Two Elder Siebachs!!

Dear Family and Friends,

First off, I want to say congrats to my kid brother Sterling who goes into the MTC this week! He's headed to Tokyo-- our old stomping grounds!! Sayonara man!

Elder Sterling Siebach greeted at the MTC by his cousin Elder Luke Hartung!!

What an incredible week we had this past week! Things could not have gone better! Well, actually they could have. We could have had more people at church... But, all complaints aside, it was an inspiring week:)

A few weeks back we were riding a bus from the South side of our island to the north. As we went I was lost in thought looking out the window when we came to an intersection that had a plaza with a fountain right in the middle of it. Forgetting for a moment that we were in Taipa, I quickly thought in my mind, "Oh, if we served the Macau side that would be a good place for finding." 3 minutes later, and now completely out of sight of the plaza, I remembered where we were. For the next several days Elder M and I would go finding and try to relocate that perfect spot, but to no avail. Finally, this past Monday evening, we were out in the drizzling rain at the close of another P-Day when we found it!  The reason it was so hard to find was that all the shops, buildings, and roads around it are raised higher than the plaza so unless you are higher up (i.e. a bus) you wouldn't know where to go!  By the grace of God we found it and spent the rest of the evening there. It wasn't a lot of time, but it was really effective!  We taught three lessons and found two new Nepalese investigators. So that's how our awesome week started off!

The next day, Tuesday, we were in Macau for district meeting, language pass-offs with the Zone Leaders (mostly for Elder M, but I like to do it as well), Correlation meeting, and a special training meeting designed to teach ward members how to effectively meet with, share with, and commit less active members to retake the lessons. Each missionary companionship had a part so we were all in attendance, however, the members weren't... Ugh! We had 2 members there and then our Correlator and a less active member-- of all people! It proved to be a great day for us though since we were also able to meet with John in the middle of the afternoon and had Brother Kwan, the 2nd Counselor in the Branch Presidency help out. We shared about tithing and fasting and it was great. Brother Kwan is a professional MMA fighter and a hulking figure if I ever saw one. But, his testimony is as strong as he is and deep down I think he's probably a big teddy bear. He really helped John a lot.

The next day, Wednesday, we were able to meet with Rex, and spend some time reading scriptures with him. We had one of our ward missionaries, Eddie, help us out. Rex is 21 and it really feels like he and I are best friends. Awesome guy, really relaxed and has good interest. We just needed to clarify that we don't invite him to the church just to get out of the stifling heat and have A/C--haha!. We had a great lesson with him and rescheduled to meet him this coming Sunday for church. He committed to read daily even though he is super busy with exams this next week. We then ran back to Taipa and had only about 45 minutes to find before we had to turn back around to meet some other potential investigators we had scheduled at the church. In those 45 minutes we tried a new approach where we went to the University and on a clip-board had a flier for mormon.org with places for people to leave their contact information. It was like giving candy to a baby it was so easy! In 45 minutes we had 16 emails, and 15 cell-phone numbers. Everyone we approached gave us their info pretty much. We ended up getting canceled on for our lesson which was a bummer, but it gave us time to get dinner which we wouldn't have had otherwise. At 7:15 we went on a split with the Mandarin Elders and I went with Elder Ketring back to Taipa to turn over Tyler, one of our awesome investigators--with a baptismal date too. Right after those lessons we got back with our companions and Elder M and went back to visit a Filipino family we had taught the week before. The husband and wife weren't home unfortunately, but we met the grandmother and some of the children and were able to teach them a lesson. Hopefully we can get the whole family this next time.

Thursday was weekly planning. We got about half-way into weekly planning and I just turned to Elder M and said, "How about we worry about this a bit later and go finding instead?" Like the good sport he is, he said, "Sure, where?" So we blazed on down to the southern tip of our island and knocked the 2 doors that had some promise from the week before when we were down there. One was with 87 year old Mr. Ho. He is a good guy. Lots of patience and a little bit lonely. He was happy to see us again. We talked about the life of Christ and he decided to become a new investigator. Then 2nd door we knocked was for a Vietnamese worker whom we contacted the week before. We gave her some of the pamphlets in Vietnamese, explained prayer, and scheduled to come back next week. We're looking to try and get a Vietnamese recent convert named Anna to go down there with us and help us teach. That evening we had rescheduled our two Nepalese friends from this past Monday and we gave them a Hindi Book of Mormon and testified of how it has blessed our families and our lives. Both of them are fathers of 2 and 3 children respectively. They are curious about Christianity but were very clear in explaining that due to family circumstances they won't be able to convert or anything. That didn't stop us though! We're giving them a call tonight to see if we can meet again. The last thing we did that night was go up to the church to start a 24-hour companion exchange with the Macau South Elders. I went to Macau South with Elder Peacock. He came the same time as Elder M to the mission and is from Bangor, Ireland. Great guy.

Heading off on an exchange

When I got to the Macau Elder's apartment that evening I talked with the Zone Leaders for a few minutes and they told me about a miracle that they had had that day. They said that 1-2 months ago they were visiting an LA and seeking referrals. She didn't have any to give so then they asked if she knew of an LA friends of hers that they could meet with. She did. She mentioned two names. Jeff and Cherry. They ZLs spent the next few weeks trying to find anyone in the ward who knew them or even where they lived. Their records weren't in the ward list either. No leads. Then one night as they were finding the contacted a woman and she mentioned that her cousin was an LA named Jeff. That was their first lead. They were about to get Jeff's info during their 2nd meeting but this investigator was anti-ed really badly and wouldn't meet them again. Then Thursday night the Macau Sister companionship were in the chapel when three people walked in. Like all missionaries they went over to meet them and greet them and found out that 1 of them was from out of town and had scheduled the other two, Jeff and Cherry, to pick her up at the church. The Sisters were able to get Jeff's number and address! (So that is the first part of the miracle find.The 2nd part is that in my companionship when we were calling through some really old potential investigator records, we found a lady named Cherry and the only info we had was that she was a referral from a member named Brother Chow). So I turned to the Zone Leaders after the had told me all this and simple asked, Is Jeff's last name Chow? To which they said, "Yes!". I then explained that we had been in touch with Cherry a few weeks previously and had been trying to schedule her. I had also written her name and number down in my daily planner for further follow-up. So there you have it. 3 different companionships, 2 months of effort, and we've found a formerly untraceable family! They also have 3 children who haven't been baptized yet and the parents would consider coming back to church. (I guess the reason they stopped coming in the first place was because after they graduated from BYU and moved to Macau they didn't feel welcome in the Branch the first week and subsequently decided to stop coming). So the lesson is, be welcoming to all visitors! 

Anyway, back to the week...We had a great exchange finding, teaching 2 scheduled lessons, as well as a less active member lesson. Lots of good things happening in their companionship as well. We ended our exchange that evening and made our way back to Taipa. Our phone had stopped working the day before because the mission forgot to pay the phone bill... Miraculously our District Leader was able to pay it for us and so we were able to make some phone calls that night.

Saturday we finished our weekly planning and then had spurts of finding in between dinner and a less active member visit which, by the way, was full of surprises. We went with our Correlator to visit another Brother who is his friend. Turns out this guy absolutely loves animals. He has 3 dogs, a turtle, and 20+ fish. When he came to the door he was in a tank-top and short shorts. He looked like a mess too. All we could hear was whimpering in the background. He ushered us in and showed us that one of his dogs had given birth to a litter of 10 puppies just an hour before we got there. He had been playing "vet" all afternoon before we came. Had a great lesson! Lots of noise and really fun!

So there you have it. Our week was awesome--the best yet here in Taipa--we were really blessed! We were able to invite Rex to set a baptismal date yesterday! We had lots of member-present lessons, a bunch of other lessons (13 of which were right on the street!), and we found 8 new investigators! The Lord really blessed us this week and we're looking forward to another great week to come! John is preparing to be baptized this coming Sunday if all goes well! We're meeting him tonight to introduce him to the Branch EQ President (men's group leader). We're doing great! 

Keep your heads up! Look for opportunities to share testimony whether it is through your words or actions!

Love,

Elder Siebach

U-Turns

Dear Friends and Family,

At a casino buffet for lunch

Another week down here in Taipa. The weather has made a turn for the better and we didn't really have any storms of significance. We did have a day where the skies just couldn't decide if they wanted to rain or not. Consequently it rained for 2 minutes and stopped for just enough time to dry (10 minutes) and then it rained again. On our way to one appointment it rained and cleared 3 or 4 times! 

Over the last month or so Elder M and I have walked every inch on the roads in Taipa and so we decided to go out and explore the south-eastern part of the Taipa Island. From all we knew there was a hospital, prison, and beach in the vicinity. We were happily surprised to see that besides beach-side restaurants and pubs there were also a few places to knock. We taught a simple lesson to an 81 year old man, we contacted a tourist-y looking grandmother and were able to share our testimonies of family with her, and we knocked the door of a heart-diseased European with no interest, and homes where Vietnamese maids were home. Obviously we didn't go into those homes. It was pretty sunny that day and since we hadn't packed water we were about to turn around and look for a restaurant but as we were walking down the street a car pulled up right next to us. Kinda freaked me out honestly; I thought someone was going to yell at us. Instead, we were greeted by a friendly, "Hey missionaries!". Turns out we were contacting near the apartment of some members from the Macau 2nd Branch (2nd branch is for non-Chinese speakers). Really nice mom and her 3 daughters asked us where we were headed and invited us to dinner. We politely declined since we had an appointment at that same time. But before she left she told us all the codes to get into the fancy apartment buildings down there! We'll see if we ever get the courage to go knock on Westerner apartments.

In companionship right now we have 4 pretty solid investigators. 3 of them have baptismal dates, and the 4th one is praying about whether he needs to be baptized or not. He's got a lot of sincerity so I'm not too worried that he won't get an answer. John continues to make progress and says that he knows that the Book of Mormon is true and will continue to work towards being baptized in June. A-Fan is doing OK. We are trying to find a time that we can meet with her and introduce her to the sister missionaries. She still has her baptismal date for the middle of June but she struggles finding time for reading, praying and church since college finals are right around the corner for her. Tyler is another one of our solid investigators. We met with him twice this week and were blessed to have members at both lessons. He is making great progress, however, we also need to turn him over since his Mandarin is better than his Cantonese. We're looking to do that this week. The last investigator is Rex. We haven't seen him for a little over a week but that is because of work and he's also preparing for finals. He's also coming along well.

This week Elder M and I were blessed to have a number of lessons scheduled. We were able to get some members to come along which will go a long way for helping these investigators, and of course we did some finding:) The irony of the situation is that it took miracles for us to find the investigators we have, but they don't do much for our companionship since we keep having to turn them over to other missionaries. Since we have been able to get into the apartments, we have taught 2 lessons. One was a Mandarin who respectfully listened but then didn't have time to reschedule, and the other was a Filipino father that we've rescheduled for this next week and hope to be able to meet him and his wife. Great lessons but they will need to be turned over to the appropriate companionships. It's all the same work so I don't mind too much. 

This past Saturday marked 30 days for me in Macau and with my visa I had to leave the island. Saturday morning Elder M and I went into Hong Kong to renew my visa, get his HK ID and then pick up supplies at the mission home. Since American's can only stay in Macau a total of 60 days unless they have special permission, I will have to leave Macau in 20 days time and then again 10 days later, at which point I will have to leave for good. Since transfers are 64 days, I'm praying that as we continue on down the road I will be able to get a special "Black Stamp" that would allow me to stay until I finish my mission. So that's all on the horizon right now.

This past Sunday was a great day for us. We had 2 investigators in church and it was Branch Conference. President Hawks and the mission presidency came out and each of the three of them took a different hour of the 3-hour block. President Hawks started us off in Sacrament Meeting and really powerfully invited the members to grasp onto the idea of "Zion" being both a place and a people. With President Holland having been in Macau about 3 months ago and dedicating the land for missionary work he quoted some of those promises in regards to the growth and potential of Macau. There are 2 small branches right now but with the vision that an Apostle of the Lord has for this place, there will one day be stakes in Macau and a temple. It's all very exciting and being a missionary and sitting in the midst of the members and investigators it really impacted me. He finished his thoughts by encouraging investigators to hold on to the gospel and build their foundations. I think it was really good for those that were in attendance.

After church there was a baptismal service for Tomson C. He is a power-house. The whole ceremony went exactly as it should and afterwards he shared his testimony. He talked about learning the gospel once before but turning from it. Then recently having a strong desire to know the truth and so he called the missionaries up. Through meeting with the missionaries he found that his questions were resolved. However, much like Joseph Smith he wanted to investigate other churches and see if there was something more. He talked about the peace that he found in the Book of Mormon and that regardless of what his friends and family said about this church being a cult he had a witness from the Spirit that it was truth and that it was good. So prepared! I was so impressed by his comments and the insights that he has. Even before being baptized he was with the missionaries almost daily and would attend "less-active finding" activities with the missionaries where he would share his testimony and invite these members to come back. He'll be a powerful influence in Macau for good if he will continue to endure! And all this from a mere 16 year old boy!

It's been a great week and really highlighted by the events of this past weekend. We're looking forward to another week full of miracles! Best of luck to all of you in your missionary efforts!

Love,
Elder Siebach

BTW, today for P-Day we went to one of the buffets in the Sands Casino. Super good. Super stuffed, but the food I ate that was new and exotic was snails--yum!

Slamming Doors? Slamming Tim-Tams!

Dear Friends and Family,

First of all, Happy Mother's Day! Love you Mom! Things have been a whirlwind this past week. The days just seemed like they took care of themselves. I haven't really formulated any thoughts for this week's letter since yesterday I called home and shared an hour's worth of thoughts. It was so great to talk to the family!! Ya'll sound great. Good luck to Sterling in these last couple weeks of pre-mission preparations! 

One of the other real high-lights of the week was the rain! A blessing and a curse. I personally really enjoy rain. Pre-mission, I loved to work in it and to fall asleep to it. As a missionary I only like to fall asleep to it :) It's hard to keep a maintained look in monsoon rains. Thankfully we got haircuts last week so as our hair flattened to our foreheads it wasn't in our eyes or over our ears. Since this is my last transfer and I left about 1/2 my clothes in the mission home. I somehow forgot both my umbrella and raincoat in that suitcase. Hmm--not sure what I was thinking there! Elder M has been really good to me, loaning me his umbrella on a number of occasions while he uses a raincoat. He also has a waterproof bag, and so he often carries our copies of the Book of Mormon and weekly planners so that we don't ruin them. The rain was so torrential on some days that when we went outside there was no one for blocks and so we turned back around and went inside and made calls to potential and former investigators until the rain slowed down. Other days we went out anyway and made our way down covered alleyways and under trees to get some relief and attempt a contact. The Lord saw us working and blessed us, and if nothing else, we were able to talk to these people and bear testimony.

Sharing the gospel on the street:)

On Friday the rain was going as hard as I've ever seen it, and with so few covered places we decided to try our luck at "tracting" in apartment buildings. That was quite the experience. Despite that everyone told me, getting into apartments is easier in Macau than it is in Hong Kong! I was a little apprehensive and worried at how the apartment guards would treat us. We smiled at them, and walked through as if we had an appointment or something. They didn't stop us. That was the first tracting miracle. The 2nd was that from the 21st floor (the top) to the 3rd floor (where we stopped that evening) none of the residents complained about our presence and knocking. (Essentially if anyone calls the guards for anything they come up and escort missionaries out. It's typically an unpleasant experience with unfavorable consequences like being banned from housing estates, etc...) So we knocked at each door of those apartments, got a couple of numbers, had a few doors slammed on us, met some Filipina workers who had been previous investigators, and almost taught a man in his apartment doorway. Then on the 4th floor we knocked on the door of some Mainland Construction workers. He opened to us and beckoned us in. In my incredibly poor Mandarin I tried to explain who we were and what we did. He nodded in some sort of approval and then rummaged through his bags to pull out his passport. I'm not sure if he thought the 2 white foreigners were policemen or what. A minute or so later 3 or 4 of his apartment mates come through the door and miraculously one of them spoke some Cantonese. We sat him down and taught a 5-minute Restoration message. Because of the nature of Christian Missionaries and Mainlanders we were unable to get their Mainland cellphone numbers and had to call it at that. We're hoping to go back in a few days and see if we can't find him again.

Speaking of Mainlanders. On Tuesday night we were finding in the rain and came to a park which had a slightly protected area. We approached someone who we could tell was most likely from Mainland and sure enough he was. Although he couldn't speak a lick of Cantonese he spoke fluent English and was once an exchange student in Denmark. Really nice guy named Tyler who lives in Taipa to work in the construction business and build casinos (any Mainlander living in Taipa is employed doing the same thing). He had already done a ton of research on the LDS faith and wanted to schedule to meet with us. We got to teach him Friday evening and then he was at church with us just last night for the English services.

In the middle of the week we were really happy that we were able to meet with a guy named Rex whom we met last week. He is a 21 year old college student and has a lot of interest in the gospel as well as learning English. Really nice guy. We met at the church and he had already read the first couple pages of the Book of Mormon and was looking to learn more about Joseph Smith. We had planned on reading 1 Nephi 1 with him but switched gears and had a really great lesson reading portions on 2 Nephi 3 and talking about how Joseph of Egypt had seen and prophesied of Joseph Smith. He thought that was really cool and we've got him scheduled for church this week!

Wednesday morning we met with John. He's had some challenges in his family for the last month or so and it's been hard to really see him. We've felt pretty helpless ourselves. This past week though we were able to share the Plan of Salvation with him and it went really well. He said he feels that this knowledge will help him and that he feels that as he has been praying for help he has received answers on how to help his family! We just need to get him to pray and get answers about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith too! 

Besides these investigators we are also teaching a girl named A-Fan. She's 21 and also a college student, so we are trying to turn her over to the sister missionaries (don't worry!) She's a very logical thinker but is interested and feels like God is leading her to learn more about Christianity. She came to us this morning with some concerns about whether or not we believe in the Bible, why people are punished for disobedience to God, and what our thoughts towards other Christians are.  We had a really good lesson and I was really grateful for her questions and insights. As we were teaching and answering these questions I had an example come to me that I thought was pretty related to her as well as to all of us. Here it is:

When someone applies for a position of any sort or entrance into a University, for instance, there are requirements. We have to be at a certain level before we are granted admission. If we aren't granted admission it is like a penalty of sorts. There isn't much of an outward struggle, but internally we might be a little bothered. Following the Gospel of Jesus Christ is like trying to get into college where the only admissions exam question is to write your name. It's that simple. Anyone can do it. But people choose not to. So God, in his infinite wisdom and justice doesn't just show them in. When we don't enlist in His army we can't have the full blessings that we would have otherwise received (there are a lot of scriptures along this line in D&C 88:32-33). Nothing earth-shattering, but a simple example that I've been mulling over ever since. Maybe it will help someone understand a little better. We have A-Fan rescheduled for this coming Friday where we hope to be able to read with her, turn her over to the Sister missionaries, and teach her more about the Plan of Salvation.

Good times in Macau!

Now for Friday--my birthday!!! It was good but relatively mundane for the first 16 hours. We knocked doors as I mentioned earlier, it rained, we made some potential calls, and then at 6:30 we went to a Thai restaurant for dinner. We got some Green Curry and Pad Thai. Super tasty! Then we went to the local Dairy Queen (yes they have those here in Macau but not Hong Kong) and got milkshakes. At 7:30 we taught Tyler for the 2nd time and that evening we came home made calls, planned, and at 10 pm the other elders in my apartment had pulled together some money and bought 3 dessert wafer things and then we TimTam slammed! It would take me too long to explain what that is, so I'll have to tell you later, but it was great. And that's how we ushered in my 21st birthday, Macau-Missionary style! Now our apartment has one Elder each who is 21, 20, 19, and 18.

Can you Tim-Tam Slam?

Things are well. We're working hard; probably will continue to find and teach and get people ready for baptism despite the stifling heat/humidity and rain/humidity (notice how no matter what the weather is doing, it is humid!) It's bad here. Some of our clothes, even though they get hung up, stay a little wet and in two days' time start growing a little bit of white mold.

Keep the faith! Work, pray, and seek for missionary moments!

Love,

Elder Siebach

P.S. Pictures to come eventually. Not this week though, sorry.

Working Hard, Seeing Results

Dear Mom, Happy Mother's Day!

It's hard to believe that another half a year has gone by! Just yesterday was Christmas, I swear. Things have been going well in Taipa. Elder M and I are getting along great, and besides the British English versus American English language barrier (haha!) we are completely united in the work. Which there seems to be plenty of that! We end each of our days with thanks to God for the miracles that we witness each day and then crash. It's been a long time since I've been as tired as I am now. I wouldn't want it any other way though. If anything I just want to work harder.

This past week we had a great opportunity to meet with President Hawks as he went around and conducted interviews with each of the missionaries in the mission. We each got about 10 minutes and it was more of a chat than anything else. We talked about the area, the branch, the apartment, and other such things. And as I talked about how it was I just had an overwhelming impression that this is exactly where I am supposed to be. I don't know for whom; whether that is an investigator, my companion, or just for myself. But I know that Taipa is absolutely the right area for me. I expressed a little bit of concern to President Hawks over the fact that I felt that we worked so hard but that we weren't seeing new people in Taipa and he just reassured me by saying, "Elder, I didn't think it would be easy." Which to me was a bit of a relief. If he thought this would have been easy I would have started to question every missionary tactic I've learned in the last 23 months. He said one other thing that really pushed me to want to do even better. And that was that he knows that I am obedient and that I will work hard until the end of my mission. I thought that was quite a compliment. There are 139 other missionaries who would die to be in the position I'm in right now, but, he and the Lord chose me. I don't want to let any of them down and slow down even one bit!

This week we started with lots of finding and were blessed to have a lot of lessons within the first 3/4 days. They didn't all transfer into new investigators though and so that kept us on our feet as we looked for people who would continue to meet with us. By Thursday/Friday we started to really see some things happen. Thursday we spent some time doing our weekly planning and spent a fair amount of time talking about how obedient we were and if we could be even more so. We came up with 2 or 3 things that we are going to work on to stay even more exactly obedient (i.e. not singing anything besides Church music, and not talking about anything that could even remotely construed as post-mission talk.) We also went to the Lord and asked him to bless us as we work to accomplish some of the goals that we have for our companionship this month and this transfer. Friday morning we had Zone Training Meeting and were reminded of the importance of boldly declaring our message when we first interact with potential investigators. With these things in mind we hit the streets and felt that even though we had fewer lessons, they were better lessons in the long-run. It also gave us an opportunity to try these same things on two investigators that we had scheduled, as well as on a potential whom we were able to reschedule and teach at the church.

With our new focuses we felt that we were even more productive and that it helped invite the Spirit in quicker and more powerfully. It was really exciting to be able to work with Elder M that way.

Saturday we had a street display and met a guy named L who wants to meet with us. He's looking for answers to some rather bizarre questions, but also has a spark of interest. Sunday we scheduled R and found out that he had investigated the church 3 years prior. For some reason he had dropped off, but now would like to learn some more and so we will be working with him too. J is still coming along and doing great.

For the time being we're doing well. Working hard, seeing results. We just wish that all the above mentioned people lived in Taipa and not in Macau :P  Ah well, the Lord will provide. Thanks everyone for the birthday messages! I'm looking forward to a good 21st year!

 

Love,

Elder Siebach