Week 38: Missing my British buddy

 大家好！


Elder Bentley left for home on Thursday evening, and to be honest I've been missing him a ton! He had a super big impact on me as a missionary and as a person and was also such a funny guy. So it's been sad not having him around. So I've been in a trio with Elder Yip and Elder Grimley since Friday, which has been quite an experience so far haha. They're both younger than me in the mission and to be honest sometimes it feels like if I wasn't leading out a lot of stuff would fall through the cracks and not get done. So it's been a little frustrating and tiring, but I've also felt the Lord lift me up so much and help me to overcome the challenges.

Highlights:
- On Friday we got to go to the temple! I always love going to the temple, but this time was especially awesome because I ran into the missionaries who are currently serving in my old area, Sheung Shui, and I was able to ask them about Charles and my other friends there. I also ran into a couple other missionaries I used to serve with and hadn't seen in forever. Super cool little miracle!
- On our first day double covering Aberdeen and West Point we were finding in Aberdeen and I somehow attracted like three Bible bashers in the space of like an hour. Elder Grimley said that's the first time he's run into Bible bashers in his area. I guess I'm a basher magnet?
- Yesterday we had Stake Conference and our mission President got up to give a talk and did the whole thing in Cantonese. He is 
American but served his full time mission in Hong Kong, but that was like 40+ years ago so all us missionaries were blown away
- We had our first person at church yesterday in the past 2 1/2 months!!!! It was such a fire miracle and felt so good to get someone to church again! 


Spiritual Thought
On Thursday we had District Council, and it was a really good one! We had some amazing spiritual conversations and discussions. My favorite part was when we discussed faith, and what it means to have faith to find people to teach. One person shared the story of Shadrach Mesach and Abednego from the Old Testament, where under threat of being thrown into a fiery furnace they say "If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.
But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up."
We talked about how that is the epitome of faith: we believe that God is able to do the thing that we want Him to do; but even more important we trust God's plan for us over our own wishes or desires, and that's the true meaning of faith

Google Photos

Pictures
1. Temple
2. Squad up at temple
3. Bye bye Elder Bentley 😢
4. Trio life
5. Elder Yip and Elder Grimley decided to dress as Grandpas for the day






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