Magic Happens!

Dear Friends and Family,

Hope everyone had a good celebration of the New Years! I had a jam packed day of street contacting on New Years eve, and then got a hearty hot-pot dinner at a local restaurant. May or may not have busted-the-bank a bit, but that's fine! It was tasty and fun.

This week has been good! Today was especially good because my district decided to fore-go our Monday P-Day in favor of a Wednesday Temple Trip. Nothing beats the temple! I loved it! So peaceful, relaxing, beautiful etc... I guess Elder W and I were in a temple-going mood today because soon after our district lunch at the missionary/student bugeted City University Cafeteria, we headed back to ShauKeiWan and did a little exploring of the mountainside Chinese temples. I took a ton of pictures, but as seems to be my luck, I'm always writing from a computer that is not photo-uploading capable. So y'all will have to wait. (side thought, yes mom, you may use a blog instead of Facebook. I really don't mind. I'm just grateful you post them ;))

On Sunday we had 3 investigators come to church; Ch, Co, and A. We taught A the previous night so we didn't teach him another lesson. But we did talk to Co about the importance of reading the Book of Mormon. She has desires to get baptized, but she's not making the time to read the scriptures. :( This seems to be a very common theme among our investigators, which tells me that I need to find a better way to teach about the importance of reading). As of Sunday she was still scheduled and working towards being baptized January 20th. We also need to help her with modesty... It's not as easy to talk about when it's Elder missionaries talking to a mildly sensitive 17-year-old girl. Any advice in either of these aspects?

On Sunday we also met with Ch; something we hadn't done in a couple weeks since he missed church because he slept in and another time because he was sick. We will be turning him over to the missionaries that serve his area (Kwun Tong) since he seems to be doing well and won't fall off after the turn-over. Hopefully that turns into a baptism for them soon.

Alan is doing pretty well. He's heard every lesson thus far except Tithing and Fasting. He's accepted the commitments, but now we have to work on his testimony. He wasn't feeling good (and neither were we) about him being baptized on the 6th of January as was originally planned, so now it's January 27th. We also need to help him with his prayers. He says them, but he doesn't say much of anything in them and they only last about 5 seconds. I haven't corrected him on it because it just seems wrong to criticize someone's prayer or ask them to change. We also need to help him read the Book of Mormon. He reads the Bible more than anything else.

As I mentioned earlier, New Years Eve we did a lot of finding. In fact we did about 8 hours of it. We set high goals for that day and went to one of the harder places in our area to find. Amazingly, and I really believe it was a miracle because we were exercising our faith and being diligent, we reached our goals and had some absolutely fantastic lessons regardless of the bitter cold and wind. In one of the three lessons that really stood out to me we re-contacted a lady whom I had contacted previously. She graciously waited while Elder W and I made a quick trip to the bathroom (where we were going in the first place when we bumped into her) and then we talked about prayer. She prayed and really felt something! Rescheduled her for the same time the next day! Another that stood out was 14 year old T. Boy, I tell you what, when you have the Joseph Smith story, who was 14 when his grand first vision happened, my companion who met missionaries and was baptized without family support at 14, and a willing-to-listen 14 year old boy get together; magic happens. It doesn't matter how cold and windy it may be--the Spirit bore a powerful witness to all of us there.

The third talk/lesson that stood out to me was an older man. He didn't really have that much interest and we found him as we walked along a harbor promenade. He did stop however, and Elder W and I testified to him of God's plan for us, and really bore our own testimonies and told him why we served these missions. He was touched by all of it and all of us left grateful to have had such a choice encounter. It didn't matter that we didn't get his number. He has ours, and hopefully will one day remember those Mormon boys who stopped him and tried to love him for those 15 minutes.

After our hearty and warm hot-pot, Elder Wong and I went to the apartment, grabbed our area book and set out to knock on some less-actives' doors. Let me back up and explain what that entails first though: You have to get beeped into an apartment building by the guard, show your Hong Kong Identity Card, explain why you are there, and promise your life away that you won't knock on any other people's doors or try to contact them. It's a total pain. And that's why we only ever do less-active finding in apartments--the guards will let you visit an old church friend, but not try and make new church friends. We probably went to 4 or 5 different apartments and tried to visit people. No one let us in, but we did manage to talk to one man for a few minutes through his iron gate. What was interesting was that I had never been to these apartments before, but the guards had specifically seen me before. That's no small thing especially considering our area has .5 million people living in it.

To round off the night Elder W and I stopped by a convenience store and bought Tim Tams (I don't think they have them in the US, but remember them from New Zealand?). As missionary tradition goes, you freeze these chocolate bars, then make a big bowl of hot chocolate, bite a portion off from both ends of the candy bar and suck the molten hot chocolate through the frozen bar. Its pretty good! Super fun to do and about the only way missionaries know how to celebrate. Oh, you have to have a group do it, and it's a community hot chocolate bowl. Just make sure you aren't the "Saw Zai" (dumb boy) who drops your candy bar in.

Well, looks like I'm out of time for this week; and right when I was about to share another good story and a scripture. That will have to wait until next week. Stay safe, stay active (physically and at church) and READ! God wants to bless you with these hidden treasures of knowledge that can be found in the scriptures, specifically in the Book Of Mormon.

Love,

Elder Siebach

P.S. Sorry I've been really bad about writing people letters recently. Bear with me. It's one of my resolves/goals for the New Year.