Two Elder Siebachs!!

Dear Family and Friends,

First off, I want to say congrats to my kid brother Sterling who goes into the MTC this week! He's headed to Tokyo-- our old stomping grounds!! Sayonara man!

Elder Sterling Siebach greeted at the MTC by his cousin Elder Luke Hartung!!

What an incredible week we had this past week! Things could not have gone better! Well, actually they could have. We could have had more people at church... But, all complaints aside, it was an inspiring week:)

A few weeks back we were riding a bus from the South side of our island to the north. As we went I was lost in thought looking out the window when we came to an intersection that had a plaza with a fountain right in the middle of it. Forgetting for a moment that we were in Taipa, I quickly thought in my mind, "Oh, if we served the Macau side that would be a good place for finding." 3 minutes later, and now completely out of sight of the plaza, I remembered where we were. For the next several days Elder M and I would go finding and try to relocate that perfect spot, but to no avail. Finally, this past Monday evening, we were out in the drizzling rain at the close of another P-Day when we found it!  The reason it was so hard to find was that all the shops, buildings, and roads around it are raised higher than the plaza so unless you are higher up (i.e. a bus) you wouldn't know where to go!  By the grace of God we found it and spent the rest of the evening there. It wasn't a lot of time, but it was really effective!  We taught three lessons and found two new Nepalese investigators. So that's how our awesome week started off!

The next day, Tuesday, we were in Macau for district meeting, language pass-offs with the Zone Leaders (mostly for Elder M, but I like to do it as well), Correlation meeting, and a special training meeting designed to teach ward members how to effectively meet with, share with, and commit less active members to retake the lessons. Each missionary companionship had a part so we were all in attendance, however, the members weren't... Ugh! We had 2 members there and then our Correlator and a less active member-- of all people! It proved to be a great day for us though since we were also able to meet with John in the middle of the afternoon and had Brother Kwan, the 2nd Counselor in the Branch Presidency help out. We shared about tithing and fasting and it was great. Brother Kwan is a professional MMA fighter and a hulking figure if I ever saw one. But, his testimony is as strong as he is and deep down I think he's probably a big teddy bear. He really helped John a lot.

The next day, Wednesday, we were able to meet with Rex, and spend some time reading scriptures with him. We had one of our ward missionaries, Eddie, help us out. Rex is 21 and it really feels like he and I are best friends. Awesome guy, really relaxed and has good interest. We just needed to clarify that we don't invite him to the church just to get out of the stifling heat and have A/C--haha!. We had a great lesson with him and rescheduled to meet him this coming Sunday for church. He committed to read daily even though he is super busy with exams this next week. We then ran back to Taipa and had only about 45 minutes to find before we had to turn back around to meet some other potential investigators we had scheduled at the church. In those 45 minutes we tried a new approach where we went to the University and on a clip-board had a flier for mormon.org with places for people to leave their contact information. It was like giving candy to a baby it was so easy! In 45 minutes we had 16 emails, and 15 cell-phone numbers. Everyone we approached gave us their info pretty much. We ended up getting canceled on for our lesson which was a bummer, but it gave us time to get dinner which we wouldn't have had otherwise. At 7:15 we went on a split with the Mandarin Elders and I went with Elder Ketring back to Taipa to turn over Tyler, one of our awesome investigators--with a baptismal date too. Right after those lessons we got back with our companions and Elder M and went back to visit a Filipino family we had taught the week before. The husband and wife weren't home unfortunately, but we met the grandmother and some of the children and were able to teach them a lesson. Hopefully we can get the whole family this next time.

Thursday was weekly planning. We got about half-way into weekly planning and I just turned to Elder M and said, "How about we worry about this a bit later and go finding instead?" Like the good sport he is, he said, "Sure, where?" So we blazed on down to the southern tip of our island and knocked the 2 doors that had some promise from the week before when we were down there. One was with 87 year old Mr. Ho. He is a good guy. Lots of patience and a little bit lonely. He was happy to see us again. We talked about the life of Christ and he decided to become a new investigator. Then 2nd door we knocked was for a Vietnamese worker whom we contacted the week before. We gave her some of the pamphlets in Vietnamese, explained prayer, and scheduled to come back next week. We're looking to try and get a Vietnamese recent convert named Anna to go down there with us and help us teach. That evening we had rescheduled our two Nepalese friends from this past Monday and we gave them a Hindi Book of Mormon and testified of how it has blessed our families and our lives. Both of them are fathers of 2 and 3 children respectively. They are curious about Christianity but were very clear in explaining that due to family circumstances they won't be able to convert or anything. That didn't stop us though! We're giving them a call tonight to see if we can meet again. The last thing we did that night was go up to the church to start a 24-hour companion exchange with the Macau South Elders. I went to Macau South with Elder Peacock. He came the same time as Elder M to the mission and is from Bangor, Ireland. Great guy.

Heading off on an exchange

When I got to the Macau Elder's apartment that evening I talked with the Zone Leaders for a few minutes and they told me about a miracle that they had had that day. They said that 1-2 months ago they were visiting an LA and seeking referrals. She didn't have any to give so then they asked if she knew of an LA friends of hers that they could meet with. She did. She mentioned two names. Jeff and Cherry. They ZLs spent the next few weeks trying to find anyone in the ward who knew them or even where they lived. Their records weren't in the ward list either. No leads. Then one night as they were finding the contacted a woman and she mentioned that her cousin was an LA named Jeff. That was their first lead. They were about to get Jeff's info during their 2nd meeting but this investigator was anti-ed really badly and wouldn't meet them again. Then Thursday night the Macau Sister companionship were in the chapel when three people walked in. Like all missionaries they went over to meet them and greet them and found out that 1 of them was from out of town and had scheduled the other two, Jeff and Cherry, to pick her up at the church. The Sisters were able to get Jeff's number and address! (So that is the first part of the miracle find.The 2nd part is that in my companionship when we were calling through some really old potential investigator records, we found a lady named Cherry and the only info we had was that she was a referral from a member named Brother Chow). So I turned to the Zone Leaders after the had told me all this and simple asked, Is Jeff's last name Chow? To which they said, "Yes!". I then explained that we had been in touch with Cherry a few weeks previously and had been trying to schedule her. I had also written her name and number down in my daily planner for further follow-up. So there you have it. 3 different companionships, 2 months of effort, and we've found a formerly untraceable family! They also have 3 children who haven't been baptized yet and the parents would consider coming back to church. (I guess the reason they stopped coming in the first place was because after they graduated from BYU and moved to Macau they didn't feel welcome in the Branch the first week and subsequently decided to stop coming). So the lesson is, be welcoming to all visitors! 

Anyway, back to the week...We had a great exchange finding, teaching 2 scheduled lessons, as well as a less active member lesson. Lots of good things happening in their companionship as well. We ended our exchange that evening and made our way back to Taipa. Our phone had stopped working the day before because the mission forgot to pay the phone bill... Miraculously our District Leader was able to pay it for us and so we were able to make some phone calls that night.

Saturday we finished our weekly planning and then had spurts of finding in between dinner and a less active member visit which, by the way, was full of surprises. We went with our Correlator to visit another Brother who is his friend. Turns out this guy absolutely loves animals. He has 3 dogs, a turtle, and 20+ fish. When he came to the door he was in a tank-top and short shorts. He looked like a mess too. All we could hear was whimpering in the background. He ushered us in and showed us that one of his dogs had given birth to a litter of 10 puppies just an hour before we got there. He had been playing "vet" all afternoon before we came. Had a great lesson! Lots of noise and really fun!

So there you have it. Our week was awesome--the best yet here in Taipa--we were really blessed! We were able to invite Rex to set a baptismal date yesterday! We had lots of member-present lessons, a bunch of other lessons (13 of which were right on the street!), and we found 8 new investigators! The Lord really blessed us this week and we're looking forward to another great week to come! John is preparing to be baptized this coming Sunday if all goes well! We're meeting him tonight to introduce him to the Branch EQ President (men's group leader). We're doing great! 

Keep your heads up! Look for opportunities to share testimony whether it is through your words or actions!

Love,

Elder Siebach