we managed to get 7 member-present lessons which I'm pretty pleased about, a number of other lessons, a few RC/LA lessons too. A-J is doing wonderfully! Reads and prays daily, loves her friends and family at church and loves to read scriptures with us and learn more of the gospel. :) L is same level with her. Doing so well.

Things are good in KwaiChung. I'm always working and always learning. Hope everyone is having a good week!

Love,

Elder Siebach

I'm Not Dead Yet!

Dear Friends and Family, 

Good to be back on this computation machine and 'hitting' out a message to you guys. (The direct translation for writing an email is to hit mail. As for video games, it's (da gei) or "hit machine".) Anyway, things are going well here in KwaiChung. Elder B and I have been staying busy doing less active work, some street finding, and our way too long studies (we study for 4 hours each morning; 1 hour personal study, 2 hours companionship study, and 1 hour language study.) It's all very good though. Very helpful and makes it so that in teaching situations we both feel prepared spiritually and confident in our language abilities.

Speaking of language abilities, I feel that in the last few weeks I hit a bit of a milestone. That is, that mentally I've switched over from having to translate every word from Chinese into English before understanding it, to just understanding it. Many a missionary will tell you that the secret to language mastery is to do this as soon as you possibly can. For some it comes very quickly, some it takes longer, and me, it took about a year.

As this week started out, Elder B and I had very high hopes for a lot of member-present lessons. We had people scheduled, and we thought that we could easily find people for the lessons. One thing we can't plan very well for is for those that cancel on us. It's unavoidable it seems. The start of this week we did really well, and then Thursday through Sunday we just kept getting canceled on. One day we had like 5 lessons scheduled, and all but one of them suddenly couldn't make it anymore. It can be frustrating, but I feel that it's helping me learn to be more effective. That is, when we're waiting on someone, we can just take those 5 minutes to go find, or call through some potentials, confirm lessons, organize less active work to be done, or call members. There seem to be a plethora of things. Plethora... Big vocab word, huh?

The latter half of the week was rough, though. Elder B concentrated on making sure that the lessons we did have were meaningful and prepared for. It just so happens that one day we managed to meet with Mr. L. He was actually an hour late, and so the fellowshipper we had arranged had to leave partway through. We had an important lesson about priesthood authority and the doctrine of Christ; specifically baptism and so we were able to set a date with him. He seems excited to keep it too. It's a few months out still, but he's already making the necessary arrangements so that he can get work off for sure on that day (he works very odd hours, and they are constantly changing.)

I mentioned last week that we had a couple come to church of their own accord last Sunday; the W's. Well you can bet I pretty much pounced on them and scheduled them for Tuesday. When we went to their home only the husband was there. As we got to know him we learned that he is a former investigator from about 20 years ago, literally. He showed us a picture of him with missionaries from 1994. We had a good lesson where we reviewed elements of the Restoration and encouraged him to start reading and praying again. Then he came to church this past Sunday again, and we pulled him aside for 15 minutes afterwards. He hadn't had a great opportunity to read yet, but still wants to meet with us and learn more. We read with him 2 Nephi 31 and talked about baptism. He said the reason he wasn't baptized 20 years ago was that his faith wasn't great then, but that now he has a great desire to be baptized. So we did what missionaries do, we gave him a date! We'll be working with him more this week and in the weeks to come and I hope that that can be maybe a family baptized! (As of right now his wife has no interest, but she is willing to accompany her husband to Sacrament meeting and then wait in the foyer for the following 2 hours. We REALLY want to get her to Relief Society. Apparently Relief Society is just amazing or something; cake, cut-outs, tears, the Spirit... I wouldn't know. I'm in Elders Quorum where we've talked ironically about the Relief Society for the last 2 weeks.

I think I should probably mention last P-Day. After we finished up writing our letters Elder B and I met up with L and we took a mini-bus up to some beautiful shrines on the mountainside. I've been wondering about them for the last couple months and haven't had an opportunity to get up there since it's not in our area. The shrines were SWEET! Full of the scent of incense. We scoped out two different shrines for about an hour and a half and then just walked a trail that led up into the mountains a ways. We probably hiked for about 10 or 15 minutes and got to a water treatment center or sorts and went up the ladder to the top. From the top we had a spectacular view of our entire area, some of the neighboring areas, Victoria Harbor, Hong Kong Island, out to sea, and we were right below the flight-path of incoming planes. The roar of the engines was awesome! Made me realize how small Hong Kong really was. I could see more than half of the Hong Kong mission in one sweep of my eyes. It was a kinda cloudy day but everything was still very visible. That was a fun P-Day! Makes me want to do some more hiking and exploring.

Recently I've been reading in Alma 40-60ish. Lots of good war chapters. Lots of good leaders and qualities to be emulated. I love Helaman and the 2000 Stripling Warriors. He's a servant of the Lord, and then on a whim (okay, maybe not quite) is willing to change and lead an army of 2000. It mentions how those 2000 never had fought, yet they did not fear death.(I bet Helaman was in the same boat too). What great qualities we should have! Willing to change at a moments notice, they can 'do hard things', and have the faith, grit, and determination to do it. One of the last battles that those 2000 fight in mentions how every one of the Nephites were blown away by their 'preservation'. It also mentions that every one of them received many wounds. I think in this life we all get wounded. People wound us, we wound people, we wound ourselves through sin, but we can do hard things. I'm sure a spear in the side would make me want to roll over and die, but those 2000 warriors were the guys that felt it, dealt with it, and then pushed on. To quote Monty Python, "I'm not dead yet!"
It's all about endurance. Use the bandage that the Atonement is to fix up your wounds and then go grab your armor of God and get back out there and fight Satan. I hope when I grow up I can be like the righteous Nephites and people of Ammon. 

Anyway, that's my piece for the week.

To answer a few questions; I would love a new SD card and I'll send mine home to you. Yes, I will keep trying to work my Credit card account. And dad, my advice is to consciously pray to the Lord to ask for opportunities to be a missionary. Then go look for them. Maybe not every member has a friend right now that they can introduce to the church. But every member has a mouth and can make new friends. Talk to people. Open your mouth and it shall be filled. Members can be like missionaries too and talk to strangers if they feel prompted and desire to do so. I wasn't a good member missionary before my mission, but I sure hope I can be afterwards. Another idea is to talk to the missionaries and tell them that you'd love to help them and that you are free certain days at a certain time if they have a lesson. I'd love it if I had members do either one of those things so that I don't have to call every member in the book looking for one who might have time. 

I love you all. Hope everyone is well. 

Love, 

Elder Siebach

"Alright, Share Your Message with Me!"

Dear Friends and family,

It's been a solid 4 days since I was last on here and I will do my best to update y'all on the current information.

Last week we were told Saturday evening that our district could go to the temple the following Thursday at 9 AM. Consequently, I didn't get to give off a letter on the regular day. So for future notice, I guess just stay posted and if I don't respond on Monday, it's probably temple week:)

Last I informed you, I had just left off with last Wednesday which was a day for 5 lessons! I don't know if you guys are familiar with "The District" DVDs put out by the church for missionaries, but according to them, they get like 15 lessons a day and have referrals every day. I wish I could say Hong Kong members were as Gung-ho (correct my spelling please) but I can count on one hand how many referrals I've ever recieved, and I think we average about 5 scheduled lessons a week. So for all that to happen in one day, it was definitely the hand of the Lord!

On Friday morning we had Zone Training for 3 hours. The first hour was just running through announcements and key indicators and goals for the Kowloon Zone this month, and then for the next two we got to watch the church's new video "Work of Salvation". That built a fire in every missionary that was in the room and I'm not sure if you remember the video by Elder Andersen, but he had a 'candid camera' hidden in his interviews and you can bet every missionary cheered as we got to see some Hong Kong members that we've all gotten to work pretty closely with. Hong Kong is a very small world, especially when the church is involved. It was really motivating to hear more of the stories of Less actives coming back to church and bringing new people into the church. Every missionary knows the best, most effective work is with the members. That's when the miracles are easiest to be detected.

The rest of Friday was full of weekly planning and some good street contacting up in one of the estates in our area. That evening we had Correlation meeting. Correlation meeting to me is one of the best parts of the week because we get to meet with our mission leader, ward missionaries and talk about the successes of the week and what we need some more help on. Our mission leader is super cool too. A former Hong Kong RM, and a less active, he's been back a couple years and was just extended the call. He really gets missionary work and wants to help us. Our ward missionaries are there too. It's just hard to use them since they are four 19/20 year old girls; 2 RC's, a recently returned LA, and one girl who has been a member for 5 years or so. Needless to say, they don't go split finding with us or anything, and since the Sister missionaries take care of all women investigators we try and get our correlator or one of the YM to help us with our lessons.

Saturday we had some good lessons and then the best part was the evening because our ward had a Missionary Fireside. There were 4 speakers; 2 recently returned sister missionaries, and 2 soon-to-depart Elders. They did a good job and we had an alright turn-out from the ward. One of the families in attendance was the Lai family. Their story is really special because the mother was found on the street like 7 years ago and got baptized with her son. Then last year the father started investigating and got baptized as well and helped baptize his 8 year old daughter. Then this past week marked his 1-year mark and so on Saturday the whole family got to go through the temple and get sealed. I didn't participate at all in their conversion, but it was a testimony builder to me to see what the fruits of a street contact 7 years ago have now become. Really happy for them!

On Sunday we had Fast and testimony meeting and had 4 investigators with us, and then out-of-the-blue 2 people walked into our Sacrament Meeting. After the meetings I went to introduce myself and found out that it was a husband and his wife. They seem normal for the most part which is good, and they are former investigators from years and years ago and wanted to come to church yesterday to hear the gospel. They didn't have time right then, but I got their number so I hope we can continue to help them. Then yesterday evening we went out LA finding. We knocked 4 doors and one was an LA that I had previously visited. She was home, invited us in, and went into a room and pulled out all the church stuff she had and said, "Alright, share your message with me. Let's read the scriptures." So we read 2 Nephi 32 and talked about prayer. That was a pretty good lesson.

Anyway, solid couple days. Hoping to be able to have a lot of time this next week doing the things missionaries do; finding, teaching, LA finding, member visits!

Hope you all have a good week! Keep living the gospel-centered life!

Love,

Elder Siebach

And the Rockets Red Glare!

Dear Friends and Family,

Happy 4th of July this week to everyone back home! What a great week we've had! Elder B and I worked hard, and despite setbacks and many last-minute cancels from investigators we managed to get a respectable number of lessons throughout the week. Though I was here last summer for a large amount of the summer weather, it's amazing how unaccustomed I still am to it! Many times a day I look over at Elder B to see if he is sweating anywhere near as much as I am. The street contacting has been fun though. We're getting into a good routine and working better every week. One thing I doubted before I went "Senior" companion, was if my language skills are up to the challenge of answering my younger companions language questions and communicating with the people of Hong Kong. These past couple days in particular I've felt the Lord's hand really support me and help me specifically in the language aspects of the work.

Some highlights of the last 10 days include less-active finding. Elder B and I have been crunching some numbers and figured that we average between 2 and 3 hours a day street finding. So roughly 20 hours a week if we take the larger number. Because we need to find new investigators to teach we determined to use 15 of those hours working on finding new investigators and 1/4 of our time doing less active work. One day last week we were finding out on the street and I felt like we needed to go knock on a less-active's door who was in the apartment building next to where we were finding. When we got up to his apartment, he opened the door and we were pleasantly surprised when he greeted us very warmly and told us to wait just a moment. He came out a moment later and said, "OK, let's go get a bite to eat." Not wanting to make a wrong impression, we walked with him to the nearby strip mall and he took us out to "tea time". No worries though, didn't get any tea; just french fries and chicken wings. Afterwards he wanted us to try a sweet soup. So he took us to that place and again bought us sweet black sesame seed soup. Afterwards he then took us to a high-end Japanese grocery store and bought us a TON of groceries! It was getting a little out of hand and we kept politely "m-sai"ing (no thanks) but we couldn't change his mind. He was just so happy to see the missionaries since he said that he doesn't typically have a work holiday but we just happened to come by the one day he had all month. We took him to a park afterwards and tried to share a scripture but he really didn't want to hear it. Then as we were preparing to leave a guy came up trying to argue with us and this guy, Gary, defended us and his faith very nobly! It was a pretty cool experience and I hope that with time and effort we can get him back to church.

The rest of last week can be classified as finding, lots of reminder calls for church, and a great street lesson with a father and his daughter. Unfortunately he lives in mainland most of the time and left the day after we taught him. Hopefully we can contact him again when he gets back to Hong Kong.

Thus far this week has been really amazing though. On Monday our ward had a ward activity in Yuen Long up in the New Territories. As a ward we went up there, hiked around on some nature trails, had some free time to explore and eat lunch, and then went to a really cool exhibit of petrified wood. What added to it was the strong gales and frequent wind from the typhoon that came by this past Monday. Everyone who went had a good time and I think it was a really good way for our investigators and RC's to feel even more comfortable with the ward and for us as missionaries to build ward relationships. From our hike we had some pretty awesome views of the Chinese Mainland and into Shenzhen.

On Tuesday after our district meeting we all went to TST to participate in a district find and to try and help the TST Sister missionaries who are struggling with finding new investigators. Elder B and I stayed together for this find and were assigned to an area next to the Hong Kong PolyTechnic University. The first hour into the find we had already gotten half a dozen phone numbers, and then with about 25 minutes left before we had to start heading back to our area, I saw a group of 4 people cross the street. I was trying to feel for which one I should contact and I felt like I needed to talk to one lady in particular. The challenge was that she was right behind to people chatting and right behind her was another man. So right in the middle of all the commotion and movement. But I attempted it anyway, and she ended up stopping and talking for a while. It was neat that with time she invited me to sit down and we had a great lesson/discussion about the 1st lesson. At the end I got her number and she scheduled for TST's church service this coming Sunday. Almost in passing as we were leaving she mentioned to me that when she was a little girl that she remembered missionaries coming to her house, and then how many times in her life, especially when she has had challenges, missionaries or Christians in general would appear and be there to help her. I really hope everything works out with her because you could really feel of her sincerity during the lesson.

Right after that lesson Elder B and I hurried back to KwaiChung and started 24's with our district leader. Elder B went for the day to go work in the DL's area and Elder H came and worked with me. That was yesterday. Miracle of miracles, we had 2 lessons scheduled and then as we were getting ready for bed and planning for the next day we got a call from a boy named Benjamin. He mentioned that he had been contacted 2 months ago and that he wanted to get a tour of the chapel and learn more! So then we had 3 lessons planned. As we were coming out of Benjamin's lesson, L, our recent convert, came to the church and brought a friend with him whom he said was expressing a lot of interest in knowing more about the church since he had come to his, L's, baptism and been on our ward activity a few days prior. We had a wonderful lesson with him too! At 4 we had another lesson with Mr. L. He's 40, bankrupt, and has a lot of challenges in his life right now. We worked hard during that lesson to share things that would be meaningful to him and then at the very end he asked if he might be able to receive a blessing of comfort and counsel. I was voice for that and that was a profound experience for me as I worked with the Spirit to deliver a blessing in Cantonese. Then yesterday evening we went finding and LA knocking. After knocking we were getting ready to go home but Elder H and I managed to stop a really nice girl named Cecilia and share with her about the Book Of Mormon and the blessing it could be in her life. I hope that we can continue to meet with her. Anyway, yesterday was a miracle day; had 2 member-present lessons, 3 other lessons, and 2 new investigators. All the credit has to go to the Lord for helping us know what to say, how to say it, and where to be at certain times so that we could contact and teach these people. Such an awesome thing to be part of that!

Anwyay, I'm short on time, I'll try to send some pictures this next Monday, have a great day!

Love,

Elder Siebach