"I Couldn't Deny What I Knew Was True"

Dear Friends and Family,

Today we said farewell to our summer missionaries as we dropped them off in the Mission Home this morning. It was a good learning experience for me. In my entire mission I don't know if I have been quite as stressed and as impatient as I was these last two weeks. I feel like I taught my missionary very little and I learned some of what Heavenly Father probably wanted me to learn.

This past week had some very sweet highs and some very bitter lows.

Let's talk about transfers first though. I'm staying! Got another 2.5 months or so here in KwaiChung! Elder B will also be staying. Notable changes are that now living within the KwaiChung boundaries are 16 missionaries. Only 4 of them serve here, and the rest share a chapel with us on Sunday but proselyte in the surrounding areas. This Zone, the Kowloon Zone gained a number of missionaries too and we are now up to 34 missionaries. Every area has at least two companionships serving in them. I've seen Sister Parker a number of times. It's great to see an old familiar face! She is not in my district but she is in my zone and once in a while she and her companion come to KwaiChung on the hunt for new Mandarin investigators. She's doing really well it seems like.

Elder Sheffield is coming to Hong Kong! That's great! I'm guessing he comes in October maybe? If he comes any sooner he is probably a Mandarin missionary (they aren't on the same schedule as Cantonese missionaries).  There are like 140 or 150 missionaries out now and I know about 65 percent of them. The others I've never seen.

I made the mistake this morning actually of introducing myself to a Sister missionary and asking her how her Chinese was going and how her first week was. I was wrong on all accounts... She is speaking Tagalog (her mother tongue) and has been out like 3 months! Oops:/

Because of the influx in missionaries in the Kowloon Zone, we also rearranged some districts and district leaders. I am now a district leader over the 4 KwaiChung missionaries and the 4 CheungShaWan missionaries. Kinda convenient that the 4 Elders live together and the 4 sisters live together. Not to mention that the CheungShaWan elders are the new Zone leaders. My first experience conducting a district meeting will be tomorrow. My first time collecting numbers was last night. It went well other than the fact that both Sister companionships didn't answer their phones at the previously set time; I ended up calling and waiting for about 2 hours....

On Tuesday I kinda hit the low of the lows. Brother L (my summer comp) and I went to go visit a few recent converts since they hadn't been at church the previous two weeks and weren't answering the phone. We knocked on their door, went in, and for the next almost two hours tried to resolve all these hidden concerns that they had had but had never voiced. We had a member with us and, as heart-rending as it was to hear them say that they don't want to come to church and are going to keep looking around, our 3 combined testimonies had as much or more powerful an effect on me than any other time on my mission. I couldn't deny what I knew was true and testifying of it in that precarious situation enhanced and strengthened our testimonies. We've been advised to just give those recent converts some space for the time being and maybe call up once every two weeks or so.

One high point of this week was Friday afternoon. It was blazing hot (no cloud cover in Hong Kong for like 6 days now) and so Brother L and I decided to go finding in an estate on the side of the mountain where it would be much cooler. We spent about 3 hours finding and had some great conversations, but not much else. We were thinking of coming home, preparing a progress record, and then going to our Mission Correlation meeting. Instead, we decided to go finding in a particular area for 5 more minutes before we left. The first two people I talked to didn't even attempt to make a response. And then from down the hill I saw a lady carrying groceries and smiling semi-knowingly. I approached her and she straight up just told me that she was a member and hadn't been to church in a few years since she had moved into a new ward boundaries. We talked for a moment and then she probably noticed how hot, sweaty, and whatever else we were and invited us into her home for a drink. So nice of her! We accepted and while we were there we met her younger sister who is from Mainland and just visiting these few weeks before going home. The older sister couldn't come to church on Sunday with us but she and we got her sister to at least commit to think about it:) We called them the next day, on Saturday night, and discovered that the sister would indeed be coming to church with us! When we met her at the bus stop on Sunday morning this nice lady had her 8 year-old son holding one hand and her husband holding the other! The 3 of them came with us! They seemed to have a great time too! The ward took good care of them. They stayed all 3 hours! Afterwards we didn't push too hard for a lesson, but committed them to our EEFY activities this next week. (EEFY-- "English Especially for Youth" an activity put on for 1 week by missionaries in Hong Kong each year).

In fact, that activity started today and went from 2 to 4 pm. They were present as were 3 other investigators, 6 missionaries and a handful of members. We need more investigators, that's for sure!

This week's EEFY theme is "God's Creations" and each of the 6 creative periods will be represented. Today we talked about space and then built our own bio-domes (we planned on a lot more investigators than actually showed up and so we missionaries ended up making them as well). The only problem: they have live fish and we can't have pets... A problem we are still in the midst of trying to solve!

Honestly, I'm happy to still be serving here in KwaiChung. I think it's where I should be and I like the security that comes with being in an area for a while. I'm just worried that my entire mission will be me staying in areas for 7+ months. Nothing to fuss about though. All will work out. Hope everyone is having a great week/close to summer. Missionary work will keep on moving forward! Pray for missionaries. Pray for investigators. We need new investigators!

Love,

Elder Siebach

P.S. Next week or so missionaries in the Hong Kong mission will actually get a 3-column (English, Pinyam, and Characters), church approved version of the Book Of Mormon! I'm super stoked!