Hong Kong: THE NEW TERRITORIES IS ON FIRE WITH THE BOM

July 31, 2016

Family,

The New Territories is on fire with the Book of Mormon! We seem to 'happen' to run into every interested person in Hong Kong during our travels to and from appointments. It's insane. I'm not so sure it is happenstance though.

Our District this week gave away 81 BoM. This is absolutely unheard of, at least in my mission experience in Hong Kong. In the past, we averaged giving away maybe 1-3 BoM a month as a companionship. The last 3 weeks, Elder Huang and I have found 41 interested people. I don't say this to show off, I do it as a testimony to Elder Worthilin's counsel in PMG. He encouraged us to pray for a vision of how we can use the Book of Momron in our missionary work, and as we do so we will be enlightened as to the direction we should take. This promise is true. We followed his counsel and we acted on the direction we felt like we should take. We had a lady call Elder Ashton the other day saying that she has been reading the BoM he gave her and wants to meet! Many other cool experiences.

Most of our investigators are in Mainland, but we had 2 Former investiagors we invited to church come. Both their 1st time. It was great. They enjoyed church especially gospel principles class on service. Zheng DX (one of the formers) said in the closing prayer how grateful he was that we (the class) could all meet together and that he could learn about service and some principles and ideas that he has never before considered.

We are trying to work as a team with the ward and cantonese missionaries more. See how we can support them in their goals and what they are striving to do.

Quick tender mercy for the week. Saturday we were at our apartment getting ready to leave to go to english class and I thought I better grab my piano music. Kind of weird thought since I never bring my music with me because there is never time to play, but I reasoned I might be able to play for the english class students after, so I quickly threw it in my bag and we left. While we were traveling to the chapel, I met this wonderful man on the light rail. He was happy to accept a Book of Mormon and interested as we talked for a little while until we got off the train. He also was getting off the same stop so we talked as we made our way to the chapel. We asked him if he had a few minutes we could give him a tour of the church. He said sure. He had nothing going on. We showed him the classrooms and made our way upstairs to the chapel. He remarked at how beautiful it was and we looked at it for a minute and made our way out the side doors. After we had walked out, the thought came to mind,'maybe that is why I brought my piano music.' After I had this thought, I said, 'actually, do you have a few minutes I could play some music for you to listen to?' He said ok. We went back into the chapel and played a few hymns. I then pulled out the piano music I had brought and played How Great Thou Art for him. The spirt was strong as I was playing and praying for him that he might feel the spirit. After I finished playing, we talked for a few min. He expressed that he felt a very comfortable feeling and he liked it. We bore our testimony to him about what he was feeling and invited him to come to church. He said he was busy this week, but said he for sure wants to come next week. Anyway, this just shows how much our Heavenly Father loves his children. He loved that man on the light rail to inspire me to bring my piano music so I could play for him and help him feel the spirit. I am sure grateful for that answer to prayer. That morning I had prayed that I could recognize the promptings of the spirit and have the confidence to act on them. Heavenly Father answers our prayers. It really is a sweet experience to see the Lord's hand in this work. This experience reinstilled in me a deisre to always be on the Lord's errrand. I always want the Lord to know that if he needs an errand run, Josh Stratford will run that errand for Him.

Love you. Have a great week!

Elder Josh Stratford