Amazing Grace: Can We Meet After Church and Learn More?

Dear friends and family,

Another week down. These weeks just go by at an ever increasing pace... It's a little alarming. Speaking of weeks, since when is Thanksgiving the last week of the month? I could have sworn my entire life that Thanksgiving was the 3rd Thursday in November! Oh well. I'm really stoked for Thanksgiving! We will be having a Zone Thanksgiving Dinner. 28 people all preparing different portions of the dishes. We've got a little under 200 dollars US to do it all in. My apartment of 4 is in charge of mashed potatoes for everyone. I'm sure it will be a Thanksgiving to remember though. We will be combining some of the best of America and the best of China in a smorgasbord (that's probably spelled wrong) of goodness. That will be this coming Thursday. 

This past week it was a little harder to get members at some of our lessons so we didn't have nearly as many as in weeks previous. It was a bit of a blessing however, since we wanted to be able to speak openly and understand our investigators. Sometimes, if investigators don't have a constant fellow-shipper, they are a little less willing to open up their thoughts and feelings. A few weeks back we had a Multi-Zone Conference and the APs asked the ZLs to prepare a 10 minute training on something they call the "5 Whys", essentially saying that when an investigator brings up a concern our first thought should be "why". If missionaries can continue to ask inspired question the thought is that within 5 questions you can reach the heart of any concern. Definitely something new to me and something that I will continue to hone and work harder on.

Tuen Mun at night

Since Elder L left the work has been moving forward and it's a lot of fun to be with Elder P in Tuen Mun. We have about 1/2 of our area that is still unexplored by both of us. We're working slowly but surely to chip away at it and find prepared people.

I think I've mentioned in previous letters that we have a handful of baptismal dates right now. It's a real blessing to be able to work with these people and it's so interesting how each one has completely different circumstances and interests. Still, the gospel is something that works for them. It strengthens my testimony to realize that all these people from vastly different backgrounds can feel the guidance of the Spirit and want to change their lives. God really has given us a perfect gospel message. It's also fascinating how each person can have different insights to the same scriptures. Sometimes as a missionary I feel like we're just a bunch of LDS clones, but working with so many good investigators shows me that EVERYONE is different.

This week I feel like I learned from one of our investigators what it means to "hunger and thirst after righteousness". We are teaching a woman named A. She works really long hours for Foster Children. We have almost no contact with her throughout the week but she shows up at church right on time each week. She is happy and full of energy. After services are over she is always surrounded by some of the Relief Society women who are OOOHing and AAAAAHing about the strength of her resolve and testimony. She has honestly had some really hard trials in her life but this message has lifted her burdens. Every week during our lesson she pulls out her notebook, jots notes on the scriptures that we share, and then promises us that she will read and do all she can to learn what God would have her know. She and I are Facebook friends on my missionary account and so each week as I put up a spiritual message, she then has it written down and dissected each Sunday that we meet. She literally walks into church and asks me, "Can we meet after church and learn more?"

Amazing Grace

This past Sunday we had really wanted to share with her about the Law Of Chastity but we only had about 10 minutes before we had to go to the stake center for a meeting with the stake president. So we shared about how God 'delights in the chastity of women.' True to her habit, she wrote it down, read it 3 more times, shared some inspired thought and told us she would read more about it this coming week. As we were getting ready to close she then shared something very interesting. As a single mid-thirty year old woman, with both parents already gone, and both siblings living in Singapore and England, she is understandably lonely during the holidays. In September she found herself suffering from a bout of depression and self-worth and so she went to a library where she found a CD that had a beautiful picture of a white New England style church in autumn. She checked it out and listened to it to get over her feelings. She didn't think much about it after that. A few weeks later she was contacted by missionaries--us. She has been meeting with us since, and just pieced together that the CD she checked out from a library in Causeway Bay was Amazing Grace by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I was floored by this story. I can't honestly express what I was feeling. It was just an overwhelming sense of gratitude for a heavenly Father who watches out for each of His children. I wonder if we, if I, spend enough time thinking about and giving gratitude to God.

Sometimes I wonder why I'm in Tuen Mun and why I'm in the blessed circumstances that I'm in. Yet, I know and feel that this is where the Lord wants me to be and that I'm here to be a learner just as much as I am here to be a teacher.

Preach My Gospel says a similar thing. I will paraphrase, but it essentially says that the best teachers ask more questions than they do expound, and they listen more than they talk.This really is the Lord's work. He will sustain us and help us as we acknowledge the gifts He has given and seek to improve in all the facets of our lives.
Meet A

Please have a gratitude-filled Thanksgiving.

Love,

Elder Siebach