Elder Ryan Woolley in Hong Kong!: Elder Stratford

大家 it has been an awesome week!

First things first, we have a new companion moving in with us, Elder Stratford! Elder Sy and I are training him to be my next assistant companion for when Elder Sy leaves on the 14th. I am going to miss Elder Sy when he leaves, he is one of my best mission buddies! I am excited to work with Elder Stratford again! If you all remember, he was my MTC companion. He is an excellent missionary, it's really fun to work together again. I am blessed with great companions, I really do learn from them both each day. It has also been interesting to see the ways we have grown and changed since we were last companions. We teach really well together and have no problem balancing with three of us. If anything it has helped me focus even more on listening, and only speaking when the Spirit is really prompting me to.

They are also both really good at basketball too which is really fun, we had an investigator invite us to play basketball against him and his college buddies and we absolutely wrecked them. Afterwords they were willing to learn with us!

We had a great week, the mission really experienced a miraculous December, with a big push of faith, and action, we were able to baptize double the amount of people in December than in months past. Of course it's not about the number doubling, but it is about each individual who decided to take that step of faith, and start the journey of their lives. One of those baptisms of course was Chen Guo Wu, and to think that so many others were able to experience the same blessings as I've seen in him this week really touches me. It is a marvelous work and a wonder. It has been really fun to visit him, we always say the he has become the Buddha because every time we visit him he is just the peaceful jolly man, he is just so happy. I love it.

We had some miracles this week as well, we were visiting with one of our investigators Li Jiu in the tiny little shop that he works at, when his boss walk in and started chatting with us. Then she pulled out a Book of Mormon from her desk, and talked about how some missionary had given it to her awhile ago. She talked about how she has attended lots of other churches as well, but never really felt that the churches were fully right for her, that something was missing. Amazing! She also said her son has interest in our church too. It was amazing, the Lord really sends his prepared people to us, as long as we are prepared to receive them. We really have been blessed constantly by the Lord, we don't always have time to be out finding because of our duties here and lessons, but somehow we still manage to be meeting people every week! We had a couple of great potentials attend a Sham Shui Po activity as well, it was really fun to go to that and see those great members again, and to see the love and faith of members. I realized I really just love talking to everyone haha we had great time talking with the members, and really getting to know those investigators that came to the activity, it was a really good time for them.

I have also noticed that Elder Stratford always goes out of his way to talk to everyone on the train, even if he is rejected or if no one nearby is convenient to talk to, and it has pushed me as well to always be talking to everyone all the time. It is great!

I feel very blessed this week with tender mercies from the Lord. Outside the temple I ran into my buddy Noel from Macau who just had gotten his endowment! Amazing! I'm so proud of him. And then that night, we ran into Liu Sai Ju, the first mainlander I ever taught and baptized in Hong Kong with Elder Sy a year and a half ago. It was her first time back since then and she was going to the temple. It was an emotional reunion for us all, she shared about how much she has been blessed, it was amazing to see her. She has really changed so much, when we first met she was fairly poor, very humble, and desiring the gospel so much. She looked great, full of light and testimony, and very blessed by the Lord. It was a tender mercy to see the fruits of her baptism, I was just so impressed and just so so grateful we got to run into her. I am so proud of her! She is doing so great! I hope to keep in touch with these people for my life. A large group of members came down from Sichuan as well, and they were just awesome. So passionate and excited about the work, and just sharing everything with us. Really generous and humble people. We witnessed a 3 generation baptism, a grandfather, his daughter, and her daughter. It was quite touching, and amazing to see the gospel influence the entire family. I love seeing the Gospel and the work progress, like I saw it truly is a marvelous work and a wonder, and such a blessing to be a tiny part in it.

I have been thinking a lot about the power of our examples and the way that we live our every day lives. I love 2 Corinthians 3:2-6

2 Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men:

3 Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.

I remember when I was in the MTC, President Nelson gave us all the challenge to become living epistles of Jesus Christ. In order to do so must have our testimonies written on our hearts, with conviction. We have an investigator who told us that the reason he first started wanting to believe, is because when he met with us, he really felt and saw that we believed and lived everything that we taught. I was really touched when he said that, and felt even more my responsibility to really do my best to represent Christ and to live and love what I teach, and to not become complacent. I am grateful for the gift of repentance, which can help us to always keep our testimonies in our hearts.

I have much more that I want to talk about from this great week, but I am out of time, so it'll have to wait. Love you all, thank you for all the Merry Christmas emails and letters, I appreciate and feel the love!

Elder Woolley