Dear all,
Yes, Elder Bagley is gone already. It was a very fast six weeks, and I was somewhat disappointed to have to say goodbye to him. He's going to Chai Wan which is on Hong Kong Island, and he's maybe a little apprehensive about it, but willing and looking forward to it.
My new companion is Elder Clark, who is from Salt Lake City. I am therefore continuing my Utah companion trend - only Elder Sharp and Elder Kwok were from elsewhere, but Elder Sharp's parents moved from Arizona to Utah while he was my companion!
Elder Clark is going into his fourth Moves now, making him (relatively) the oldest companion I've had since I became senior companion - my other 3 have been in either their first or second Moves period. So I'm looking forward to a companion that's pretty much at the stage where he doesn't need an older companion. This should be a learning period for him and for me.
I therefore enter my fifth Moves in Tai Po, and, rather unexpectedly, I've moved house. The flat my companionship was living in is in the middle of the neighbouring area of Tai Wo, and as such was rather inconvenient for us - but it was a nice apartment. A second companionship has been opened in Tai Wo by Elder Hedin and Elder Chugg - Elder Hedin was the Assistant to the President for the past two Moves. So they'll be living in the old apartment with the other Tai Wo companionship, which features another trainee. Meanwhile, in our new flat we have the Mandarin speaking companionship for the Zone (every Zone has a Mandarin companionship), which features Elder Sikahema, who was my travelling companion from the MTC to Hong Kong, and with whom I served when I was in West Point.
Normally here in Tai Po, because church is in the afternoon, after Tai Wo ward, baptisms are held before church and then converts are confirmed in the Sacrament Meeting immediately after their baptism. So Brother S was confirmed last week, and this week he received the Aaronic Priesthood. This ward is really good at following the three things that every new member needs - responsibility, friendship and nourishment. He is very excited and happy to be learning more and growing in the church.
This last week we found a great new investigator called E L. He is probably in his 40s, with two teenage children. When we met him on the street, he asked us when the church meetings were, and we were later able to schedule him for last Saturday. When we met with him on Saturday, I asked, "So do you have any religious beliefs".
He said, "Well, I've been a baptist for about a year and a half. But I feel like when I pray, I don't really get anything in return. I know a little about your church; about Joseph Smith [he said his name in English] and about how he translated an ancient record, and I want to know more."
As I asked him about what he'd heard, he went on to tell me about the First Vision in clear detail. He said he'd been to the church's website and read all of this. He was really interested to learn more, and to read the Book of Mormon - while it was on the website, he felt that a book would be better because he could mark it. We were, of course, happy to give him a copy and invited him to church. He had been planning on coming at 9:00 when Tai Wo have their services, but after finding out that Tai Po members meet at 2:00, he decided he wanted to come and see the Tai Po services.
When we saw him the next day, he said that he'd read the first 25 pages of the Book of Mormon and prayed, but no answer yet. He left church about five minutes before the end of joint Priesthood/Relief Society (which is last here), so we didn't get to ask him what he thought of church. But he must have liked it, because when Elder Bagley phoned him up to schedual him, he said he was pretty busy all week, but that he was going to come to church again this Sunday.
Another amazing miracle for this week - we schedualed a man in his early 20s named D at the church. He lives in Tai Wo, so we're going to turn him over to the new companionship tomorrow. He came looking to learn about the church and our beliefs, possibly I think for the purpose of just learning more about religion. He learned about Catholicism in school, but didn't really know much more than that. We taught about prayer, and taught the Restoration. After we taught the First Vision, he said "So I guess that other churches probably persecuted him a lot, huh? I imagine they'd even try to kill him." Rather insightful comment, if you ask me.
We closed in prayer, the first true communication with God he'd ever heard, where Elder Bagley thanked Him for the chance to share this message, and asked that D would learn the truth for himself. After the prayer, I asked D, "How do you feel?"
He replied, "I think...I know it's true."
That's a pretty good note to end on. I Love you all,
Elder Matthew Loffhagen
羅 長 老
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