Hello Family! I love you all dearly! Yup.
Well, isn't it strange to be hearing from me on a Monday/Sunday(for
you)? Yes. But I think this change will be nice. Pday won't split up
the week as much as it used to. Also, this means something else
special....we can go to museums now! All the museums in HK are closed on
Thurs for some reason, so we could never go. SO we decided to up and go
to a museum today! We are going to the museum of art to go and be
edified. Yay! It's been a long time since I've just looked at art. The
smallest things can become so exciting and special on a mission.
How are things going for me? Well, very well. There's not a lot of
news to tell you from last time, so I guess I can just chat more. Yay!
Well, these might be my last two weeks in Yuen Long for good, this
time (been here almost 7 months!), and that's strange to think about. I
will miss it, but I can also feel my time running out here. Sister Lau
and I are trying to make the most of it, and we have made a goal to,
outside of our proselyting time, talk to at least 10 people throughout
our day. It has kept us really busy in every moment as we travel to and
from places and I think it's helped us be better missionaries. Sister
Lau really inspires me (she's super capable), and I'm grateful to get to
serve with her.
Also, speaking of having served here for 7 months, SIster Lau had a
little bit of a difficult time lately, in the fact that serving Y2 ward
is proving to be the crucible of the trial of our faith...It just
hasn't grown, and in fact it's shrunk. I had a moment this week where I
realized that after having served here for 7 months, I haven't really
gotten to see any growth. That was hard. Made me wonder what was wrong,
though I really feel like I've given all my effort. And then I stepped
back a bit and realized a few things: When I first came into Yuen Long,
there wasn't much of anything going on. But I had faith that it would
grow. And so we slowly started seeing miracles in the area, lots of
referrals, etc. And eventually things got big enough that they brought
in another pair of elders to serve in Y1 ward! That's big! Then we
started serving just Y2 ward and had to turn over all of our progressing
investigators over to other missionaries...And then the new Hung Shui
Kiu ward opened and half of the members in Y2 moved out. So what I see
now is a small ward and very few investigators, but what I failed to SEE
is how much growth I DID get to contribute to in the area: We have a
new ward and lots of new missionaries serving in the area! I just
haven't gotten to see the baptisms or be in the wards where things were
growing. Y2 remains as the one that hasn't grown yet...So I think this
is proving to be a lesson in perspective and in faith. Even if I don't
get to see results, lots of important seeds are being planted and the
harvest is going on. I have faith in that. D&C 4 tells us that the
field is white already to harvest. I think sometimes we just need to
look up to see that.
And the big blessing of the matter is that we have time and focus
now to go and find lots of new investigators! That's what we did
yesterday after church. It was a beautiful day. The weather is
completely temperate right now, and Yuen Long is green and lovely, and I
had also decided to fast yesterday for the growth of Y2 ward. It made
for a very sacred feeling day. And so, after church, we went out finding
near the church area and it quickly became very rural (photo taken of
said area)...and we had some amazing miracles happen.
Miracle #1: We went up to this house, shouted our greetings, and a
lady came to the door....she was really nice, but she only spoke
Mandarin! We did our best to tell her everything we know in Mandarin
("Heavenly Father loves you," and "we are missionaries") when Sister Lau
decided to pull out a Book of Mormon from her bag. She had just grabbed
one off the shelf that morning. And lo and behold, it was in Simplified
Characters! HK reads Traditional, the rest of China reads Simplified.
And so we were able to give her a BoM and get her phone #. Such a
miracle. I really see how Heavenly Father is in every little detail of
our days. As we pray to be His instruments, He guides us even when we
don't know it.
Miracle #2: We kept walking down this rural road, and suddenly saw
this policeman walk round the corner. He apparently patrols the area. He
started chatting with us and it turns out that all of his family lives
in England, and he will work here till he retires then move there. THis
is EXACTLY like Sister Lau's family. Her dad just barely retired to
England. And so they hit it off well. We also found out that he is
religious and when he has time he goes to church...OUR church! Who knew.
Apparently he had met elders a long time ago. And so we got his number
again and will see him as soon as we can schedule him. Yay! I knew that
we were supposed to go finding in that area, even though we hadn't
planned it the night before. Just a very special experience.
Well, also speaking of great things, we saw Karen yesterday! She
came to church! She is so amazing. She really wants to be baptized and
is really able to recognize the Spirit in her life more. We committed
her to inviting her mom to see us missionaries this week, so we'll see.
Her mom doesn't have anything against our church, she just thinks that
Karen wants to get baptized too soon. To be fair, her mom's second time
hearing about the Church was having Karen ask if she could be
baptized...But I think her mom is being prepared too.
Also, in the realm of lovely things learned lately is this:
children really are an heritage of the Lord. We turned over Ming Fai and
his brother and cousins to the Hung Shui Kiu sisters this week, and
it's just so sweet to see how these children will come running up in joy
to see us. Awww. The same thing happens with Siu Jimuih's kids. They
run up in joy to see us, too. Siu JM has to work a lot so her kids are
often on their own, and since they live so close to the church, we asked
her if it would be alright if we stop by now and then to teach her
kids. We did that on Saturday. We taught them outside near their home,
using an object lesson to teach about faith (it involved finding a bag
of candy). Siu JM came home near the end of the lesson, and we got to
visit with her too. When we asked her how her prayers have been going,
she herself, with no prompting, said that she feels "warm" after she
prays! What a testimony. We see people from all walks of life, but all
of them, if they sincerely pray, will notice these same feelings: warm,
comfortable, peaceful. This is a testimony to me that Heavenly Father
really does answer prayers. It gives me even more faith to promise
people that if they pray, they WILL get answers.
The same goes for all of us. If we pray sincerely, we will get answers.
Well, that's all the news from this half of a week. The work goes
on, and our faith is increasing. Thank you for your prayers and support.
It's needed.
Love you!
Love,
Sister Nielsen
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