Thanksgiving!!

Dear Friends and Family,

It has been a week! Lots to fill you in on. First weather: rained 5 of the last 7 days with temperatures between 70 and 80 degrees. Not your typical "Thanksgiving" weather, but then again Hong Kong isn't exactly a typical place to celebrate and American holiday.

Two weeks ago we had a Multi-Zone Conference where Sister Hawks, our Mission President's wife, or our Mission Mother invited whoever wanted to to be a part of a mission choir that will perform for Christmas. I gladly volunteered not realizing that it was held for 1 hour in the mission home during prime Preparation Day activities. Not to mention that the few male missionaries that volunteered for this all think that they are Tenors. Blech. I'm the only Bass but I hope to be able to convince some others to join me. That should be fun though and I look forward to singing in English again. Cantonese hymns on Sunday just don't cut it for me.

As I believe I have mentioned before, church is held everyday of the week so that Filipino workers, whose holidays often do not fall on Sunday, can come to church. This is a great blessing I think because these workers, all of them middle-aged women are just the nicest people and have adopted the missionaries. If ever we come into the chapel, on any day of the week they just brighten up and want to give us food! Because of meetings that I have before and after church on Sundays, lessons to teach investigators, and various studies, I usually spend most of my Sunday in the church. For the last 3 weeks I think we've crashed like 3 birthday parties and had free dinners! When the Filipinos get together there are always a lot of them, a lot of food, and a lot of music and dancing. This last week we got roped into dancing with them. It was all line dancing so you don't have to worry, I didn't hold anybody's hands :) It was so fun though! I'm a big hit too since I'm just this stocky American whose last name means "Chop wood" in Tagalog. Many of them made up songs that somehow threw in a chorus of "Siebach Siebach". It's awesome! :) I hope I can serve with them one day! They're just so loving, faithful and pure! One of my favorites is 4'3" Daria! I'll try to get a picture with her next week but she's this crazy 33 year old Filipino Fireball! During one of the birthdays we crashed we became party singers and sang many hymns and Christmas songs together ;) Great memories!

One of the Filipino Sisters also came up to me and said that they had previously worked in Macau and there were some Siebachs living over there. Does anyone know about long-lost Siebach relatives in Macau? I want to serve over there sometime too to see if I can meet them.

As with most any big city, or even small city for that matter, Hong Kong has graffitti. Some of the graffittied symbols come up more often then others. For instance someone writes "Kidult" everywhere! One that is harder to spot and that I have decided to make a concerted effort to find is "Utah Ether". I have no idea why someone would want to graffitti about Utah, but so far I've found 4 in various parts of Hong Kong island. In my mind I picture apostate missionaries going out and getting bored of tracting and street finding so they graffitti about their home state and their favorite book in the Book of Mormon :)

This past Tuesday after District meeting the two ChaiWan companionships went on exchanges for a day. Elder L, a Hong Kong native and my district leader, came to my companionship and he and I spent the afternoon trying to contact people in the rain (extremely unsuccessful everytime I've tried it) and then ate and taught a lesson to a less-active. The next day we got up early, did some exercises and then went knocking on doors in an older part of ShauKeiWan trying to find less-actives. The first and only guy we found home slammed the door on us, and then for the next 2 hours we tried to find 6 others. In one of the apartment buildings it was very creepy for me because most the apartments were unoccupied, many had been broken into previously, mail was in doors from many years prior, and there were no overhead lights. Both ends of the hall just had a rail and natural light that lighted these buildings. And it just so happened that it was an overcast, rainy Wednesday. Many of the residents were very old. It was extremely uncomfortable for me and just gave me a bad feeling. I can't properly convey everything over an email. That was my first experience knocking on doors, as well as my first experience less-active finding. Not really something I'm itching to do again. There is another story about a possessed, creepy grandma that I could tell, but you can just read my journal after the mission. I want to move to happier things!

Happier, like Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving was awesome! President Hawks graciously gave us half a day to celebrate Thanksgiving so my whole zone got together in the TKO chapel (on the Kowloon side of the mission) and had a feast! A few weeks ago we figured out that each companionship would prepare one dish, or that multiple companionships could contribute 50 dollars per person to buy the turkey. Elder B and I, knowing our lack of cooking ability, volunteered money (and then I pitched in the instant potatoes, gravy, and jello that my mother sent me. Thanks mom!) It was so much fun for the 22 of us that gathered and we had an amazing traditional thanksgiving meal with turkey, potatoes, gravy, rolls, stuffing, and then for a little Chinese flare we had Chinese steamed vegetables. To top it all off, 4 different types of jello for dessert! It was a party! And at the end we all said things that we were grateful for. :)

The following day (Thursday November 23) was my 6 month mark! Pretty typical day for the most part. Did some finding in the rain, able to talk to a few people, handed out a Book of Mormon, and then for dinner we didn't feel like cooking so we went to the corner shop where we bought peanut butter waffles with sweetened condensed milk! Super good and super cheap! I can buy 3 waffles for 10 dollars! Everywhere else in Hong Kong its usually 1 waffle for 13 or 14 dollars! We've spent a lot of time marveling over the cheapness of it and have come to accept it as all just some fantasy dream. At the end of the night I popped some popcorn and shared it with the other missionaries in the apartment.

The weird food of this week was Squid Jerky. It felt like Fruit leather and tasted about as nasty. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless you're going to be in a room by yourself so that no one can smell your breath. It's a strong smell! Filipinos are offering me balut next week so I may be reporting on that soon.

For Christmas I have done an inventory and need a new Cologne and a new, small pocketknife--I've somehow misplaced mine. Other then that you can be creative :) Just keep in mind that I will probably move to a new area a week or so after Christmas so I won't really want to carry a bunch of food.

My time is up! I love you all! Take care! Enjoy the season!

Love,

Elder Siebach