Sister Shiffert in Hong Kong : Working in the Lord's Vineyard

Leihdeih Hou!

This week has been pretty good! We had zone training and I think it was honestly one of the most spiritual zone trainings I've attended. We talked about working in the Lord's vineyard and having the faith and humility to do the Lord's work His way, which is together with Him. I have definitely learned this lesson over the past few months. I know I am not in this work alone. The Lord did not call us to do His work and then say "Ok have fun while I watch you!" No, He called us here to help Him do His work in this part of the vineyard. Jacob 5 is full of "we" and "us" not "you" and "I". We are in this together with the Lord. We have to trust He knows His vineyard and He knows how he wants His work done. We have to have faith in His timing and His ways and submit ourselves to His will. Sometimes I don't understand why things happen the way they do, but I know that they do for a reason and I have to put total trust in the Lord because He has the bird's eye view of this work. I can only see two steps in front of me.

Our Book of Mormon challenge was more than we expected. Our goal for the zone was 280 Books of Mormon, but we were able to give out 403 Books of Mormon in a month's time. That's craziness! All I can say is that there are prepared people in Hong Kong. We just have to use the tools the Lord has given us (Book of Mormon, Preach My Gospel, members, etc) to find them. The Lord helped us achieve what some would call the impossible but nothing is impossible with the Lord on your side. We are going to continue to give out at least one Book of Mormon a day with the faith that we are going to see some amazing miracles happen in the New Territories!

This week was up and down with our investigators. We meet with Alice last week and extended a baptism date to her. this is the second time we've done it. Her concern is that she doesn't know a lot about the gospel yet and feels like she's not ready to be baptized. After talking with her at some length and assuring her you don't have to be perfect to be baptized, she accepted a baptism date for September 18th! That made me SO happy! She is so ready to be baptized; she just doesn't know it yet :) The problem is Alice has started going to work again so she couldn't come to church yesterday, but pray that she will be able to come between now and her baptism. I don't want to have to push it back, but I don't want to push her to get baptized either.

We also had to drop one of our investigators Fung Taai this week. It made me so sad! I didn't want to drop her, but she's not ready for the gospel yet. She likes to listen to our messages, but it's mainly because she likes to talk with us, not because she's interested in the gospel. She is a pohpo so she only prays once or twice a week because she forgets and doesn't read her scriptures or come to church. She's not progressing and she lives way out in the boonies so trying to teach someone who's not progressing in taking away time for finding people that would progress. We will visit her again in the future to see how she's doing, but right now we have to focus on the elect. She will accept the gospel one day though! :)

Sister Luk is doing great! I love her so much! She works really hard and is getting better and better everyday. Her training is going well and her English is improving. I feel like she has also helped my Cantonese improve (at least I hope so!). She teaching me how to write and text in Cantonese so that's fun! Our unity is good and we are trying to help make Yuen Long progress and grow!

I hope all of you have a great week! Sorry for the lack of pictures, but more will be coming soon! I love all of you!

Scripture of the Week: Jacob 5:75 When we do things together with the Lord and keep all His commandments, we find joy in the fruits of our labors.

Quote of the Week: Are we willing to let our will be swallowed up in the will of God?

Sister Maggie Shiffert