Dear Friends and Family,
This week was a solid week here in KwaiChung. Elder W and I hit the streets hard; he keeps telling me how grateful he is that he doesn't have to train me and that I know what I'm doing. He probably has more faith in me than I do sometimes :)
We set some pretty high goals for this week that we thought would stretch us and be good for us. By about Wednesday we had achieved all the member-present lessons that we had hoped for for the week (we only set 6 since we thought we'd have a lot of street lessons), and then we just decided to up it to 10. At the start of this week we also only had 2 people with baptismal dates and 1 (K) was going to have to move his back by a week or 2. So we figured we'd stretch ourselves and go for 2 more new dates.
On Friday we had our once-a-transfer zone training meeting. It left the two of us really pumped and focusing on how we could be better nightly planners. So for the last 4 days we've used a few extra minutes during planning and tried to pay very careful attention to the feelings of the spirit and make goals that are both reasonable and faith-promoting. It's worked! That Friday night we were unable to schedule any lessons with investigators after 3:00 so we knew we'd be out finding but not sure where. So we decided to pray about it and ask where was best. After the pray we both waited for a moment or so and then almost in unision we said the same KwaiChung apartment complex in our area. The next question was how many lessons we could get and how many new investigators. (We set 7 new investigators as our goal for the week but by Thursday night we didn't have any solid, commited to a second visit, investigators) After studying in out we felt that 3 lessons and 3 new ivestigators would be best. The next day, Saturday, the lesson that we had scheduled right before we would head out finding got pushed back until 5 (right in the middle of when we had planned to find). So we started finding an hour earlier than planned and we went to a different area to go finding since we felt strongly that we needed to be in KwaiChung Complex at 3. In that intermittent hour we managed to stop someone, A-D, teach him a lesson, give him a tour of the chapel, and commit him to church for the next day! That in and of itself was a miracle! We then went up to KwaiChung and from 3 to 4:30 worked really hard to teach lessons. In one of the lessons the guy wouldn't give us his phone number after, and then in other situations all we got were numbers and no lessons. At 4:15 Elder Ward and I independently stopped people (I stopped 2 people and he stopped 1), both managed to teach lessons, get numbers and commited 2 of them for another lesson! Miracle of miracles! For 5 days we could get no new investigators and then through faith, prayer, work and sweat we got 3 investigaors as planned and exceeded our lessons we had planned for. Such a testimony builder to me!
As I mentioned we also went for a goal of 2 new baptismal dates this week. Well, we re-prayed and had a few miracles and this week we were able to give out 4 invitiations as well as rescheduled the date for K. So this week we were just on fire and it's all because of planning and faith!
Just a little side-note: K was originally scheduled for baptism on March 31st, but because he hasn't attended church enough we moved it back one week, to April 7th. He told us afterwards that he's pretty excited for this date because he feels like he can be ready on that date, and...it is his birthday!
We had 5 investigators at church yesterday too which also boosted ward morale! To top off the week, we taught more than twice the member-present lessons than the 6 we originally scheduled:)
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| No kidding!?! |
Among some of the announcements that were given out at this most recent Zone Training, we were informed that it is now our own discretion as to when we stop wearing our suitcoats, but we were reminded that proper missionary dress is the suit:P Elder W and I are still mulling it over in our minds and haven't dropped the jackets just yet, but I'm guessing we'll drop them next week, since it is already super humid and getting into the 80's . In other news, the most recent wave of new missionaries to Hong Kong were not issued snazzy English/Chinese name tags, but rather a complete traditional Chinese character tag--word is that within the next month all of us will have these same tags, which means I will use at least 3 different sets of tags before I end my mission! We also found out that 14 new missionaries will arrive in Hong Kong from the Provo MTC this month, so that means about 85 percent of the mission will be training (probably me too).
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| Sai Gung Beach Great place to do backflips...and anything else! |
This week I've been reading a bunch of different things, but what I've been wondering about is in 3rd Nephi 11. Christ appears to the Nephites, and immediately calls his 12 apostles and teaches/gives authority to baptize. In chapter 12 the apostles are then baptized and Nephi is the very first. My question is why did they need to be given this authority and taught how to baptize yet again? I guess I assumed Nephi, as the record keeper, was already the prophet and had the authority. Not to mention, prophets prior to this in the Book of Mormon have taught the true doctrine of Christ, and most, if not all, have performed and been baptized (for instance Alma and Helaman). All you who are full of wisdom please enlighten me! Thanks!
I hope all of you have a good week and continue to read and pray every day. I guess my advice for the week is to plan. Notice God, and let Him be in the details of your life.
Love,
Elder Siebach
What a wonderful Elder! He is a huge blessing to all he is serving with.
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