Dear Friends and Family,
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| Hong Kong Temple |
Last week after I wrote my letter I found out that this week we would be taking a District Temple trip on Wednesday so we wouldn't be having our typical P-Day. So that's where I just came from!:) The temple was an awesome experience as usual! I look forward so much to just sitting there and pondering. Almost every time I have gone to the temple the session has been in English. Now the last two times have been in Cantonese (I understood 80 percent of what was going on) and then today it was in Mandarin (I understood like 15 percent--Thank heavens for headphones that translate for me!) It's also a real joy for me to go through and do the names for Chinese people. The person today that I went through for could have been an older brother to me. He was born in 1984 and was baptized for himself and confirmed before he passed away. As I sit and think about it, it was a real privilege to go participate in a session today because I have no doubt that he has been anxiously waiting for these saving ordinances. It was just a really happy feeling and I hope that I meet him in the next life. :)
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| Tennis trophy:) |
This week I got a nice Valentine's package from my family full of goodies. Of course my own Mom is my Valentine, but Elder C substituted out here. haha :) Thanks for the package and the CTR ring!
Some other great news was to hear about Sterling's acceptance to BYU! Congratulations! I was thinking about that all last week actually and wondering. Grace also deserves congrats for her tennis match!
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I think I see them!
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Last week I decided to use the clothes rack that hangs out of our apartment window. It seemed like a calm night and so I just draped a pair of my suit pants out on the rack and didn't clip them down. Well, the next morning I woke up and they weren't there... My first thought was that one of the other Elders in the apartment brought them back in for me. But, on closer, (rather further examination) I saw that in the night they had slipped off the rack and fallen below. From my perch on the 15th floor it looked like they had actually been caught on the rack of another apartment quite a ways down. So, after personal study Elder C and I used our comp study time to try to locate which floor they were on and then go knock on those doors. From our vantange point we thought they were either on the 5th or 6th floor. No one answered at either door so we wrote some notes (actually Elder C since I don't know Characters yet) and left them on the gates to those apartments. That night they were still perched on the ledge but the following morning they were gone and the guard to our apartment gave them back to me. Anyway, talk about awkward-- to get a note that says, "Hey, I live on the 15th floor. My pants are probably hanging on your ledge... Could you get them for me? Thanks. Apt 15A"
Last Friday we had an amazing All-Missionary Meeting in Kowloon Tong. The 102 Hong Kong missionaries came together at 9:00 AM and sang hymns as the 10 Asia-Area mission presidents and various other general authorities came out of the temple, crossed the street and came into the chapel. Once we were all seated in the chapel we heard from President David Evans of the 1st Quorum of Seventy, his wife, and concluding remarks were from President Kent Watson who is in the 2nd Quorum of Seventy as well as the Asia-area president. Pres Evans was the main speaker and used about an hour and a half to talk to us about the temple and then missionary work. He gave some great insights from both his time as a missionary in Japan and when he was the mission president in Nagoya. Wonderful talk and really caused me to reflect on how I use the Book of Mormon with investigators. He really encouraged missionaries to work on being fluent enough to read the Book of Mormon with their investigators. (I probably need to memorize 1,500 traditional Chinese characters to do that--I think off hand I probably know about 100 right now just from walking around all the time on the street). It was something that I had kind of been putting off until the last 6 months of my mission just because I think/thought that I should be an amazing oral communicator first. But as I've thought more I've started to think that by reading with my investigators I may be able to better understand their concerns and testify through the Book of Mormon. Still thinking about how to do it best right now though. Any ideas? Send them!
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| You can do it!! |
This week I've really been trying to change my street contacting style. Since the first day I got here I learned from my trainer, second companion, and now third companion very different and important things about finding. One thing that I've always started with saying is, "Hello! Have you ever seen missionaries before?" (Making sure to smile the whole time). But after a recent sharing in a District Meeting and super-de-duper emphasis on families, I realize this is not the best way. So for the last 4 days I started with, "Hello, I'm a missionary who shares about the importance of the gospel of Christ and how it blesses families." (<-- I don't know if this sentence was grammatically correct. I've started using Chinese grammar even when I speak in English. I think I changed this into OK English grammar) But it works! I've been able to stop more people and I firmly believe it's because I tell them what I am doing (sharing) and what it's for (families). It's been a really good past few days! One nice lady in particular, when she heard what I was doing, asked if we could sit down and talk. She told her life story, shared about how she wants to help herself and her son, and honestly kinda broke down. It was a superb opportunity for me to testify of the blessings that come from my message and help her. She ended up giving me her cell number, her son's cell number, their home number, and last night called me and gave me their address! She's scheduled for a lesson this Friday afternoon! Anyway, I have a stronger and growing testimony of the importance of testifying. These busy Hong Kong people can't possibly feel the Spirit of my message when I ask them if they've seen missionaries before. In fact, the last missionary who tried to contact them probably said that! :)
Hope all of you are safe and happy! Gospel brings greater happiness so keep reading and praying!
Love,
Elder Siebach
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