Chapter 90: M Russell Ballard, Change, Elder Lagaña, We are the Lamanite.

Elder Connor R. Duersch(Stan Theman鄧長老) Ministering to Hong Kong 1 by 1! Chapter 90

你好!!!  

Good morning! How are we all. 

This week was so cool! 

President M Russell Ballard! 

We had the coolest experience ever to meet as a mission to hear from the acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles! He is so funny! He came in to the gym as we were singing and he started to do a little conducting and dancing with it. Then after we took a  picture we got to shake his hand and it was so powerful to be able to do so. Just being in his presence is truly amazing and so Incredible. 

When he came he kept saying I want to find a spot to sit to see the missionaries. Then he sat down and there was a huge pot of flowers in front of him and he said can we move these flowers I want to see the missionaries. It was so great. He gave such a powerful talk to us and spoke about how we have indeed been chosen to come to Hong Kong and to open our mouths at every point we possibly can. He talked about John 14. This was his favorite chapter in the scriptures. 

He kept telling us to always open our mouths and talk with 10 people a day. And when we do, he said we will find success I have been trying super hard at getting that ten and every time elder Thomas and I try we indeed find a person who is willing to talk

What an amazing experience. I have so much more energy and desire to talk to as many people as I can now and it feels so good! 

A guy named Joe. 

For a while we have been trying to teach a man. We will call him Joe for now. But after P-day when we got back to work we were able to teach a powerful and very simple plan of Salvation lesson and he loved it. We asked him where do you right now fit in all of this. He said I am at the first step of stairs developing my faith in Jesus Christ. It was so cool to hear that. Let's hope he continues to have more desire to learn. 

Elder Lagaña

This week I was able to go on exchanges with Elder Lagaña in my district. He is a super cool elder! We went to crossroads and loaded lots of toys into this truck and we did that for a while. We met a man from Germany and it was fun to chat with him and answer some of his questions he has about what we do. 

Later Elder Lagaña and I went to get dinner and we went to a super good burger place called the Mustache Chef. The shack is just like an American one! Best burger I have ever had! We taught a lesson in the evening with our Elders Quorum president to a man we met named Kelvin. We taught about the Restoration. He has a religious background and he has been literally searching for the true church. We taught him and the spirit was present. We tried to give him a book of Mormon and he didn't want to take it but accepted a pamphlet. He is very solid in his current faith but he did feel the spirit and in time  he will know by the spirit this message is true. 

Your mission, If you choose to accept it. 

We got our transfer calls this Saturday. And I had a guess that something big would happen to our district. We'll it did. Elder Thomas and I are both leaving Tsing Yi! They are white washing our area. Elder Thomas is going to a place called Aberdeen and Boflom. I however am staying in the same apartment but going over to Tung Chung with Elder Lagaña. He is now the District leader. As for Tsing Yi,  Elder Allen is coming to Tsing Yi!!! So awesome! I can't describe how happy I am to be living with him again! 

I have heard that majority of the mission is being white washed because they have to get things ready for the summer when my group leaves. There are over 30 leaving around August time so we are preparing. 

We also had a fun district council this week where we played a game. And if you lost your companion got to put powder all over your face. That was pretty fun as well. 

I also had a fun study yesterday morning looking in the scriptures at the maps of the Church history and the geography. It reminded me of the time I was able to go with my Bishop, Bishop Casper, and his son to tour the history sights of Joseph smith. That was the experience that gave me a testimony of the Prophet. I know he was a prophet of God. He sacrificed so much. And people say it was a lie. Well if he was that good of a liar,  I really don't think he would do it all the way to the taking of his own life. If you do not have a testimony of the Prophet Joseph I invite you do do what you can help you acquire one. 

It will bless your life. 

Have a great week love you all! 

Love ya!

Yours in Fellowship and Love,󾓭🐲🐼✌🍜

鄧 長 老

Elder Connor R.Duersch

Dahng Jeunglouh

Stan Theman  

Chapter 89: Exchanges, spike ball and a bird

Elder Connor R. Duersch(Stan Theman鄧長老) Ministering to Hong Kong 1 by 1! Chapter 89

你好!!!  

Good morning! How are we all?

This week was full of so much stuff! Last week I forgot to send the email, my bad. I had it drafted and the l was busy and forgot to send it so my bad ha. 

Baby Bird and the spike ball:

We had our district council this week and the Tùng Chung elders were assigned to do a unity game for the district. So they made us do a scripture chase and if you lost there was a letter of a D or. B on it. That represented that if no one in the group could get it right we all had to eat a Durian or a piece of a Balot. For those of you who do not know what they are a Durian is a spike ball with goopy fruit on the inside and it tastes like Onion with mustard and smells like sewer. It was so nasty. President Phillips was at the chapel when we did it and he cane in and had some and he didn't mind it but sister Phillips was not a fan. 

Then we got it wrong again and we had to eat a piece of a Balot. This is a dish from the Philippines and it is a non-developed baby bird in an egg and you eat the while thing at once!!! We got it wrong and so I got a piece of it. As I was eating it I kept telling my self it is scrambled eggs! Then when I tried to swallow my brain laughed and said Baby Bird. And I threw it up hahaha. District Unity! Ya that was nuts

Elder Finklea: 

I was also able to have the privilege of going on exchanges with elder Finklea this week. It was so much fun! We went to cross roads again and we moved some stuff from storage Containers into a truck and it was so hot!!! We were dead for the rest of the day from heat exhaustion. We did an English class find with the zone and that was crazy. A drunk man came up to us and tried to do some Kung fù on Elder Finklea and it was super funny. He almost poked his eyes out hahaha. 

We met a member and had some super good food with her and talked about the strength of youth and how it not only applies to youth but to every member. It was a good refresher to read it and to be able to remember more standards that help protect us. 

Interviews:

We had interviews again with President Phillips this week as well. It was super fun to catch up with him again and to have him answer questions we had. He is so smart and is so willing to listen to us and to answer the questions we have about life or the gospel. 

Ping Pong Master!:

 

We also had a great day with one of our students from English class. He is 80 years old and bought us some McDonald's. He then told us he loves playing ping pong and we went to the chapel before class to play a little with him and he is a master!!! His serve is so fast and he can hit any ball that goes off the table. It was so nuts! 

That does it for this week, but a sneak peak for next week's email: We will have a special guest from the general authorities coming to speak to us! 

For pictures my dad will put them out. Thanks dad love you! You to mom!

Have a great week love you all! 

Love ya!

Yours in Fellowship and Love,󾓭🐲🐼✌🍜

鄧 長 老

Elder Connor R.Duersch

Dahng Jeunglouh

Stan Theman 

Chapter 87: We have our Heading! And the Legend Elder Johnson

Elder Connor R. Duersch(Stan Theman鄧長老) Ministering to Hong Kong 1 by 1! Chapter 87

你好!!!  

Good morning! How are we all. 

This one is going to be a doozy so take your vitamins, grab a life best and buckle up! 

We had probably one of the coolest Zone Conferences on the planet this week. We had a member from another ward let us use his Boat and we had Zone Conference on a boat and we went and visited little islands and had super awesome training. The boat!!! It was so cool! I will send as many pictures as I can. Since I have been emailing from my phone it can only send about 1-2 pictures at a time so that has been the reason why I haven't been able to send lots of things. But I have lots of pictures don't worry. 

The weather was super nice on the boat and there was gummies and fruit and granola bars! We packed our own lunches and when we stopped for lunch it was in front of a Chinese temple and the ward member told us some meanings of the pictures and statues. For example on the top of some door ways are four different paintings of flours. Each of the four represents a season so that was fun to learn. And above the main door is usually pictures of a family or people. This actually tells the story of the person that lived in the temple and what they did with there life and how they came to be themselves. 

We then went on a little 20 min hike over a mountain to a cove and we had other training's out on the beach. At the end President Phillips brought some little baskets and we did service on the beach for about 15 min collecting all sorts of trash to make it clean again. Hooray service! I love service! We don't get to much of it our here and it is just the best when we can do service. 

We sang songs and came back home and we had a very great time and very spiritually uplifted. We had lots of training's on charity and love towards your companion and other missionaries to make sure they feel loved and appreciated here in the mission. 

The other super awesome thing that happened this week was exchanges. I was able to go on exchanges with Elder Johnson this week. He was the Assistant for a really long time and now he is my zone leader. We had such a great time walking around and talking about life and movies. We played board games when the day was over. 

The 2 best things that we did on the exchange was our studies and an experience we had out finding. 

Our Companion study was so amazing! It was so strong with the spirit and we learned so much about our missions. He will be finishing his mission at the end of May and I will be finishing soon as well so we had a really good time talking about our experiences and what it really means to ha e success as a missionary. It was again so powerful! 

The other thing that happened was while walking near the pier we tried to talk to a man and a little into the conversation things got pretty heated and he was telling us that what we believe is fake and we need to stop believing in it. He told us you have never seen God or ghosts so I k ow your religion is wrong. He wouldn't stop talking and elder Johnson looked at him and asked if he could say one sentence. And the man agreed. And while he was saying his sentence about his testimony the man kept coming in. We just got to the point and asked if he had interest and he said no and so we left. But we made sure to let him know that Christ lives. 

I was so impressed with how elder Johnson approached the situation. He told me after that one tool that people will try out here is to talk so much that it makes it impossible for us to open our mouth and be able to speak. Just how like with Joseph Smith the thing that the adversary tried to do to stop the Restoration was to bind his tongue. He is still trying to do this today and we must do our best to open our mouths and let them be filled. 

This I testify is true. And the savior of the world is reaching out to you now and wants you to be happy now and in eternity. 

Have a great week love you all! 

Love ya!

Yours in Fellowship and Love,󾓭🐲🐼✌🍜

鄧 長 老

Elder Connor R.Duersch

Dahng Jeunglouh

Stan Theman