Week 57: Tin Shui Wai, Elder Day, Stake Conference, New Friends

你好每一固人!

   I hope that you all are doing well this week! I am sad to have left my baby area finally but I am surprised that I wasn't too sad about leaving. I know that I will see all my good friends and family again and I do believe that I was ready to get a fresh start and see some new things in the mission. 

   I am very excited to tell you all about my area and the cool things that are going on!  Also today is the Mid-Autumn festival!!  So go get a moon cake and make some lanterns!!! I also forgot that last week was National Grandparents day. So go and give your grandparents a hug, kiss, and take a moment to think about their lives and how different yours would be without them in it. It really opens you eyes. Be grateful for the people in your life. They are here by our heavenly Father to teach us and make us happy! So appreciate all they do and show more affection to them. So here we go!

Elder Connor R. Duersch(Stan Theman鄧長老) Ministering to Hong Kong 1 by 1! Chapter 57

Tin Shui Wai:

    Now this area is way in the North West of Hong Kong. There are these little light rail trains to take to get around the area which is pretty convenient. But  I am now in the smallest area in the world for missionary work! I am able to get to one side of my area to the other in like 12 min walking! I have done it!!! There are like four areas we can walk around and talk to people and then the main part of our area is a flippin park!!! So this is going to be so much FUN!!! I am so excited to get to know a new area and ask people what is good around it. We live in a six elder Apartment and I am with elder Day as my companion. I have elder Long, Cowgil, Allen, and Ng living in the apartment. It is such a blast living with these Elders I am going to have so much fun!!! Ya the area is really tiny so it will be an adventure to see what happens. The Chapel is super nice!!! It is just like the ones back in America! It is a stake center as well, but still so nice!!! There are a lot of activities here in the area with sports and other things. We have a returning member who loves to play baseball so we will be doing that with him every Tuesday night. It has been a while since I have played so this will be fun. My office is also in the family room so that is kinda nice being next to a fridge....also we have a piano in the house!!!!

Elder Day:

   So Elder Day is one transfer younger than me so we are about the same age out here in mission standard time. He comes from the wide land of.........Lehi, Utah. hahahaha. So it will be cool to keep in touch post mission. He has been here for 2 transfers and we are super excited to get to work and to have a blast while doing it. He is super nice and loves to do the work. He loved to do video games back home so we have things in common already! Super excited to go and work. We have a lot of faith and it will be great to see the outcome. Should be funny to see what crazy adventures we have!

   

Stake Conference:
   Stake conference was this week and President Phillips and sister Phillips came to give talks. I really thought that he was going to talk in English....wrong! He spoke in Cantonese and it was super good!!! I am not going to lie....I was super tired and so hard to stay awake hahaha. we had a meeting at 8 before with the stake and all the ward councils to talk about missionary work and working with the youth. Lots of ward members there and they also give us a lot of moon cakes! They taste so good!  

New Friends: 

   So we have a great investigator pool! We have 2 great people named Johnny and Stephen. We met both this week and we are so ready to get to work with them. Stephen is a Former and he has a Wow issue so we told him if he stops smoking this week, i would give up chocolate milk for a week and Elder Day would cook and eat vegetables. He has a lot of faith, knows the church is true and loves to pray with all his heart! So excited for him. He really wants to quit smoking. Stephen is a boss! Johnny is a 21 year old who loves English and the Elders so we are on the right track! We have so much going on this week it is going to be so amazing!!!

 

The Church is indeed true and I am so glad to be living in the Gospel!  

The lord is at the helm leading us along and is ready for us to serve with him right by his side!

Yours in Fellowship and Love,󾓭🐲🐼✌🍜

鄧 長 老

Elder Connor R.Duersch

Dahng Jeunglouh

Stan Theman

Week 56: Mission Tour, Hot Pot with the Elders, Good bye my old Friend, With all the Strenght of a Super Typhoon!!!

你好每一固人!

   Holly Cow!!! I Guarantee that if there was a cow here in Hong Kong it would be blown sky high!!! I have never seen a storm like this in my life! But I will get to that later in the Email. How are you all doing? This week was one of the best weeks I have had yet on my mission here in Hong Kong! Truly am grateful for the safety and prayers of everyone across the world for all the people here in Asia that were effected by the super typhoon Manghkut. Ya things were really intense here!

I will get onto the main meat cause stuff is really good!!!!

Elder Connor R. Duersch(Stan Theman鄧長老) Ministering to Hong Kong 1 by 1! Chapter 56

Mission Tour:

  We got to have mission tour this week! We had Elder Meurhs from the 70 and also elder Homer of the 70 came with their wives. It was such a refreshing to hear some grate insight and also to spend some time with the general authorities. I was able to sit next to Elder Homer during lunch and I asked him, "i have been in my baby area for 11 months, how can I endure this and more hard things in my life?" he smiled looked at me and said, "The best way to endure is to have fun and to have Joy in it."

He then told me that he served in Hong Kong on his mission and that he also was in an area for a consecutive 11 months! Every one knew him in the stores and the restaurants and all the other places. He said he had to learn to enjoy it and then keep loving every second of it!

So amazing to hear that from an authority.

We also had a really good training on Alma 22 and how it is totally an actual missionary lesson that we can Di-sect and also learn from from verse 1 to 18! Absolutely amazing!!!

We also learned a lot about  staying with your companion and how most of the missionaries who end up leaving a mission is because they were not with there companion. Satan wants this work to stop and the best way to do it is to stop the people who are doing it.

Also a really good role play on how to work with members more effectively. There was also members there for the event and they gave amazing feedback as well on how we can work better with them and their busy schedules. So refreshing and so grate to have the spirit enlightening us that day.

Hot Pot:

   We had an amazing Elders Quorum activity this week! We were going to do a BBQ in our area but because of the super typhoon it was changed to a hot pot KBQ activity in the chapel. We got there early to set up and get the food ready. There was some shrimp and clam that was still alive and they but them into boiling water and they were going nuts and popping the lid off. So the brethren ran over to it and had to hold it down until they "went to sleep". Sad i know, but they tasted really good!!!

But I believe that we had a super miracle. So we were trying to get some of our people to come and we had a miracle. Connor was able to come! He asked if he could bring friends with him and we said of course!!! So they came a little late and Connor with his 3 friends walked in and the members just ate them up! They were so glad to see him again and to talk to his friends. They loved the Activity and they are going to a soccer activity at the end of the week with our ward mission leader Mike. Our ward members are doing so good with fellowship! Then later on we had the door open and Victor came in!!! It was so good to see him again from India and the ward members also talked to him for a long time and it was so great! He was eating some sauce with the shrimp and I asked what it was. He said Chili sauce try some. So he put a huge glob of it on my shrimp and all the ward members got really big eyed and scared. So I got the smallest amount on my shrimp and ate it. I think my mouth tasted fire and brimstone!!!! I ran to the sink and got some soda, when no one was looking of course, and just guzzled it down! It was so hot! And I look over and Victor is eating spoon fulls of it with his food!!! He is from India so that makes sense now that I think about it. But ya any way super great activity and the members were brilliant with our friends!

Good By my old Friend!:

    So Transfer calls came in this week. I am now officially leaving my baby area!!!! After almost 1 year in my baby area and now I am finally leaving the nest. I told all my ward members and they are all really sad. Since church was canceled I had to let them know through text. Just another blessing to have a smart phone to do so. We have a lot of dinner appointments now hahahah. I am so excited to head out but I am really going to miss this little area that I have come to love! I know this is where the Lord called to go for what ever reason, and I am going to give it my all to him! I am excited to see what it is like and I will let you all know next week. I leave this Thursday to Tin Shui Wai! really excited to go and see new parts of Hong Kong!

Super Typhoon Manghkut:

   So as you all have probably seen on the news we experienced one of the worst typhoons in Hong Kong History!!! We had to stay inside all day long Sunday and all P-day. The storm was coming and when we looked out side we saw the wind start picking up and then it got so super quite. And when it is quite in Hong Kong.....something big is coming. Then it hit! There was so much water and wind that the buildings turned into water falls and the streets became rivers. The rain was blowing sideways and up! We did calls for a long time! I went through all of our formers and no one had interest. Potentials were all done. Cleaned the apartment. and then it was like 4 o'clock. and this was on Sunday! So we just did more studies and then I started to pack for Thursday so that was good! We got some really crazy funny videos and I am still laughing at them. I will hopefully be able to send them to you all.

The southern part of the Island is more worse than we are! Please pray for them. I have never seen a natural disaster like this before in my life! Even though we were close to the top of Hong Kong we still got hit a bit. We went to go and clean the church property because we were told by our president to not go proselyting instead we are to go and serve to help the church's name out here in Hong Kong. SO that is what we did and went to clean up our church and today we are going around town to help any one in any way to recover from the disaster. I also suggested to take a shovel to a fallen tree and Elder Evans said it wouldn't work. He question the weirdness of a Duersch!!! So i found one.......I cut through the Tree!!!! hahahahah. I had his help and some of the sisters as well!

Well that is all for this week and more will be coming next week!

I love this gospel so much and the way it changes our lives for the Better! Nothing is to hard because we are the sons and daughters of the king of the universe. And he loves us!

Yours in Fellowship and Love,󾓭🐲🐼✌🍜

鄧 長 老

Elder Connor R.Duersch

Dahng Jeunglouh

Stan Theman

Week 55: Elder Wong and Call in the big Guns!!!

你好!!!

你今日好嗎?

 The Rain has now gone away for a while!! Thank goodness! I didn't know how much longer I could awlk around in soggy shoes all day hahaha. I am fien though so don't worry! The rain here is actually just NUTZ I can't describe it. It is just one of those instances where you have to go and take a look for yourself.IT is like the Gospel and cake. Bear with me here on this one.

People out here always say that our church is evil when we talk to them. We ask how do you know? They say we heard it from a friend and online on websites. Safe to say they probably didn't go to LDS.org. I then begin to ask them if someone said they had the best cake in the world, how would you know if it was? They respond I would have to taste it and try it for my self. We then explain it that that is how the Gospel of Jesus Christ is like. We do not force you to eat our cake like the crazy Miss Trench Bull. We just desire you to have a chance to see what it is like, and if it is not so good for you, then we aren't going to force you to eat the whole thing.

This Gospel is really great! I honest and truly wouldn't be the same person today if I chose not to come out and serve. This mission isn't just for now in my life, but it is shaping me to be able to continue to be a good person for eternity. I love this gospel so much!!!! I wan't to scream it to the whole world. But I guess for now the millions of people here in Hong Kong will do hahahah.

I will not keep you any longer than the time you had for today.

Elder Connor R. Duersch(Stan Theman/鄧長老) Serving Hong Kong 1 by 1 Chapter 55

Elder Wong:

  Now don't be to alarmed. This isn't the Elder Wong of the 12. But it was on an exchange with an elder Wong this week. He is serving in Ma On Shan and Elder Newbold when there with our District leader Elder Siddoway. We had a really busy day actually. It has been a while since we have been busy. I know it has been a while since I have talked about People with Interest in the gospel for a while, but that is because we really haven't gotten any one new. We do have Victor but he was in India for a month so he is now back and hope he is still wanting to talk. He is really solid so I have no fears. But back to the Exchange. We did some studies and shared some stories of our missions and the things we went through. He is such a great guy and is really funny to be around. We went out for some finding in the streets which was fun to talk to other people with him. Had an English class with 6 kids in attendance and it was super good!  taught a returning member and also Edith. We are so close to being done with her and the After Baptismal lessons. We taught Priesthood and also Temples and she is so smart!!! She listens really intently! The Exchange was over and It is always a good experience to be with someone different.

The other thing that was really great this week was when we had our lesson with Edith Bishop Came and he had a back pack and a box of noodles. When we finished our prayer he set down his box took off his back pack and asked for a white board pen! I looked at Elder Wong and said watch this. I leaned back and Bishop just took off and went totally Apostle mode!!! I looked over to Elder Wong and he had his mouth open a bit. Bishop brought the spirit so well and together we taught Edith and it was so much FUN!!! We all bounced back and forth during the lesson and it was so great!

Yesterday we were in Elders Quorum and they asked who could take the sacrament to the family with the brother who has had a stroke and cant come to church. I have given it to them a lot and they are one of my favorite families in the ward!!! No one spoke up, so i started to raise my hand and Bishop said I will do it. Then my hand went up and he looked at me nodded and smiled. So we got to go with bishop to the Ng family and give them the sacrament. Then we decided to sing to them and it was so powerful.

That is pretty much it for this week, but I real quick want to let you all know that this church is true. There is a new book that just came out on Gospel Library that talks about more event that happened with Joseph smith and it does really show hos true the church is. I have also started to mark all the references to the savior in the Book of Mormon and I am only on 1 nephi 10 and it has mentioned the savior over 200 times!!!! If you haven't done this before, i invite you to do so. It is really showing me how much the Book Of Mormon does testify of Christ!

I love you all and am so grateful for all of your prayers. If you have any questions please let me know and I can do a Q and A.

Yours in Fellowship and Love,󾓭🐲🐼✌🍜

鄧 長 老

Elder Connor R.Duersch

Dahng Jeunglouh

Stan Theman

Week 54: How do we turn it off!!!, Elder Condie and the Leaf, Are you that Alchemist group called Slytherin?

你好人人!!!

你日今好嗎?

   Yup I am learning some new characters!!! It is so much fun! It was really hard for me to love the language at first but when I found something that made it fun, learning it was so much better. I feel that is how most things go in our lives. We do things that may not seem fun and are really hard and tricky. But when we are able to find the good in it and how much fun we could have from it, it becomes even that much more sweet it is for us.

This week was Soakingly interesting. so I will just get to it then. But First we will do some QandA.

The Weather will be discussed later on in the Email.

My shoes are still doing good, but from this week I may need to get some more next year, maybe hahaha.

This week has been really dry with finding new investigators. It is like we have been in a drought for a while and all we can do is show forth our efforts every day and then the lord will bless us! I do know that he will when we show forth faith. For we don't receive a witness till after the trial of our faith.

Elder Connor R. Duersch(Stan Theman/鄧長老) Saving Hong Kong 1 by 1. Chapter 54.

So this week was absolutely bonkers!!! I have never seen so much rain before in my whole life than I have in 1 day out here! You are just drenched from head to toe. Your lower body from the rain and then your upper body from sweat! The weather has cooled down though dramatically because of all the rain which is so nice for us missionaries out here who have to walk in our best attire and then peel it off when we get home - hahaha. There is just so much rain. I take lots of videos of the rain to show people back home and if they don't believe me all I have to do is show the pictures. Or just look at the weather forecast around this time of year. There are these huge river Canals that flow into the harbor and out to sea and when the rain hits the mountains and the Canals, it is just all over the place! So we have no idea how to turn it off! hahahaha. Not even the Umbrella will keep you safe because it rains sideways! I am short so I am really good with not getting wet. It is fun to walk through the sidewalk of a bout 2 inches of water though! My shoes really are getting soaked and my socks are going hahah. I did a load of laundry and my socks were the main part hahaha. It is also really hard when we have nothing to do and we just go out finding all day and it is just dumping. If you think it is hard finding in dry weather, just imagine it dumping! But it is really something to behold.

When P-day was over and we were getting ready to start the day as an apartment, Elder Condie had an idea to go out and do less active finding with Elder Evans. He didn't want to go and Elder Condie really did. So I just was dumb and waddled in and said I can go with ya! They both looked at each other and said, Ok. I was like wait what? So Elder Evans went with Elder Newbld to go and do Street Contacting while Elder Condie and I went Returning Member Finding. But while we were doing it the Heavens opened and it dumped! We both used one umbrella and we got to a walkway over the free way and there was a really big tree with huge leaves!! So i said use that as an umbrella. So he leaned over and ripped one off and we walked around and talked to people with the leaf on his head. SO funny!! Then we stopped a group and by this time the leaf was ripped into peaces. The group wasn't to interested and then as we paused for a moment Elder Condie asked, Do you want a leaf then? I was laughing so hard!!! We met 2 Returning members shared a message and booked it home in the rain! So much fun!!!

The only other weird thing was since we weren't having much luck out finding, we decided to do some calls and texted some potentials. I get a response from a kid and he asked who we were. So I told him our church name and he was like, "Oh are you those Alchemists?" I said "No we are missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" and then he said,"Ohhhh You guys are Slytherin!" So I played along and said, "No our church would be Gryffondor!" He didn't respond after that and I think he left the chat hahahahaha. That was really funny.

Some real quick spiritual thing this week.

I was able to finish the Book of Mormon this Sunday. I looked back at my life and This was the 6th time I have read the Book of Mormon all the way through. I am very glad to have had the many opportunities to read it and to learn the words of God. The scriptures are for us to learn and to make us happy in life. They answer our questions we didn't even know we had! I have a new project to do and I would also like to invite you all to do like wise. I am going to now underline in Silver pen all the references to the Savior in the Book of Mormon and really see how much it does testify of him. You all can do you own highlighting method but go and buy a brand new book of Mormon and give it a try! I am very excited to do this! I have been wanting to do this for a while!

That is pretty much it for this week really glad to hear that you are all ok and that you are all safe. I love this work out here. It is really hard but it is all in the lords timeng and this is just a crucible for me to become who he wants me to be. I can testify that I wouldn't be the same person today back home if I chose not to come out and serve with the lord. My testimony has grown so much that  my body can't hold it. Also shared my testimony in  sacrament and I had our stake President help me read out loud Alma 7;11-13 about the atonement and repentance. It was so unique to feel the spirit moving through me and the gift of tongues taking effect!

I love my savior and I am so grateful to have him in my life!

Love you all and have a great spirit filled week!

Yours in Fellowship and Love,󾓭🐲🐼✌🍜

鄧 長 老

Elder Connor R.Duersch

Dahng Jeunglouh

Stan Theman