TANG YANG WAS BAPTIZED

12/13/15

Family,

Mom - Thanks for updating me about what is happening at home. I love to hear about it. 

 - We can do skype anytime on the 24th 25th or 26th, whatever works best. The white handbook says 30-40 min and nobody has said otherwise. They quoted that in zone training, so that is how long it will be. 

 - I got all 3 packages. Got 2 this week. and the other one last week. Thank you. 

 - Investigators are good. Still not able to meet with a lot of them.

 - weather is great. been perfect weather this week, and a little more wet.

 - Mandarin is ok. Slowly coming.

 - pass-offs aren't bad. I passed of #7 this week, it was the Word of Wisdom. We sit down with the Zone Leader and he tells us certain conditions for the pass off and about the investigator I will be teaching. For example, this pass off he told me that I was to use power statements and talk as little as possible and that the person he was being was a heavy drinker. He tells you that info and then says you have 10-15 min. Go. 

 - i would set up a skype account and figure that out soon. I don't know where in the world to do this or how to do this, so I will try to figure it out. If worse come to worse I will just buy a calling card and call you on the phone. I'll let you know next week.

 - i tried hard to make the letter legible.

Dad - thanks for sharing what you shared with the ward. I love to hear about it and your testimony.  That's a bummer about Elder Slatter, I'll keep him in my prayers. Let me know about the wedding and the game. Sounds like an exciting weekend. 

Before I forget, Tang Yang got baptized! Happened about a month ago, I just keep forgetting to tell you. Elder Woolley emailed me and let me know. They got him to come to church. I was stoked to hear about that. He is an amazing man.

Haven't been about to meet with Chen, Lydia, Qiu, Jason, Sam, or A-zheng (she is in mainland for a while). We dropped Sem Family. We contact her and she never has time to meet with us. It has been about a month and a half. We encouraged her to read the Book of Mormon.

We did have an amazing lesson with Zheng this week.  We had spend a lot of time preparing for this lesson and thinking about how we could best help Zheng this week. We shared a mormon message with him and talked about hapiness and addressed some of his questions from previous lessons. The spirit was so strong as he shared his thoughts about the movie and the gospel. I learned from this experience the importance of preperation. The Lord was willing to help and and answer our prayers when we were willing to show to Him how important this was to us through our prayers, study and pondering about him. The more we prepare ourselves spiritually to teach, the better able our investigators and those we teach will be able to learn by the spirit. The spirit will be able to bear witness of the truthfulness of our words when we are saying what the spirit would have us say.

Also, I have got an increased testimony of the importance of including the Lord in finding activities. This week we made a goal to make specific times and places we would street contact and then include the Lord as we did this. We had great success and were able to talk to a lot of prepared people. Mostly all cantonese speaking. Hopefully they become progessing investigators. 

Thank you for your prayers and examples. 

Elder Stratford

Zheng. Our investigator. Stud.

Elder Winwood with a huge apple.

Investigator in TSW ward who is helping us teach a family from Nepal since he speaks nepali. He is 15 and would get baptized, but has to wait till he is 18 because his parents don't want him to.

Pic in Kowloon

english class

THE OPPOSITION REALLY HAS BEEN PICKING UP

12/6/15

Family,

Mom - Hong Kong has been good. The weather has been perfect this past week. Unfortunately, we are no longer meeting with Jia JM. She told her husband about english class and church and he told her he didn't like it. She is still interested, but won't meet because of her husband.

The opposition really has been picking up. We have only met with less than half of our investigators this week. Some just stopped answering or blocked our numbers out of the blue. Also, last week we met a Filipino lady in Tin Shui park and gave her a book of Mormon. She was really excited and told us she would start reading it that night before bed. We have tried to call her to see how it was going, but haven't been able to get ahold of her. We were able to contact her on Sunday, but when I called, she asked who I was, so I told her, after which she immediately hung up. weird. 

The man's name is Chen, which is about half of china's name, don't know his full name. 

I received the package. Thank you! It is great.

Zone training was good. I was reminded of the importance of teaching with the spirit and teaching according to needs. It is easy to fall into the rut of teaching lessons instead of teaching people. Because teaching people is much harder work. 

My retainer works great. I switch off every night between the one that keeps my teeth straight and the one that prevents the overbite. Thanks so much for sending the piano music.

Dad- thanks for updating me on the sports news. that's crazy. that will be a sweet game. thanks for praying for Jia JM. hopefully sometime her husband will let us meet her again. Langauge pass offs are good. passed of #6. Working on 7 of 13.

Haven't been able to meet with Lydia, Qiu, Jason, Zheng, A-zheng, or the Sem Family. Chen DX came to church though! That was awesome. He has been an investigator for a while and knows some of the members. He is such a nice man and great guy. We are trying to help him continue to read the book of mormon. Zhu JM was reactivated this week as well! I don't know if I told you about her. She is a 70 year old lady who lives in Yuen Long. She had stopped coming to church and the sisters found her and we started to visit her. We got her coming back to church for the past few months. She is great. The second time we came to visit her, she had gospel principles and an ensign laying out.  She has a hard family situation and doesn't have very much money. The ward is helping. We visit her usually once a week.

Out of time. Love you. Thank you for your prayers. 

Elder Stratford

Elder Lai. He returned to the New Territories. He came a few weeks ago from Macau. He heads home to Austrailia in a few weeks.

Wang DX. Great member. lives close to Hong Shui Kiu. Strong testimony.

This is Sam. our investigator. We helped him with some english homework.

random pic in the elevator

THANKSGIVING IN NEW TERRITORIES

11/29/15

Family,

Mom - Thank you for your email. That was really nice. Thanksgiving was good. The mission let each zone have 3 hours to eat and talk. It was good. President Lam came and said hi for a few minutes.  Sister Robinson (Kaylee's friend) and her comp did the Turkey. That was so nice of them. My apartment's job was fruit. Pretty easy.  After we had eaten, we were furiously doing dishes to try and finish before 3 o'clock when Thanksgiving was supposed to end. I was manning the sink, others were drying dishes and others were cleaning up tables and leftovers. As we were doing this, at about 2:45, our zone leader came in to tell us to stop what we were doing so we could come out and watch a skit and listen to a piano piece that was planned. Sister Robinson was silently a little frustrated by that as she voiced her opinion to me. She wanted to be obedient and be done by 3. She figured that since we ran out of time, we shouldn't do the skit or piece. But the skit and piece happened and she followed what the Zone Leader had asked.  I am very grateful for her example to me of being exactly obedient. I respect her more than about any other missionary in the field. She is a great missionary and Sister Training Leader. 

I have not got the package, but it might have arrived. I haven't been down to the mission office in Kowloon to get it. I'll probably get it friday at zone training because the zone leaders and sister training leaders have MLC (mission leadership counsel) down there on Wed and should pick it up for me. 

This week was pretty crazy. On Wed, one of our investigtors called us and yelled at me for a few minutes on the phone saying that he did not need Jesus or our church and to never visit him or his friends again. It was pretty sad. He and his wife with 2 of their friends were really nice and kind and loved to come to church every Sunday. They had baptismal dates for December. I don't know what made them switch so fast and dramatic. It was pretty weird.

Also we haven't been able to get ahold of Sam or Jason or Lydia, or the Sem Family for a while. Everybody just stopped answering their phones.

We did meet with Zheng this week, but nothing really knew happened. We thought about him a lot during weekly planning and have some ideas planned for this week that should help him, we hope.

We also started teaching a new sister named Jia JM. She is very nice and bright. We taught her about prayer and the nature of the Godhead in a short lesson before English class. She seems interested. She is a single mother and has a 4 year old son. After English class, a member always comes and does a quick 15 min gospel class. We sang a hymn and she really liked it. She kept studying the words of the hymn and was flipping through the hymnbook for quite a while. We sang Love at Home and I am a Child of God. 

 I am learning to better appreciate the peace the gospel brings. It is amazing. Elder Bednar tells us that peace is one of the greatest blessings of discipleship. I am starting to better understand what he means. It is a blessing to be apart of this gospel. And to be able to feel that peace and joy. I know that the Savior loves each of us and as we come unto Him we can feel of the peace that surpasses all understanding. 

Elder Stratford

bridge over in the outskirts of Yuen Long

another bridge. kept snapping and breaking as we crossed it, but we made it. 

we had to cross the water on this boat thing and pay this dude a few HKD

some ancestor place. they have these everywhere in the outskirts

out in Yuen Long last p day

Thanksgiving pic with the zone.

i found some bananas.

some buddhist thing. ancestor worship place.

thanksgiving finding activity. 

bike ride last Monday

FILLING OUR MINDS WITH THE TRUTHS OF THE GOSPEL

11/22/15

Family,

Thanks for the pics of Hawaii. It looks awesome. 

Investigators are good this week. Except for we don't know what happened to the Chen Family.  We were planning on having a lesson with them on Friday before english class, and they confirmed they were coming thursday night, but they didn't show up to the lesson or English class. They won't pick up their phone and haven't since thursday and didn't come to church on Sunday. Kind of weird.

We had a lesson with Ada and she brought her friend.  She is great. Her name is Cherry. She is christian and reads the bible and prays. We gave them both baptismal dates for the end of next month. 

We also met with another Chen DX. He is great. We found him in the former investigator records. He has had 5 baptismal dates from other missionaries and has been taught everything multiple times, but for whatever reason hasn't been baptized. 

We had planned on having 6 investigators at church. Ada and Cherry both said they were coming, Chen Family, Chen DX said he was coming, and Lydia all said they would be there, but none of them showed up. That was a bummer. 

The temple on Thursday was great.  It is amazing how peaceful the temple is. Especially when compared to the very busy, fast moving life style here in Hong Kong. It was awesome to take a few hours and feel of that spirit and peace in the House of the Lord. My mission prep teacher at BYU told us that the only emotion that Satan can't imitate is peace.

My ponderize last week was Abraham 3:25. "And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do whatsoever thing the Lord their God shall command them." (i think, might of missed some words, don't have scriptures with me.)  I love that scripture. At zone conference, we watched a clip from President Monson on obedience and he shared that scripture. I have been thinking about it a lot since then. As I was reviewing "This Day" from Henry Eyring, I found that he quoted the same scripture in that talk and reminded us that the test of this life is one of faithful obedience. That is the test. Obedience to the commandments, the words of the living prophets and the promptings of the Holy Spirit. I don't think it is a coincidence that the very first thing the Savior tells the Nephites when he visits the America's is about obedience. In 3 Nephi 11:11, He tells us that he suffered the will of the Father.

I have gained an increased testimony this week of the importance of filling our minds with the truths of the gospel and being worthy to have the spirit to be with us. A few experiences this week have helped me to better realize this. The spirit has brought back to my memory different things I have studied in the past of which I needed to be reminded about to lead me to action. Little things. But the little things are the things that matter. For by small and simple things are great things brought to pass.

I love you all. Thank you for your prayers and examples to me.

Elder Stratford

New Haircut and long sleeves

Random dude

Temple Pics

Elder Stratford and Elder Darrington emailing