大家早晨!!
I hope everybody has had a good week!
Our week was craaazzyyy! These past couple of weeks have been so busy, and this coming week will be the busiest of all! We have the main transfer this week, with some new Cantonese missionaries arriving, as well as our Zone Conferences! I'm really looking forward to Zone Conference, getting to see all the missionaries and do our trainings with them. I also look forward to this week being over, haha, next week we will finally be able to resume a little bit more of a regular missionary schedule and give Shum Shui Po ward the focus it deserves.
Our investigator, Steven, is doing great! This week we talked about alcohol, cigarettes, coffee etc, and he accepted it no problem! I was a little shocked honestly. I expected him to bring up lots of problems as people normally do, but he said, "it makes sense, I believe it's from God, I'll do it!" If only it always went like that. I'm excited for him, I have already seen a big change in his behavior in lessons from the past 3 weeks. The first time we met with him he talked a ton about whatever entered him mind, and it was really hard to focus him. But now he listens intently, and asks great questions. It's amazing how the Spirit and the Gospel can do that to people. Hopefully all will go well for his date in October. His living situation is a little complicated, but we'll make it all work out.
The ward is really great, the members are loving, and have a lot of potential, we just have to tap into it and really help bring the missionary fire. I still feel I have a ways to go with our relationships, but soon we will have much more time to focus on it and build up our area!
I have really enjoyed picking up the new missionaries from the airport, the most recent group was 5 mandarin elders, much like my group last year. I went out and taught a lesson with one of them, and it was great to see the excitement and passion! He couldn't say very many things coherently, but what he could say right was simple and powerful. He said, "I know God is our Heavenly Father and that He loves you." I felt the Spirit and so did the member we were visiting. A simple testimony is powerful!
I was pondering about the miracle of the fish and bread in the New Testament, where Christ feeds the 5000 with just some fish and loaves of bread. I always thought it was interesting how Christ doesn't just give enough to satisfy the needs of the people, but he gives extra, so much so to fill baskets and baskets after everyone had eaten their fill. I think there are so many things that could be taken from that miracle. Christ's mercy, his grace, and his atonement, are not given to us just to satisfy the needs of our weakness as the mortal, natural man. But His bread of life is meant to take us "out of our ruts and routines, out of our problems and our pain, out of our earthly little arguments and ignorance and sins, and take us to the Gods — to the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost — ultimately to take us toward our own Godhood. In short, to take us to the divine" (Holland). What a wonderful gift that is, that we will not just simply be filled up and fixed up by applying the Atonement, but that we will be taken so much farther. I know it is true, and I have felt it in my life and seen it in the changes of others as they feel the love in their lives. It is a real power.
I love the mission, the future always seems to be getting brighter with each week and that is certainly a blessing from Heavenly Father.
Love you all!
1. Great family from Beijing! Met them in the same spot a year ago when I first arrived!
2. The new mandarin missionaries! and Elder Grayam
3. Pit stop on the way to getting the new missionaries
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