Dear Friends and family,
Last week we were told Saturday evening that our district could go to the temple the following Thursday at 9 AM. Consequently, I didn't get to give off a letter on the regular day. So for future notice, I guess just stay posted and if I don't respond on Monday, it's probably temple week:)
Last I informed you, I had just left off with last Wednesday which was a day for 5 lessons! I don't know if you guys are familiar with "The District" DVDs put out by the church for missionaries, but according to them, they get like 15 lessons a day and have referrals every day. I wish I could say Hong Kong members were as Gung-ho (correct my spelling please) but I can count on one hand how many referrals I've ever recieved, and I think we average about 5 scheduled lessons a week. So for all that to happen in one day, it was definitely the hand of the Lord!
On Friday morning we had Zone Training for 3 hours. The first hour was just running through announcements and key indicators and goals for the Kowloon Zone this month, and then for the next two we got to watch the church's new video "Work of Salvation". That built a fire in every missionary that was in the room and I'm not sure if you remember the video by Elder Andersen, but he had a 'candid camera' hidden in his interviews and you can bet every missionary cheered as we got to see some Hong Kong members that we've all gotten to work pretty closely with. Hong Kong is a very small world, especially when the church is involved. It was really motivating to hear more of the stories of Less actives coming back to church and bringing new people into the church. Every missionary knows the best, most effective work is with the members. That's when the miracles are easiest to be detected.
The rest of Friday was full of weekly planning and some good street contacting up in one of the estates in our area. That evening we had Correlation meeting. Correlation meeting to me is one of the best parts of the week because we get to meet with our mission leader, ward missionaries and talk about the successes of the week and what we need some more help on. Our mission leader is super cool too. A former Hong Kong RM, and a less active, he's been back a couple years and was just extended the call. He really gets missionary work and wants to help us. Our ward missionaries are there too. It's just hard to use them since they are four 19/20 year old girls; 2 RC's, a recently returned LA, and one girl who has been a member for 5 years or so. Needless to say, they don't go split finding with us or anything, and since the Sister missionaries take care of all women investigators we try and get our correlator or one of the YM to help us with our lessons.
Saturday we had some good lessons and then the best part was the evening because our ward had a Missionary Fireside. There were 4 speakers; 2 recently returned sister missionaries, and 2 soon-to-depart Elders. They did a good job and we had an alright turn-out from the ward. One of the families in attendance was the Lai family. Their story is really special because the mother was found on the street like 7 years ago and got baptized with her son. Then last year the father started investigating and got baptized as well and helped baptize his 8 year old daughter. Then this past week marked his 1-year mark and so on Saturday the whole family got to go through the temple and get sealed. I didn't participate at all in their conversion, but it was a testimony builder to me to see what the fruits of a street contact 7 years ago have now become. Really happy for them!
On Sunday we had Fast and testimony meeting and had 4 investigators with us, and then out-of-the-blue 2 people walked into our Sacrament Meeting. After the meetings I went to introduce myself and found out that it was a husband and his wife. They seem normal for the most part which is good, and they are former investigators from years and years ago and wanted to come to church yesterday to hear the gospel. They didn't have time right then, but I got their number so I hope we can continue to help them. Then yesterday evening we went out LA finding. We knocked 4 doors and one was an LA that I had previously visited. She was home, invited us in, and went into a room and pulled out all the church stuff she had and said, "Alright, share your message with me. Let's read the scriptures." So we read 2 Nephi 32 and talked about prayer. That was a pretty good lesson.
Anyway, solid couple days. Hoping to be able to have a lot of time this next week doing the things missionaries do; finding, teaching, LA finding, member visits!
Hope you all have a good week! Keep living the gospel-centered life!
Love,
Elder Siebach
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