Ou Mun Baby! Welcome to Macau!

Dear friends and family,

I'M IN OU MUN (pronounced "oh moon") -- that's how they say Macau! For the last 5 months I've been pretty certain that I would end my mission in the New Territories as a Zone Leader. I wouldn't have complained much considering that with that comes the privilege to meet with President Hawks regularly and eat Sister Hawks' homemade cooking. However, those thoughts were gloriously pushed aside as I was given a new assignment to open a new companionship out in Macau! All I knew was that I would be training, and most likely I would be training the incoming Irishman or the Englishman since they get visas that allow them to stay out in Macau for 6 months at a time while the rest of us just get 2 months. 

With new companion, Elder M from Rugby, England

Come Thursday morning I was in the Kowloon Tong mission home and was promptly assigned Elder M, a brand new 18 year old missionary from Rugby, England! We were hurriedly rushed into a mission van and driven down to the ferry pier where we then spent the next half hour buying tickets for the 10 Elders and Sisters that were going out to Macau that day.

Hong Kong - Macau Turbo-Jet

 We got our tickets, boarded the TurboJet catamaran and were in Macau by 1:30 pm. As we were pulling into port I was just flabbergasted by the view. It looks like Las Vegas was transplanted to the coast. Add in the fact that they moved the Seattle Space Needle across the ocean and plopped it on the shoreline. Then add in Portuguese street signs and European architecture and that is Macau. It's a beautiful city that is just a conglomeration of every place and race of people I have ever seen. (Slight side fact, almost half of the people we have contacted for the last 4 days are either of Vietnamese or Filipino decent.)

Macau Sky Tower

Macau City Center

Elder M and I were graciously picked up by Elder T (a former flat mate of mine from about a year and a half ago -- I was in Chaiwan and he was a Mandarin Elder in TKO) and taken back to our apartment. The wheel on my luggage couldn't handle the European-style cobblestone roadway and so it rolled off every 50 yards or so. We made it home and took an inventory of our surroundings and then promptly planned out the rest of the day. 

Famous cobblestone streets in Macau

There are 7 companionships serving in Macau right now: 4 of those are Cantonese, 1 is Tagalog/Cebuano, 1 is English, and 1 is Mandarin. Our companionship is in charge of one island called Taipa. Taipa is 2 miles wide by 3 miles long and only about 1/3 of it is developed. It is what we call "New Macau" since it is where all the new growth is happening. New Casinos are going up and new housing complexes are being built in the vicinity. 

Our first night together we explored a park and then got hopelessly lost while trying to get home later that night. We finally made it back and called the only 2 former investigators that live in Taipa. One was a guy named John who we scheduled for the next day, and then got a member, Parker, to come fellowship for us. (Another side story; Parker W was found 2 years ago by my buddy Elder Rostrom and baptized soon after that!) He is a stud.

Our lesson with John went splendidly. We were really able to get to know him and Elder M did a great job extending an invitation to baptism. He accepted! So with less than 24 hours under our belts in our new area we had a member-present lesson, a new investigator, and a baptismal date! He also rescheduled to meet 2 days later for church!

After that lesson the 4 Cantonese companionships and 1 Mandarin companionship had our branch correlation meeting. We all serve in the Macau 1st Branch. Following our meeting we took a bus to a plaza on the Macau side and had a Branch missionary display. There were 2 or 3 tents and about a dozen different banners and pass-along materials. There were probably about 15 members with us! It felt so good to be working that closely with branch leaders and members who I had met mere moments before! 

That evening as we were heading back home with the Mandarin Elders we realized that we had grabbed the wrong keys and therefore couldn't get into our apartment, so we turned around and went back into the Macau side and slept on the floor of the other Elder's apartment. I've never heard anything quite like the chorus of 8 snoring missionaries all in one 10x15 square room!

The next morning we headed back down just in time for a locksmith to come and help us take care of it. That day we did a little more exploring of our island and realized just how many tourists there really are and how ineffective it can be to find within even half a mile of the casino strip. That evening we had a branch Easter activity, and although we didn't have any investigators in attendance, we went anyway to meet with the members and introduce ourselves. By evening we were absolutely beat and crashed. Then at 2:30 AM there was an absolutely deafening crack and I looked over at the top of the other bunk bed where by companion was sleeping and saw him at a 45 degree angle crushing the legs of Elder T right below him. Elder T instinctively threw up his arms as Elder M rolled off of the bed and the other end of the bed fell on his head! Miraculously no one was hurt in anyway but the bed frame had finally given way! The last two nights Elder M had to sleep on the floor. At 2:30 AM that was just about the funniest thing that any one of us had experienced and so it took about an hour to fall back asleep and get over our fits of laughter. 

Welcome to Church in Macau!...in English, Chinese, and Portuguese:)

Sunday was a great day. John really did show up for church! He seemed to have a really good experience and the branch members were very friendly to him.

The Lord really has blessed us this past week! We were able to find John again, teach a lot of street lessons to FAMILIES, safety, and good attitudes as we fight the cockroach infestation in our apartment (I'm not kidding!). We still don't have fresh water to drink or gas to cook our food or heat water for showers, but hopefully that will be something we can fix today during P-Day. We already set up a new bed to replace the broken one this morning. 

Things are well. I'm enjoying the change in scenery and training again.

Love, 

Elder Siebach