It is an ancient solution...

Dear Friends and Family,

I have some pretty great stories to tell you this week.  I will just get right into it. 

First is a story about a Mandarin lady named Sunny.  One night Elder Mikesell and I had inspiration to go to Chi Fu, which is a village chyun in our area.  We wanted to go at 1:30 pm in the afternoon.  Usually Chi Fu is dead at this time, but we decided to go.  There, we ran into a lady who was a bus driver.  She had a break in Chi Fu for a short time.  We talked to her and she told us how she wants to believe in Jesus Christ and learn about him.  She is originally from Mainland, but she spoke great Cantonese.  She lives out of our area, so we are teaching a transfer lesson to the Mandarin Missionaries in Kowloon tonight at 7.  She seems to be a golden investigator.  We will see, we will not be teaching her, but following the prompting from the Holy Ghost to find her was just as good.  

Next we have another Mandarin named Roger.  He doesn't know any Cantonese, but his English was pretty good.  I contacted him on the street while Elder Mikesell was on the phone.  I spoke in Cantonese.  And he just nodded and responded in English.  I just kept talking in Cantonese, but eventually he says: "Sorry I actually don't know Cantonese."  So that was funny.  We rode the ferry with him as he was on his way to work.  We scheduled to meet him the next day at our church building.  We called up the Mandarin Elders to do an exchange.    When we taught, he said he felt that something was not right in his life.  He wants happiness.   His desire to learn is huge.  The Mandarin Elders are meeting him tonight in Aberdeen.  We run into Roger on the street because he lives on the same island as us.  He has great potential.  I'm sad we won't get to teach him, but we helped in his process of finding the church.  So that's great.

 

We met another new deaf friend this week.  His name is Mr. Yip.  His sign language is incredibly hard to understand.  Sign language in Hong Kong is not very definite.  So a lot of different people have different words for things.  Nobody except for Sister Chan and the other deaf people understand him.  So wish us luck.  We are meeting him this Tuesday.  He came to church last Sunday. 

This past Saturday we met a great old couple.  I'll refer to them as the Tse Family.  We met Mrs. Tse a few weeks ago at Wa Fu Chyun.  We were talking to some hippie lady about the gospel.  She just went on about how we must respect animals and not eat them because their life is so sacred.  I finally interrupted and asked :  But how do we stop the lion from eating the zebra?  I thought it was pretty funny.  But anyways, Mrs. Tse came up to us and joined in the conversation.  Then we started talking to her instead of the vegetarian lady.  She is Baptist, and she believes in Jesus Christ.  We got her number but her phone is always off unless she calls people.  So we called her a few times to no avail.  However, just this past Saturday we get a call from an unknown number and it is Mrs. Tse!  She says she wants to meet that very night.  So we invited her to the Easter Musical Performance.  She came and brought her husband!  They are both super nice and really want to learn about our church.  They are 80 years old.  Very cool. 

It was a GREAT week.   We went from square one to 3 solid investigators and a ton of people willing to meet with us in a matter of days.  It is impossible for me to say I had anything to do with it.  I do not believe missionary work is about skill, cunning, or cleverness.  It's about following the direction God gives you.  It is an ancient solution.  It is always the right solution.  

 

Today we are going on a hike in Dung Chung.  It should be fun!  Tell you how it goes later!

 

Love,

Elder Phillips