Elder Zach Blankenbiller

  大家好! Well we found out transfer news on Saturday night and... I'm leaving my baby area! So crazy, I'm heading all the way down to Hong Kong Island! I've been kinda out in the boonies here in Sheung Shui, but now I'm heading to THE downtown spot which is crazy. In even crazier news I'm going to be training there, so we'll see how that goes haha. I'm a little nervous but also really excited for the new opportunity! Highlights: - On Tuesday I went on exchanges with Elder Roberts again and all the old Chinese men in his ward taught me more ping pong at their ward ping pong activity. Everyone better watch out when I get home cause I'm learning from the best of the best: old retired Chinese men - We had interviews with President on Wednesday, which were so fire! I love having interviews. We had some really good discussions, and he asked me a question on a topic I'd been thinking about a lot recently, but hadn't mentioned to anyone. It was so cool and...

  大家好！ This week was so amazing, we had zone conference and I had my first two baptisms on the mission in the same day yesterday!! Such a spiritual week and experience. Both Charles and Jack had asked me to Baptize them, and it was honestly one of the best moments ever. The entire morning I felt so happy and elated and afterwards I was so excited for them. Genuinely one of the best feelings, having so much joy for the choice they made to bring the most joy in their own lives. So excited to continue doing this work and finding more prepared people! Highlights: - Yesterday our mission had 12 baptisms in one day, which is insane because for the first couple months of the year they were having around 4 per month. We are now only 33 baptisms away from our mission's baptismal goal of 185 people! We've had so many miracles happen recently, and it's been awesome to see. - Zone conference was amazing, we had Elder Buckner from the Asia mission area presidency come and speak, and he ...

  你哋好！ This week we got our WhatsApp banned 4 more times... We're fairly certain that we inherited some sort of curse, so we've been trying to figure out how to uncurse ourselves. No success so far unfortunately. But despite that totally crippling us, we've still been able to get a lot done this week!  Highlights: - Both Jack and Charles passed their baptismal interviews this week!! Which means they'll both be getting baptized next Sunday. I'm so excited for them, they've also both asked for me to baptize them, which will be such a special experience! Shout-out to Elder Chen for coming in clutch for us this week and helping us finish Jack's lessons. - I went on exchanges three times this week, once in Tai Po with Elder Roberts, once in Sha Tin/Tai Wai with Elder Rooks, and a half day in Tai Po with Elder Chen. They were all super fun, and I was able to have a lot of really good conversations!  - We had a crazy miracle happen this week: we did a district find...

  大家好！ Hope everyone is doing awesome! This week we had so much happen, it was actually such a fun week! Felt super long though not gonna lie. To explain the title of this week's email, I gotta go back a sec. So we had this friend Hugo who was on bap date for this next weekend, but he wouldn't come to church cause he had martial arts classes at the same time. Eventually we had to take him off bap date cause he hadn't been to church, and then he was like okay I'll start coming to church. Then he didn't show up to church, blocked our WhatsApp, and blocked our number. Then we ran into him in person yesterday when walking home from church, I said "Yo what's up Hugo! How's it going?" And went to shake his hand. And he just walked straight past me and acted like I wasn't there. Lowkey kinda brutal, but also people have their agency.  Highlights: - On Tuesday we had to go down to the Wan Chai chapel so Elder Adcox could visit the mission medical coord...

  大家好！ This week was so insanely hectic, we lost our WhatsApp for three days this week because it kept getting banned, and so eventually we had to create a new WhatsApp. It kinda capped our ability to do missionary work which was really frustrating, but we were still able to have some awesome miracles. Charles and Jack have made so much progress this week which has been amazing to see! I'm so excited for both of them and the progress their making and the happiness it's brought them so far and will continue to bring them!  Highlights: - On Tuesday we were walking past a dessert restaurant, and when I looked through the glass I saw our Elders Quorum President 黃兄弟, so I waved at him and his wife and they waved us to come in. Turns out it was 黃兄弟's birthday, so they bought us dessert and we all hung out together for a bit which was super fun! - Elder Adcox and I found the most fire park ever that I somehow never found before, it had turtles, tortoises, a huge pond, and a fire v...

你哋好！ This week we had transfers again and Elder Chuy and I got separated, meaning that my missionary tutorial has officially ended and I actually have to do big boy missionary things now. It was a bit of an adjustment since I'm leading my area now, but I've started settling into it! It's been a really good challenge and has already been pushing me a lot! Plus my companion just came from English work so his Cantonese is a little rusty, meaning that I've had to do a lot more with that as well. Lot's of growth!  Highlights: - Got to go basketball finding for the first time, which was super fun! We went with Ethen, MK, and Andrew, the three youth in our ward since Elder Chuy wanted to hang out with them one more time before he left. We ended up getting one contact from it, which was awesome! - I went on exchanges with Elder Chen who dies next transfer, so he imparted all of his old man wisdom on me. Also at one point he thought he smelled stinky tofu and got super excit...