Hong Kong: ALL IS WELL

May 2, 2016

Family,

Thanks for the emails you send. I love to read them.

No changes for me and elder darrington. we are still together.

We met Zou Jm's husband and daghter. They are great people. Not too much change with Zou Jm. She hopefully will have a new baptismal date this week.

We met twice this week with the guy who randomly walked into the church last sunday. cool guy, no christian background, but that is typical. 1st lesson we were able to help him understand that God is our loving heavenly father, we are his children and Jesus Christ is God's son. He also learned to pray. Pretty monumental stuff for these people hearing it for the first time.

Fang and Chen are still in Mainland. Probably going to have to change their BD because they have been gone about a month.

There is an old lady in the Yuen Long 1 ward named Zhu JM. She speaks half cantonese and half mandarin, but thinks she is just speaking 1 language, so nobody can really understand her. We also have a LA in the ward, who also speaks half mandarin half cantonese without realizing it, so we took Zhu Jm with us to go visit her (Chen JM). It was the best. I couldn't stop smiling the whole time. They saw each other and wrapped their arms over each other and spoke in their own little language together no problem. It was awesome. These tiny old chinese woman laughing and talking to each other was my favorite part of the week for sure.

We also had a Mandarin activity on Sunday. It was good. Not as big of a turnout as last time, but good activity. One of our previous investigators, Qiu Jm sang for us. She has an amazing voice.

One of my goals this transfer is to be more diligent at following up. We extend so many commitments each week it is hard to keep track of and follow up with people to make sure they are keeping the commitments they made.

This week I really liked a few lines from a few hymns. The first is from hymn #29 the 5th verse. I feel like the 5th verse doesn't get sung too much. Usually it is verse 1-3 and when the MoTab sings it they sing 1-2,6-7 so 4 and 5 are out of luck. Anyway, in v 5 it says, "Stript, wounded, beaten nigh to death, I found him by the highwayside. I roused his pulse, brought back his breath, revived his spirit, and supplied wine, oil, refreshment--he was healed. I had myself a wound concealed, but from that hour forgot the smart, and peace bound up my broken heart." There is a beautiful lesson in that verse. Even though we have our own concealed wounds, if we will follow the character of christ and focus out, if we will help someone else's need over our own, we will find that in the process of helping someone else, our own wounds are healed. I know that is true.

Also a lesson in hymn #30 teaches us the same thing. v1 "Tis better far for us to strive Our useless cares from us to drive; Do this, and joy your hearts will swell--All is well! All is well!" Regardless of our problems, if we will keep pressing forward, if we will keep striving, our cares will take care of themselves. I know this is true too.

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Josh Stratford