Monday, April 13, 2015

April 6, 2015 - I testify as a representative of Christ that He lives, and because He lives we all can.

Hello Happy Family!

So we had some cool stuff this week. We got a lot of chances to teach some of our investigators. You wouldn't guess it, but there is a super long Easter break in Hong Kong. All the students are out of school for like 2 weeks, and lots of businesses are closed as well. As I have mentioned before, there are a lot more Christians in Hong Kong than you'd expect, (though most would probably fail the Alma 5 test, they're just Christian-high-school-converts) and there have been some significant Easter activities, but I suspect the real reason for the break is that this year Easter lines up with Ching Ming Jit, which is where people go and jai jou, or baai saan.

Which means they worship their ancestors. Hong Kong is not the most devout place in regards to the tradition ancestor worship, especially with the younger generation, but on holidays like this they still get the old ancestral blood pumping and head for the "high places". Old Testament reference there...

The end result is that people are pretty available to meet with us. We met with A Sing twice and A Chung twice. And we had a cool newish investigator named A Fung who we taught a really powerful lessons about Plan of Salvation to. It was awesome. You know that feeling where you really feel how the atonement is the center of everything, and you can articulate it clearly, and they feel it too, and everything clicks? Oh right, that's just us missionaries...

So that was our week. Pretty cool stuff.

Dad,

I like that advice. I guess it's always tricky because I'm not perfect either, but I've really been thinking about that sort of teaching by example, and I actually had remembered that story. I know for myself that when people tell me what I'm doing wrong bluntly, it's often hard to accept and change, having it shown or initiated by me makes it a lot easier to take.

As I mentioned our investigators are doing pretty well. A Sing has been to church 3 times in a row (which is a pretty big thing in Hong Kong) and he reads Book or Mormon really fast. He's already in 2 Nephi. His only obstacle is 1) I think that he doesn't read every day, he just reads really fast every now and then and 2) He hasn't gotten or at least hasn't recognized a testimony yet. That's always a tough step because we can't do it for him. Elder Bednar has a lot of trainings about making people agents and not objects, so in pursuit of that we gave him an invitation to read a list of scriptures we compiled from the Book of Mormon that talk about receiving testimony or revelation. I'm impressed that the first 1/4 of the book of Mormon has a ton of stuff on that. Definitely no accident.

A Chung has been doing well, but he fonged us on Saturday and we haven't got in contact with him since. We had to drop his baptismal date because he hasn't been to church yet and it's too close. So pray for him.

A Fung is a cool guy who loves English and German (of all things) and has a mangled hand from an industrial accident that means that he doesn't have to work for the rest of his life. He's started reading and was really impressed by Nephi in I Nephi 4.

Kelvin is not doing great. He's been too busy to meet for a bit, and on the phone it seems like he's sort of discouraged/ fed up with stuff. So we need to teach a super powerful lesson this Wednesday.

Our other investigators are in Mainland right now.

We had some guy at our English class named John who played Guitar and spoke pretty good English, so he taught part of it, played a song called The Wrangle Mountain Song. Do you know it? It's stuck in my head.

Mom,

I am super looking forward to General Conference. It is probably the happiest time for missionaries. I always used to have to fight being sleepy before, but now it's just 10 hours of paradise. We've got several investigators who I’m hoping will really be able to obtain testimonies from it, one of whom is an awesome lady named Yaliwe.

We met Yaliwe 2 or 3 weeks ago. She's from Zambia, and speaks pretty good English. We just exchanged numbers in a park, and I almost forgot about her, then going through potential sheets I saw her name and called, scheduled for Sunday, and she is awesome. She is Evangelical, but really understood what we taught, and even noted down the scriptures so she could review them later. She'll be coming to the Saturday Afternoon session.

One weakness I feel that we have as a companionship that I'm hoping to improve through study is teaching too long. I don't know if the language has anything to do with it, but I feel like we teach too long most of the time, and it takes away from really powerful lessons. Still loving life!

Joseph,

Your class may not be impressed, but at least now you know the stuff about Lenin. That's how I felt about a lot of stuff that I learned, it might not be useful for school but it's useful because it is real, and I know it. Like the The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich book. Every time people talk about Nazi's I can pone them because I've read that book. It's awesome.

This Sunday, because of numbers and a late lesson, I had no dinner time at all, (after fasting,) and ended up having a piece of bread and some frosted flakes during numbers to break my fast. I don't recommend it. I woke up this morning weak and feeble, a feeling I'm sure that you find foreign.

I like the idea of the advanced body weight thing, because on your mission you might not have any work out equipment, but if you know how to do other work outs, you'll be fine. I especially like the idea of the study thing. As I mentioned before, a good understanding of the lessons in chapter 3 will help you much more than you'd think. Being able to say that you've read the whole Bible is a really good thing when you talk to other Christians. And perhaps most important is that you have to really have and be able to share a testimony of the Book of Mormon. You have to know it's true and be able to tell people how it's helped you. Elder Bednar (who is way more awesome than you might think) has a cool thing he recommends, which is to take a blank missionary copy of the Book of Mormon and go through it, looking for a specific topic, for example, the work strength, or revelation, or people giving in to sin, or pride, or humility, etc. It puts you in a position to be taught by the spirit.

David,

Oh, do be more Surios, dear Brother. Who'd want to touch those nasty red pages? That guy obviously can't be trusted, you've seen that creepy goatee. Just bring me the blue pages and I'll explain. I would right now but the connection is so poor. Just bring the blue pages and it'll all work out...

Things like programming never seem as simple as they should be. I feel like that with some gospel things. On Monday we taught an awesome guy who came to church because of his kids, named Mr. Chi. He has absolutely no background, and we spend literally 15 minutes trying to explain prophets to him. We thought he understood, then during some follow questions, he said something like "so if we pray, God will give us a prophet to answer our prayers." Super cool guy, though. He's in Mainland till the 20th, so I'm praying for him.

Just while typing that last paragraph, some random guy across from me started talking to us, and in the end we invited him to General Conference. Always open your mouth. jsut.

Rebecca,

Who says it needs to be done at school? If they really feel passionate about you, just tell them all to come to the field without telling them why, and then give them each a rebar pole and tell them to do what comes naturally. If they start dancing then you should run away.

I can't really imagine taking a break from missionary work. There's not much else I'd really do if I was available. I might like to wander around and explore. Or learn Mandarin. I talked to a lot of mandarin people in the last week. Whenever there are big breaks like right now, lots of them come to Hong Kong to buy stuff.

School is good, except I literally skipped like 500 times in the last year and a half, and now I have to choose my classes which is super weird (by the way Mom that letter was really well put together. Thanks!).

Dance is good, except I hate dancing so I didn't at all for a while. But we've still been working out well.

Church is actually really good. I learned a lot this week.

Abby,

Thanks for the answers. The questions this week are as follows:

1) When was the last time you had Chinese food and what did you eat?

2) How is it being in Young Womens?

3) Is there any way to go to the temple right now with Rebecca and the Brothers?

4) What color is it in California right now?

5) How would you describe the smell of Utah and California?

6) What is your favorite Book of Mormon character?

Thank you all, you guys are great! Easter is an awesome time because we celebrate the most important thing that ever happened. Just remember, that if any of us really understand and remember what Christ did for us those 2000 years ago, we'd never choose to sin. If we really feel and remember what he had to go through to pay for our sins, none of us would choose to make him go through more. I testify as a representative of Christ that He lives, and because He lives we all can.

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