Goodbyes and Greetings

Dear Friends and Family,

Things are going really well! Elder L and I were killing it here in Tuen Mun this past week. We had a TON of lessons which is really a miracle because between all the meetings, lessons, and necessities of planning/ Elder L packing, we did a grand total of 1 hour of finding. We taught two lessons out of it though, so it was effective.

Joseph Smith's story

As with all companions, the last couple days are a little rough because you know everything is about to change and there is an element of nervousness. The end of Elder L's mission was no different. He gave a lot of good advice to me. In fact there is one I want to share. He told me that in his two years as a missionary, he finally figured out towards the end of his mission that when we teach lessons on the street, the person we're teaching will often pose some sort of question. He then connected that this question is almost never their ACTUAL problem. It's like a trap: if you answer the question too fast they won't be interested or impressed. He said that no matter what the question is, it can somehow be related to the Joseph Smith story, and that is what we should share. Pretty spot on. That's in line with what Preach My Gospel says, as well as is the quickest way for someone to feel the Spirit and really understand why the heck missionaries are even here.

Since Elder L served here for so long, he has forged some really strong bonds with members, for which I am extremely grateful. I hope I can continue to work well with them and build off of what he did.

We arrived home from church at about 5:30 last night and Elder L immediately set to packing. By 7:30 he was picked up by the AP's and rushed off to the mission home for his last evening as a missionary.

About the same time the APs were picking up Elder L, I was able to get my new companion! His name is Elder P and he is from Layton, Utah (just like Elder B). He is super cool, older than I am by 5 months in the mission, and just finished serving in Causeway Bay as Zone Leader with my MTC companion Elder Parker. I'm really excited to work with him! We're both relatively new to Tuen Mun (I've been here just 5 weeks and haven't been able to visit about 1/2 of our area yet). It's fine though! We will have fun exploring and working together!

This past Friday was also the zone training meeting. It was a super great, spiritual experience for all 28 of us that were in attendance. Elder L and I had to do some of the trainings and did most of the talking, but we had a lot of involvement and I hope/think it sparked some ideas for some of the missionaries.

Sunday we had 6 investigators at church, taught 2 lessons after church, held a stake Christmas Planning meeting where we gave a presentation to the stake presidency/auxiliaries, did my personal study and pretty much used the rest of the time to suck every bit of information I could possibly get from Elder L. Recently it seems like we don't have enough time to eat :). It's great to be able to be so busy though.

Zone Conference is coming up this week so I'm stoked for that!

Well, that's about it from this end! Keep up the good work! Have a great Veterans Day! Pray for the missionaries and their investigators!

Love,

Elder Siebach