March 12, 2009 from Elder Cheng

Hello all!!!!

Another week has gone by here in Hong Kong and things have been going smoothly. So a couple of interesting things happened, but I wont write all of it.

Yesterday, we had a mission conference, a conference for all missionaries (150ish missionaries in HK). And a monumental thing ahppened. We finally received our outlimate language help tool, the Missionary Vocabulary and Phrases book, MVP!!!!!! For a years now, they were developing this book to help us with the difficult Cantonese language and the first draft came out yesterday for us missionaries to begin learning correct language principles. Before, what we did was straight up learn from the Cantonese teachers' experience and phrases they used. Wit hthis book, we now have a guide with phrases and vocabulary that we would most likely use as missionaries. It also has the romanized pingyam and the chinese characters next to the english, so this is the ultimate tool for language progression!

another thign that happened was that a member in our ward told us that her husband recently was diagnosed with liver cancer and he only has a few months to a few years to live. after a long while of crying and sorrow, they finally accepted the fact that there is only so much time left before he departs from this world so they've decided to make the best of his remaining years. what we are doing now is teaching him the lessons of the gospel, which bring peace people's souls. the gospel message gives us a clear knowledge of our life on earth and where we will go afterwards. it is the appropriate time because he is only a matter of years before he goes beyond the veil to see the other side and we can share our knowledge about this to him.

the sad part of it is that he doesnt have a lot of time to apply gospel principles to his life to feel the extent of God's love for him. i see that in a lot of people in the world. there are truths that are revealed to us that people still wont accept. if we open our eyes and apply these gospel principles to our lives, we can see how much more our lives can be happier. our message won't only give us relaxation about what will happen in the future, but it will also tell us about our purpose here on earth and what we can do to achieve the best life on earth, including what everybody cherishes the most--happiness.

i want to leave you all with a testimony that has taken me a while to progress to. i know that this gospel is true and that it has blessed me so much throughout my life. for this reason, i am serving a mission for the Lord to help others receive the knowledge that i have received and to help them know that there is a loving Heavenly Father that has a plan of happiness for us and wants us all the return to Him. i also know that in order to return to God, there needs to be ordinances performed with the proper authority and through this church, we have the authority and power to perform these ordinances. each one of us on this earth are brothers and sisters. i would love it if all my brothers and sisters can live eternally happy after this life. i encourage you all to pray and ask Heavenly Father if these things are true, He WILL answer your prayers and tell you what you need to do. i leave these things with you in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Love,
Elder Stanley Cheng




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

SC March 5, 2009

Hey all!!!

Well, nothing big happened this week. It feels like another pretty normal week. although i am starting to get a good grasp of what missionary work is all about.

our big focus for this moves is working with the members. having members help us missionaries out is the best thing members can do. i never realized how to work with members until now. there are so many things that members can do for ivnestigators than what we can do. I think the example from members rubbing off on investigators is the biggest importance, and because they can have a friend. what president gordon b hinckley said is true. to stay active, recent converts need three things: a friend, a calling and nourished by the good word of god. so sad this week, one of our recent converts started telling us that chruch was restricting and he told us he wanted to go back to his old church. this happened after getting scolded by "the friend" at church that he had to wear a white shirt every sunday. but we knew that our recent convert had financial problems so it didnt matter, afterall, he was already wearing a collared shirt and tie. it made me so angry. i dont understand why the member did that. so right now, we're still trying to work with our RC, no success just yet.

but ishouldnt be telling you about sad thigns! it should be about happy things. after that incident though, heavenly father was trying to lift us up again by preparing people on the street for us to talk to. right after, we bumped into a less active, and him seeing us signified that he had to go the church that week. now i dont know if he did but it made us feel better from that event with our recent convert.

members are important in missionary work as well. one cannot work without the other. if it is just missinaries doing the work, as soon as somebody becomes baptized, we just got ourselves another less active. everybody needs to take part in this marvelous work! anything as small as saying hello to the invesigator at church on sunday or as far as helping the missionaries fellowship. if everybody can work together, the work can be carried out quicker and more effecitvely.

this is all the time i have this week and i will kepp you all updated next week!

-Elder Stanley Cheng

DB 3.10

Hello!

So I FINALLY have access to some type of communication. I have so much to say, but not that much time to say it. Because this is the very first week and so much has gone on, I will talk about the most important things and then catch up on the second most important things next week, when there's not as much new things going on.

Most importantly, I am currently serving in Aurora. It's the southern-most part of the mission, directly east of downtown Denver (by the way, we'll never be in downtown Denver because all of it is in the South mission). It's a coincidence that Aurora is to the east of the city, because I would classify it as the East LA of Denver. Very poor and very Hispanic, which is exactly what I wanted. Unfortunately though, for now, I'm serving in an English ward, the Peoria Ward. There are about 
6 or 7 wards in the Aurora Stake, one of which is a singles ward and the other is a Spanish ward (not branch, ward!), the Denver 3rd Ward. There are 3 sets of missionaries in the Denver 3rd since they cover all the Spanish speakers in the stake. 2 of the 6 missionaries in Denver 3rd are Elder Robinson and Elder Bolo. I'd say about half of us in the Aurora Zone (about 10 out of 20 or so) are Spanish-speaking, but only 6 of them are in the Spanish ward. Hopefully I'll get a chance to serve there at some point, but I'm still using my Spanish a lot. I'm doing lots of contacting and tracting in Spanish, but all the Spanish lessons are taught by those in Denver 3rd. I feel bad for Elder Shaw though, he got sent to Cheyenne. I wonder how many Hispanics are there, haha. But anyway, I'm not sure how many zones there are, but the ones I know of are Aurora, Denver North, Boulder, Fort Collins, Greeley, Cheyenne, Laramie, Longmont, and Loveland. Some of those might be combined, I can't remember.

My companion is Elder Carrazco from Chihuahua, Mexico. His English is OK, but sometimes he has a hard time communicating. He's a really nice guy and I like him a lot. But now I turn to my frustration, not with him, but with the situation. He's been out 3 months, so he's the youngest trainer in the mission. We are both new to the area (he's been serving in Aurora, but in other areas), so we are both starting from scratch in getting to know the members and investigators. We are English-speaking for the moment and he has trouble expressing himself. We don't have a car even though our area is huge. We just barely got some bikes (we borrowed them from members) so yesterday was our first day using them. And all of this on my first transfer. It seems to me like like we'd be just fine if we just had ONE of these conditions reversed: If it was my second transfer instead of my first, or if he had already known the area, or if he had been out longer, or if we had a car, or if he knew English better, or if we were Spanish speaking. It seems like after describing all this that I'm miserable, but I'm really not. I'm having a good time, but it just gets frustrating sometimes. And again, I'm not blaming Elder Carrazco because it's not his fault, but I thought my trainer would be a crutch I could lean on, but it turns out that's not really the case here. I'm sure it will all improve as we get more accustomed to things here.

Wow, so many things to say, I don't even know what to start with. We've had dinner at a member's home every night, except one when they didn't call us back. But it was more than okay because we went to place called Las Tortugas and I got a concoction called the Super Cubana with EVERY kind of meat possible (and I'm not exaggerating), cheese, avocado, tomatoes...Dad would love it. So far, my breakfast and lunch has been one and the same, cereal and bread (oh and OJ), haha. But we're going to go the store and get some more variety today. The members are VERY humble. I was really noticing that I sat in church yesterday. There are a lot of big families who don't have a lot, but they're very caring and happy. There are some great people. As for the people waiting to be harvested, it is VERY apparent that Hispanics are much more open and willing to listen. They're so much nicer than white people, haha. We went tracting on Saturday (in a more white area than Hispanic) and out of the 70 or so houses, we had 2 houses who were open to another visit and they were the only 2 Hispanic houses that we knocked on.

I am becoming slightly more accustomed to contacting and tracting, but it's still very hard for me. It really is the one thing that's holding me back, and I hope that with time, the fear will die down. My very first lesson was while I was on a split with one of the zone leaders Elder Ferreira, from Paraguay. He's serving in the singles ward (English speaking). The guy we taught has been taking the lessons for like 5 months and he's ready, but he needs to quit smoking. Anyway, I had the easy part and Elder Ferreira had the hard part: I taught the 10 Commandments, he taught the Law of Chastity. It went well though. And then, later on in the week, Elder Carrazco and I went to teach a couple (probably in their 40's) who had got in touch with the bishop. I guess the guy had some experience with the church while living in Utah and he knew that the Mormons were the nicest people around. They just got to Aurora and don't know anybody and are trying to look for work, and in the meantime are staying in a motel. So that was my very first experience teaching the first lesson on the Restoration and I think it went really well. I really felt the Spirit and I think they did too. They were at church yesterday and we have another lesson scheduled (this time with a member) on Thursday. One thing I noticed though was that I was definitely doing most of the talking and it kind of annoyed me, but then Elder Carrazco later told me that he just has trouble with the English. And that's exactly how I would be if it was in Spanish, so I understood completely. He's a really good companion, diligent and obedient.

(In response to my telling him about the Prop. 8 rulings last week...) What else...I didn't hear about any of the Prop 8 stuff, very interesting. We'll have to see what happens. Luckily I'm not in Boulder, haha. But I do want to go there, it'll probably be very familiar. Anytime anyone here describes it, it sounds like they're describing Berkeley, haha.

Anyway, I'm doing good and I hope everything is going well. Oh by the way, the weather is CRAZY. It was high 70's and sunny when I got here, for about 3 days, and then the next day it was snowing! Then that same day it was snowing AND sunny at the same time, and then the next day it was high 70's again! Crazy.

Well this is going to be a very hectic P-day, I'll probably be more tired after it than before. Oh well. Some guys are playing basketball at 2 so I'm excited for that. Until next week!

Love,
David

Elder Ek week 7. 11 days to Germany

Hallo Alle Leute!!!!

Ich bin sehr begeistert bald nach Deutschland zu fliegen! 11 Tage!!
I am very excited to fly to Germany! 11 days!!

Another week has come and gone. More German has been learned, more practice lessons have been taught and more spirit has been felt. Hooray for the passive voice! The only verb tenses and voices left to cover are...none! Well at least here anyways. Subjunctive I is still out there...

All my efforts now are geared toward the gospel in German. I've taken up trying to read the Book of Mormon in German exclusively, which is still rather difficult. Rest assured that progress is being made.

I spent a great deal of the last two days in the doctor's office where my other two companions had appointments. Elder Jorgensen had to get his big toenail ripped off and Elder Zenger had to go outside of the MTC (!!!!) to Spanish Fork for a chiropractor. Very exciting. The only damage I've sustained has been to my suits. I got up from dinner to find some butter on the right side, apparently from a misguided attempt to grab a roll behind a butter tub. This was the first day I had worn that dark blue suit too. Oh well, at least my body is intact!

This upcoming week, our schedule will start to change as we have random meetings to prepare for Germany. It helps to break up the monotony that ocassionally causes me to lose focus. I may be able to read German decently enough, but I doubt I'll understand even 50% of what's spoken to me when I get off the plane. Not the greatest concern.

I'd like to share some thoughts I had this morning while reading Alma 32. The chapter is esteemed for verse 21 when it talks about faith, but I found some other critical points that lie hidden in the whole context of the chapter. Alma likens faith to a seed, which upon being planted will usher in a general sense of goodness. As that seed begins to grow, we see the fruit of our efforts to grow it manifest in many ways. The point I'd like to emphasize is how that faith is not a perfect knowledge or fruit-bearing right away. People may look at the message we share or the gospel in general and not see how it immediately bears fruit for them, how it directly makes their life better. The point is that we have to take that step, have that hope that there might be something to it. Anytime we open our hearts, we will have the opportunity to find truth. The point is developing this faith is not to have the end result immediately. It's to see how it feels as we go gradually along its path.

Whew almost made a blatant grammar error just now. Probably have before. Gotta go time is out love ya bye

DB Pictures Jan/Feb 2009

February 26, 2009 from Elder Cheng

Hello All!!!

I dont have much time again today so i want to leave quick miracle story that happened yesterday,  so yesterday we were having companionship inventory and we were trying to better our relationship and then this less active showed up at the chruch!  We didnt finish our inventory but the less active insisted on singing hymns because it makes him feel better. He also wanted to resist some temptations and thoughts in his mind that satan was giving him.  So after singing hymns with him, he felt better, and so did my compnaion and I.  It was just hat we neede to solve our problems: keeping our focus on others and not ourselves.

So whenever tyemptation comes your way.  Sing hymns and itll cast satan's thoughts away.  It worked ywesterday and it will still continue to work.  Have faith and pray and sing hymns!  Missionary is amazing!  We see mircales so often and it reasssures us that HF has a plan for every single one of us.  He is always watchign and protecting us.

Until next week!
Elder Stanley Cheng

18 Days to Germany! Letter from LB Feb. 26

Hey Everyone,

I can't believe it's already Thursday once more. I know I'm going to wake up one morning after my mission and feel like it's only been a short dream. Ridiculous.

Things have been going well in general. The toughest thing remains trying to focus for every minute every day. The routine has certainly set in and I'm working against it. With March 16 right around the corner, a little anxiety builds daily.

One funny story: my district was looking at a computer screen and I jokingly tried to stretch and block out their view. A couple people started laughing a lot, and then finally someone told me that a seam right next to my *ahem* behind was exposed. Haha. I have no idea still when I could've ripped them. This marks the second pair of pants that I've messed up already, putting me on pace for about one a month for the rest of my mission. I got the first pair back finally this week, and the cuff is patched well enough to not be noticable.

Now for something more thought provoking. I've been contemplating the role of choices and experiences in our life. I must say that getting my mind around the idea that every trial and struggle can be applied to benefit us is difficult. Often we never see the point of how these ebbs and flows strengthen us in the long run. There have been times in my life where I've said, "Well, if this had turned out this way then I wouldn't have this problem or my life would just be better." I now find this manner of thought futile. Really, every rough patch or constant struggle provides us with a new opportunity to learn. It's why we're here. It takes a consitently positive, upbeat attitude to turn these negatives into something better. I know I have to improve my mindset in that regard. Too often do I let the opinion or actions of others weigh me down. In the MTC, I will admit that ocassionally I have the desire to just be by myself and study because the other missionaries are acting childish. As I start to think about how I'd wish they just simmer down, I have realized that I become just as distracted even though I'm not participating in the conversation.

I'm grateful for every experience in my life. It's how I know for myself what true happiness is.

Okay gotta run sorry but love ya!!!
Elder Ek