Monday, September 22, 2014 4:18 AM
Short Week
Hey Family!
This week was pretty short since it's only been a few days since we went to the temple. Anyway, it's been a fairly good half week, and a few kind of interesting things happened. Oh, but before I start talking - I need to tease. I've actually known this for like two weeks now, but I forgot to say it. Anyway, this coming General Conference - I know secrets. And, I can say that there's some special stuff coming up this year. And Hong Kong's getting a shout out of sorts right at the start. That's all. Heh heh heh.
Anyway, our investigators are still doing reasonably well, but some of them have been kind of frustrating. Especially Mr. L, who we actually kicked off of the library computer just a few minutes ago. (Actually, by the sounds of it, Mr. L sort of lives at the library. Thinking back on things, I'm pretty sure that I've seen him here before. I almost secretly think that he may have been the guy that I made fun of for researching the baked beans of Hong Kong for the entire hour and a half I was at the library...)
We met this new person that we counted as a new investigator named Mr. C. He's actually one of the most sad people that I've ever met. Both times when we've met him, he's been drunk, and smoking and drinking. Without any joke, I think that he is literally drinking himself to death - his skin is really ragged and he leaned off the park bench we were sitting up and threw up three times the second time we talked with him. He also told us that there's this number that measures how badly your liver is degraded - the more it degrades, the more fat cells are in your liver. A normal person is around 55 on this scale. He told us that he's at 3680. From some evidence on his person like a ring and a picture on his phone, it looks like maybe he's going through a divorce or the death of his wife or something. He's got some gospel interest, but unfortunately both times we've talked to him, he got progressively less accepting the more he drank. Honestly, he's not really willing to change right now - he said that both to us and to God when we invited him to pray. Even then, we're probably still going to check up on him once in a while - I'm not exaggerating that he's probably going to die if nobody does anything. We've encouraged him to seek professional help, but so far he's not really that willing.
On the brighter side, our recent convert, J, is still doing well. We were able to meet with her and talk with her a bit this week. It sounds like with her new job she isn't going to be able to make it to church every single Sunday while she's still a junior employee, but I'm not really worried. She has a lot of desire to make it to church. I've also noticed that she's incredibly sensitive to the Spirit. It's not really a perfect situation, but I trust that she's going to make the best of what she has.
We also were able to teach Brother L, E and Brother L this week. E and Brother L are both doing reasonably well, but they've both got the same problem. Neither of them really have any desire right now. Brother L is more willing to keep commitments, but it still feels like he's doing that more because it's homework and less because of internal desire. He also straight up said that he doesn't really think baptism is really all that special. E, on the other hand, doesn't really have desire to do much of anything at all. He said some things that make me feel like he might be dealing with some actual depression. Maybe we should invite him to seek professional help as well - no jokes there either. (Though I am a little sad that I've had to think about this with so many of my investigators in Tai Po...)
Brother L... is still pretty difficult. This week's lesson was honestly really hard for me. He started asking a bunch of crazy questions in really complex Chinese, which did not go well for me. I actually stayed really quiet during the lesson, especially after I offered up an interpretation for a scripture that Brother L then turned around and drove an imaginary wedge between me and Elder W, claiming that we "had many different opinions within the same church." (The wedge only existed in his head - Me and Elder W were still just fine.) It was really frustrating to me to not be able to understand what was really going on and to not be able to contribute much. What I did gather though, is that Brother L wants to find out that the Book of Mormon is true before he reads it. He's going to need some work.
On the brighter side, our recent convert, J, is still doing well. We were able to meet with her and talk with her a bit this week. It sounds like with her new job she isn't going to be able to make it to church every single Sunday while she's still a junior employee, but I'm not really worried. She has a lot of desire to make it to church. I've also noticed that she's incredibly sensitive to the Spirit. It's not really a perfect situation, but I trust that she's going to make the best of what she has.
We also were able to teach Brother L, E and Brother L this week. E and Brother L are both doing reasonably well, but they've both got the same problem. Neither of them really have any desire right now. Brother L is more willing to keep commitments, but it still feels like he's doing that more because it's homework and less because of internal desire. He also straight up said that he doesn't really think baptism is really all that special. E, on the other hand, doesn't really have desire to do much of anything at all. He said some things that make me feel like he might be dealing with some actual depression. Maybe we should invite him to seek professional help as well - no jokes there either. (Though I am a little sad that I've had to think about this with so many of my investigators in Tai Po...)
Brother L... is still pretty difficult. This week's lesson was honestly really hard for me. He started asking a bunch of crazy questions in really complex Chinese, which did not go well for me. I actually stayed really quiet during the lesson, especially after I offered up an interpretation for a scripture that Brother L then turned around and drove an imaginary wedge between me and Elder W, claiming that we "had many different opinions within the same church." (The wedge only existed in his head - Me and Elder W were still just fine.) It was really frustrating to me to not be able to understand what was really going on and to not be able to contribute much. What I did gather though, is that Brother L wants to find out that the Book of Mormon is true before he reads it. He's going to need some work.
So that's about it for the teaching this week. The streets have still been a little bit rough. Oh well. I'm doing my best to keep my attitude up on the street, and I think it's helping me stay sane and happy, if nothing else. I'm more or less willing to take all the "mh daak haahn" in the world if it means that I can find another person like J, so, I'm kind of keeping that in mind as we find. It's a work in progress.
Anyway, P-Day today was pretty fun. It was Elder G's birthday, and his mom sent him a decent chunk of cash with the instructions to have fun with some other missionaries. We were originally going to go bowling, but unfortunately it turns out that the ceiling of the alley we were going to go to caved in about a week before. So, instead, we went to Pizza Hut and he cheng'd us out to more than a thousand dollars worth of pizza. It was very, very good. (Thinking of which - did you know that Pizza Hut is actually incredibly high class in Hong Kong? I'm not just talking about a cultural perception of it or anything - it's genuinely a really fancy restaurant here. And they stuff their crusts with pure happiness and joy. Om nom nom.)
We also had to sing for this goofy primary program thing on Saturday night. It was kind of fun to see the primary kids do their thing, but we accidentally scheduled and then lost an appointment at the same time as it, so both me and Elder W were a bit irked about that.
I also got to have the opportunity to have a short interview with President Hawks this week. The more I meet him, the more impressed I am with his wisdom and advice. I'm really glad that I've had the opportunity to serve under his direction.
Love,
Elder Brennan McEwan
So one is the tasty and classy pasta me and Elder Wong made
No comments:
Post a Comment