Winds of Change: New Companion; New Assignment; New Territories

Dear Friends and Family,

Favorite Indian place: JoJo's

Wow, a lot has happened in such a short time. Monday afternoon Elder B and I ate lunch at JoJo's Indian Buffett with some of his and my old companions and then came home for a great Family Home Evening lesson. The ward members bought a cake to celebrate the arrival of a new sister missionary, Sister Y, to our KwaiChung ward and to send me off. They must have consulted with President Hawks personally or something because they were so sure I was leaving.

Tuesday morning I was called into the Zone Leaders study and they had a conference call and announced the moves that would be happening in the zone. Lots of big stuff going on. In fact, Kowloon Zone (the one I am in split into two zones since it was bursting with about 34 missionaries. Kowloon West and Kowloon East zones now.

Conjuring Bruce Lee with Elder B

The biggest change for me is that Elder B and I split after the last 18 weeks together. He stayed in KwaiChung, became a Senior companion and District leader, and his companion, an elder from his own arrival group, came down as his junior companion. That was a big surprise for him, but he will do great! Meanwhile, I moved up to Tuen Mun (Pronounced Ty-oon Moon). Honestly I was pretty sure I would be leaving KwaiChung, but I had been praying to go out to Macau. Then, the night before moves calls were announced I thought to myself, "Elder Siebach, you're going to Tuen Mun." So for the final two days Elder B and I did some last-ditch calls to all the investigators to see if they would schedule one last time to see me. Many of them did which was a real blessing for me! On Tuesday we saw J and Mr. L for my last time, and on Wednesday we had a member take us out to lunch, and in between all of the packing we went out finding in one of my favorite areas. In the evening we had a lesson with P before going to missionary correlation meeting which was great--there was a farewell celebration at the end of that as well. Some of the recent converts and young men that I got particularly close to attended the farewell portion and gave me one of their school ties with their name on the back of it. I'd been hassling them for a long time about wanting it, so it was a pretty special experience. That particular school's tie had a big "KCC" down the front of it that they told me now stands for "KwaiChung Church." The following morning we went to seminary at 6:30 and sat with our investigator A-G one last time. He had to leave early for school since he has a 1/2 hour train ride and that day was the day of school elections (something he is going out for this year), but I really appreciated his time and willingness to come to something as early as early-morning seminary.

   

Elder B, Mr. L, and I

Young men from the ward

Correlation Meeting

 Mid-morning on Thursday I was picked up in Kowloon Tong by my new companion, Elder L. We took the hour train ride into the New Territories and headed to our apartment. Our apartment is in a REALLY nice part of our area and is on the 31st floor! We have a pretty spectacular view day and night of the mountains and surrounding area. We did our studies and weekly planning that first day, and then headed out to do some finding for a few hours in the evening. We met a few people that seem to have some real interest in learning more!

Friday was great. We called all the district leaders that afternoon to see how their districts were doing, (I'm a Zone Leader now), and then spent the better part of the afternoon doing some good finding in one of the estates. We taught several lessons which was a real blessing! That evening I was in charge of English class.

Saturday/Sunday were  busy days in which we spent most of our time in the newly-built HungShuiKiu stake center. It is a beautiful building and has brought the church a lot of interest and popularity up here since it's so big, new, and prominent (it's right next to the above-ground rail line for all to see).

HungShuiKiu train station

I'm still trying to get a hang of all our investigators and members (it's notably a lot harder to meet members on a general conference weekend than in a regular block schedule setting--not to mention the English conference was in a separate room from the Cantonese.

Last night before doing call-in reports with the district leaders we went out and did some knocking on some doors way up on the mountain side! It was an adventure! Poisonous caterpillars, insects of every variety, and a spider bigger than my hand when my fingers are extended--no joke. Last but not least, dogs... They bark their heads off and are just asking for a Chuck Norris-esque roundhouse kick to the head. It's all good though. If our knocking on doors doesn't grab people's attention, the pack of dogs marching down the street definitely will. I know this is so missionary-ish, but honest to goodness, this next experience happened. We knocked for 1.5 hours and it was getting dark fast. We determined to knock one more door. The house owner came out, didn't really want anything to do with us but he was touched by our simple message that we are all God's children. As we finished the lesson on his makeshift driveway he willingly said the closing prayer. Regardless of my 15+ mosquito bites, it was well worth it! He lives in mainland most of the time but said that if he has time he'd like to come check out our church services. The Lord really does provide!

Tug of war at Big Wave Bay

This morning, Monday morning, we had a ward activity in Big Wave Bay (that's part of my previous ChaiWan area). It was a great opportunity to get to meet some more ward members, socialize, play some tug-of-war games, and just have a good time (today was another public holiday). I don't consider myself a super sentimental guy, however, as we drove right though KwaiChung and all over ChaiWan areas, I realized just how much I love and miss those wards and those people. I'm excited to be here in Tuen Mun though and working with Elder L. He's only got 5 weeks or so until he ends his mission, so I hope that we can really get some things going fast and that I can learn a lot from him.

I realize I haven't talked much about Conference, and that's probably because I haven't had a lot of time to think about everything I learned. I took a lot of notes and in the days and weeks to come I will work hard to incorporate parts into my missionary service. It felt like there was a real focus on the power of the Atonement and on Repentance. The missionary talks were important too. I can't express how strongly I feel that the work would be so much more fruitful if members took an active part and didn't shy away from this sometimes hard, but so rewarding assignment. It's so great to be a missionary at this time! Everyone is talking about it and there are so many more missionaries now than there ever have been before!

“The Lord is hastening His work...In our day, this can only be done when every member of the Church reaches out with love to share the truths of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. We need to work together in partnership with our nearly 80,000 missionaries now serving.”  ~Elder Russell M. Ballard

Hope everyone is doing well! Keep up the good work! Help a missionary and let the missionaries help you too!

Love,

Elder Sieach