Hong Kong: NINE PEOPLE SHOWED UP TO CHURCH

April 3, 2016

Family,

Thanks for your letters.

Mom - Spring isn't too different besides the weather cause there isn't too much green around.

Zou JM came back from mainland this week so we are stocked to meet with her. Also Liu DX should also be available this week.

We had an interesting lesson with Jonah. Invited him to be baptized. He first said, I've already been baptized. We decided to say a prayer with him and for him to ask God if he sould be baptized. We reviewed how God answers prayers and then had him pray. We kneeled down in a park on the concrete and he wanted to hold hands, so we did. He said a great prayers and the spirit was very strong. Then we waited. We didn't want to be the first ones to talk. We waited some more. After about 5 min I opened my eyes and he was still bowing his head silently. Then we waited. His head came up with his eyes still closed and we thought he was done, but then his head went down again. Now it had been 10 min. We waited some more. My knees were killing me. Anyway after about 25 min he got up. I'm not sure why we waited that long and why I went into detail in this email. Anyway, he explained how he felt the spirit, so we invited him to be baptized again, but he deflected it. We were quite blunt and basically said, Johah, you aren't answering the question. We invited him again, but he wouldn't answer. Not sure what to do with him.

We dropped Zheng DX.

2 people randomly walked into the chapel the other day and now they both have baptismal dates. They are amazing. Fang DX and Chen JM are their names.

We had a good Mandarin activity this week with a bunch of Mandarin's in the New Territories. Had a few investigators come and some less-activies and part-member families get to know each other.

This week was quite crazy. The first 6 lessons we had planned this week didn't happen cause the people we were planning on meeting didn't show up. Then we had a few make or break lessons. Dropped some investigators. Then we had an amazing experience with Fang DX and his wife. They both are so prepared. The husband was asking us if he can get baptized sooner. He wanted to get baptized that day. Then on Friday at english class all these new people show up with some of our former investigators and a few came to church. Also on Sat, 2 people called us and said they wanted to come to church out of the blue. That never happens. Ever. Anyway, we had so many people coming to church in both building's that Elder Darrington and I went on splits so we could be with both groups. We don't know what is going on. We have had 1 or 0 people at church for the past month and then 9 showed up last Sunday. We hope that they can start progressing. The ward members were so good to help us.

I am coming to better realize that the Lord has a very big hand in this work.

Love,

Elder Stratford