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

Finding, Finding, and More Finding

Dear Friends and Family,

Things are going. Not sure in which direction, but time is ticking and Elder M and I have been working hard. We probably did between 20 and 25 hours of street contacting this past week. Certainly not a mission record but a lot when I consider that for the last 1.5 years of my mission we've had people to teach. I find myself often reflecting on my first few months in the mission when my trainer and I also opened a companionship. I wish that I would have paid a little more attention to what he did and see if there were any things that I could magnify now.

Taipa is a wonderful place to serve. It's an interesting place to serve as well. Macau in and of itself is very separate from the rest of the mission; and considering it's a separate "Special Administrative Region" we can't keep contact through phones with any of the missionaries on that side of the mission. Then throw in that Elder M and I serve the Southern of 2 islands. We are completely isolated from even Macau missionaries who spend all their time on the Macau side. It's a little bit like an undercover mission for me.

We worked and we worked and we worked this week. We were blessed though. We taught 13 street lessons in 4 languages--kind of:) -- Cantonese, English, British English, and broken Mandarin/Cantonese. We contacted about 1000 I would guess (meaning we spoke with them for a minute or more), and got about 50 phone numbers. It could have been really monotonous to be doing so much finding all week but we've been making it fun by finding with a topic scripture in mind. During each companionship study we've looked over what we read during personal study and found one verse or passage that we plan on sharing in any contact we have that day. It's been working well and a good way for us to use the Book of Mormon and make sure that we stay on the same page since, as expected, Elder M doesn't understand everything that we talk about on the street.

Being tourists in Macau--Thanks to Elder M's mom:)

The other thing we did to break up the monotony was to try a few different finding methods. We knocked a few doors, we found in parks, on buses, on streets and side walks, we contacted a guy while he was waiting in a parking lot, and we try to squeeze taking pictures during the water breaks we have. We also did some University finding. We were forewarned by the Mandarin Elders that the 2 Universities in Taipa were a little bit harder for Cantonese contacting. They said that Macau University of Science and Technology is about 90% Mandarin speakers, and that the University of Macau is about 50%. So with those odds we spent 3 hours one day proselyting at UM. They proved to be prophetic. Of the people we contacted, a little over 50% of them were mandarin speakers. Just as we were about to end for that portion of the afternoon though we stopped one girl. She was really willing to talk with us and curious about our message. We shared the Restoration with her, gave her a BoM and rescheduled her for this week. She's Cantonese which is awesome! However, she lives on the Macau side and since she's 21 we'll have to turn her over to the sister missionaries.

That kind of was our week in a nut shell though. We were really blessed to find people to teach but they either live in Mainland and just come down here to work, they live on the Macau side, or they aren't native Cantonese speakers. We haven't struck gold yet... Certainly a learning experience.

During one of the lessons we had this week (it was in English since the guy was from Nepal) we had a girl come up to us and actually ask if she could have our number since she wants to learn more about Christ! We were pretty floored. We're pretty sure she lives in Taipa, but she'll still have to get turned over eventually is our thought. Great story though. I think that's the first time on my mission where someone has come up to me seeking to learn.

One opportunity that we had this week was to go and teach a less-active lesson. Our mission correlator, Brother H, is a fireball. He has so much enthusiasm and really gets missionary work. Every Tuesday evening he has the missionaries come together and tries to get as many members as willing to participate, and sends them off on splits to go teach lessons to members that he has scheduled for us! Because members were short this week, Elder M and I went with one of our Zone Leaders, Elder F, and visited twin 16 year old boys. We had a good conversation with them, but it's sad to see boys that are Grace's age not in the church. I think we did pretty well building a friendship with them and maybe we can help them come back!

This past week we thought we were going to get some member-present lessons, but unfortunately John left Macau this past week because he had some family things come up that he had to take care of. And the only other person that we had scheduled for this week confirmed the morning of the appointment and so we went to the church and she was a no-show. We had a member and everything with us. We eventually were able to get hold of her, (her name is Leslie believe it or not) but she said that her mother-in-law forbade her from coming to meet with us and said many other things that probably shouldn't be written out in a mass letter... sufficeth to say, we probably won't be able to see her for the time being.

We're still working hard. Hopefully I can come back with a nice tan face and pasty white neckline :)

That's all for now folks. Keep us and all other missionaries in your prayers! We need them! I love you all.

Love,

Elder Siebach

-I'll send some pics if the computer will be fast...

P.S.-- By the way I finally got the Easter package this week that you guys sent out! It's delicious! Thanks:)

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