HELLOOO!
What an amazing week! Every week is just full of so many great experiences and miracles!
We have a new investigator who is a restaurant owner in Yau Ma Di, he said he was going to teach us how to cook some dishes. We taught him a great lesson, he is really searching for God in his life, and just soaks truth in without any real questions. Just random silly ones haha. After our lesson we ate dinner with him and all his staff as they prepped the restaurant for opening hours, it was really fun! We were trying to joke around with them and be part of their crew haha they were all really nice, hopefully we will have some more opportunities with the staff as well, a lot of them are from mainland too!
Elder Shukis and I had a great experience this week on Sunday. Sunday was a special broadcast between Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan which was really cool, but we were a little frustrated because a lot of people who we had confirmed for church and lessons fell through, which is just missionary life of course. But then a member came up to us requesting our help to give a friend a blessing. One of the speakers talked about rescuing and helping others, and this member had a prompting to text a non member friend, who then accepted the offer of a blessing, she is very sick. So because all of our things were cancelled we had the great opportunity to serve this member and bless her friend, and they both had so much faith! It was so funny listening to them two talk to one another after the blessing, her friend grew in faith from it, and will be coming with her to church and start being taught! The Spirit truly prompts us and guides us, if we are prepared to listen to the guidance.
Our other investigator Chen Guo Wu is coming along strong, he has cut his smoking and drinking in half this last week, and we are working with him to drop all of it. It's great! He has great will power and desire, and we're trying to help him rely on Christ for the last step.
I have been thinking a lot this week about the Restoration, and all the doubts that people have surrounding it. It is what sets our message apart, and it is what makes our message true, and it is what is attacked the most. Of course no one will attack the plan of salvation, or the gospel of Christ, repentance, or the resurrection. But people, including members will always doubt and misjudge the restoration. Satan works so hard to make us doubt it because he knows what it means, if it is true, which I know it is, then saving ordinances are on the earth in this church, and satan doesn't want people to know that. We had a really powerful lesson about the restoration the other day, and I sat and really thought about the prophet Joseph Smith, and pondered and prayed about it harder and deeper than I have in a little while. I thought about the unbelievable persecution of the early saints, as they were driven from place to place, having their homes, hopes, and dreams shattered over and over again. I thought about Joseph in Liberty Jail, confined to those terrible conditions, while knowing all the suffering of the saints, and finally of his martyrdom, which he went to knowing fully that he would be killed. Those early saints, let by a true prophet of God, had an ability to endure that I can hardly fathom. They experienced things that none of us can imagine, and faced very real and physical opposition. But today we all face different opposition. It's all about faith. Real faith. We can't see the plates. We can't talk to Joseph, and hear from him first hand. We hear rumors, confusing details of the restoration, and we hear doubts and mockery. Recently our convert Jason had a friend who tried to anti him about the church, and the Gospel, and he stayed true to it. I thought why he stayed strong, and why so many who would seem stronger fall at the smallest doubt in the Restoration, and it's because we need to have a faith grounded in that foundation. Jason has never had doubts, he has always prayed, and felt the truth of it. He has not forgotten how he felt, so the opposition just rolled off him. In our lesson I had a reconfirmation of the restoration, something that we all need. I know it's all true, Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, and the Book of Mormon is true. It has a changing power that can only come of God, I've seen it and experienced it for myself. How lucky I am to share it with everyone!
Thank you everyone for the support, sorry for the rambling of this letter haha I wasn't really sure what to write this week, but it's what has been on my mind. Love you all!
Elder Woolley
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