Sister Shiffert in Hong Kong : One Year? Already?

Leihdeih Hou!

I hope all of you had a great week this past week! Mine was really good! The craziest part was that I hit my year mark this past wee! Really? Are you sure? This past year has seriously flown by SO fast! It has also been the best year of my life, ups and downs and all. There is nothing I would rather be doing right now than serving the Lord in Hong Kong. The number of blessings and miracles I have received and seen have been countless. I knew serving this mission was what I needed to do, but I didn't fully understand how much it would change my life. I know the next 6 months are going to go by even faster and I am excited for what the Lord has in store for me!

I know I mostly talk about Alice, but I also want to share about our investigator Laahn Je. We met her back a while back and she was a success from our Book of Mormon challenge. She lives in a nursing home but she is so sweet and so funny! She can't remember a lot and we have to teach like we are teaching a five year old, but that's okay! I love her so much! One lesson a member who lives in the same nursing home was telling Laahn Je how she wasn't keeping the commandments because she smokes and drinks tea/coffee. We haven't taught Laahn Je about the commandments before so this made her so sad because she didn't know she was breaking anything. Well, when we visited her this past week, she said that the past two weeks she has stopped drinking coffee and tea and instead of smoking a pack a day, she is making it last two days per pack of cigarettes. She seriously has the biggest desire to learn about this gospel and to follow Christ! she's also trying to get the poho (grandma) in the bed across from hers to listen to the gospel. Haha!

We were also able to meet with Alice this week. It';s been a couple weeks since we've met with her and it honestly made us a little worried. She is actually progressing a little more than we thought though! She shared with us that she has not had green tea lately and will continue to work on it. She is also trying to share the gospel with one of her friends who she thinks could really benefit from this gospel. I think sharing the gospel with her friends is one of the best ways Alice will be able to strengthen her testimony. It will really help her see how this gospel has helped her personally and realize that everything she is telling her friend is actually true. I know this is the answer to our prayers to help Alice strengthen her testimony. It wasn't what we were expecting, but God knows His children better than we do, so we will go with it!

And this is our miracle story of the week. We went to go visit our LA Lolo but she wasn't home so we decided to go finding around the area. We had already been finding a lot that day, but we decided to push through and keep going. It was time to go home but decided to walk one more lap around the park and stopped this lady Ko Siu Je who was on her way home. Usually we introduce ourselves and share a quick message and ask to meet again, but Sister Luk asked her if she had a few minutes where we could sit down and talk with her. Sister Luk was definitely in tune with the Spirit because she said okay and we ended up teaching her the whole Restoration lesson. She was super receptive and I could tell she was feeling the Spirit. I never thought of teaching full lessons on the street, but clearly it's possible so we are going to be trying this method of finding more often now. We are meeting with Ko Siu Je tonight so hopefully she will become our new investigator.

I hope all of you have a great week! If I have not replied to your emails recently, please know that I am sorry and I promise to respond soon and I love you! :)

Scripture of the Week: Doctrine and Covenants 46:30 When we pray if we ask by the Spirit then we are asking for God's will and He will give it to us.

Quote of the Week: The course we are pursuing is in accordance with God's will (David A. Bednar)

Sister Maggie Shiffert

I went to Mong Kok for the first time last week (that is where you can get stuff for super cheap and as close to Chinese traditional as you can get in Hong Kong lol!)