Hong Kong Pioneers

Dear Friends and Family,

Tuen Mun--my home!

I can't really express the feelings that I've been feeling this past week. In terms of missionary efforts it was very similiar to weeks of the past. Miracles coming up in different ways, working with members, investigators, recent converts and less actives. In my mind the best weeks consist of all that and a little street contacting too! I love being here in Tuen Mun! I forget that other missions span great areas and that some missionaries never see all of the areas they serve; I have like a 2 square mile area and I know every inch of it. Literally.

One of the highlights for me this past week was Zone Conference. It was just for the New Territories Zone (22 Elders and Sisters) and so that made it a little more one-on-one. I was asked to conduct the meeting. The Zone Conference was actually based on a Mission Tour from Elder Gong in August 2012 (one that I attended my 2nd week in Hong Kong). It was focused on knowing the 1st Vision and bearing strong testimony of this important event in history. It was a great conference. The closing remarks were given by President Hawks and he showed a video from a Hong Kong "Pioneer Dinner" he attended last week. It was a dinner for the members of the church who were baptized between 1949 to about 1960. The video showed clips of what Hong Kong was like at that time, showed members, and then also had interviews with some of those Pioneers who shared their stories. There was also a portion done by a Couple Missionary who had served in Hong Kong during the 1950's and are now back in Hong Kong serving again! I have never felt such an outpouring of love and the Spirit than I did in those few short moments. The Spirit was so strong and you learned so much of the struggle they had. The only explanation as to why these people were converted is that it was the Lord's will and this church is true. There was so much opposition and struggle: walking for endless miles through the rice paddies; missionaries who spoke poor Cantonese; the Book of Mormon wasn't even translated into Chinese yet--and wouldn't be until the 1970s. There is no explanation besides God. I was sitting on the front row of the chapel watching this and was just brought to tears and had so much love for Hong Kong and the good, prepared people that are here.

I think those feelings have just persisted through the week as we have gone out finding, or whatever it may be. I mean seriously, I live with 700,000 people in this 2 square mile area. There is a reason I am here right now. There are people who need what I have.

The week flew by after that and before I knew it it was Sunday and we were in Sacrament meeting and the Stake President, President Chan was speaking to us about those who have been waiting for us whether they are living now or have passed on. He really gave us a call to arms to reach out and do both family history work and typical missionary work. He mentioned something that struck me kinda hard which was that there are 840ish names that he has of members that previously lived in the New Territories Stake boundary but they have moved, changed numbers etc... and now are "Lost Sheep". He really emphasized the need to seek out our brothers and sisters who have been overcome by the world and need the Savior's influence again in their lives.

Elder Hallstrom

Later Sunday Evening we then went to the HungShuiKiu stake center where there was a
broadcast of Jeffrey R.Holland's fireside. Elder Holland is the newly assigned Quorum of the Twelve to the Asia Area and has been in Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan the past few days. It was a live broadcast from the Wanchai chapel and there were a number of speakers. Some as young as 10 year old Primary children, and then some of those "Pioneers" that I spoke of a moment ago. The last two speakers were Elder Hallstrom and Elder Holland who both gave FANTASTIC talks on missionary work and this pioneer mindset.

Matthew Cowley dedicated this land July 14, 1949 and Elder Hallstrom was born July 24, 1949. He mentioned that due to complications with his mother's pregnancy Elder Cowley had blessed his mother when he was yet an unborn baby during this same Asia trip. Elder Hallstrom drew some parallels to how we have all been set apart to be here at this time to serve the Lord.

Elder Holland greeting the missionaries

Elder Holland shared 3 thoughts as to how we are all Pioneers in our day. 1: This is the dispensation when the Children of Israel don't flee from Babylon. We are here to stay and to fight for our God. 2. This dispensation has the fulness of the gospel, more than was in any other dispensation; we have the complete truth. 3. We have a comission unlike any other dispensation before us to prepare the Church of the Lamb for the Lamb. We are prepping for the Second coming! It was yet another spiritual manifestation to me of the truthfulness of this work and how I really don't have much to do with the goodness of the gospel; I am simply a tool.

I'm so grateful for the things that I have learned and felt this past week. I look forward to the All-Mission meeting with Elder Holland tomorrow afternoon!

I love you all.

Love,

Elder Siebach

Transfers Hogwarts Style

Dear Friends and Family,

Things have gone really well this past week! With the exception of the freezing cold. I know this is going to sound super lame but it was the coldest I have ever been! Often there was rain, wind, and it was around 7 degrees Celcius (≈45ºF). I couldn't stay warm! By the grace of God Elder P had to go down to Kowloon Tong on Monday for his 'dying interview' and while we were down there we checked out some old missionary clothing that was going to be thrown away. I pulled out a trench coat. Fits perfectly and keeps me warm in the freezing weather!

On Tuesday we had our district meeting and also found out what transfers would be He was a Mandarin missionary in the New Territories last transfer so he actually just ended up switching languages and now concentrating his efforts in one area. 

New Companion--Elder C!

going on. With Elder P heading home I knew I would be staying and my new companion is Elder C. The 2nd Elder C that I have had and my 4th native Hong Kong companion. Really quite a blessing to be able to serve with so many missionaries who know Hong Kong so well and can really help me improve in my Chinese. 

The Sorting

We decided to try to make our transfer experience fun and so we did a spoof off of Harry Potter and we had a sorting hat that assigned each of us to the different Zones. For example Griffindor was the New T's, Slytherin was HK Island etc... It was fun and everyone got a good laugh. I dressed up to look like Harry Potter and Elder Ph who didn't know he was going to be heading to HK Island was Malfoy.

Last meeting with my old District

After all that my companion and I were on the LTR heading to the HungShuiKiu chapel and bumped into a lady and talked to her for about 20 minutes before her husband came and pulled her home. We were able to give her a pamphlet and that was about it. Didn't get her number. Well she went home and her husband threw away the pamphlet but she was able to fish it back out of the trash, read it, pray about it, and then went back out to the LTR to try and find us. We had long since left, however, she was also able to find a flyer with our number that we had given her and than carelessly dropped. She called us and we scheduled her for the following day! We met with her and scheduled a member to go with us. It was a good lesson but we found out that she is super into her other church. Come to find out, when she was 13 she met with missionaries and thinks she may have been baptized! That was over 30 years ago. I'm still unclear about the whole situation; I don't know whether to call her a new investigator or a less-active member :-/

That night was Elder P's last dinner so at his request we went down to the Subway at Gold Coast and I bought it for him.  

Monday through Wednesday was a bit of a blur to me with all the packing and calls, and scheduling members and investigators to meet with Elder P and I for the last time. It was good though. Lots of good things going on with our investigators.

Thursday it was raining hard as we made our way to the mission home and dropped all the stuff off. Said our goodbyes and I rode the train back with Elder C and my trainee Elder B! He is going to serve in HungShuiKiu as the District Leader there. It will be great to have him around again. Elder F (from my apartment) got a new companion named Elder C who looks remarkably similar to paintings of Joseph Smith! AND he's from Palmyra New York, so he has certainly heard the Siebach name.

Fun fact of our new apartment; Elder C's birthday is May 1st, Elder F's birthday is May 6th, my birthday is May 9th, and Elder C's birthday is May 15th. We're boss. If that's not apartment unity I don't know what is.

From Thursday to Sunday Elder C and I did a lot of street contacting in the day, calls to potentials at night, and were able to get hold of a fair number of people. None of them came to church, however, we were able to meet with a mom and her daughter and give them a tour of the chapel just yesterday. There were 3 walk-ins for church! One just wants English help and then there was also a couple who were contacted by the Butterfly Sisters and showed up to church on their own! I think they had a good experience.

A-F was passing the Sacrament today and Al-- was busy after church because he was going with his new Home Teaching companion to go visit some of their families! BOSS!

I can feel that this next week is going to be even better as we meet with the investigators we have, meet with some of the new ones we found this past week, and hopefully can make some time to visit some less active members too.

I'm excited to be able to work with Elder C and to still be able to serve in Tuen Mun. Each night as I look out the window at the 700,000+ people that live under my gaze I thank God that I am a Hong Kong missionary! Missionary work is awesome! Besides Sterling himself, I may be the most excited and apprehensive person to know where he will go on his mission. Keep up the good work! Keep the faith!

Love Elder Siebach

Great week. Great mission. Great God!

Dear Friends and Family, 

Hot Pot

Things are going splendidly here in Hong Kong. Like too good almost! This week we had a number of members treat us to dinner. I already mentioned the Lin Family on Sunday, then Bishop Wong on Monday (we had An-- and one of the Sister's investigators, A-Y in attendance), and then on Tuesday we went to the Cheng Family's for dinner. All the dinners were super good and great opportunities to get to know members and help some of the RC's build relationships. Al-- was at the Cheng's with us. Al--'s lesson particularly stands out to me because as we were sharing the message it occurred to me that he is the same age at the Cheng's. He happens to be unmarried of course, however, he is at the same road in his life and I feel that Brother and Sister Cheng's testimonies did a lot to resolve his concerns. He is doing well. Loves reading the Book of Mormon, and yesterday he got the Aaronic Priesthood! I've loved being able to work with that man! He's more of an example to me than I am to him for sure. He's really showed that he puts aside the 'good' things (like money, friends, etc...) and consecrates himself to the Lord! The only problem with that meal was that it was Hot Pot... We didn't tell the Cheng's and so when we got there everything was just cooking away. We made sure that we ate the vegetables, and already cooked items like tofu and hot dog. I'm not exactly sure why Hot Pot is banned in this mission but that and uncooked sushi are not allowed. 

On Wednesday we were down in Kowloon Tong for the Mission Leadership Council and that was another great experience for us to present our goals and actuals for January and our goals and plans and actions for February. For the next quarter year we will have a focus in the zone of baptism (meaning talking about it in every lesson, extending dates by the second lesson, and learning how to help investigators overcome their fears of baptism. We will also be working to use the Book of Mormon more effectively (carrying it on the street, sharing at least one verse per lesson, building faith in Christ through the Book of Mormon and answering concerns through the Book of Mormon. Lastly we will be working on being more obedient to planning (i.e. planning for 30 minutes each night, sticking to plans, and using our Daily Planners better). We hope by doing these things we can consecrate our time and our efforts to the Lord. And have a greater measure of the Spirit. We presented all this in Zone Training this past week and it was great to see the fire of the missionaries in the zone. Previously they didn't really understand why we had Zone goals and what it meant to them, but I really feel like we were able to build unity and enthusiasm. Our baptismal dates jumped by 5 in the zone within the 2 days of the meeting! 

After that meeting we rushed back to our area where we then met with A-W and her son R. They just immigrated from Mainland and so we went to their apartment thinking that we would try and teach about prayer and see what we could do to help them adjust. It was a great lesson and they committed to pray and then came to our English class later that same evening. They were also both at church yesterday and seemed to really be enjoying themselves! Good strong spirit at church! We will have to turn them over soon though because their Mandarin is better than their Cantonese. That's OK though; it's all the same work! 

That same evening (Friday) we then met with Sister C (the lady we brought to church last week). She invited us to her home where she then treated us to a spectacular Chinese dinner! Lots of different meats and steamed veggies. Very tasty! Finished it off with sweet potato soup for dessert. That was a wonderful environment to see her and her 2 children in. Much more relaxed than on the street and we met her husband, Mr. L as well. Due to time constraints we were unable to get a formal lesson with them, however, we left a Restoration pamphlet and we will be working to get over there is next week and share more! Talk about a miracle though! I want this family to have this gospel so badly. Haha, its keeping me up at night just thinking of how we can help some of these FAMIILIES meet and 'experiment upon the word.' 

That evening we went on Exchanges with one of the Elders companionships that is struggling in our zone. It was a great opportunity to work with them. I stayed in Tuen Mun and on Saturday we had some finding opportunities, taught a lesson, and were about to start doing some LA finding with a member when yet another miracle just fell into our laps! We were with our member in the elevator going up to an LA's apartment. I started talking to the lady who was also in the elevator and our member, Brother W, just turned to her and said, "Hey, can we come share a message with you." Without hesitating she said, "Yes." I almost didn't believe it. We rode up with her to her floor and then spent the next 45 minutes talking about the differences between our church and the Catholics. (She was born Catholic but doesn't really practice.) We were able to share our testimonies of the Restoration and give her a Book of Mormon. Got all her contact information and will be contacting her for follow up! It was crazy. The Elder I was with was just like, "Does this kind of stuff normally happen here?" Wonderful to be able to work and learn with him! 

On Sunday it was super cold and rainy. Thankfully we had 4 people at church with us, including A-W and R! Great testimonies and Elder P got up and bore his for the last time. I also felt prompted to do so and shared about what Elder Perry said recently about how the time in which we live ranks up with the greatest events in history. This time is comparable with the 1st Vision, the Restoration of the Priesthood, the Book of Mormon etc... It was humbling to think about that this week and realize that when people ask me one day if I serve a mission I can say, "Yes, I served when they lowered the age; I served when the Hastening of the Work began!" 

Hastening the Work

Last night was My Conversion Story Fireside and I was able to see a lot of the RC's and missionaries that I've come close with over the last 1.5 years. I also had the privilege to translate some of the testimonies that were born. Great night. Great week. Great mission. Great God! 

Love, 

Elder Siebach

P.S. Mom, I really want to meet your friend who works in Central Market! I want to keep up my language skills. 

P.P.S. Congratulations to Enoch! That's so cool! I know a few guys who were in TaiChung but by the time he gets there they will probably all be home. 

A River of Referrals

Dear Friends and Family,

We are on day four of the 6 Days of Chinese New Year right now. Days 4-6 are days to relax. 1-3 have various meanings. If I remember correctly the 1st and 2nd days are for family, and the 3rd is a day for friends. It's been really interesting! The typical 700,000 residents of Tuen Mun are no longer on the streets! Shops are closed down with taped up signs wishing everyone a "Happy New Year," "More Money This Year," "Body Health," etc... It's incredible how many different greetings there are depending on the person you are talking to. One specifically for students is "Learning Progress". (Keep in mind these are all the literal translations; I'll let you guys mess with the correct English grammar and such).

This week was a bit of a miracle week I must say. A LOT of people went up to Mainland or were busy with family (still are actually), but it gave Elder P and I a good opportunity to do a lot of street contacting and focus on learning a bit about Chinese New Year and how the gospel can relate. It's quite simple actually. Chinese New Year is for families as is the gospel. We were able to get some good street lessons and good contacts our first day. On Wednesday we used a few hours with our district and went District banner finding. Basically we had a bunch of banners and some missionaries stayed by a table with some church publications and the rest of us went out and did our best to contact on this busy bridge. For the first hour we were coming up dry. No one was stopping for anyone. Then things really seemed to pick up the second hour. Some families even stopped to hear part of our message. 

Elder P and I were in charge of the table for the last part of the find and a family came over to check out our display. We exchanged contact information and they actually were at church with us yesterday! A mom, her 12 year old son and her 5 year old daughter! Now we just gotta meet the father and teach them! While we were contacting this family, a family from the ward just happened to walk by, so I beckoned them over and they were able to introduce themselves and get to know this potential family for a few minutes. 

Later on a Mainlander  randomly came over and started checking our our table. He had a lot of interest. He said he had observed how some of the Sister missionaries had very patiently contacted a lady and he was impressed and felt that he wanted to learn more. We gave him a Book of Mormon right then (we had him write his name in it so that when he crosses the border they don't take it from him), and then we all hopped on a train and took him to the church where we then gave him a tour. He loved the tour! Very prepared man. Loved that the Relief Society program is especially to help those in need, and then we almost had a potential disaster happen... As we were giving this tour the church doorbell rang and a crazy guy walked in. He's just sane enough that he's not in an asylum, but crazy enough that he goes to anyone he sees and asked them to treat him to a meal and hire him. Well, he came in, used the church phone for about 10 minutes, and then as we were about to let our mainland friend go, crazy guy asks our new friend to treat him to a meal. Normally I wouldn't think that would be a big deal; a little strange, but not my concern. What worried me was that our mainland friend would think this crazy guy was a member of our church and just trying to take advantage of him. We talked it all out and the mainlander was very good hearted about the whole thing. He told the crazy guy that he can't expect everyone to do everything for him, but he was willing to help and then gave him 100 dollars (HK=$15US). It was a super generous move and left me in awe as I watched him walk out into the night. We can't really contact him since he's in Mainland, but hopefully the Book Of Mormon will become a treasured possession for him.

The other family that we contacted that same day actually came to church yesterday! Church services were delayed an hour in honor of Chinese New Years, and we also only had Sacrament meeting. We heard some good testimonies from some members and after the services we were able to get two members to go with us on the tour with this family. The mom has been to every church under the heavens and was a little peeved about tithing (something every member somehow included in the testimonies today), but the member fellowshippers were wonderful and now we are super tight with the family. They tried to have us over for dinner last night but we already had an appointment (not to mention they wanted to hot-pot and that's not allowed in the mission.) Maybe next time!

Sunday dinner at the Lin's

Sunday evening we went over the the Lin Family home. It was a great meal! We had two investigators there, 4 missionaries, 3 of the family's friends, and the Lin family of 4. It was a lot of fun! Great food! Great company and we were able to give a Book of Mormon to the father of the new family. He was hesitant to give us he contact info though. He's got ours for when he is ready.

One other miracle this week was we had a member from the TST ward call us up and refer 2 of his friends to just emigrated from Mainland to HK. He took us to meet them and we had a wonderful time talking to this single mom and her 16 year old son. Time was short and we had to get down to Kowloon Tong for a meeting that night, but we got their info and we'll be here waiting for them when they get back from Mainland on the 9th.

Miracles in Tuen Mun! I got more referrals this week than I think I have my entire mission! Blessings of the Lord for sure! I'm so happy to be here in Tuen Mun for at least the next couple weeks!

Love you all!

Love,

Elder Siebach

Window washing on the 31st floor!

P.S. This week we also had deep clean. a 12 hour marathon of cleaning our apartment! Lots of fun! I have some pics I'll send soon!

Newest tag is on the top left

P.S.S. This week we also got our new church-approved Chinese-English name tags! They look pretty sweet! I'm up to 5 different sets of name tags now!

P.S.S.S. Happy Birthday Mom! I love you!