Week 27: Elder Riley, Curtis and Ricky!, Soccer ball and a plane, my new leadership rolls!

Lieh Hou Everyone!

Hope you all doing this week! Sorry that this is a short one but here is the good stuff for this week! I hope you all are feeling the savior in your life cause it is always a good thing to have!

 

On this weeks episode of Stan Theman China Hong Kong Mission

Elder Riley: So as you all know I have a new companion this week and he is really cool! He loves Marvel and we talk a lot about nerd stuff and are just having so much fun. It has only been a couple of days here with him,  but his first area when coming to Hong Kong was Tai Wo, so he is so glad to be back with better language skills and to help the area in any way he can! If you are wondering how he sounds and acts, he is more or less like Ross from the TV series Friends, if any of you know that! He is helping me out with language and it is really helping finally! I am now starting to understand people when they talk to me! He is from Chicago and has been out for almost a year and a half! Cant wait to see what we are going to do to change the area for the better!

Curtis and Ricky!: So I finally got in touch with Ricky who if you all remember was stalking us on the bridge during December! He finally got home from america and he wants to meet soon and learn more about our message. SO glad he is still in contact and wants to learn more! I love teaching out here it is so great! We also finally got to meet Curtis in person this week at his English class and it was super fun to help him out with his little kids learning English, and they all thought I was in my 40's-50's...I have gotten that so much out here it is so funny. They all should have seen me with my beard - ha! I miss that lush beard hahaha! We will meet with them soon to start lessons and it will be great! Cant wait!

Soccer ball and a Plane: We went hunting the other day and Elder Riley was doing member calls and there was a mom and 2 little kids trying to get a ball and a plane out of a tree! I didn't even hesitate, and went over and asked her if she needed help and so I started to shake the tree like crazy and then Elder Riley came over and helped and it came out. We talked to her for a bit and gave her our number, and asked if she had interest in out church! It was a great learning experience cause I almost had the ball and plane out but with more help from my companion it was easier!

Leadership rolls: Since everyone in my district has a leadership roll and I have nothing, I was promoted to English Class President to make the classes, and am now the Apartment leader to make sure we all don't die from carbon Dioxide and stuff hahahaha. I saw that coming from a mile away ha!

Well that is all for this week sorry for the shorter email but there is something cool I found this week that was in Enos 1:15 and It talked about how if we pray in faith in the name of Christ what ever we pray for will come true and to pass!  I absolutely love that scripture!

The church is true, and I am still staying happy, and still being my goofy self - there is nothing to worry about haha!

Have a good week for me back home!

Stay Safe and Weird for me!

Yours in Fellowship and Love,󾓭🐲🐼✌🍜

鄧 長 老

Elder Duersch

Dahng Jeunglouh

Stan Theman

Week 26: New Year,,Deep Clean, Zone Conference, Transfer Calls!

Lieh Hou muiyatogoyahn!

How are you all doing!? I hope you are good and also having a good Chinese New year for all of you who celebrate this holiday hahaha. Well i will not waste time and just get on with it.

NewYears: So everyone who lives here for a while who is a missionary knows that Chinese new year is the time of the year where all the people you talk to go to main land and then vanish for like months. Yup I now believe that cause all our investigators went MIA and we will hopefully get in touch with them soon. We are meeting with Ricky these week for the first time to help him teach English to his students and he is really excited for us to come and help him. We met him around Christmas and he came to the ward party and he loves our church so we are so excited to meet with him. The streets were empty and there was literally no one so it was so weird to have thousands of people walking around and then BAM no cars or people! Stores are all closed and no shops are open and ya. So we didn't do much just tried to find people and there was no one so ya that was it. There was also no fire works cause there was a bus crash in our area and 19 people died so they canceled the fire works to help the families which was really cool.

Deep Clean: We deep cleaned our apartment and it was so gross hahahaha. It took all P-Day and there was so much gross stuff hahaha. I cleaned the Kitchen and I am glad cause I didn't want to clean the toilet hahahaha. It was actually really fun!

Zone Conference: We had a zone conference and it was about the Atonement of the savior and I would recommend you all to go to the BD and look up atonement and really do some digging cause it really has changed my point of view on things.

Transfer Calls: So Sunday I was sitting in my office doing a audio journal and then we got the call for transfers already! Time has really flown by fast and it was crazy! There was a trio in a area called Ma On SHan and Elder Newbold is leaving up there to that area. He is still in our zone and my new companion is Elder Riley who is just trading spots with him. So my apartment now has a Dl and both Zl's so that will be crazy and the sisters in my district are also STL sister training leaders. So this is going to get nutz real quick!

Well that is all for this week and I also read up on The Liahona for February and I absolutely love the part when it talks alot about Peter and how he relates to all of us. I would really recommend it to you all it is such a good read. The work is progressing here and I am so grateful for all your love and support! Have a great week!

Stay Safe and Weird for me!

Yours in Fellowship and Love,󾓭🐲🐼✌🍜

鄧 長 老

Elder Duersch

Dahng Jeunglouh

Stan Theman

Week 25 : Pixar Museum, Investigators, Friends, and sacrament to Soho

Lieh Hou muiyatgoyahn!

How are you all doing! So glad to hear that you all are doing great and that you are all warm. I cant believe that there is no snow in Home and that it is warm. I am praying really hard that there will be snow and that rain will come to make life easier for you all in the summer. Not much happened this week but there are good things that are coming our way and that there is always fun in China!

So here is the latest on what happened this week with Elder Duersch Hong Kong Mission!

Pixar Museum!: So for P-Day this week we went to the Chinese Herritage museum and they had a really cool Pixar exhibits with how they came to be made and how all the things of Pixar work. I think some of my favorite ones are the Up and Brave exhibits. They went into so much detail about how it was made and all the Clay models that they used in order to make them work. If that makes sense. I have some pictures that will be attached and hopefully you will be able to see them. It was really cool they also have a huge Bruce Lee exhibit there as well with a lot statues and his famous yellow spandex suit he wore. We coulnd't take pictures of that cause it was not permited but I did get a good shot of one of the statues out side. It made me feel back at home and also how much fun Disney and Pixar are. I love those movies ha!

Investigators: So currently at the moment we have an investigator pool of 5. Connor, Derek, Tom, Ricky, and Justin. They are all as I know doing well. We haven't met with Tom in a while and we think he is just out of the country for a bit so we will see. Ricky is a man who we haven't met with yet but he was at our ward Christmas party and he loves the church! He is really busy lately with New year stuff and after it is over we are going to meet and he is all in for learning about our gospel and how it can help his family. Justin is a brand new investigator and he is also looking really good for wanting to learn more. He is young and has a lot of questions and loves our teachings. Connor is a bit busy as well with new year. Derek is doing well. We meet with him every Saturday and we have our lessons and catch up. He is getting there and he is such a great guy to talk to. They are all doing well and they are learning so much and I love them with all my heart!

Friends: So also every week we meet with a Less active named Brother Chihng and he is so busy all the time that he wakes up at 4 and goes to work as a taxi driver and then gets home around 6 in the morning. So he is really busy and all he does is work and sleep. When we come we just read with him the Book of Mormon and he really likes that and it helps him remember things and also helps us with the language. We also meet every week with a man named A-Wing and we always do language study with him and he loves to meet with us and talk about life. They are doing great and the ward is going to help us find ways to help them out.

Sacrament to Soho: So Soho was a RC who went less active and then he came back to church and he is now doing really well. He didn't come to church yesturday and we wanted to know why. So our Elders quorum President asked if we could go to his house. I had to lead us there since I knew where it was and he was just sick. So Elder Newbold and I had the oppertunity to give him the sacrament. It was so powerful and so interesting to say it in another language cause it makes it have more depth.

Well that is all for this week sorry it is so short and things are normal here. It is the new year here and that means that it is the time for family. That is what I love about this gospel is that we have eternal families and that we are always and forever will be together. I love you all and you all are my family! I know this church is true and that I would never give up this great oppertunity that I have to serve my savior!

Stay Safe and Weird for me!

Yours in Fellowship and Love,󾓭🐲🐼✌🍜

鄧 長 老

Elder Duersch

Dahng Jeunglouh

Stan Theman

Week 25: The coldest I have ever been, Temple, New Friend Justin, and Ediths Confirmation

Lieh Hou Ngohge Pahngyauh!

I heard that Utah has had a drought in snow this year! Odd, usually you think it is because every one in Utah prays for different weather every 15 min hahaha! That was a great Joke I heard here! Any way I don't want to take up to much time from you all so here is the main course for this week!

The Coldest I have ever been!: So when I heard I was going to Hong Kong I never would have thought it would get this cold! It was 44 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday and with the humidity it goes straight to your bones! We went to church in short sleeves because we put our hands outside the window of our apartment and it wasn't to cold. Big Mistake! It was freezing and the church also has no heaters so we just bundled up in our suits and rubbed our legs to keep warm. The sisters in our ward asked do you need clothes? And we said "No, we will just go and buy some scarfs on P-Day." So we went back to our apartment and we put on our sweaters and our PJ bottoms over our suit pants and just huddled up by the heater we have that is about the size of a Phone Book. We got a call from our member Linda and she got some coats and Scarfs for us to wear! So we met her at MC Donald's and she was so sweet for giving us winter clothing! We will survive cause the winters don't last long here and it will get blazing hot really soon!

Temple: We got to go to the House of the Lord in China and let me tell you, it was breath taking. The inside was all gold and Chinese stuff and it was so great! It felt good to go in and be reminded of my time in the temple in my youth and at the MTC. The spirit was there and it was so great to get refreshed for the week and to have some knowledge acquired. Since it is a small temple the rooms are really tinny and it was really peaceful and you could not hear the outside world with the cars it was so great!!!

New Friend Justin: Back in November we met with a young man who is 15 years old and he was wanting to learn English from us. He was a referral from our Ward mission Leaders Son. So we taught him English every time we met until the 6 time and we asked if he wanted to learn about the gospel. He said he would when he gets back from Christmas and some camps he has to do for school. We finally met him this week and taught him a quick lesson of the Restoration and it went really well because he went to a Christian School so he already knew how to pray and about Jesus Christ which was really good. He really likes our gospel and wants to learn more so lets hope he will continue to learn. Retention rate for people here is interesting so I have hope and faith for him. He is also 6.7 so he is a really tall guy!!!

Edith Confirmation: The last thing that happened this week was Edith got Confirmed and received the holy ghost by our Bishop. It was so powerful and you could feel the spirit in the room going towards her. It was a new feeling I have never felt before in my life and I will never forget it. I also loved hearing how it was done in Cantonese and it felt like it was more powerful! I understood a little and I was able to understand a lot thanks to the language of the Spirit which everyone speaks!

Well that was about it for this week. Our other investigators are doing well and we should get a new one this week that we met with at our ward Christmas party! Also people will be leaving the country soon for Chinese New Year so that is when the work starts to slow down a bit since we cant go into main land. Well we can but it wouldn't end well for the church ha.

I want to share with you all what I have learned over the past month in my studies and with my other work. I have come to realize how important it is for us to have Charity! I know it sounds weird for me to say that but when I really went ham on studying it I learned so much and how important it is that we all need it. There is a scripture in 1 Cor that says that the three most important things are Faith, Hope, and Charity. But the most important of the three is Charity. I know that when we ask to have a piece of the Lords Charity and then use it to bless lives, we receive great courage and reassurance of peace and love. I want to invite you all to do as the Savior did and that is He served where ever he went. I Know this church is true and that Charity is the pure love of Christ and when we have it, we can never loose!

Have a great week and as always you are all in my prayers and thoughts every second of every day!

Stay Safe and Weird for me!

Yours in Fellowship and Love,󾓭🐲🐼✌🍜

鄧 長 老

Elder Duersch

Dahng Jeunglouh

Stan Theman