Hey everybody!

Capri & I went to our 1st Book Study on Tuesday, and will attend the Theocratic Ministry School & Service Meeting on Thursday. Both meetings begin @7:00 p.m.

A married couple & single Bethelite also attend and they take turns driving to the meetings throughout the week.

We had the privilege of having a couple come to book study w/ us from Hong Kong.
They are originally from Lexington, Kentucky, and have been in Hong Kong for 10 years.

After the book study they shared their field service experiences with all of us. It was awesome!!

They are in an English speaking congregation, in fact the Kingdom Hall that they go to has 7 congregations, all share the Hall. There are meetings from 8:00 in the morning until 8:00 at night. As you can imagine, this presents some challenges for them.

for example; 'elders meetings', going 'questions with unbaptized publishers', 'baptism questions', and even 'judicial meetings' have to be held elsewhere.
They usually hold these meetings at the local parks or even the local McDonalds or KFC...
No one has to be nervous about being called into the back room, (Ha, Ha!) but beware if you're invited to the Park!

Land is so expensive there that it is nearly impossible to afford to build new Kingdom Halls.

All of these congregations are English... they need English-speaking publishers there, which by the way is true all through Europe.

The sister, is a 'Commuter Bethelite', while her husband works full time and works in Mainland China.

They mentioned that during the recent Olympics in China that there were many witness visitors that came through there, and that security became even more strict. Witnesses that tried to bring literature into the country were questioned and their literature confiscated.

So, whenever they could they would remind the visiting witnesses that this would be unwise.

The people whom they witness to in the territory are primarily Godless, and while that may seem challenging they're having great success. You see they don't have to refute false teachings from Christendom. The sister conducts 15 Bible studies! She said that this is very common in the congregation, with 87 Bible studies being conducted in the field.
Most of their witnessing is done in street work, which is where they find English-speaking people. you see, it's the English that are the housekeepers, gardeners and so forth. Since it would be disrespectrul to go to a residence and ask to speak to the help, it is best to find these through informal witnessing.

To help with their income the sister teaches English, the common language spoken there is Cantonese & Japanese. One of the persons that took an interest in the truth was one of her students, to teach she would use magazines & newspapers. However, the sister found out that the lady was interested in the Bible, so the sister asked her would it be okay if she used the publication, "My Book Of Bible Stories" to which she agreed. The next week English lessons were taught out of the publication and during the session many questions were asked and answered.
So here she was conducting a Bible Study & getting paid!
However, her conscience would not allow her to do that again, so she suggested discontinuing the English lessons, but instead having a personal Bible study, to which she agreed... she now attends the meetings regularly.



'We have a busy week here at Bethel, with the Annual Meeting this Saturday, people are coming in from all over the world. We have had the privilege of meeting missionaries, branch members, special pioneers, and traveling overseers from all parts of the globe.

We are thrilled to have this awesome experience, and glad to share it with you!!!

We are told that beginning tommorrow it will really get busy here, as more and more arrive for this special event.

Well, its getting late and we start our day @5:30 am. it's Bed time.

Phi-li-a, Vince & Capri