Hong Kong: HIKING LIONS PEAK

August 21, 2016

Family,

Crazy week. Great week.

Zheng DX commited to baptism! We are stoked. He changed so fast all of a sudden. He has come to church the last 4 weeks in a row. Has good friends at church. He is reading the Book of Mormon consistently, which is probably the greatest miracle. We spend a few times teaching and testifying from the Book of Mormon and he now is doing it on his own. This I think has changed his heart. He was ready to accept the invitation when we invited him on Tuesday.

Li Jm is still progressing for October the 18th. Zhou JM is no change.

Met a new lady from Shanghai this week. We are excited about her. Her name is Zhang JM and she is about 50 yrs old, moved to Hong Kong in '95. Seems pretty interested.

Went on exchanges with Elder VanDyke, my district leader, this week. He is a good guy.

Had a good time last week hiking Lion's Peak with all the mandarins in the mission.

Had Dim Sum on Saturday. This is my favorite. Translation is 'dessert'. Bunch of small dishes of delicious food. It is surprising how good they can make chicken feet, cow's stomach and pig skin taste.

Also on Saturday we had a big Stake Activity. They had missionaries over the performances. One of our performances was a skit of Samuel the Lamanite. I got voted as Samuel.

I just got news from President Lam that I will be training a new missionary. He comes in on Thursday. Elder Huang will be leaving to HSK. Luckily, he is still in the zone.

The New Territories continues to be flooded with my favorite book, The Book of Mormon! Our companionship (4 of us) made a goal last week that we wanted to give away 50 copies throughout the week. It was a little tight, but we hit exactly 50 copies. Sunday night we had only given away 45 copies and it was 7:45 so we headed out, praying to our Heavenly Father for help and with a fire and determination to give everybody that passed us the opportunity to have a copy of the most correct book on earth. At 8:05 we were praying into the apartment, with empty hands.

The only problem with giving away all these Books of Mormon is that the mission was not ready for it. We are depleted. There are very few books now. We have been taking them from the chapels and any place we can find them. We have about wiped the mission clean of Books of Mormon.. I guess this isn't the worst problem to have. I called Elder Farr (the online elder) this week to follow up on the new order and he explained that I was the 3rd person that day from the New Territories calling about more books. They are still about a week away.

Today, when we dropped off the summer missionaries, Elder Farr told me that what he is going to start doing is ship books directly to the HSK chapel instead of Kowloon. So right now there are 10 boxes headed to the HSK chapel. He said as soon as they arrive, he will put in an order for 10 more boxes to the HSK chapel. Sweet!

As I have been reading the Book of Mormon along with Preach My Gospel to try and become a better teacher, I have found some wonderful counsel. Especially 1 Nephi 11. If you want to have an example of how to teach like PMG chapter 10 outlines, read 1 Nephi 11 and see how the angel helps Nephi learn. I was shocked at how similar it is, especially in regards to How To Begin Teaching.

Keep reading the Book of Mormon.

Have a good week!

Elder Josh Stratford (施長老)