SO MANY TENDER MERCIES THIS WEEK

September 11, 2016

Family,

Pretty busy week. Good week. It is much much better to be too busy that you can't do language study or most of comp study all week than it is to have nothing to do. That is sure a wonderful blessing.

Li JM is the most solid investigator I have ever taught at this point. It is incredible. We met with her and discussed The Gospel of Jesus Christ specifically repentance. We had asked her to read the pamphlet in preparation, and then we came with a few well thought out questions. That was the secret. We thought she didn't understand much, but we were very wrong. She ended up bearing her testimony through sharing her experiences of how she is repenting. We basically just had to say, 'I know what you testified of is true. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.' We then taught her the 10 Commandments, Sabbath Day, and Law of Chastity on Sunday in under 30 min. She already knows everything and is prepared and willing. We look forward to Oct 18.

Zheng DX just got back from Germany. Should have a BD by next week.

Started teaching this cool guy named Stephen Tong. He has been taught lessons 1-3 and some of lesson 4, but it is very slow. He hasn't been taught the restoration since last November. He can only meet every other week for an hour. We think he has some good potential though. He has a desire to learn. His first question when we sat down was "I don't know how to recognize or feel the Spirit?"  Never heard that question before at the outset. He has quite a solid background and is very smart. He says that one of his goals is to obtain eternal life and he meets with us so we can help him meet his goal. We testified of how we will guide him to help him in that goal and testified of all the additional help that is awaiting him if he will keep some of the commitments we ask, specifically baptism and the Holy Ghost. He said he isn't quite sure about that yet and he doesn't quite see why this church over another church. Luckily for us, there is a lesson called "The Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ" to answer just that question. 

The Yuen Long elders called us up yesterday to tell us that they had a mandarin friend, Donny, who wants to be baptized. We had met Donny a few months ago. She left for mainland and I totally forgot about her. She ran into the Elders on the street and told them she wants to be baptized. She then called us up this morning and scheduled us to meet. We'll see what happens.

I love Doctrine and Covenants 11:17 when it says something like, "And then, behold, according to your desires, yea, even according to your faith shall it be done unto you." What an absolutely amazing promise. How do we show the Lord what our desires are? I think number 1 is what you pray for. 2. PMG teaches us that goals reflect the desires of our hearts. 3. I think how we spend our time clearly shows our desires.

So many amazing tender mercies the past few weeks. It's amazing. I don't know if I have told you yet, but I made transfer goals for the first time ever on my mission. We set a goal to have 3 baptisms this transfer. We have names for those numbers and feel like it is really possible. We have been praying for the goal we set with the Lord and why we desire that goal, we had been spending our study time focused on the people we are teaching and how to help them, we are fasting about it, we are praying for the gift of faith to make it happen. In this we hope to show the Lord what our righteous desires are. We need His help if we are going to reach these goals, and He is sure helping us out a lot right now. 

Have a good week!

Elder Stratford (施長老)

Stephen Tong. Turnover from some other elders. Cool guy.