Conference! - Week 9

So much happened this week I'll have to see if I can possibly sum it all up!

Companion and apartment mates - Love these guys!

This week I really have started to see the success that God has given us here in this area, it's been really hard work, but as my companion and I have worked here in faith, and have trusted one another, we have been given success. I had a nice moment of realization this week of all the success that we have been blessed with. We've been so fortunate here to have found a new investigator every week for the past weeks and I know it's because we have been praying our hearts out and working hard! This last week we were blessed with 2 new investigators! One of them was such a stud, we we're talking with him and he was just loving everything, and then in the end told us how he thinks money isn't the most important thing in life and how he wants to be a good father. I was straight shocked! So many people here have told us that they believe there life's purpose is to get money and have a good job. How sad is that! My companion and I always try and help people realize that there is more to life than just money, career, and possessions. This young man's life and situation have clearly prepared to him for this moment with us to where he can't start to get to know God. I love finding people like this! People like that make it easy to say that I love my job!

On the other side of the spectrum is our investigator Sheldon, we have met with him three times and though his life has provided him with lots of money and success he still is a prepared person, telling us that he has always wondered in the back of his mind whether God is real or not, and if there could possibly be a little more to this life. He has been progressing and told us he feels peace as he prays and really enjoys praying. I was so excited! He's already progressed passed most of our other investigators!

I learned the sad lesson this week that you can't help people who aren't willing to help themselves. Unfortunately we had to drop our investigator Teng Hao (the male prostitute/porn actor). After our previous lesson with him I believe he started to realize that he really is not happy with his life and where it has led him, but was to afraid to face the goliaths of his life that suddenly stood before him. So instead he continues to run away from them, and in our last lesson with them he changed back to the way he was our first encounter, saying that he had no regrets, that he believes he lives the perfect life. It was a sad moment for him, and after carefully considering my companion and I felt it would be best to leave him with our testimonies of Christ, and leave him with a smile on his face. So we closed our lesson, pray that sometime in the future when he is more ready, some other missionaries can find his record sheet and start teaching him again. We still call him every once in awhile to check up on him and maintain a relationship, I think it's important that he doesn't think we just don't care about him once we realize he has no more desire to learn. He's a funny guy, he told us that society will change us and we'll be just likfe him in 10 years, more or less, so we made a deal to visit him in 10 years and we'll see who's right haha already planning my future HK reunion! 

I ran into another Bible basher and learned a very valuable lesson. I had been praying this week to learn something that the Lord would have me change or improve about my work here so that I can become a better missionary. While we we're banner finding I ran into this older man who seemed to have interest. He also spoke perfect English (warning signal number 1). So I started talking to him and teaching him a simple message when bam he suddenly just starting throwing out all this stuff at me, trying to twist what I had said and telling me what I believed in. Of course I found myself annoyed and a little offended, and began to argue with him, I could feel the Spirit leave me almost immediatley as I changed from caring about him and genuinely trying to teach him to being annoyed and having a desire to punch him haha. But in all seriousness the Spirit left immediately and I was left to argue with this man for like 20 minutes. All of a sudden I looked up, and realized all of the time I had wasted with this man, and I felt terrible, one, for wasting the Lord's time, 2 for being so angry with this random and kind of sad man, and 3, for driving away the Spirit. I ended the 'conversation' with the man turning around as he continued rudely talking to me and just said thankyou for sharing have a nice day. I later realized that was what the Lord wants me to improve right now, and it is my pride. My pride caused me to stick around and argue with that man who clearly had no desire to learn but just wanted to argue, and my pride led me to be offended and get angry. If I was humble I would've realized that man's intent, humbly ended the conversation even if it meant me appearing to have been defeated, and just kept doing the Lord's work. I felt very humbled by that experience.

I had my first baptism this week! As part of my calling I have the privelege of doing mainlander baptisms! So on friday the assistants asked us to go to Kowloon to start the process. So basically we teach asll the lessons all day to make sure they have a clear understanding, as well as give them time to read, pray, and start to develop a testimony. We then set up then needed interviews, get all the paperwork done, and then baptize them into the church! They are also informed about all the legal stuff about religion on the mainland, and then often times they go home late at night! It is a bit of an exhausting process but it is so amazing to see their faith, humility, and pure desire.

My first baptism!

Friends gathered for the baptism!

It's also so eye opneing to get to teach all the lessons in one day, and just get to see the gospel completely laid out. It really is eye openeing and testimony strengthening, as I taught all of the lessons I was once again remindned of how much sense it all really makes, and simple and true it is. The woman we taught has had a very difficult past with her family in the mainland and I just felt the gospel enriching her bearing her up, and giving her hope and happiness. Throughout the lessons, despite the length of the time learning, she seemed to brighten slowly and slowly as her faith and desire to be baptized grew. It was so inspiring, as my companion bore his testimony to her about to close our last lesson, I felt the Spirit powerfully bear witness to me that this is why I am here. I was so happy for her to have this chance to come here and recieve the gospel! I literally saw and felt it work it's way into her heart and mind, and see the love of Christ start to repair the damages of her past. It was humbling and powerful to be able to be a tool in God's hands to bring about so much happiness. I know that this gospel brings real, tangible hope. It's not some mental creation of the mind of the afflicted, but literally brings light, hope, happiness, and understanding to the faithful. The Atonement is so very real, I have felt it work in my life, lifting my burdens, making me better, and really helping the people we teach.

Kowloon

Kowloon

Finally we got to see general conference this weekedn! I don't have too myuch time to talk about it but it was amazing! So uplifting! Something I have been struggling these past few weeks is just the pressure of the mission field. I have just been pressuring myself so hard to be a good missionary, just thinking of all the things I need to work on, feeling quite inadequate, weak, and a bit overwhelmed at times. And I had been especially hard on myself thinking that I could've worked harder, or done something better to be a better missionary. Sometimes the mission does feel like a big pressure cooker. But this conference and mainlander baptism experience just really seemed to take a load of pressure off of my back. I really enjoyed the testimony of the new apostle who quoted Monson saying "the Lord qualifies those that he calls," and to focus not on what I can't do, but on what I can do. I can help people change, I can make people smile, brighten there days, I can testify of the Lord, I can love the people I serve and serve with, and I can make a difference. Everything else will come as I forget myself, don't pressure myself and instead just focus on what I can do in order to help others. I really just felt uplifted, inspired, and just have so much from this conference to apply here and keep learning. 

Thank you all for the support and love, I miss you all so much and pray for you all every night.  

Yummy Tom Say lunch! (I'm not fat, yet)

Love

Elder Woolley