The end of this past week was fabulous because our investigator, Eddie, finally came to church! He has been in the hospital for the past little bit and hasn’t been able to leave his house much because of the pain in his leg, but he’s doing a lot better now. We had tried to get him to come to church the week before, and he said that it was just too difficult, but then we were like “Look, Eddie, we will hire a taxi to come right to your apartment if it means that you’ll come–we’ll even CARRY you!” And he actually committed to come, but then we had a typhoon and church all across Hong Kong was canceled, and we had to stay inside all day. But that’s beside the point because he finally came to church!!

Our area is really like the only area in the mission where you can knock on doors in some places just because we really do live in like the middle of nowhere, and so people actually live in those little village places called Tsuens. We actually have never really knocked on doors, funny enough, because you have to go at the right time for people to be home and we’re always busy then. But we went out for it last week and it was a fun adventure. We walked through the tiny corridors between the cramped houses and things were illuminated by an eerie red light from all of the god-worship altars that people have in their houses. I also got to have the privilege of having a lot of doors slammed in my face! But there was this one lady who actually (to our surprise) let us into her house and we got to teach her a simple lesson just about who God is. She believes in another god that she has a shrine to and worships, but she was the cutest and nicest lady and said that we could stop by any time–so that was awesome!

We also taught a lesson to a potential who has come to English class a few times and whom we had our recent convert of a few months ago fellowship. This man had lots of questions and unlike most people that we teach was most certainly a Christian and had a lot of doubt about the things that we taught him. I’m also just not really quite sure what happened in that lesson but things really trainwrecked, and at one point things got so lost, and the Spirit was so gone from that lesson. But we pulled things back in and by the end he quietly listened to what we said and told us that he would take up our invitation to find out if the Book of Mormon was true. All that we did to bring things back to where they needed to be was to bear simple and heartfelt testimony. You try to convince people with facts and wisdom and tell them every reason why they should believe you, but in the end they won’t ever, unless you help them to actually FEEL something different. Unless they can actually feel the influence of the Holy Ghost working in them.

It was also Sister Branch’s birthday, which meant that I ate lots of cake, and we also got to eat with a lot of members and spend time with them–I really love this ward and the people here!

We also had a lot of success in our efforts to really talk to everyone, and as a result we have a lot more potentials that we are working on scheduling right now! We also met with a couple of potentials that were kind of… interesting. I’ve got some good stories that I’ll save to tell for another time! The Lord really does bless us when we put in the effort and strive to do our very best without trying to make up excuses.

I read an article in a church magazine about a piece of jade and I thought that it was very fitting because I am serving in China. In a museum in Taiwan there is a piece of jade that’s carved to look like a piece of cabbage–random, right? The story behind it is that jade is only valuable if it is of a solid color, but this particular piece had different streams of color and cracks running through it. A master carver one day decided to carve it and used the “flaws” that it had in order to complement them and make it into something beautiful and actually worth a lot of money. This is, of course, a parallel for all of our own lives as we are none of us perfect and at first glance might think that our value is very low. But God, the master carver, is at work in each and every one of our lives, and He won’t just get rid of our flaws, but He will use them in such a way that they become our strengths just like it says in Ether 12:27. So be grateful for you quirks and weaknesses and know that in the hands of the Master, you can become something great while still retaining the essence of who you are!

Keep working miracles in your life and the lives of those around you! Embrace the cabbage in each and every one of you!

Love,
Sister Crockett

18 Dorset Crescent
Kowloon Tong, Kowloon
Hong Kong

Pictures:
1, 2) Went biking last week!
3) The fruit trend continues–I bought passion fruit and it is now my favorite
4) what it looks like walking down one of the Tsuens in our area
5) lunch with Sister Leung–she is such a great member!
6) Badminton with the YW, and 2 investigators came