Week 34.5 No Effort is Wasted 2/27/2017

Hello Everyone! So this week we were trying really hard to get Andrew ready for baptism. All the logistics and meeting with him, All that Preach My Gospel says.  have decided to pushed it back. He wasn't too happy but he understood why.







We also taught Yolanda with Miranda, and Miranda  is super awesome! She is a recently returned missionary and loves to help us. Yolanda, however, is not doing as well. She reads and prays and keeps all her commitments so by definition she is "progressing" but she just doesn't really want to know. It is just more information for her to want to know about, not how it can change her life, so we will see what we will do for that situation and how to help her progress.

the biggest miracle was my companion not dying. We were coming out of the apartment complex and we were following behind a car, and Elder Love almost got hit by the gate thing when it swung down. Luckily he did not, and therefore did not die, so that was good :)

We were also able to visit my aunt and she is doing well with her two kids. She is very kind and sweet and loves her family very much!

Today we were going to go to Big Buddha but elder Evans was sick and it was cloudy so we didn't, then found out later it was closed so what a miracle!

This week has been hard! and sometimes people see HK and think "oh no one gets baptized" but I know that every effort that I put in and that all others put in are not wasted, but added to the pool of experience that person has to eventually accept the gospel :)

Love you all!! The gospel changes lives!!

Insights

There will be some decisions we will make and some changes we will make that will be hard. Our mind will overpower our natural man and our two natures will be torn against each other, but as we yield less to the natural man, Christ is able to come into our lives and change us.

Be someone God would be proud of

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D&C 50:24 that which is of God is light; and he that recieveth light, and continueth in God, recieveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day.

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Week 33.5 Music Finding 2/20/2017

This week was pretty good! we are starting to see success from music finding! I think it is the greatest tool that Elder Love and I have haha :)

first off we had interviews with president Lam. It was super powerful and spiritual. I am glad we are doing interviews every 6 weeks now :) He was telling Elder Love "I just got 啟示 [revelation] because I did not know that Elder Chou and you would work pretty well. I also did not know that his family lives in Tsueng Kwan O. but he knew" It was just a testimony to me that the Lord knows where we have to be at what time.

We had a missionary return from the Oakland San Francisco mission (I think). She was super cool! She invited like 6 friends to church which was super cool! We also preformed for her homecoming (come thou fount). The po lam elders got a new investigator from it, and we will see [if] we are able to haha :)  she and her mom also fed us pizza hut (which I have had a limited number of times in hk because as missionaries we have no money). We were very thankful for their generosity

We of course also did the noble and honorable music finding. We had a lady who said she would come to church, but she didn't :( but we had a less active show up at our church because she saw us on the streets singing haha!! so it works!!

We also had bishop invite us to FHE at lohas park. So in this ward they have family home evenings for everyone in one teun (high rise complex) so it works pretty well because they dont have to travel that far! We had Andrew (investigator who has a baptismal date set for next week), and Wilson (recent-convert) go. It was super good! Lei 主教 is a great guy and wants to help us missionaries to be able to do the work!

It has been a great week and I just keep reflecting on what Elder Bednar mentioned "to some is given the working of miracles" (D&C 46:21) and I am just grateful that the Lord is letting me witness those miracles and those successes. Christ loves and lives for each of us. he is merciful and full miracles, of this I testify in the name of Jesus Christ Amen.

Insights

If we listen with love, we wont need to know what to say. It will be given to us- by the spirit and by our friends

     -Elder holland

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D&C 50:24 that which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day.

Week 32.5 Three experiences 2/13/2017

This week has been great!!!! Elder Kim leaving was super sad :( but we had fun and he did good :) The best missionary experience this week was we had a ward party with po lam and we had 4 people come because a member brought her friend who brought her friend. It was super great! This week has been full of miracles :) I feel like I am a lot less grateful to the Lord than I could be because I know I don't thank him enough. Lunch in 30 min is still hard but we are still adjusting so it should be fine soon enough :)

But here are the three experiences that stood out to me the most this week.

First is the personal study and I was comparing the sacrament prayers and the differences are very interesting. But the most interesting part was seeing the similarities especially in "always remember him." It says it 4 times in the two prayers and I realized we must remember him with all our heart, might, mind, and strength. We must remember our Savior with our thoughts, our actions and ultimately our core and soul. Only he can help us achieve and accomplish that 

The second was Yolanda. She was asking about judgment and resurrection and we were like "oh ok Alma 40-42" she read it and was like are there anything in the bible which support that we were like yep and we pulled out some scripture and she was like is there a chapter? no there isn't and she is starting to realize that the bible and the book of mormon really does support each other.

The last experience was the having a person at the party who did not really like our church. A lot of people think we are a cult in hk haha :) our conversation went something like this

"you must believe in Christ"

"yep that is all we worship"

and all these different things it was like yes we believe in that. She also "casted a devil out of elder love." To all people who doesn't think we believe in Christ, We do. We believe and live everything in the bible and I know there is a prophet today who knows god's will. I am grateful for a merciful God that doesn't leave us in darkness. I am grateful for a Savior who made it so we could make it back to God, and I am grateful that god calls incompetent, imperfect people like me to go help save people and help them obtain salvation. So I can learn and become more christlike. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

 

Insights

Life is full go holes we have to fill. Filling them with a bunch of bad things is like pouring acid in. It will fill it for a little while, but ultimately make the hole bigger and deeper. We must fill those holes with the pure love of christ. The living water. He fixes things in ways that we cannot.

"We all make mistakes. Sometimes we harm ourselves and seriously injured others in ways we alone cannot repair. we break things we cannot fix. Then we feel guilt, humiliation, and suffering, which we alone cannot cure. The healing power of the atonement can remedy what we cannot repair.

                      -Elder packer

The more we live life, the more we look back and wish we would have changed ourselves.

The lord, the greatest of all beings, provides happiness for us! It is the gospel of Jesus Christ

                      -2 Nephi 9:43​

Week 31.5 Farewell dinners for Elder Kim 2/6/2017

First, This week was transfers and I am not moving so that is fun!!!!! glad to not move apartments for my first transfer haha :)

This week has been pretty good although it was harder to meet with people this week, so we met with a lot more members and did a lot finding, but it was successful finding haha :) we went singing finding and it went actually super well haha :) We were able to hand out my third book of mormon on the street since I have been in hong kong

Elder Kim from Korea is leaving soon so we got invited to a lot of his meals and yep, Lots of food!!. We also were called upon to do unplanned musical numbers twice this week haha both at meals with members. it worked well because Elder Love is talented haha :). We also went soccer finding and it was pretty successful (don't worry it was during preparation day haha :) )

The list of people we were invited to meals for this week was as goes ronald, yuan family yoshi and Wu family it was super fun. Its only because Elder Kim though and new years that we got invited so much haha :) one of the nights they invited us at 6 to come at 6:30 haha so it was fun :)

There other very exiting thing is the missionary broadcast was really good! my favorite was from Elder Wolley, our assistant, this week when he said "the things that do matter you can't measure, the things you can't measure do matter." it was really good! I am a great fan of the new preparation day schedule :) I learned that what is most important is the spirit, not what I do. Through Elder Bednar's example I also learned that I can be humble and powerful, humble and bold so that is my new goal!!

Andrew is being super good and he is set for the 19th!! so hope that goes through!!!!

We are most happy when the people we care about most is happy. The trick is to love them because the gospel will affect them nonetheless but if we love them unconditionally, we will get some of that happiness too.

Insights

no amount of sorrow can make things right. Only god can do that

      -Emma Smith

All the things you can count don't matter. All the things you can't count matter most

There is opposition in all things so we can feel the whole spectrum and choose where we want to be. Or so that we can be happy

If you feel like no one believes in you, remember that God, the greatest of all beings believes in you and wants you to succeed. He believes you can solve the problems and knows you can if you ask for his help