We are emailing a bit early today, don't be alarmed if this comes in without time for you to send anything. Dad's prediction is slowly coming true, my emails feel a bit perfunctory.
But I have a lot of cool experiences to share this week. Another great week in NTK, we didn't quite have as many lessons as last week but that's because we have some real investigators now. New, but starting. Like a fledgling chick just out of the shell. It's amazing what keeping commitments can do for these people. More on that when it happens. We didn't have anyone at church but that was largely because we had Stake Conference in Wan Chai, which was a bit far. We had Elder Rasband, the senior president of the Quorum of the 70, his wife, the temple presidency and obviously stake presidency speak to us. All really great. One interesting way to measure your conversion is how interested you are in church meetings. From this I can see that I was not very converted before my mission but significantly more so now. I loved it all.
The best part was Ida, the recent convert. On the Saturday Evening session Elder Rasband used the whole time to do questions and extemp. answers, and Ida asked when China would open. The answer was standard, "we hope soon, but we will be cooperating entirely with the government". The cool thing was Ida's question. I don't know exactly what it was but I could just feel her testimony so strongly when she asked. She is amazing. Since her baptism 2 friends have been baptized (one of them KK) and another friend in Mainland will be baptized as soon as she can arrange a time. I was more moved by that question than by anything else for quite a while.
A really cool experience that we had happened as Elder Au and I were walking home to do English class. We had decided not to take the MTR, and as we were walking in NTK lower estate, we saw an old guy pulling a box full of cardboard and carrying a bag, walking slowly and with a bit of difficulty. Understand that in Hong Kong they have a big recycling push and the gov. will buy cardboard, paper, cans etc. Not for much, but enough that there is an entire class of almost homeless old people whose living is collecting cardboard. Pretty tragic, but usually not much you can do. This time we both decided to ask the guy if he needed help. Usually they reject help but this guy accepted. I soon realized why. As we took the box and bag (both of which were maybe 5 or 10 lb) and started walking with him, I realized that he was really in bad straits. He was maybe 80, and walked as slow as a 2 year old. And after talking a bit (he didn't say much) he said that he'd fallen that day and hurt his hip. He had to rest every minute or so, and cling to me or a hand rail, and even with that almost fell once. We walked with him for 10 minutes or so, found a little cart with 15 or 20 lbs of cardboard on it, and took that as well, walked another 5 minutes to his house, helped him carry it into his apartment. He lives alone, his room has almost nothing in it. He could barely walk. When we first started asking him about what was wrong, there was one time when he sat down and said that he fell, and then just sort of groaned in pain or despair or fear.
I literally think that if we hadn't been there he may have died. He would have tried to pull all the cardboard home, almsot 50 lb, and he definitely would have fallen again, and really might have died. I am so grateful we stopped. I cannot express how glad I am that God would trust us to help him. Never ignore the old or the poor. Yeah, there are many you can't help or who don't want or need help. But there are those who need us. I really don't want to think of what would happen if we hadn't stopped. That was the best part of this week, even though we didn't have time to prep English class or eat.
Some other little things.
Next week is temple week, I will email on next Tuesday.
I want to get a book called Warfare in the Book of Mormon. Want is not an expressive enough word. Also some Hugh Nibley stuff.
I ran into a German guy and couldn't speak German. I wept bitter tears.
I had a dream that Joseph was a super fast backstroke swimmer. Just saying...
I know the Book of Mormon is true. I have learned so much from it this week. It's not the historic proof that convinces me. NO mortal man could write a book with so much power. Read it. It's true. I know that the Savior lives.
Elder Morrell
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