You are not alone in the work - week 52

Daaih Ga Hoooo!

Hello everybody! This week was crazy and just flew by!  I drove my companion along with all the other leaving missionaries to the airport which was super weird. But, instead of feeling trunky and wanting to go home, I felt happy and blessed to still have so much time and so much left to experience in Hong Kong! After that it was just Elder George and I in the car, fortunately we didn't get lost on the drive back and only drove the wrong way down a street once, so that's a good sign of what we are going to do together as assistants together haha.

Our investigator Steven is progressing slowly, he has tons of questions, when we teach him it's like stream of conscious. But he really trusts us which is awesome, we have been trying our best to invite the Spirit in and bring it unto him, hoping that he will accept it into him. We had a strong lesson one with him, it didn't quite answer his questions, but when the Spirit was there he was focused and listening to every word. Fortunately he also speaks mandarin so whenever I get in a Cantonese jam in the lesson I can express myself in Mandarin! The Cantonese is coming along, keeps me humble all the times I say things wrong haha. 

We also have a new investigator from our English class! She is Luk jm and is really great, she desires very much for her daughter to learn and believe. She herself believes she can't learn gospel things because it is too complicated for her. There are a lot of parent's like her here, that see and feel the goodness of church and want it for their children, and seem to think that they themselves can't benefit from it or won't understand it. But as we taught with her I could see her own desire start to form, especially as we focused on the most basic relationship of God being our Heavenly Father. I shared a lot about my own family to her as well as I talked of how the gospel blessed us. I am again so grateful for my family and the blessing of having grown up in the gospel! She was amazed at how great the families were in the church, and I thought, of course the church encourages and raises great families, because we believe our most basic relationship is that we are all one big family, all children of God! Hence the brother sister etc. That is why we are taught to love one another, because we are really one big connected human family. I was so happy our ward did a great job of demonstrating to her that the gospel blesses families.

We had a great MLC on Wednesday, the topic was about faith, and then applying faith to our finding new investigators, specifically through members. It's a topic I could talk about for hours. It is amazing the power in a missionary who has real, dynamic faith. Who believes with all his heart, trusts, and works hard. It's amazing to see the faith grow in myself and others as we serve deliberately, and pray with faith. I thought of President Hinckley's quote ; you never know how much good you do.' I have experienced on my mission many times that when I am being faithful and hard working, the Lord uses us to accomplish his work, whether we realize it or not. Whenever I am being faithful, prayerful, and willing, I am always prepared to do whatever the Lord has asked of me or sent my way. It's a lesson learned also through all the times that I wasn't prepared or didn't listen to a prompting as well. The more I trust the Lord, the more he trusts me. I hope to be someone he can always trust.

Elders Sy and Woolley at the MLC

 As I was reading 'You are not alone in the work' by President Eyring (a fantastic talk) he talks about how the greatest joy in the work of the Lord is the  knowledge and "a confirmation that the Lord had been working with and watching over" us in his great work. Just as Elder Holland said, we "were baptized not only into Christ’s church, but into his life and his death and his resurrection, into all that he is and stands for in time and in eternity." And as such he will always be with us in His work as long as we are striving to draw unto him, trying to be like him, and do it his way, not our way. The greatest joys of my mission have not just been baptisms which of course are amazing, but they are the moments when I listen with faith to the Spirit, act, then feel the amazing confirmation that I did his will, that he is there with me in the work, he knows me and all of his investigators, and that he will guide us. I seek that guidance every day, and am so grateful for it.

The work is His, the church is His, and it's all true! Love you all and hope everyone is having a great last few weeks of summer break!

Elder Woolley