Evan’s Homecoming Talk

no one said it back to me because I'm not in Hong Kong they do like an Aloha thing in Hong Kong but it's okay um I'm very happy to be here and to be able to share a little bit about my experience in Hong Kong I just want to preface it I feel really hesitant to try to share anything in these short 15 minutes because I think anything I say will not be able to encapsulate just the love I have for the Hong Kong people the the experiences I have um I seriously have been so worried about this talk because I can't think of any perfect stories to share because every time I think of one another one sounds just as great because I had so many great experiences in Hong Kong that let me know that the Savior exists that this is his true church and that we are working under his hand um but I did select a couple stories and I hope that the spirit can help me in sharing them today um for those of you who don't know me my name is Evan Hardy I'm 20 years old I just returned almost 3 weeks ago from serving a full-time mission for 2 years in the China Hong Kong Mission speaking the language of CES um and the topic they gave me today was pretty simple pretty open and so I get to talk about whatever I want pretty much the topic is how serving a mission has blessed my life uh serving a mission has brought me a lot of blessings right I developed lifelong friendships with people all the way across the world with people I'll get to to go to college with I get to go see my companions I was blessed with an appreciation for a new culture I love the Hong Kong people I love Hong Kong food I love cantones I just love that land so much um I was blessed with the sense of accomplishment of uh getting to conquer according to Google the hardest language in the world and also blessed with a sense of disappointment in realizing that all the Panda Express workers speak Spanish and not Chinese but Kyle can go talk to those guys but the biggest blessing that my mission brought me is it increased my relationship with My Savior Jesus Christ and our heavenly father I have come to know and to trust my heavenly father and my savior Jesus Christ so much on my mission and that is the biggest blessing because the friends will go I can't eat the food anymore right the language May deteriorate but my relationship with heavenly father in Jesus Christ continue to buildt as I go into college right I'm still able to use that faith and trust that I developed on my Miss with heavenly father in Jesus Christ um and so I wanted to speak a little bit today about what I learned about heavenly father and about Jesus Christ on my mission in hopes that it can Inspire some of you to increase your discipleship and Devotion to Jesus Christ I know we have many youth in the audience and I hope that the spirit can touch you and inspire you to find Jesus Christ in serving him because I know that it's been the biggest blessing of my service it's like bring your child to work day kind of right I spent spent two years going to work with Dad and I got to know him a lot a lot better and so I want to share a little bit about what I learned about God and Jesus Christ and the um majority of my talk um will be coming from my personal journals from my mission from experiences I had that I wrote down there I'm very grateful I had on my mission uh I developed and kept the habit of writing in my journal every day and it seriously blessed me so much and at the end of my journal I would always make sure to write I would write about you know what I ate that day who I talked to whatever at the end I always had a section that I called God's hand in my life where I tried to I pray and ask God how did you impact me today where were you guiding me right and almost every single day there were instances that I was able to find and so that's why I've had so much trouble picking what to talk about because I have you know 365 days time two of experiences to every day seeing a Miracle but I picked out a few that I'd really like to share that really emphasize three things I learned about heavenly father in Jesus Christ on my mission and they are that Heavenly Father Knows and loves me personally that heavenly father has power to guide us and direct us and that heavenly father has power to do Miracles that Miracles still exist today so I want to touch on those three first is that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ lives they know me and they love me we always say that but how do we know it um I wanted to share an experience from the start of my mission the start of my mission I had a period of about maybe three to four weeks that was probably the worst period of my mission um and it was because of the immense stress that I was putting on myself um I was just overwhelmed by the fear that the people of Hong Kong's salvation was dependent on an 18-year-old boy speaking a language that he had never learned before and again according to Google cantones is the hardest language in the world and I just was so over overwhelmed with feelings of inadequacy feelings of Doubt of fear of hopelessness and there was so long that I I was dealing with these these emotions and it made it so hard to enjoy the work um and I remember at that time not only that but I had a lot of in conflict with myself and also some outer conflict with other people in my life at that point that made it really really hard to enjoy the work I really just felt uh overwhelmed and I told my I told in my prayers in my journal in my conversations with my companions I said multiple times the phrase I feel like I'm drowning that's the phrase I was using at that time is I feel like I'm drowning I just can't breathe the the pressure the stress the anxiety is just so so much I can't breathe right now I feel like I'm drowning um and it wasn't until I went to church that Sunday we were attending a fast and testimony meeting that an elder got up to the podium and he he got walked up and he said I don't know why I need to share the story but I feel like I need to share a story and he proceeded to share a story about when he was little and he first learned how to swim and he said his mom took him to his first swimming class he flailed around in the pool for 30 minutes and then he got out of the pool and he went up to his mom and he said Mom I was drowning out there why didn't you save me and he what he said that his mom said to him hit me to my core I just stuck there St stood there just amazed his he said his mom told him if I really thought you were drowning if I really thought you were in danger I would immediately jump in and save you I don't even know if that Elder ended up making an analogy out of that I I think he might have just got up and shared that story and sat down but I know that God inspired that Elder to stand up because of me because God could have got up he could have got up and shared about anxiety or shared about being overwhelmed but he used the exact words I was using that I feel like I'm drowning and I felt God's answer that if I really thought you were going to drown if I really thought you couldn't handle this I would save you but you got to learn some skills right you got to learn how to overcome this you're learning right now and that's how at the beginning of my mission I was so blessed to have that experience to know that God knows me I I did nothing special to deserve that I did nothing special to earn that God knows me so deeply not because I'm more special than anyone else but because I'm his because I'm his child and that testimony led me to have more faith in him knowing that he hears my prayers and he answers me the second thing that I learned is that God will direct us and guide us to do his work that's important we have to be doing his work we can't be doing our work we have to be doing his work but if we are doing what he needs us to do he will guide and direct us um I think Hong Kong was the perfect place to gain this testimony because there is absolutely 0% no way that missionary work in Hong Kong can work without God for any of you that are unaware Hong Kong is one of the top three most densely populated countries in the entire world Hong Kong is about 1,65 square miles which is about 2third the size of Rhode Island but it has 7 million plus people living there which is about seven times the population of Rhode Island so in about every square mile there's over 15,000 people in that place it is absolutely absolutely unrealistic that at any point two 20-year-old guys on the street we couldn't door knock we just had to stand on the street and walk around there's no way just the odds that we would happen to run into the right people if we were just playing the numbers there's many missionaries who tried that who tried I'm just going to go out all day every day and just try it pure effort doesn't work but I testify that God guides us and that God is involved in this work because every day a majority of the the journal entries that I entered were about me meeting the right people about people that I met that I knew I was supposed to meet on the daily day after day after day sorry day after day after day meeting the right people that doesn't that doesn't happen in a place with 15,000 people for every mile that doesn't happen I had days where there was plenty of people I know there is millions of people in Hong Kong that will just walk past you when you're trying to talk to them the odds of me meeting the right people are are are not good I know that it was God that guided us I want to share specifically one experience of knowing that God guided us through the Spirit uh it was also early in my mission in my first area I was with a companion we had planned that day to go finding in the in the city park because of course we couldn't go knock on doors we thought there's plenty of people in the park so we went to the park and our plan was in this full like hour and a half finding session we were just going to stay St in the park just walk around in the Park after about 45 minutes we get to a Crossroads if we go right we can stay in the park keep finding according to our plan if we go left we can stay in the park continue finding to our plan but me and my companion at the same time look at each other and we said we need to go straight we need to leave the park go against our plan but we felt it we knew that that was the spirit guiding us we both were in unity so we followed it and no less than 10 minutes later we met a man his name was yuang or Mr Yu and he didn't live in our area but we were able to get his number and the next time we rescheduled him we were able to teach him the restoration by the end of the restoration he was asking us if he could pay us for the Book of Mormon we tried to give it to him he's like pull out his wallet he's like how much for this book I was like it's free dude it's awesome this man I later moved to the area that he lived in and I was able to teach him he accepted everything we taught him he said I need to stop drinking tea coffee done cool I need to you know stop watching inappropriate videos done got it he believed everything we taught him there was no way that that was just by chance there was no way that me and my companion if we were just working on our own we would have followed our own plan right we would have thought the likelihood is that there's people in the park the Park's a popular area we're just going to stay in the park but I know that God guided us and I have millions of others examples of knowing uh that God was guiding us but for time I'm going to move on the third one uh is that God is a god of Miracles I love in the Book of Mormon it's a big emphasis that God is a god of Miracles and that a sign of our last days is that people will not believe in miracles anymore and I want to testify to you brothers and sisters that Miracles exist it's not a thing of the past that miracles happen in our day-to-day lives if we look out for them I had millions of miracles on Mission and I want to end with one of the biggest ones I saw which is at the end of my mission at the end of my mission I returned back to one of my old areas and we were teaching this old man he was 60 years old he didn't know how to read he had a strong Cantonese country accent so I couldn't understand what he was saying and his name was Chang or Mr CH and we had such trouble teaching this guy he had come to church for weeks on end didn't understand a single thing that was happening at church but he just sat there with a smile we tried for 3 weeks in a row to teach him how to pray just how to pray and this guy after 45 minutes each time could not repeat back to you a prayer he just did not get it and me and my companion I think started looking at him through worldly eyes thinking this guy is kind of uneducated you know he's kind of hard to understand we'll keep teaching him but he's probably not going to progress much he can't even remember this right until we brought a member into our lesson with us and a member helped us see what God saw saw this man is humble he's coming back to church even though he doesn't understand and we need to to see him as God sees him and this member through this member's help we taught him how to pray and this guy every day after we taught him how to pray would send us a voice recording of him praying not only in that lesson did we teach him how to pray but our member turned to us and said I want to challenge him to be baptized we're like yes I don't know he just learned how to pray dude let's take it easy he was like when do you think he could be ready to be baptized and you know I'm thinking like uh okay we're teaching him like once a week he just learned how to pray it took 45 minutes um and I was like let's go like October and this member goes no and he goes Elder when do you leave and I was like the 30th of July and he goes he just turns the guy doesn't even ask us he goes you're going to be baptized the 28th of July okay I was like well I mean he just put it I can't like what am I going to say don't get baptized no right the day that we put him on date was the 18th of July he had 10 days to get ready we taught him every day and to be honest at the start I was teaching with a little bit of Doubt like we'll try it but he's probably not going to make it brothers and sisters the Miracles exist God magnified this man's ability to remember and to receive information we taught him all we had was every lesson once he only had one time to get it by the end of the Plan of Salvation he could tell you we came from God we came to Earth we got a body we ate an apple and we will die but because Jesus Christ died we can go back to Heavenly Father we taught him all the Commandments in one lesson and he remembered all of them and 10 days later I was able to baptize him on my last day as a missionary and just yesterday he sent me a picture that he got his Temple recommend this man is not perfect he does not remember everything but God through this man was able to work a miracle and help this child of God come back to the fold and so as I end my talk I want to testify of these things I know that God knows each of us individually and loves us he's intimately involved in the details of each of Our Lives he will guide us through his Spirit to do his work and he will perform miracles in our lives if you want to see it you have to look for it if you want to see it you have to be involved in his work there's a quote from M Russell that I loved that says the Lord knows you he's talking about the blessings of missionary work the Lord knows you when you are serving your mission you will have experiences that will help you come to know him better you will grow spiritually in serving him in his name you will be sent on errands to serve others he will give you experiences with promptings from the Holy Ghost the Lord will authorize you to teach in his name you can show him that he can trust you and can rely on you brothers and sisters do you want that in your life do you want to know the Lord better do you want to have a testimony that he knows you do you want to see miracles in your life do you want to feel the Holy Ghost speak to you serve him be involved in what he needs to do go to work with Dad all right and I testify that every day you will see miracles in your life if you look for them I will end with my testimony in canones I'll switch back and forth in English so you can understand but also joing Alo I want to Bear testimony that I know God Lives I know that this church is the only true church on the Earth today oo I know that God loves us and wants to help us come back to him I promise that as you try your best you will see miracles in your life I know the Book of Mormon is true and when we read the book of Mormon we can feel God's power in our lives oh I share these things in the name of Jesus Christ amen okay