HONG KONG IS THE BEST MISSION

February 19, 2017

Family,

Good week as always! Hong Kong is the best mission! One of the largest mission in the world if not the largest considering the area we cover, even though we can't proselyte in all of it. All of China. Most people or any mission too I am sure. Where else do you get a constant flow of faithful pioneer saints coming to get baptized and make covenants in the Temple? Also the Hong Kong Temple is the closest for not just Mainland saints, but for Thai and Indian and Mongolian saints as well. I could go on and on, but I won't.

We rented bikes last Monday and rode all around Sha Tin. It was beautiful! And so cheap. $50 HKD for a day use. I got fried though. Quick story: We do Conference Calls  Tuesday morning with President Lam every week. The Zone Leaders call in and the 3 of us are in President Lam's office and we discuss the Zone's for about 30 min a Zone. Anyway, so during the middle of one of the calls, President Lam say my fried hand and touched it with his finger. Never said anything else about after. It was pretty funny. So random. He was just giving counsel to one of the Zone Leaders and then touched my hand and kept going. Got off track there, sorry. I was just thinking of that since my skin is starting to peel.

We have been able to meet with a lot of new potential people this week. Mostly from the Area Book as former investigators. Also a Less Active. We are excited to continue to meet and invite them to learn more and invite them to come unto Christ. The Area Book has been a great source of finding. We have a lot of former investigators and have met with a lot this week (4-5). There is some good potential in that group. We also have 3 other potentials from the Area Book that we will be meeting this week. We are really excited! The Area Book is a great tool.

Ward Council this week as well. The mission plan is basically the missionaries helping the families in the ward to do FHE so they know how to do it on their own since many of them are converts and did not grow up with FHE . Each auxiliary will be thinking of and giving names to the missionaries of specific people they would like us to visit and do this FHE with. We are also excited about this. There is way more success if there is a support system for investigators! If the families are comfortable enough with us, then we can bring investigators to their FHE's. And hopefully as well, members will invite their friends and the missionaries to come to their family FHE. This is an easier invitation for members and one they usually are more willing to do. Missionary work works best when members are the source of which new investigators are found.

Elder Lau is great! He is humble and a dedicated servant. We are fired up this week and ready to work hard! We sang "Called to Serve" the other day for comp study and I was able to crank into the piano for that. So that has been running through my mind a lot lately. Missionaries don't sing that hymn enough, except for in the MTC. Anyway, I always get to serve with the best elders. Heavenly Father kind of spoils me sometimes. 

We feel like we are starting to "run into" more prepared people. Talking about running into people. This week we were walking out of the Temple and we ran into Linda K Burton of the General Relief Society Presidency and her husband, Bonnie H. Cordon of the Primary General Presidency and her husband, Randy D. Funk of the Seventy, and Sam Wong of the Seventy. Shook their hands and said Hi briefly. Pretty cool. Elder Lau didn't recognize them even after they introduced their names to us. A few hours later I asked if he know who they were and he acted totally shocked when I told him and looked down at his hand and said, "really!?" Yep. 

Had a few awesome Mainlanders get baptized this week. That is definitely one of the greatest blessings of serving in the Office. All the faithful saints. So inspiring! I hope to be like them someday.

Elder Bednar at the Worldwide Missionary Broadcast said, "All things are gathered together in one in Christ...In my judgement, there is little or no spiritual power in treating these fundamental elements of the Doctrine of Christ as separate things... When we see all of those tied together, there is power." We are making sure to keep them tied together so we can have that power in teaching.

Elder Stratford

Biking Pics

We found these crazy hats in the office. 10 of them. So we all wore them biking.

It was a beautiful bike ride. I got a little fried though.

Tati's Baptism!

We taught her for a while while I was in Macau and gave her a baptismal date. She made the date!

Bike Pics

Mainlander I interviewed and we helped baptize and confirm.

She is incredibly mature for an 8 year old. Awesome!​

Bike Pics

The Quad

SO MANY MIRACLES ON THE TRAIN THIS WEEK!

February 11, 2017

Family,

Lot of miracles this week! There seems to be quite a lot here in Hong Kong all the time.

Called up a former investigator and met with him a few days later. His name is Lin. The only old guy that I can think of that has a christian background. He wants to receive the gift of the holy ghost and is preparing for March 19! The only concern is finding somebody to take him to church in a wheel chair because he is quite immobile. That's a pretty easy problem to fix though.

Also met with a man that I found on the train a few weeks ago and he also wants to have the blessings of Jesus Christ more in his life by being baptized on March 26!

Livia is still looking good for March 5th! Just been a little sick recently. Ever since President Lam helped us teach, she has been a changed person. Incredible.

I drove on the wrong side of the road this week. Picked up my HK drivers license. It was so weird. I only rubbed the curb once and turned on the wipers instead of the blinkers 3 times. Pretty good I'd say. Pretty fun to drive again.

I love to be able to pick up all the new missionaries and spend time with them on their first few days here in Hong Kong. They almost always come with great anticipation and excitement to serve the Lord and help his children. They are also very humble and willing to listen and to learn. It actually reminds me of the mainlanders that come down to Hong Kong to get baptized.

Transfers this week. Elder Woolley is off to Hong Kong Island. I am with Elder Lau again! He is great. He doesn't like to waste time and I don't either. Lot of potential in Kowloon. Its going to be a good transfer.

So many miracles on the trains this week! 1. Talking to a guy and after a few minutes he asked me for my wechat number. That never happens, ever. I can't remember a single time somebody has asked me instead of the other way around. Crazy! 2. Met a really nice mainland couple who knew a lot about our church and even attended a few times but never joined the church. 3. On the way home from church we missed our stop, which was uncharacteristic. and had to back track a little bit. As we were making our way back, the thought just popped into my mind that there might be a reason that we missed out stop. As I was talking to people on the train trying to figure out why we missed our stop, I met Brandon. Awesome Filipino man who was Christian growing up, but due to family situation stopped attending. He is very prepared. He will have a baptismal date by the end of the week I am sure!

Also something else that never happens. A recent convert invited his friend to church and introduced us to him. After, he scheduled his friend to meet with us together this week. Awesome!

One of the Vic 3 members texted us at 2 o'clock Sunday morning needing help with his 3rd hour lesson because he just realized that he forgot to assign somebody to give it. He was really stressed and we took some time at church to help him. I learned a lot by helping him prepare the lesson that I probably wouldn't have gotten otherwise. One thing I learned was that having a vision and perspective are both very important. It helps us move forward without hesitation and gives us motivation to magnify our callings.

Have a good week!

Elder Stratford

I bought some ice cream for last day together as an apartment. Transfers were last week.

Medley Garden. Thai Curry. So Good. Before picking up the new missionaries at the airport.