Pants are good

Hello Family!
How's your week? Has school started yet?! Jack, you're in High School! And Danny, you have your toughest year ahead of you! you'll do great :)

I will be completely honest in telling you that I have been racking my brain trying to think back on the week and I'm drawing blanks. It's a usual phenomena come email time, so I'm hoping ideas start coming. This week we had zone training a week early, (happy surprise), so we were rushing in trying to plan it. So our area didn't see as much of us since it takes a while to travel down to Kowloon. But I am a big believer in the Law of Compensation, and nothing was completely neglected :)

For this 6 stakes goal to really happen, some wards need to see as many as 20 new people attending their ward by April, especially an increase of Priesthood holders. Which I'm really not sure how to compare that to other places, but seeing 4 or 5 convert baptisms a year in a ward here would be a good average I think. Some more, some less. So that's an incredible number to get in eight months. So we've been making a big push for less active work. Especially for Priesthood holders. Our stake right now has app. 650 active members and almost 1500 less active members, so there are lots of old friends to bring back. Another idea we've been praying about is home teaching. For the most part, we teach single adults and schedule them at the church because their families don't want much to do with Christianity at home. But a lot of the growing generations all went to catholic or christian schools, so I think that trend will start being a little more tolerant. And especially here in the New Territories where it's not super busy city, there are sooo many young families. And a couple paakmuhning areas, or places you can knock on doors. So, we are making a push to teach people, especially families, in the home. It's just been a custom of the mission to meet people on the street, show them a picture of our church, or give them our address and then schedule to meet them there. But now, we're just acting like it's a normal thing to go visit them in their home, and we give them our planners to write down their address and smile. They're pretty hesitant, but we're getting more and more. The culture here isn't huge on letting strangers come to your home, but it's been neat to see cool things happen from it. You meet so many of their family and friends, and they get to know missionaries for who we are. It's pretty cramped, so sometimes you know them too well. And you get to know the people at much better levels when you can look around their home and get a feel for their life. I know, it sounds like common sense for us to have been doing this the entire time, but it is quite strange. I've been pretty blessed to teach a couple of my investigators at their homes...Cherry, Jiu Jimuih, Awan. Oh I miss them. I love them. I haven't written about Cherry for awhile. I forgot how much I love her. Mom, you have to meet her someday.

We did a couple other things too, but I'm mostly just excited to be done planning those zone training meetings. That was my tenth one? I think it's because they know I wouldn't listen or get much out of it or ever do the plans or actions if I didn't study and prepare for it. Those tricksters :)

I'm quite the boring writer today! Sorry, I usually don't ever write about zone stuff or too much about people because I know that it's hard to really relate to things or people you've never seen. But it's all that has occupied my mind lately. We've made a huge push to visit less active priesthood holders, and let me just say that I have visited more men in their boxer shorts than any sister missionary ever should. It's hot, I get it, but pants are good. It's been interesting though, having so much more opportunities to teach men. They're much easier to teach than women. In my opinion. Women have a lot of distractions and excuses or drama that hold them back, and teaching doctrine or principles aren't as important to them as talking out feelings. So you walk up to a woman on the street and try to bring up the Book of Mormon, and the entire conversation turns into how they have never thought about God because that's what their husbands do. So, no thanks. You talk to them more, and help them understand, on a more emotional level, why god is important and can help them with their kids or their relationships. But it's hard to get them past the wall of not being open to what they actually think about things. Whereas, you walk up to a man who is reading a newspaper, and you bring up this book of ancient scripture and a little more logical doctrinal conversation about God, and they're willing to talk to you about it. And it's fun. No, I love teaching women, I don't mean that I don't. All of my favorite people I've taught are women, but the men sure are thinkers!

This week we met a man named Billy. He's awesome. He believes that God is like a cloud with different faces...Buddha, Allah, Jesus Christ, etc. He believes that God is an energy, and there have been many inspired leaders who have been in contact with that energy throughout history. Some elders taught him last year, and we found him in the formers. They wrote him off as a crazy guy, but he's made a ton of progress! We essentially agreed with him that eternal truth exists. Lots of people have different ways of interpreting what is true, and will call it different things. Just like math or science tries to explain universal truths, religion is the same. But then we took it back to foundation of the world and explained Prophets and priesthood, and the difference between inspired prophets of God who receive direct revelation through priesthood power and other inspired leaders throughout history. It was awesome to see how much he understood and accepted the idea of personal lines of communication with God and priesthood lines. you need both lines. And we worked our way through the patterns of apostasy up until Joseph Smith. Billy loved it! I loved it! it was fun. And the best part about it, was that it was exactly the lesson of the restoration, with a small twist for Billy. But the gospel and it's principles can be taught so simply and clearly, and can still give people with concepts of cloudy things to hold to. Don't worry, we cleared up with him that God literally has a body. It's sometimes hard to know when you are teaching people with very different views of God, or absolutely no view of God, if we should teach the restoration or plan of salvation. But Joseph Smith's first vision tells a lot about who God is.

I am so sorry to go off. I have written so much about not a lot. I hope you all are doing great! Hope school is awesome. I love it out here, and and doing well. Happy, tired, all that good stuff.

Have a good night!
Love hannah