Elder Connor Duersch Hong Kong (China) LDS Mission: 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!