"I Only Read True Books"

Wow, where does the time go? Another great week under out belts here in Tuen Mun! Last Monday we had a little district activity for P-Day and went hiking around on this mountain.

Castle Peak leading up to Tsing Shan Monastery

Main Entrance gate to monastery

Incense coils

View toward Tuen Mun

We explored half a dozen temples and then made a long haul hike up to the most remote of temples. I don't even remember the name but it was kinda in shambles. Lots of ruins around it and then also some better maintained parts. Come to find out, it's one of the oldest temples in Hong Kong (like maybe 500 AD or so...?) and it's also where Bruce Lee filmed his movie "Enter The Dragon" back in the 70's. It was tight! 

View toward the bay!

This past week is the busiest week for Zone Leaders because of Mission Leadership Council. All the Zone Leaders, Sister Trainer Leaders, and APs meet in Kowloon Tong and we have training on the first Wednesday of every month. Training lasts from about 10 AM to 3:30 PM and then we make our way back home for an hour by train. Heavily laden with supplies and packages for the Zone we then teach any lessons we might have on Wednesday night. Thursday it just a day of planning since we do our weekly planning and had to plan for the Zone Training Meeting we have on Friday. It's fun work though. We get to be counseled right from President Hawks in a setting that few other missionaries get to have; plus Sister Hawks makes delicious food! This week we had Enchiladas (a first for my entire mission experience). You can bet I loaded that thing with salsa! I love that meeting because I know every missionary at it! Most all of them are ones that I've worked with or lived with at some time in the mission. Just like a big reunion for 40 people. We got a lot of good counsel and new instructions for missionaries.

I also got two great packages this week from my family and from the Tietjens! Thank you all so much! I love all the knick knacks and only-in-America-can-you-find-this food! It will be a Christmas of plenty in my apartment. The Apartment mates also thank y'all.

So whenever Elder P and I weren't planning and prepping for lessons we were teaching and did a little bit of finding this week. On Wednesday we met with Al-. It was the first time we've been able to see him in almost a month and so it was a joyous reunion! He's doing really well and we're trying to reset his baptismal date for January hopefully. He was at church this week which we were extremely happy for! Hope to see him tomorrow too.

We've also been able to see P- a few times this week. His date it coming up really quick and so we're trying to make sure he is completely prepared. He has a great understanding of the gospel, now we're trying to help him see why applying it will help him. Right now we're working on keeping the Sabbath Day holy. We're happy for him. Sick with a fever yesterday so he wasn't at church.

An- is somewhere in Singapore right now; we're keeping up with her through Facebook about once a week. Hopefully she introduced her sister and nephew to the church yesterday! She said she would continue to be at church! :)

J- is doing great. Saw him on Friday and had an indepth lesson on how baptism is the gate to help him overcome his weaknesses. He's very concerned about his morality and how he can strengthen himself and be virtuous. It's a super good desire, he's just a little hesitant to set a baptismal date. He knows he should be baptized and I feel like this past lesson really helped him. Preparing for his lesson really helped me to realize that we are all imperfect people and that baptism is for the imperfect. The gift of the Holy Ghost is what God gives his imperfect sons and daughters who want and follow Him. J- is really musically gifted and so he is going to be playing a song at the Stake Christmas party about Christ. He's super involved and open to new things which is awesome!

A-F is awesome! I almost feel like he is more awesome than I give him credit for because he is so shy! We were supposed to meet with him on Saturday; however, the electricity and water in his apartment blew up Saturday morning and he didn't want to hike down from the 30th floor, meet with us, and hike back up afterwards. Understandable for sure. So we prayed that Sunday everything would be better. It was, so he was at church all 3 hours, stayed with us for a baptismal service, we taught a lesson afterwards and then at 5 we met up with him again and took the MTR down to Kowloon Tong for last night's "My Conversion Story" fireside. Super good! He's making great progress and his understanding of the Book of Mormon is phenomenal! We were floored yesterday as he explained perfectly Lehi's dream in 1 Nephi.

These are our investigators that are progessing the most right now, however, we went back to the same bridge we were at last week, and met with JC again. He didn't have a lot of time so we kept our remarks short and then went and knocked on Mr. L's door again. He wasn't super available right then either, but we were able to get his number and schedule him for this past Saturday for a tour of the church. He's really good! Semi-retired man who told us he loves reading only 'true' books. Boy do we have the book for him! We had a great tour, shared the Restoration lesson with him, and rescheduled to meet him tomorrow. Afterwards he stayed at the church to attend the ward Kareoke Activity. He met about half the Elders Quorum there too! As missionaries we weren't able to stay for a music activity (obviously), and so we would just poke our head in once in a while to check on them. Hopefully it was a good experience for them all.

Super good week this week all in all. I can't believe I've already been here 2 months! Transfers end this Tuesday. Elder B (a Mandarin Elder who entered the MTC with me) is the new AP, and all things are looking like I'll be staying here in Tuen Mun :)

Hope everyone is doing well back on the homefront and staying warm! I still sleep with a sheet and a window open. The air is a lot fresher from the 31st floor :)

Love,

Elder Siebach