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