Rapid-Fire Finding and American Football

Dear Friends and Family,

First off, Happy Birthday Grace! Hope that it was a good time with the surprise party and unexpected first date! That should be fun! Dance clean! No kissing! Things in Hong Kong are going very well. Nice sunny days recently and I can feel I'm getting my tan on! It's only been like 4 days since I was last on the computer, but there is some news that I can update y'all on.

First off, street finding. I'm becoming a big fan of street contacting. It's harder to do for me when there are more people on the street, but it also gives you a lot more opportunities to rapid-fire find. I've reached a groove where I approach them for about 3 steps and then while saying hello, I wave and stop right there on the pavement so that they have to acknowledge me. That takes 1 second tops. Depending on their reaction I either walk with them or they have already stopped and are about to ask me what I need or want (they probably haven't quite noticed the tag on my shirt.) I proceed to then tell them my name and identify myself as a missionary for this church. If they are interested we start from there. If they aren't I then say what exactly I am called to share and teach. If they still aren't interested I might hand them a flyer that they can contact me later on. All this is done in about 5 to 6 seconds. So in 1 minute I can get about 10 people; hence, 'rapid fire'. Of course every missionary would rather have the opportunity to talk to one person for 1 minute rather than 10 for 6 seconds each. It's a good system for me and as helped me cut down on wasting time with people who just aren't ready yet. (Testify twice and then be gone. More often then not I'm holding a Chinese Book of Mormon in my hand to show to them as well).  I think this way has also helped Elder B and I find more street lessons and new investigators. Speaking of which, on Friday while we were out finding we contacted a guy who had heard the missionary lessons 35 years ago. He's about 50 now and says he has a lot of interest to re-learn. He was at church with us on Sunday and really liked Sacrament meeting. We'll see him again tomorrow.

Also on Friday, as we were winding up in one area and walking to another the sister missionaries called us up and told us that there were 2 men who wanted to learn more about the church. They had just showed up at the church building. We booked it back only to be greeted by a Pakistani and an Yemeni. They were incredibly nice, had awesome English and OK Chinese. They had a lot of questions about Prophets and so we had a great opportunity to share about the Restoration and Plan of Salvation. The man from Yemen's wife is a Christian looking for a church and so he's trying to help her out. The man from Pakistan is a religious scholar of sorts who seems intrigued by the similarities of Mormons and Muslims. We can't teach them again unless we have permission from President Hawks because they are Muslim and we don't want to create any problems.

In other news, on Friday we also had a Zone Training Meeting. 34 missionaries met together in one room and had a very respectful reverent meeting. Just looking back on that I can't picture 34 college-aged young men and women in any part of the world who would behave anywhere near like we were. Pretty interesting to see the mantle come on people when they are missionaries. The meeting was good. Long. But good. At the very end we got the newly Church-issued 3-column Book of Mormons! Characters, PingYam, and English! They look fantastic, just a little big and heavy. Super nice though. After last week's Zone Leader and District Leader exchanges I was also cleared to start learning characters and picked up the character cards on Friday. I've gone through the first 100 of the 3000 so far. Memorized just from walking around the streets of Hong Kong for the past year. I didn't realize how many characters I already knew! (I guess its not actually that much in the grand scheme of things).

This past week at church was pretty spectacular. The whole program was missionary-based and we had 4 of the 5 ward youth who had served 2-week summer missions go up and bear their testimonies. It was really neat to see the fire in their eyes. They all had struggled in some way or another but said in a sense that they saw the hand of the Lord support them. Made me grateful that my service doesn't have to stop after just 2 weeks. Gospel principles class was also based solely on missionary work and then in Elder's quorum we talked about Priesthood power and all the converts in the class talked about previous missionaries that they admired for priesthood authority and power, and then all the other returned missionaries in the class talked about the power they had on their missions. Missions are life-changing!

Mr. L had just finished a 32-hour shift down at the container ship pier and then came right to church with us and absolutely loved it! His baptismal date is this coming week! The only thing that will keep him from it is this hearing that he has to go to on FRIDAY THE 13TH! Pray for him! He's doing really well. J is also doing well. His date is the week after and he is still going through the repentance process. It's progressing well though.

For the past month or so the YM in the ward have wanted to learn how to play American Football, so this past Saturday we went out with them (about 8 of them) 3 of their friends, one of our investigators, and played! It was a great missionary opportunity and incidentally as we were warming up a 20-ish year old came up to us and in perfect English asked if he could join. We were more than welcoming and came to find out he had lived in New Zealand and learned to play there. He and our investigator absolutely crushed everyone else. It was so fun! Kinda reminded me of Saturday mornings in Tokyo when Dad, Sterling, and I would go out with a few of our friends to the Yoyogi-Uehara gravel park on Saturday mornings and play some two-hand-touch. Memory lane...

At church we had 4 investigators and 5 less-actives with us! We filled two or three benches! It was great!

Saturday night we made sack dinners and met up with a less active member and talked with him while watching soccer at the local pitch. We then taught him the importance of making time for God. He's more than willing to work 50+ hours a week between a full-time and a part-time job but says that he thinks 15 minutes tops is what he should give to God. It was tough to hear him talk like that and just completely deny the testimony that he once had. I hope we can continue to work with him. He's 20, so he's our age too.

That's the week so far. Today we met with another less active member who took us out to Dim Sum together with his wife. It was fantastic food, but he wants to be friends with the missionaries; not come back to church. Very aggressive about that:-(.

Things are good! Elder B and I are working hard and seeing miracles. Maybe I should slow down so that the time won't go by so fast! Keep reading the scriptures and praying! Go to church! Fulfill your callings!

Love,

Elder Siebach