You Get What You Go For!

Chinese New Year Hong Kong Bay

Dear Friends and Family, Another great week here on Hong Kong Island! Happy New Year!! Oh, and before I forget, congrats to my dear cousin Matt who is going to Nagoya, Japan! Asia missions are the best missions! Happy Birthday Mom! I'm pretty exhausted as I sit here because for P-Day we went with our ward on a 5 hour hike around Hong Kong Island. It was hot but beautiful and I took tons of pictures. I think I will send my memory card home because there is no way I will get caught up with forwarding all these pictures! I think I mentioned a few letters ago that lately I have felt like I need to do more with the young men in our ward and try to prepare them for missions. Well, a great opportunity came this week when the YM's President told us he would be out of town for New Years and asked if we would be willing to pay each of the young men a visit over the next few weeks. Of course we accepted the assignment and so far have managed to meet with 4 of the 7 young men in our ward. All 7 of them are semi- or less-active. The lessons have gone smoothly. What we've really been trying to learn from them is what we can do to help them feel more inclined to come to church. I've been touched as I've heard the stories from boys such as D who is 13 and the only convert in his family-- he gets him self up for church and even brings his 7 year old sister Hailey with him. They are inspiring to me. Another is 16 year old L whose entire family is less active but he likes church and tries to come when he can. There are other stories that I could tell but these are the two that stick out. Sufficeth to say though, every less active boy comes from a family that is non-member, or part-members who are less active. As I was making some of these visits I reflected on my own Southlake Ward and was reminded that about the time I went to college there was a resolve to have the missionaries visit all the YM and YW and teach them the Preach My Gospel lessons. I wasn't there for any of these lessons, obviously, but I'd love to know what Sterling and Grace and even Bishop Johnson and Brother Morgan think of it. Was/Is it successful? Do the YM and YW have a greater resolve to stay active? Bring friends to church? Please let me know! A lot of really amazing things happened this week that are worth mentioning, but the first I want to bring up is K! In my first weeks in Hong Kong we met and taught K, but he sadly eventually stopped answering phone calls and texts and kind of dropped off the face of the earth. Well, Elder C called him last week and he picked up and then had lunch with us! I'm really hoping that we can continue meeting with him; that first lunch/conversation went really well so I sure hope so. 

Families Are Forever

Because it was New Year's, most people were busy and unable to schedule times for us to meet, but that gave us ample opportunity to go finding; specifically for families. I heard an interesting quote in Zone Training this past week which said, "You get what you go for." If we look for new young men investigators, we will probably get them. Same goes for any other type of investigator. Simple phrase but a great reminder to me to be more family-focused.   

On Saturday I was sitting in the church lobby waiting on an investigator. Our chapel here in Wanchai is the Asia Area Presidency's headquarters so of course I see a lot of the General Authorities coming and going. Usually they, and we, are too busy to more than just nod hello. This day President Watson came in with his wife and came right over to us. We had a great conversation with them about the work and where we were all from, etc... It made me grateful to be able to serve around such strong spiritual leaders. Adding on this same thought, this week at church, because it was New Year's we had a 1-hour Sacrament Meeting and that was all. We showed up about 30 minutes early to set up chairs and were greeted by 3 more GAs and their wives. I'm not totally sure of their names, but I think they were Porter, Nield, and maybe Causse?? of the Presiding Bishopric. They arrived completely unannounced, but they presided in the meeting and the scheduled speakers were bumped out so that 4 of them could give their testimonies. It was pretty cool! Their testimonies were all centered on missionary work, inviting the members to do more to participate, and this year to commit to introduce (and hopefully help convert) one friend to the church! It was a missionary's dream to have them talk like this! 
During Chinese New Year (which by the way is like a 3 to 4 day event--I'm still not sure when it all ends) the Chinese get fancy haircuts, buy new clothes, spend lots of time with family, go to Mainland, give out money to their friends, and among other things clean their apartment. The only one of these festivities that the mission endorses is the last! So yesterday we had our Apartment Deep Clean. The four of us spent a long time scrubbing, wiping, mopping, sweeping and organizing our apartment. I must say it looks very good! I was so thankful that one of the Elders had CD's--we probably listened to the MOTAB sing "High On The Mountain Top" in about 20 different styles and arrangements-ha!:) After all this we went out for dinner and then walked along a Promenade talking to people and trying to get a view of the fireworks--didn't see anything but we could see the colors light up the cloudy sky. 
Recently I've been reading in Alma. And I'm always so impressed by Alma, Amulek, the Sons of Mosiah, and Zeezrom. These men are awesome missionaries! And what's amazing is that all of them were wicked initially! It's just a testimony to me that the Lord knows his children and though we may see people and think they are the vilest of sinners, the Lord has a plan for all of His children. It's our duty as members to go to everyone, no matter how much interest or potential we think they could have, and to invite them to come unto Christ. It also gives me faith in my investigators when sometimes I think they won't take a lesson or principle well; the Lord can help them overcome. It gives me hope for myself to overcome my weaknesses. 
Anyway, hope you all are well and safe and healthy. Keep reading and praying! 
Love, Elder Siebach