Every week here seems to be busier and busier, but it's a great feeling to know that the work is progressing here in Macau!
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| Sunset from a boat ride from Kowloon back to Macau |
I don't have too much time today for emails so it'll probably be a little scattered so bear with me. Our investigators here are doing great! Tang Yang will be having his baptismal interview this week which is great! I am so excited for this guy, he is incredibly sincere and earnest. One time he was going to be late for a lesson because of a car accident, so he just jumped off the bus and ran a couple miles to get to our lesson! He really has a great testimony and is super excited for baptism which is great! This last week we taught a man named Feng xiansheng(mister) and after we talked about the first lesson I felt prompted to invite him to be baptized, which surprised me because this guy is straight out of mainland, is a very gruff straight forward hard labor job kinda guy, who has no idea about God or Jesus or anything, but I knew he was feeling the Spirit so I asked him if he was willing. I expected a Yes because of my prompting but instead he said, what is that? So I quickly explained briefly, let the Spirit keep working on him a little bit, and then he said yes I would really like that! It was great! Goes to show that we can always trust our promptings even if they at first don't seem plausible and don't go exactly how you would expect. I'm excited for this guy though he is extremely humble, and just has a desire to learn. He came to an open house our church building hosted a little while ago and he just was getting as much info, packets, pamphlets etc as he could and was writing things don so he wouldn't forget! We'll see how he continues to progress as it gets closer to his date which is in late December.
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| Elder Stratford, Ryan's MTC companion stopped by Macau for some Visa matters |
Elder Ma is a great companion, he just has so much experience and is really good at working with the members here, I have learned a lot about how critical it really is to have the support of members helping us out here! We made a big language plan for me for this next while with us together, drilling mandarin during language study, then Cantonese outside. It's a lot to handle and a little overwhelming, but it is good to have a bundei (native) companion as a resource to take advantage of! Hopefully by the end of it I'll be able to communicate better with all the people here, especially the wards! One of the biggest problems with being a mandarin missionary is that quite often we are in Cantonese wards, and that makes it harder to communicate with the ward and gain their trust, so I'm working to be a better resource as a mandarin missionary so that I can still coordinate and get involved with the wards I will be serving! I know the Heavenly Father sent me here for a reason and I honestly think this is one of them! I feel already so blessed with languages here so far, and I am very very grateful for it!
Elder Ma and I have had a lot of opportunities this last week as well to teach lots of less active members from the International branch and they have continued to be some of the most powerful lessons I have felt on my mission so far! For a lot of them we have just been talking to them about why they joined the church in the beginning, and just talk about life. And we have been reciting or watching the first vision movie with them. I've watched that movie like 4 times this week all in Tagalog so I don't get any of it, yet I have felt the Spirit so strongly, even stronger than I have before when I could understand it. It has reminded me of how amazing, and truly special that the Restoration really is. I hope I never forget it, the powerful Spirit of confirmation that I have felt time and time again this week, that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God. That he did see God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ, and that he translated the Book of Mormon. It has become so very real to me this week. I don't really know how to explain it, but it just feels even more real to me now than it has in the past. I know that it happened. And I have seen the power of reciting his words recounting his experience, it changes lessons, opens hearts, and always, always invites in the Spirit. That's why we always recite it with less actives, because without fail it brings into their hearts that special Spirit that they once new, and brings rushing back all their personal reasons for having been baptized, and that amazing feeling of leaving the baptismal font a clean person. I just love working with the less actives and just loving them! A lot of them just feel so dejected by life. I had the opportunity to give a young lady a blessing this week who has such a hard life, she wants to come to church and come back, but her life isn't hers, she is basically owned by a casino here and has to do whatever they or their customers want. She is trying to get back to her home in Nigeria and was asking us to help her have the courage to take her life back into her own hands. I felt so powerfully Gods love for her as a daughter of God as we blessed her. I have really seen God's influence in my life and the lives of others here in Macau, it is one of the big lessons I have learned so far. I have seen prayers answered, lives changed, all because of faith. It is a simple concept, faith and works precede the miracle. The work here is really picking up pace! It's a privilege to be a part of it here!
Thank you all for the continuing love and support! Ill try and make next weeks email a little better!
Love,
Hu Zhang Lao
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