Another Week Down!

Dear Friends and Family,

Another good week here on the island. I told you that we moved apartments last P-Day. That was quite the effort... For whatever reason it took a couple trips to get everything over, but we finally finished it late that night. The apartment is tiny, but very clean too--something that my old apartment definitely was not. I'm doing my best to keep it clean, but we'll see how it all turns out considering there are 4 of us in there. The bedroom is my favorite part of the whole place. Obviously because sleep is among my priorities, but also because they have 2 bunkbeds in there with no more than an inch in between them. It kind of feels like a jungle gym as you try to swing from bed to bed just to get to yours. If it weren't for the fact that one of the bunks is 6 inches lower than its neighbor bed it would look like a queen size bed for two. Its a good apartment though!

What's even better is that the location is in our area now, and that because we are out of the major downtown area food is a little cheaper and there is even a fresh food market a few blocks away.

So the new car is Deuce? That works. I've been surprised to find myself wandering in my thoughts this week and often thinking about and having flashbacks to driving in Flash. May she rest in peace.

I got the package! On Monday some missionaries were up in Kowloon and coming down to Wanchai so they graciously brought it to me. What a surprise when I saw how big it was! The brownies were delicious and there are many missionaries here that thank you for them! I finally managed to unpack all of it last night just to find out what was inside, now I just have to find a place to put it all. But thank you very much for all your thoughts and efforts to get everything to put in there!

To answer dad's question about weight, I wish I could give you exact measurements, but we don't have a scale or anything. It sufficeth me to say though that I am losing weight:) My waist line is decreasing, my dress shirts are fitting a little looser, as are my dress pants. Dare I say that my church suit is looking a little baggy maybe. When I left the MTC I probably hovered around 190-195 and I think I'm back down to about 175-180. I'm not complaining though. If anything I hope I can keep the downward trajectory, who knows, maybe I'll be able to fit in Grace's pants when I get back. Ha!

This week has been a good week for lessons. On Sunday we visited a recently returned Sister missionary's father. None of her family are members, but her dad has been to church a few times and thinks that religion is really important. He also agrees that this church has helped his daughter. The lesson was really good and we essentially talked about the first lesson and applied it to families. I felt prompted to talk a little about priesthood and the role of fathers in the home too. We hope to meet with him again very soon.

On Monday it was looking pretty overcast all day and the heavens finally opened at about 3. It was considered a 'yellow rain' which isn't hard enough to cancel missionary work, but heavy nonetheless. That evening it seemed like the  skies had cleared a bit so we walked from our apartment to a park the next town over and tried our luck at finding. It went well for the first hour or so and we managed to talk to a few people, and then as we were about to leave to grab something to eat we stopped a mom and started talking to her. The skies opened again while we were talking so we made our way over to a pavilion to wait it out. Talked with her and then another mother for about an hour about their families as well as us as missionaries. By this time it was almost 8 and they were getting antsy to get their kids home. The rain wasn't stopping though. Just getting harder. It moved from yellow rain to "red rain". Finally we made a mad dash for a restaurant where one of the mothers actually treated us to dinner! It was awesome! We rescheduled to teach her son English, in her home the next day! So that was a good day because we got two families!

Also this past Sunday we had 6 investigators at church and all of them stayed for a Young Single Adults activity afterwards and then a CES fireside! Pretty exciting to have all of them there! What was even better was that President and Sister Hawks unexpectedly showed up just to be in our Sacrament services. Great Sunday! Wish me luck because this Sunday I have been asked to take 5 minutes and share my testimony and whatever other thoughts I have...kinda nervous.

The next day we had a lesson with K at lunch time, and talked about overcoming problems and addictions. Really good lesson, just trying to help him read the Book of Mormon as well. But he's an awesome guy and genuine too. That Tuesday evening we went to this lady's house to teach English. She ended up feeding us yet again for dinner, and this time we managed to teach her and her father the first lesson. Her father will come to church this week with us, but she is going to mainland with her son so she won't be in church until the week after. Doesn't look like she's married so there's no father in the picture :( The lesson went really well though and both she and her father are very interested.

That's it for scheduled lessons this week. We've gone finding a few other times and talked to people but all of them are just potential investigators right now. Oh, and last Saturday we went finding for a few hours near a subway station--lots of trees in the area and it had just stopped raining so we were getting rain drops falling on us pretty regularly. Didn't think much of the drops until an hour later when my companion turns to me and tells me that I have bird poop on my back! Pretty gross but not anything that a little bleach and wash can't take out.

As many of you know, Hong Kong is one of the, if not the only, place in the world where they have church every day of the week. It's specifically for the domestic workers, most of whom are from the Philippines or Indonesia. Their 'holiday' or day off each week is determined by their employers and isn't necessarily on Sunday so to accomodate them, church is each day. Because I'm also in the church a lot I have ample opportunity to talk to them. They are very nice and always want to give some of their food to us! Very nice of them, this week they gave us vegetables and tuna fish sandwiches. However, why I bring this up is because they can never pronounce Siebach correctly. Always messing it up, but this week I found out that in Tagalog, if you pronouce Siebach as it is supposed to be pronounced, it means "to cut wood with an axe" I thought that was pretty cool, and now by some miracle when I tell them that, they can all pronounce it perfectly!

Here in Hong Kong they are all about the ancient Chinese medicines and methods. Often you can find shops that sell something called "Yah Seh Meh" which means "24 Flavors". Its a blend of a bunch of roots and leaves that have been boiled together. Supposed to be really healthy. After the coaxing of my companion, some less actives we were about to teach, and a set of sister missionaries, I tried it. Pretty nasty tasting stuff. Really bitter and it burns the back of your throat for a long time after that. But I choked it down, much the the pleasure of everyone and the restaurant owners who were right there watching as well. It's worth doing once. Gotta be like a local right?

Hope everyone is safe and well! Have a great week.

Sincerely,

Elder Siebach