Elder Cheng

March 25, 2010

Hey all!

This past week was really good. Nothing too big happened, it was just good. We got to see a couple of people. We had a few people promise to come to church but didn’t make it. Our golden miracle said he was going to make it to church and didn’t show up. Since then we were trying to cal him, but he didn’t pick up. And then we get a text today from him and he said that he was there, but the door was locked. I was quite confused. But he came! That was cool. I was a little scared cuz he might have gotten anti-ed, but he is so good, I don’t see how he could have!

Alice found a job as an accountant and she is asking to borrow money. I told her we aren’t able to help her out because we have rules. We’ll see if she really has the desire to learn the gospel instead of hoping for a meal.

We haven’t been able to see our investigator who has terminal __ cancer. We’re still trying to work on him though.

Sorry, this week’s letter is a bit boring, ill try yo put something else interesting next week!

Elder Stanley Cheng

LB

Dear Loved Ones,

By the miracle of being surrounded by computers all day, I decided to take the opportunity and write to you during the lull of the storm. My companions made me.

The big news on this front is literally tall: Elder Wilson is replacing Elder Crane in our companionship. He`s 6`8`` I think. Elder Crane goes off to Nürnberg, which means my training wheels as mission secretary are coming off on Wednesday. Bleah. Elder Wilson will be trained by Elder Leishman as Finance Secretary, and since us secretaries stay a while he`ll be my companion for about the next six months...way longer than normal. It should be good though.

The work for transfers entails the most stressful part of our job, as we wait for President to decide everything before carrying it out and ordering train tickets. We`re doing it all tonight to make it less stressful the next few days.

Enough with logistics, let`s get to the CRAZY-cool people.

About a week ago on Sunday we visited Ikenna, a Nigerian coming off of cateract surgery. He has to stay at home and can`t look at something for too long, thus he was listening to music and that was it. We gave him some sweet material he could listen too (Elder Leishman had a slew of books on tape) and learned he has a fiancée coming in a couple of weeks from Nigeria. We`re stoked for him. I love the African contingent of priesthood here, it hovers around 50% on most Sundays.

Early in the week we visited the BRADFORDS once more. The time whooshes by every time. Had a good time with Melanie, she joined the church in October and is so solid since she reads and studies all sorts of books.

And then there was Missy. She`s in her early 20`s and is from DANVILLE CA!, only a quick trip from Bezerkeley. Also lived in TX a while, but she came here for a job and referred herself via the internet. We asked her straight up what she expected from everything, and she basically said to learn if this church was true. Very neat experience. We should be meeting this week a little.

Travel down south to the magical land of GARMISCH!! Last week Jonah, a 14 year-old friend from a 12 year-old in the ward named R.J., came to church, which he had done ocassionally in the past. The Hillens said we could teach him at their house if he got permission from his mom, which he did. Friday night we zoomed down the Autobahn and to the appointment, which was smashing. The lesson started slow at the beginning with both of the younguns cracking jokes, but as we progressed through the points the Spirit came into play. The story of Joseph Smith must especially resonate with a person of that same age. He`s also acting in the world-famous Passion play in Oberammergau and has been growing his hair out for a year. The play is put on once every ten years and depicts the whole life of Christ, lasting six hours in total. We took advantage of the fact in the lesson. He`ll be in Thailand for a little while but wants to learn more afterwards!

Yesterday we had two large dinners in a row, and I emerged from the evening not feeling in peak form. That combined with another visit to a concentration camp in Dachau put a damper on the day.

Today nevertheless made up for it. Bruku came to church, we taught him, and during the evening we went to his new digs and introduced the stop smoking program. He`s still on track for the 10th of April and is truly a man of great faith. He`ll take the whole Ghanean nation with him, you`ll see!!

Otherwise, I gave a talk, used some math during it and was teased good-naturedly afterwards. Some people understood though!

That`s it for this side of the world.

Lots of love!

Elder Ek

Elder Tiu

hey all,

i'm sorry i've been absolutely horrible about updating people. i don't really have too much time so let me just tell you some major things that have happened in the last month.

- i did a spanish proposal to the stake president about making spanish magnet groups within the stake. basically that means that all the spanish speaking members and investigator will attend one of the wards and there will be spanish accommodations there.
- we baptized a man john pittman, and three weeks later he was able to baptize his daughter sherrie. one of the most amazing experiences on my mission. the wife, we hope, will soon follow although her mom is constantly telling her that we're a cult. i felt like telling her a joke about sacrifices bears, but instead i bore my testimony. that's how the mission changes you.
- i'm training a new zone leader. way harder than actually training. he's a lot older than me but i'm still senior! sucker. just kidding.
- i had the most coveted privilege interviewing my second born in the wilderness about disobedience to mission rules. turns out he's wasn't being too disobedient but his follow up trainer should have been sent home (if not for the pleadings of his mother and stake president) and the district leader was sent home. i am now the de facto spanish-speaking-interviewer-for-disobedience go to guy. great.
- president granted me special permission to leave early for college. earlier in the year he told all of us that under no circumstances will anybody be allowed to leave early. i guess i'm the exception. i told him that i'd take it. so after some discussion my release date will be august 10th. my application which was already half-way processed for spring 2011 has now been switched to fall 2010 and i am frantically trying to get stuff together. differentials? re-teach me how to add again please.

this area has been great. but i'm definitely ready to leave it. i'm having a difficult time dealing with the fact i'm leaving the mission soon (i refuse to count my remaining time). i'm going to be a wreck when i die (missionary parlance for being released). i love this work and i've literally seen miracles. christ is the savior and the only way to the father. hope everything is going well with you guys!

hope everything in this letter made sense. i'll reread it next week when i have some more time.

simon

DB

Saludos. First of all, it's been ridiculously hot the past few days. Saturday was probably the hottest day on my mission so far, I think they said it got up to 100. Today is hot at cloudy and muggy, which isn't good because we're planning to play baseball today for P-Day. We'll see how it goes. Also, I'm still getting over a cold right now. It started on Thursday night and Friday was the worst day, but I'm still feeling it a little bit today. Couldn't really do much on Friday because of it...I was riding my bike and I couldn't breathe because my chest was so tight. But it's getting better.

There have been a lot of people moving in recently, probably because of the new school year. The University of Colorado dental, pharmaceutical, etc. schools are right here in Aurora, so that provides the needed "younger" demographic. The new move-ins mean opportunities with us to meet with them, have a lesson, and give them a Book of Mormon to eventually give to a friend that they meet. We had two lessons this week with the Sanchez family, who seem really interested. Unfortunately we're realizing that the mom speaks less English than we thought...we saw her talking to a neighbor who brought over some clothes for her kid. The neighbor was saying, "Here are some clothes for your kid" and she said, "Oh, está bien, gracias." She couldn't/(wouldn't?) even say simple phrases in English. So I'm afriad we'll probably end up turning her over to the Spanish ward, but her kids speak better English than Spanish, so we hope we can keep them. We told them we'd try to get them a ride for church yesterday, but then that morning we couldn't get a hold of them (based on what the machine said on the phone, it sounded like they ran out of minutes or something) and we didn't want to make someone go all the way up there if we weren't sure they were actually coming. So we'll follow up with them this week and see what's up. We taught a really awesome Plan of Salvation lesson to them...well, meaning Elder Sosa taught really awesome and I did ok because it was in Spanish, haha. We also saw Leslie and taught watched "Finding Faith in Christ" with him. He said he liked it, but he's still not sure about Christ's divinity (just a small problem haha). He always tells us things like, "Now I'm not saying I'm going to convert! I just want to learn more..." but we're not discouraged, because he also tells us things like who he's going to invite if he did end up being baptized. As for Robert, we finally saw him at church on Sunday and set up an appointment with him for this Wednesday.

Speaking of church, something really awesome happened during Sunday school. There was a lady at church that we had never seen before with someone who said that she was a member of the ward (must be less active). They came to Gospel Principles and...actually, let me tell you about all the people in the class. Half of them are people that I see and work with regularly and are a big part of what I know as the Peoria ward. Bro. Boyer was teaching, the ward mission leader, who's a good guy but honestly not my favorite; Robert, our long-time 50-year old black investigator; Bro. Duran, ward missionary, old and very weird guy who pretends he hates you when he really doesnt. He's the one who is fellowshipping Robert and actually gave me a pretty nice watch last week; Sis. Stone, older (but looks younger) single lady, really really nice, ward missionary; Bro. Deneau, 2nd counselor in the bishopric, was a Catholic priest but converted 4 years ago, comes with us to a lot of lessons; the lady we didn't know; her less-active friend; and this other lady we didn't know, who was a member of another ward. So anyway, this member said she couldn't find the building she was supposed to go to, but she went to the ward at our building a long time ago and decided to come here. She said she didn't know why she was there, but it felt right. Anyway, I forgot what we were talking about, but she started talking about her conversion, involving a life or death situation while she was pregnant. Basically it came down to either the baby would die or she would die. But then she got a blessing from a bishop and they were both healed. Anyway, the non-member lady started crying and felt the Spirit really strong. The person telling the story also talked about she waited a really long time to convert and she said it was not worth it, which made Robert really think, I'm sure. We will now commence teaching the non-member lady, haha.

Even though I love the members of our ward and our correlation meetings every Wednesday night, I went on Wednesday and realized it was my 25th correlation meeting on Wednesday night, which is A LOT! And during the correlation meeting (which I really do love..we get off-topic sometimes, but it's fun), there was just a LITTLE too much talk about different guns and crap that I didn't care about at all. Then we were talking about some place full of crazy people, and one guy said "Oh is that where the liberals are?" and I just kept my mouth shut. It's a good experience though, not something I'm used to in Berkeley, haha. There was a hilarious topic of conversation during one of the dinners as well. The Crowells are amazing, really nice and hard-working older couple, but Sis. Crowell is the one who was talking during dinner many months ago about how she kept making bad comments about liberals at church and it turned out the person she was talking to was liberal. Anyway, they talked about a less-active member who needed help or something, and Bro. Crowell went to go help. They said there was a questionable/vulgar/shocking decoration in her apartment and I was getting ready for them to say it was pornography or something, but then they said it was a Haight-Ashbury street sign. HAHA.

Es todo. Bye,
Elder Bradford

DB

Hello everybody, still from the Community College of Aurora. I figured I should share the events of my week (Week 24, but who's counting) instead of writing a general address again.

Well the Lakers winning was a nice way to cap off an awesome week. Big contrast from the week before. I think it's safe to say that this was the best week on my mission so far, starting with last P-Day. We had dinner with Brother and Sister Oveson and their 4-year old daughter Marisa, who is one of the smartest little girls I know. Then we all went off to Juanita B's house, the 87-year old investigator who has come to church 7 times but has never had a missionary lesson. Just to refresh some memory, she runs a non-profit called People Helping People. We've done various service for her, she's come to church many times, and has made a lot of friendships within the ward, but everytime we ask her to have a sit-down with us (even for just 15 minutes!), she says, "Guys, you know I love you, but I'm just sooo busy." Well plan was to capitalize on this service opportunity and cute 4-year old to con her into a lesson, haha. There were some remains of a sign post that needed to be removed according to the city of Aurora, so Bro. Oveson brought his powerful whatever-it's-called electric saw, and after about 45 minutes of cutting down the beast, it looked like it was never there. We then asked Juanita, "Is it OK if we sit down for a few minutes?" Of course she said, "Maybe another time." Then we told her that little Marisa wanted to sing her some Primary songs, and so Juanita couldn't resist. So we all sat down on the steps of her front porch, a block away from Colfax, the ghettoist street in Denver, and sang "Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam." It was awesome, haha. Then Elder Sosa and I smoothley segued (sp?) into Lesson 1. We taught it short and sweet. I think she got something out of it, but it was hard to tell when she burst out druing the focal point of the lesson with how worried she was that the back door was unlocked. She thought maybe someone would go in there. Juanita, first of all, no one WANTS to go in there, and second of all, we have a perfect view of your driveway and no one has gone there. But anyway, I think it went well. Whether she'll actually take time to read the Book of Mormon is another story, but first things first. Having Marisa there really helped, especially when she told us that the prophet was "President Monson."

Tuesday, after our previously most-progressing investigator Robynn J. dropped us, her previously uninterested husband asked us to keep in touch after he described to us his desire to pray. It was so weird how they basically switched places, but it was cool. Then that night was the first time that a member, Brother Zuniga, set up an appointment for us and took us there. The husband is an inactive member and his finacee is VERY interested in the church. We taught her the first lesson and it was awesome. It was the first time in a while that I felt the Spirit that strongly. She couldn't wait to get her hands on a Book of Mormon.

On Wednesday, we learned that Kathleen, our investigator with a baptismal date, has successfully avoided cigarettes for a week and a half now! The baptism is still set for this Saturday and it looks like it's going to happen! Then Friday was probably the best day of my mission. Usually we have 2 lessons a day, maybe 3 if we're lucky, but on Friday we had 6! In the morning, a Hispanic family that Elder Sosa baptized in Longmont came down to Aurora and we ate lunch at a nice park. I loved the opportunity to practice my Spanish, which is getting so much better. She made us chile rellenos and I had 6 of them because they were so good. Of course I regretted it a couple hours later, but I won't go into detail about that, haha. Then we biked super fast to our lesson with Cindy, a referral from some dude in a different stake. I can't remember if I talked about her last week, but anyway we had the second lesson with her and she agreed to be baptized too! This woman is golden. She has a deep desire to search for the truth. Then, speaking of Kathleen, we biked over there for an unexpected stop and lesson with them. We then went home and grabbed our jackets. I was marvelling and complaining about the weather when it was cold and snowy, but that was nothing. That's heaven to me compared to this crap. Every morning, it's perfectly sunny, not a cloud in the sky, crystal clear day. Then EVERY afternoon, rain, thunder, lightning, sometimes hail. Anyway, then we went to go teach Robert Blaylock, a brotha that came to church a few weeks ago with a member. He's now seeing the bishop for some help, but he's also really interested, asking a bunch of questions in Gospel Principles and so on. We taught him the first lesson and it went really well. Then dinner and a lesson with the Doxey family, lesson with the Montoya family, and then home. It was very satisfying. That day, we started doing our nightly planning outside. We have some nice chairs and a table (for Elder Sosa's maté, a South American drink with water, sugar, and some weird leafy stuff. It tastes gross, haha) and we look up at the stars while we're planning the next day.

So anyway, really good week. Usually, we get about 11, 12 lessons a week, but we got 17 this week. Baptism coming up this Saturday, another one for Cindy probably in a few weeks. It's going good. I'm also blessed with a knowledge that none of this is me. This all comes from God. Alma 26:12.

Espero que ustedes están disfrutando su verano. ¡Hasta luego!
-Elder Bradford

5.7 5.14 Elder Cheng

Hey everybody!!!

So what i want to share today is a funny incident that always happens to us missionaries and at times we find annoying. usually what we teach first, is the message of the restoration, explaining from God, to prophets, to Jesus Christ, to Apostasy, to Joseph Smith and Book of Mormon and the Holy Ghost. almost everytime we get to Joseph Smith and the first vision, guess what happens?? Can you guess it? their Cell phone rings. it is sooooo weird. really, almoste verytime we teach, their cell phone rings at the moment we share about the first vision or the restoration portion. Satan knows that this church is God's true church and he stops at nothing to prevent His children from hearing the true message of the restoration. it's so weird. i dislike when their cell phone goes off at that moment! Just thinking about this just makes me think more about how this church is God's true church! i dont know if any of you have had this experience, but it is really interesting.

other than that, this week has gone by really fast too. we're getting moves calls on monday and we dont know whats going to happen. i dont know if i already told you all, but they are shrinking the missions down. and the China Hong Kong mission is one of them that will be losing missionaries. we were at 150+ missionaries, and i heard that it will be reduced to about 90 missionaries. 14 missionaries are dying (going home) next week and there's only about 1 or 2 coming in. so on our side, we dont know how many companionships they will be closing. i might be moving again, or i might combine with one elder in the other companionship in the district. who knows. this is big change! we've already heard from rumors... good sourced rumors, that elders in one apartment in our zone will be moving out of that one and into another one, subtracting one apartment from the zone. so. who knows!

work is still going on and stuff. investigators are constantly going up or down. right now, we're stuck in a rut because the kids here about to take their government tests that makes or breaks their future. so what they are all doing right now is tutorial and studying. it's like their SATs but each year they take the SAT's to go up in grade. man that's tough. im so glad we dont go through that in america!

ps, we get to call home this week for mother's day! how exciting!

thats about it for now. until next week!
Elder Cheng

------
Hey all!!!

wow. it is goign to be super crazy here inthe New Territories zone in Hong Kong. so they are shrinking down the mission alot. and just in our zone, they closed down four companionships in our area. one from each of the districts. so what happened with my district is that they closed one companionship and i became comapnions with E Waddoups from Utah. we have double the amoutn of investigators now because both companionships were high on investigators. its going to be hectic but we'll be able to handle it. so i found out that our area, even though it is small, like really small, maybe as big as the UC Berkeley campus, has 500,000 people living in it. so it's not hard to find people. but anyways, also what's different is that the mandarin elders are moving into our apartment. which is cool because i always wanted to learn mandarin and now i can get a jump start at it! so thats so cool. but yeah, there is going to be so much change here in the Chian Hong Kong mission.

actually iwanna share about some miracles that happened this past week. mostly about 24s. (24's is a 24 hour exchange of companions. you go to a new area, or if not, you just get a different companion for a day) there was so much that happened! i was on 24s in another area, and then we contacted a gu really quick in english. we said that we'd be able to help him with english because he's got a test coming up. swtiched numbers and left. that night i went back to my area and itotally forgot about that guy, but the companionship in that area had been seeing him eeyr other day. and i heard thi spast week that he's progressing quickly. he doesnt know 100% that God is there but he's still going to keep trying. when i heard that he was prgoressing, i was so amazed that with a person i contacted really quickly, became a great investigator. 24's is amazing! other stuff happened with 24s as well, but im running out of time. it's just amazing to see so many miracles!

that'll be it for now
until next week
Elder Stanley Cheng

April 30, 2009 SC

Hello all!

this week is another week just gone by.  but one night, we met some interesting people that really needed help!  one in particular is a boy that is 19years old.  this is his background.  when he was younger, his dad left his family and got another wife in mainland.  because the dad left, the mom committed suicide.  then, his little sister committed suicide only 3 weeks ago because she got pregnant by a gang member.  when that gang member found out she was pregnant, he fled to china to escape being a father.  she was probbably only 13-15 years old too!  so now this boy, who he named himself Zero, is all alone and just goes to work every single day.  he stoppped going to school when he was 14, (that's probably when his mom committed suicide) so he he's been working for 5 years as a barber.  he doesn't take days off of work because he doesnt have friends or family to hang out with even if he has days off.  he'd rather work to make more money... for what? we dont really know.  he goes to the arcade all the time because he says its an easier way to pass time.  his situation is very sad.  we shared about the plan of salvation with him and after the brief overview, he said that he has some hope, now that he sees that this life isn't it.  he says he's gotten a little hope, but now too much.  hopefully we can keep seeing him top bring more hope into his life.  i feel reallys ympathetic towards him because he's only 19 and he's all alone!  i really want to help this kid.

another weird thing is that after meeting him, another guy came up to us and wanted to talk.  we later realized he was mentally handicappped (but didn't look like it), so we left a pamphlet for him and the only thing we could've done was just talk to him and give him some hope.

this area, Tin Shui Wai, is said to be one the most depressing cities in hong kong and it could very well be after meeting poeple here.  this is all the more reason that everybody here needs the gospel!  hopefully, we will continue to be able to find the humble ones and help them receive the gospel.  i know the gospel can help these people.  they just dont know it yet!  i will keep continuing to pray for them!

there's a little bit more that happened, but im running out of time so i'll leave it at that!

until next week!
Elder Stanley Cheng


Elder Stanley Cheng
China Hong Kong Mission
July 2008 - July 2010