PoPos & Goong Goongs - Week 5

Da Jia Hao!!!

This week has been a pretty long week but as always was full of great experiences and hard times haha with no Pday on monday this week definitely felt super long, but the hard work always pays off!

Fun stories- last Pday (seems like just yesterday) this random Popo came up to us in the station and was speaking Cantonese with us, we figured out she's a member and she was saying sick jo fa mei (have you eaten? which in cantonese is also like what's up kinda) so we were like nope and then sh just decided to take us our and buy us all this great food it was such a #blessing.

Pop that took us out to eat :)

Love popos! We have just become friends with all these old people around the bridge that we like to go finding around, we have lots of buddies that we always talk to (or try to since they mostly speak Cantonese) and I can tell they really appreciate it, it's kinda sad here the old people a lot of times just feel like they are worthless and that we shouldn't waste our time talking to them, so sad, so I always like to talk to them and make them smile! There are always these Popo dance parties in our Sha Tin area for some reason, it's so fun lots of music and all these old popos dancing and the goong goongs chillin on the side checking them out haha so funny.

Popos in the park

We also always run into this old fisher on the bridge, the guy is a legend, he's been fishing the same spot for like 90 years, he's so old, reminds me of the guy in Old Man and the Sea,  he's super crusty haha and is hilarious to talk to.

Fisherman we always see

Anyways now to the week and a half, it's honestly so hard for me to think of everything that happened, so much happens in a week, I feel like I just am taught so many lessons each day! These last weeks consisted of a lot of long hot days of finding. My companion and I have been really trying to find by the Spirit, praying to know where we should walk etc, and our success in meeting people has definitely gone way up which is great. One day we felt that we should go to the farthest city in our area which was like an hour and a half walk, we ran into literally no one the whole time and after a few hours I was seriously doubting why we had felt to go there, when all of a sudden we ran into this girl Miffy! She speaks Cantonese and Mandarin and was super interested, we were able to teach her a really strong lesson, and she wanted a Book of Mormon, which she started reading right away! We just had a turnover lesson with her yesterday, gave her to the Cantonese sisters to teach, and she was just so open to everything. So great! She also has a really cute pug named Pa Zai, made me miss my dog a little bit! But it's amazing to see all of the hard work that goes into finding one prepared person, but of course it is always worth it!

Me and Pa Zai

We meet the most interesting investigators here, we recently met a guy from Beijing who claims to have been a movie star in Taiwan back in the day, his movie name is Bai Ying so I'll have to have someone look him up, but he's great, has a very interesting life and we're starting to teach him! 

Our other investigators have been hard to work with, I'm trying to balance being their friend, but also making sure they know my purpose is to teach them and help them come unto Christ. Some of them are going to be long processes but I have a lot of hope! 

Our area is slowly building up, we have so many potentials and starting to get a few more solid investigators, I feel like our area is right on the edge of really great things happening, we just have to keep pushing! This next week 4 really solid potentials will get back from mainland so I'm super excited! I can just feel the Lord starting to bless this area and our efforts, I can feel things are about to really start moving! It's a nice feeling, starting this area all over has been super tough, but my companion and I have kept up faith and attitude and it's really made all the difference.

My companion and I continue to get along really well, he is so humble it makes me feel bad sometimes haha I definitely have a long ways to go in humility, but he's a great trainer and I'm learning a lot from him! We have really unified teaching and good chemistry and the court too. Haha we had a ward basketball activity and brought Summers (who loves basketball) and we just balled out. I've never played so well in my life, I just couldn't miss I was just so wet, it was a good way to earn his respect haha and the trust of the ward, if they know I can get buckets on the court hopefully they can trust that if they give me referrals I'll do likewise! Haha but anyways it was a great activity for Summers, helping him feel comfortable about church members. His biggest problem is that he's just not quite comfortable about church stuff etc, it's all new to him since he recently came from mainland. 

It's pretty crazy to meet some mainlanders who have just never had this light in their lives before, some are so open and excited to learn what previously was forbidden them, others are literally blinded, I met a guy who legit believed in Mao Zedong who taught to trust no one, not even one's own parent's but to only trust Mao. It was kinda shocking honestly, some people just live ignorant of the fact that they have a creator, a God who breathed life into them that they will return to through a Savior. I'm so blessed to teach these people!

This week I thought a lot about the fairness of the Atonement and Christ's sacrifice, we've been getting the question a lot about why God would let the world be unfair, and it's made me think a lot about the purpose of Christ and his Atonement. Because God knew this world would be how it is, that everyone would be in different circumstance of birth etc, He knew that we couldn't possibly understand everyone's individual problems, this is part of the purpose of the Savior, it's that He atoned for everyone, He "felt the pains of every living thing." Wow. Every living thing. The depth of the atonement is incredible, and bridges the world's concept of fair and unfair, while we might not be able to understand why or how, Jesus does because He felt it and bore it. 

I've also been learning a lot about faith. Faith doesn't mean that we believe God will give us what we want and will give us everything that we pray for, rather it's having faith in "true principles" as Alma says. It's having faith and knowing that God can answer our prayers, that He can provide, strengthen, and heal. He does everything necessary for us to return to Him, and sometimes that means giving us trials, and though we may pray for some burden to be taken, perhaps our will is not aligned with His, He won't take from us an experience necessary for us to learn, grow, and achieve salvation. It's not always easy to have that perspective in hard times, but in order to grow the most from a trial we need to pray with the will of the Father in mind, as Christ did in the Garden of Gethsemane. He asked for the burden to be taken from Him, the Atonement was unimaginably hard, but He knew and submitted to the Father's will. This is something I've been trying to work on, not just praying for God to give us lots of success and investigators and perfect investigators, because that may not be God's will for me right now. Rather praying to learn from the hardships, praying to feel that it is God's will, and having faith in the true principles. President Kimball said something along the lines that " if all the sick for whom we prayed were healed all the righteous saved etc, the program of the Father would be annulled" there would be no need for agency and faith. We need these hard times and faith to grow! Packer said that hymn 114 is all that he knows, I've been reading it a lot and trying to learn from what he meant by that. Something that stands out to me in that hymn is that God doesn't necessarily stop the storms from coming, but rather gives us strength to pass through it. It's a perspective I'm trying to further develop here!

Sha Tin River area - I love this area

Thank you everyone for the love and support, I really do feel the power of your prayers for me! I'll get pictures out on Monday, I don't have any time today! Love you and pray for you all!

Love,

Elder Woolley