A Christmas Miracle!

Dear Friends and Family,

Big day for A-F!

What an awesome week to be a missionary! I got to talk to my family on their Christmas Eve which was so great! I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. I know I did! A lot of hard work and prayer really paid off this week! Two baptisms! Talk about a Christmas miracle! I've been talking for a few months now about 2 of the most prepared people I've run across in my mission; A-F and An-. Well, they are now some of the newest members to the church in Hong Kong! :) Well on Sunday they got baptized! I was honored to be able to help baptize An-, while A-F invited the YM's 2nd Counselor to help baptize him. 

It was so rewarding! It was also the most stressed I think I've ever been on my mission. We only had 2 investigators at church this Sunday and An- was not one of them! She got sick with a fever/flu symptoms on Friday and wasn't sure if she would be able to make it to the 9:30 sacrament meeting.... Then she wasn't in Gospel Principles class and I didn't see her during Priesthood/ Relief Society. I was sweating bullets. Her phone was off too. Well, the bishop got up and shared a few comments in the end of the combined 3rd hour we had and mentioned how THAT DAY he had met with a 'new sister' and he started sharing parts of An-'s conversion experience. I was so confused. I ran up to him after the meeting ended and asked, "You've seen An- today???" He said, "Yes, she's out in the foyer." Well lo and behold, she had come! We just had somehow never seen her. She also came to church with a member from the West Point ward and explained to us that this friend, Sh-, had invited her to church 13 years ago! It was super cool! 13 years ago Sh- probably thought nothing would come of An- since she didn't come to church again. However, she was an integral part in planting the seed that I was blessed to have harvested 13 years later! NEVER UNDERESTIMATE YOUR OWN EFFORTS!

A-F thankfully was at church the whole time and so we were much more confident about him. The whole baptismal service took about 40 minutes and the speakers did a wonderful job. You could feel the love of the ward for these two and could sense the brotherhood and sisterhood. I heard one of the Relief Society sisters as she was hugging An- say, "You're one of us now." :) The YM weren't nearly so affectionate with A-F (probably a good thing) but they came out and were a good support. I hope that the ward will see from these baptisms that they have missionaries that are willing to work and bring in their own investigators; now we just need the members to introduce their friends too! Most assuredly Elder P and I will be spending more time out of the streets in the coming weeks trying to find those that will hear and those that 'are kept from the truth because they know not where to find it.' It's an exciting time to be a missionary!

Street display near the light rail

This past Wednesday, Christmas Day, was a great day for missionary work! We had a stake activity and the missionaries played a big part in running a carnival game (a bean bag toss), street contacting, advertising near the over-ground railways, giving church tours, and running a workshop on missionary work. Thankfully all 24 missionaries were present and willing to help. We had a shift rotation and so I started at the game and had a good time getting the 400+ participants excited, then I moved out to go street contacting down the back alleyways near the church. We got a few good conversations but not too much else. Then we were walking near a canal and ran into an 

Christmas curry with my new friend!

Indonesian woman (she'd been living here 20+ years and knows fluent Cantonese). She invited us to her home and so we walked to this shantytown area where she lives with about 25 Indian neighbors. The majority of the Indians are actually Christian and so they were excited to hear that we were missionaries sharting about Christ. They tried to offer us some drinks (strong drinks really) but we avoided that and instead they gave us a nice plate of fresh baked naan bread and some awesome chicken curry! Got to use my fingers for the whole thing too! That was super exciting! Thankfully we had an English Restoration pamphlet that we left behind for them. We didn't get off a lesson since they were in the midst of preparing for their own Christmas party that evening that they also graciously invited us to.

Tuen Mun Zone Christmas Dinner

After that exchange we went out to the banners we had set up near the overground railway and advertised for an hour or so before coming in for dinner and then the last thing of the night was a musical performance with members from all over Hong Kong coming together to make a Christmas choir. That was a great way to end the evening! The whole week was great! Great from the start to the end! We're looking forward to finding new investigators, a new year, a new start!

I'm cutting this letter short to upload pictures. Have a great week everyone!

Love,

Elder Siebach

Merry Christmas!

Dear Family and Friends,

Wow! Can't believe that Christmas is 2 days away! It's been quite the week here in Hong Kong!

Tin Shui Wai (apartment buildings in the
distance)--separated from Mainland China
by this Wetland Park

Last Tuesday we attended the TinShuiWai district meeting and right afterwards went on exchanges with their district leader. I worked with his companion in the TinShuiWai area. It was freezing! Super cold and rainy! No one really wanted to talk to us on the street so we did a little LA finding that evening and then met with a less-active member at the church where we had eally good lesson! We had a great time together and learned a lot. TinShuiWai is actually the ward of my second companion, Elder W. It was funny to see his picture in their area book. TinShuiWai is also the most populated area in all of Hong Kong. And with the exception of the temple square mission, it is the smallest proselyting area in the world! Just some fun facts :) We could look right into mainland from a lot of the apartment buildings we were in. :) That Tuesday was also my companion's birthday so we had a small celebration.

Wednesday morning I was doing my companion study when we got a text from the Assistants. That's always a kinda scary thing! However, it was great news! Really a Christmas present actually! We found out that English/Chinese tags are approved again for our mission! President Hawks has been working with Salt Lake for months now and so each missionary will soon be issued new tags! (That brings my count up to 11 tags). We're the only mission that currently has this approval! GO HONG KONG! We were super stoked about it.

Last P-Day I forgot to mention that my apartment went down to MongKok. 2 of the Elders went and got fitted for new suits that they are buying for Christmas, and I made a nice new purchase; a camera! It's actually a trade-in and it's working well so far! I've already been a lot better at taking pictures. Hopefully I can remember my camera cord one of these days and send some pics home!

This past week we had a great week for lessons! We struggled to get member presents from Monday to Thursday, however, we were able to get 6 from Friday to Sunday. We got some good LA finding in with one of our members, and we met with just about all of our investigators. That was a real blessing because some of them, specifically An--, A-F, and Al-- have commitment dates coming up really fast.

An-- has been out of town for the last two weeks, but she called us as she was boarding her plane (to come back home from Singapore) to tell us that she would be at church the following day! Wow!! We were very relieved because we've been unable to contact her and she hasn't been on Facebook for a long time. Finally, on Sunday we were able to sit 

                                                                                         down with her, share a lesson on

Tai Pei Temple: same design as the Dallas Temple!

tithing and fasting and really get to hear more about her trip. She told us that while she was in Singapore she went to church and introduced her sister's family to the missionaries there! Sounds like she had a great time! She then went to TaiWan for a  while and though she was unable to get to church that Sunday, she was able to take a taxi to the TaiPei temple! She said it was stunning. It had been raining all week there, but on that day the skies cleared and the temple had a glow around it. She got in a traffic accident on her way to the temple too (the taxi she was riding in got T-boned)--but that still didn't deter her! After her walk around the temple she went straight to the airport and flew home! Haha :) Great things going on there!

A-F is doing super well too! We met with him on Saturday and Sunday to help review and explain new commandments to him. He really wants to be baptized and is working for it! I wish I had more time to tell you about him!

At church this past week we had 5 investigators in sacrament meeting and 3 others were able to come to Young Mens where we shared a lesson on missionary purpose (they were unavailable earlier in the morning). So 8 people at church total. That quadrupled the size of the Young Mens when everyone was in there!

I'm loving the work! This next week we're already going to be crazy busy at a Stake Christmas activity all day Wednesday. Today we will be getting together with some people in the zone to watch the mission slideshow and such. Investigators are scheduled to come, now we just gotta call some members too! We'll keep up the work on this end! If we have time we might try and string some Christmas lights or decorations around our apartment since nothing too crazy is going on anywhere else in Tuen Mun. Keep the faith! Remember the reason for the season!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Love,

Elder Siebach

P.S. I'm planning to call you my Christmas morning at about 9:30. That would be about 7:30 PM Christmas Eve for y'all. Is that ok?

Hands Down the Best Time to Be a Missionary

Dear Friends and Family,

Hong Kong is wonderful! Totally cooled down a few days ago and it's been raining for about 3 days--50 degrees now!

This past week zoomed right by again. It's been a blessing to be able to spend time with investigators, church services, and taking care of some things in the New Territories Zone. In fact, just this past Saturday we had a Priesthood Leadership Meeting. President Hawks was there and he asked that the Zone Leaders and 2 Sister Training Leaders be in attendance. We were instructed by the Stake President, President Chan, as well as the Area Seventy, President Wong. President Hawks shared a few words too. It was amazing to be in that body of the priesthood and hear the things that were being said. There was a fairly good turn-out and I feel like each person walked away with a bit more resolve to work together with the missionaries. I was impressed with the call to be faithful members. Another topic that was discussed was tithing. In the Stake right now we have 6 wards and next year they have a goal to have two more units. They will split one ward and pull from two other wards to make a third unit. It's a lofty goal, considering how many people are active; especially the number of active, full-tithe paying Melchizedek Priesthood holders. It's very achievable though.

I was impressed also by an exercise we did to help us learn to work together as ward leaders and missionaries. There was a bit of an obstacle course and time limit and so it really forced leaders and missionaries to cooperate. The most impressive part of that meeting was the Spirit that could be felt as the speakers spoke. You could feel that they knew what they were saying was true and that they too were applying these same principles. One of the last things that President Wong mentioned was that we need to spend more time in the scriptures and in the conference talks. He specifically quoted President Packer who mentioned the safety and security found in the scriptures.

Last thing that stood out: President Wong referred to how the "Come Follow Me" Curriculum came out and was to
help YM and YW learn how to teach the Savior's way. This then had direct cause and effect to the lowering of the mission age and the time that missionaries spend in the MTC. He told us that we too should be teaching in the same format as "Come Follow Me" explains. "This is inspired. This is the Lord's Way;" it is what he said. Love it. Great meeting.

We were able to work really hard this week and stay busy each day with lessons. A few weeks ago President Hawks asked missionaries to consider the effectiveness of meals with members. He wants us to try to invite an investigator or less active to the meal. So, in line with this new standard, when we were invited to a meal this past week we asked the Sister if we could invite our friend J. She was fine with that and so we did. It was a wonderful meal! Good humor, a good message at the end, and to close out the night we sang a hymn. The Spirit was so strong and I think it had a strong impression on J.

The following day we actually met again with J and shared about tithing. It's not an easy commandment to take when you live in such an expensive place as Hong Kong, but he was willing to read the pamphlet and pray to know whether or not he should keep it. We can't ask anything more than that! :) Just have to rely on the Spirit now.

This past week was transfers. No changes in my companionship, however, we have a new Sister, Sister Choi serving with us in Tuen Mun. The other sister is Sister Morgan who I actually knew in Lone Peak back in my Utah days. It will be fun to work with them. We also said goodbye to a handful for Elders and Sisters; including the 3 sisters who were in the MTC with me. It's kinda weird that they are home now!

Really solid things going on here in Hong Kong! We still have 4 baptismal dates and should be extending at least two more this week. Fingers crossed. Christmas is right around the corner and so hopefully more people will be able to schedule! Christmas time is hands down the best time to be a missionary! Miracles are happening! :)

I'm almost out of time! However, two scriptures:

Mark 2:5

President Wong shared this scripture with me after our priesthood leadership meeting and told me to pay attention to why the man sick of palsy was healed; it wasn't just his faith.

Later, as I was pondering Helaman 1 I started considering what kinds of things come into our lands. Similar to how Coriantumr sends the Lamanites right into Zarahemla and takes the Nephites by surprise. It ends up being the Lamanites downfall too, however, I started thinking about how Satan is coming into our "lands" today, openly attacking things like family and morality/chastity and I could see some parallels there.

Hope all of you are safe and having a wonderful week!

Love,

Elder Siebach

P.S. I don't remember if I said this last week or not, but thank you for the package! I just opened my  3rd day of Christmast gift! Great socks :)

"I Only Read True Books"

Wow, where does the time go? Another great week under out belts here in Tuen Mun! Last Monday we had a little district activity for P-Day and went hiking around on this mountain.

Castle Peak leading up to Tsing Shan Monastery

Main Entrance gate to monastery

Incense coils

View toward Tuen Mun

We explored half a dozen temples and then made a long haul hike up to the most remote of temples. I don't even remember the name but it was kinda in shambles. Lots of ruins around it and then also some better maintained parts. Come to find out, it's one of the oldest temples in Hong Kong (like maybe 500 AD or so...?) and it's also where Bruce Lee filmed his movie "Enter The Dragon" back in the 70's. It was tight! 

View toward the bay!

This past week is the busiest week for Zone Leaders because of Mission Leadership Council. All the Zone Leaders, Sister Trainer Leaders, and APs meet in Kowloon Tong and we have training on the first Wednesday of every month. Training lasts from about 10 AM to 3:30 PM and then we make our way back home for an hour by train. Heavily laden with supplies and packages for the Zone we then teach any lessons we might have on Wednesday night. Thursday it just a day of planning since we do our weekly planning and had to plan for the Zone Training Meeting we have on Friday. It's fun work though. We get to be counseled right from President Hawks in a setting that few other missionaries get to have; plus Sister Hawks makes delicious food! This week we had Enchiladas (a first for my entire mission experience). You can bet I loaded that thing with salsa! I love that meeting because I know every missionary at it! Most all of them are ones that I've worked with or lived with at some time in the mission. Just like a big reunion for 40 people. We got a lot of good counsel and new instructions for missionaries.

I also got two great packages this week from my family and from the Tietjens! Thank you all so much! I love all the knick knacks and only-in-America-can-you-find-this food! It will be a Christmas of plenty in my apartment. The Apartment mates also thank y'all.

So whenever Elder P and I weren't planning and prepping for lessons we were teaching and did a little bit of finding this week. On Wednesday we met with Al-. It was the first time we've been able to see him in almost a month and so it was a joyous reunion! He's doing really well and we're trying to reset his baptismal date for January hopefully. He was at church this week which we were extremely happy for! Hope to see him tomorrow too.

We've also been able to see P- a few times this week. His date it coming up really quick and so we're trying to make sure he is completely prepared. He has a great understanding of the gospel, now we're trying to help him see why applying it will help him. Right now we're working on keeping the Sabbath Day holy. We're happy for him. Sick with a fever yesterday so he wasn't at church.

An- is somewhere in Singapore right now; we're keeping up with her through Facebook about once a week. Hopefully she introduced her sister and nephew to the church yesterday! She said she would continue to be at church! :)

J- is doing great. Saw him on Friday and had an indepth lesson on how baptism is the gate to help him overcome his weaknesses. He's very concerned about his morality and how he can strengthen himself and be virtuous. It's a super good desire, he's just a little hesitant to set a baptismal date. He knows he should be baptized and I feel like this past lesson really helped him. Preparing for his lesson really helped me to realize that we are all imperfect people and that baptism is for the imperfect. The gift of the Holy Ghost is what God gives his imperfect sons and daughters who want and follow Him. J- is really musically gifted and so he is going to be playing a song at the Stake Christmas party about Christ. He's super involved and open to new things which is awesome!

A-F is awesome! I almost feel like he is more awesome than I give him credit for because he is so shy! We were supposed to meet with him on Saturday; however, the electricity and water in his apartment blew up Saturday morning and he didn't want to hike down from the 30th floor, meet with us, and hike back up afterwards. Understandable for sure. So we prayed that Sunday everything would be better. It was, so he was at church all 3 hours, stayed with us for a baptismal service, we taught a lesson afterwards and then at 5 we met up with him again and took the MTR down to Kowloon Tong for last night's "My Conversion Story" fireside. Super good! He's making great progress and his understanding of the Book of Mormon is phenomenal! We were floored yesterday as he explained perfectly Lehi's dream in 1 Nephi.

These are our investigators that are progessing the most right now, however, we went back to the same bridge we were at last week, and met with JC again. He didn't have a lot of time so we kept our remarks short and then went and knocked on Mr. L's door again. He wasn't super available right then either, but we were able to get his number and schedule him for this past Saturday for a tour of the church. He's really good! Semi-retired man who told us he loves reading only 'true' books. Boy do we have the book for him! We had a great tour, shared the Restoration lesson with him, and rescheduled to meet him tomorrow. Afterwards he stayed at the church to attend the ward Kareoke Activity. He met about half the Elders Quorum there too! As missionaries we weren't able to stay for a music activity (obviously), and so we would just poke our head in once in a while to check on them. Hopefully it was a good experience for them all.

Super good week this week all in all. I can't believe I've already been here 2 months! Transfers end this Tuesday. Elder B (a Mandarin Elder who entered the MTC with me) is the new AP, and all things are looking like I'll be staying here in Tuen Mun :)

Hope everyone is doing well back on the homefront and staying warm! I still sleep with a sheet and a window open. The air is a lot fresher from the 31st floor :)

Love,

Elder Siebach

Two Miracles Under a Bridge

Dear Friends and Family, 

Thanksgiving was a blast! On Thursday we were granted a 3 hour grace period where we could have a dinner and celebrate together, so the 27 missionaries in the New Territories Zone had a Thanksgiving Pot-luck. My apartment which consists of the Butterfly and Tuen Mun Elders were in charge of mashed potatoes for the Zone. We carefully planned out and bought 50 potatoes thinking that each person would probably want 2 cups worth or so. Boy were we wrong... We only got through like half of those mashed potatoes... It was super awesome though! We had jello, turkey, stuffing, yams, veggies, mashed potatoes and gravy! We also had a surprise visit by President and Sister Hawks who graciously brought up a package to me from the Southlake Young Women! Thanks so much! My apartment is still working our way through all the goodies! I realized as I looked at the picture of all the Southlake YW that a) they've all grown up and look completely different, or b) there have been a TON of YW that have moved in! Probably a little of both:)

Southlake Ward Young Women (and this
is only about 2/3 of them!)

Anyway, back to Thanksgiving. After the initial meal we organized groups and had some friendly Minute-To-Win-It competitions. Super fun! We had ping pong tosses, activities to check your chopstick skills, cross words, music, 1-legged races etc... Everyone had a great time! Unfortunately my camera didn't want to turn on that day so I have all my pictures on my I-Pod. I guess you'll just have to see them after the mission or see if another missionary posts them home in an email sometime. Sorry!

Besides that we had some good fun this week teaching and going on exchanges. On Tuesday evening we had our Zone Exchange and I stayed in Tuen Mun while Elder P went out to Yuen Long. My companion was Elder B who was in the MTC with me but serves as a Mandarin Elder. We had a great 24 hour exchange and got some good lessons in both Mandarin and Cantonese. I can't say a lick of Mandarin but it's fun to try and it's even easier to understand. Don't ask me why I can hear it but can't say it... I think maybe it's because I haven't practiced wrapping my mouth around the strange sounds. For dinner that night we went to resort-type area known as "the Cancun" of Hong Kong and got Subway Sandwiches. They have a 2 for 1 deal on Tuesday evenings! Booyah! 

This past Saturday we were a little surprised when all the lessons that we had originally scheduled for that day fell through or got canceled. We ended up with 4 or 5 hours worth of finding to do and had a blast as we explored parts of our area that were previously unexplored because of time restraints. While we were there we saw two miracles! As we were walking on this bridge we  looked across the way and saw a man waving to us and shouting, "Hallelujah!". We were a little skeptical and thought he might be mocking us, However, we decided to go down and talk to him and he promptly told us he was a Christian, loved Americans, and gave us Cokes and Saltine crackers to snack on in his home! He introduced us to his family, but because he was on shift working in his garage as a mechanic we couldn't stay too long. We shared a message and got a prayer in with him. He was a really upbeat guy and as we were leaving he gave us some 1960 Hong Kong coins!! I thought that was such a

kind gesture! He mentioned that these coins aren't in circulation anymore and are pretty valuable! It was a miracle to run across him. His name is J C. Afterwards we kept walking along the bridge and by the squatter homes that were nearby we ran into a Mr. L. We talked with him for about 10 minutes and were able to testify of Heavenly Father and how we can come to know him. He mentioned that he actually went to the HungShuiKiu Stake Center Open House last Christmas but that it was too far away so he hasn't been again. He was very sincere and I hope that we can visit with these two great men again! 

We still have 5 investigators with baptismal dates and we had 6 investigators and 3 less actives at church yesterday! It was a miracle because one of those investigators hasn't been answering our calls or texts for the last 2 weeks. Imagine our surprise when we looked around and saw him sitting between two members in the back of the chapel!
A is doing really well too! She goes to Singapore this week but she wants to go to the church while she is there and introduce her sister's family to the gospel! We taught her the Law Of Chastity and she was very accepting and grateful to know that there is a Heavenly Father who wants us to love, but to protect ourselves and save ourselves. Sidenote: Last week I gave her a "Baptismal Plan" and then at church yesterday she brought it out and it was framed.... She is so golden! 

This morning I was reading in 3 Nephi 3 which is all about Lachoneus and Gidianhi. I'm always so impressed by Lachoneus and the men and things that he chooses to surround himself with. He doesn't want the power-seeking Gidianhi to come into his land, and so takes a defensive, protective approach. The converted Lamanites and Nephites then are united in their cause of defense and gather in Zarahemla. Gidgiddoni, as their spiritual leader and captain, wisely counsels the people that they must not seek to destroy their enemies but must wait it out. I think the Lord wants us to be tolerant. He doesn't want us to 'attack' others, but tolerance doesn't mean that we let ourselves get stepped on either. We continue to work and push forward. There are so many parallels in our own lives and in missionary work. It's great to be a missionary. 

It's great to be in Hong Kong. Things are going so well here! I wouldn't want to be any other place right now. I'm happy to be working with Elder P in Tuen Mun, and glad that we can serve this Zone. But more importantly, that we can serve the Lord. We have a great week ahead of us! 

Keep the faith! Be happy!
Love,
Elder Siebach