Midwinter Message

Dear Friends and Family,
Another solid week here in Tuen Mun. Elder P and I really worked hard to meet with some of our harder-to-schedule investigators and amazingly were able to keep ourselves busy for a lot of the week. 

On Monday Elder P and I were feeling a little home-sick for KwaiFong and so we took a spontaneous trip down on our P-Day and relived the area where we lived while I served KwaiChung and he served TsingYi. It was a lot of fun and we were able to rope the Butterfly Elders into going down with us and met up with Elder B who is still in KwaiChung!!! He's going to be there at least 8 months! We also met up with L who had just gotten out of school for the day and came to hang out with us. It was a wonderful time that was only dampened by some sickness that struck me. Minor chills and headaches. It was all great though. We came home afterwards and I took some medicine and went to bed about 30 minutes earlier than usual. 

We had a great opportunity on Tuesday to go to the Yuen Long district for ZL/DL exchanges and I ended up staying in Tuen Mun and Elder O'G (the DL in Yuen Long) came up for the day. We had a great exchange and were able to teach a street lesson, contact a few people, and taught our new investigator, E. It was fun to be with Elder O'G -- we actually were in the MTC at the same time and got to be good friends there. 

On Wednesday we met with An- and were able to continue with her ABL (After Baptism Lessons). On Wednesday we were also able to go with one of our High Priests and visit some less actives in one of the Estates in our area. That night we had our "games night" which is just an opportunity for investigators who want to to come to the chapel and play UNO or ping pong and see the missionaries outside of typical lessons. We always try to get YM and YW there to fellowship them as well. Super fun! And recently one of the YW in our ward has been bringing and German foreign exchange student, C, to the activities we have. She is really pretty interested in the gospel and is meeting with the sister missionaries right now. Well this past week C brought another friend, R, to the games night and so it was fun for me to resurrect my German and try to translate a Chinese mormon message that we watched. Great stuff! I knew those 3 years in German would eventually pay off! 

Towards the end of the week we were able to go as a District to a place called Crossroads and get a tour of their facilities. Crossroads is basically a Goodwill, GRACE or DI (community outreach/donation center) in Hong Kong where we are looking into volunteering so that we can get out and serve the community. We start next Wednesday! 

Friday we were able to meet with And- and had a great lesson on why we have commandments and the blessings of them. We had a High Priest fellowshipper with us and it really was a great lesson. And- doesn't really want to come to church right now but he has so much genuine desire to change and he often expresses how the things that he feels and hears when he is with us are impacting him and really helping him change. I love that I can be just a small part of that! He was going to come to church this past week but got sick rather suddenly and was unable to make it. 

On Saturday we met with A-F and reviewed the Plan of Salvation. We had a YW fellowshipper named M with us. (I tease and say we are trying to set them up, however, she is just super solid and really wanted to help us.) It was great. M bore a great testimony and A-F is really opening up more and expressing his thoughts and feelings. Doing really well. Later that day we met with Al- along with another member, K. to fellowship. Another great lesson where we talked about the reason for commandments and the blessings of them. Al- is SO good! His baptism date is set for this next week and we've already scheduled his interview for this week! Ahhh--life is so great!

Right after these lessons we had the ward FHE and Elder P and I shared a message on Mosiah 2:17. I love King Benjamin so much! We decided to illustrate his point by having a "fireman's carry" relay race to show the principles of working together and serving. Lots of fun!

Sunday was great as usual, but I'm running out of time so I apologize I can't write more about the great things I felt and heard there! They're all in my journal! I hope you all have a great week! Read the scriptures and be a missionary this week!

Love you all,
Elder Siebach

P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO STERLING AND DAD THIS WEEK AND NEXT!!