Elder Zach Blankenbiller

  大家好！ On Saturday I got to perform a baptism for one of the Filipina branch Sister's friends because she was worried that the brothers who are in that branch weren't big enough to Baptize her haha. So she picked me to do it which was awesome, I was super thankful for the chance to help out! Then later that day we went to a restaurant for lunch and I ordered fried noodles cause that sounded good. When it came out it was noodles with no sauce, just raw eggs. Literally. Goopy raw eggs. But I had already ordered it, so I was like "Well I guess I gotta eat it now, I got myself into this." I managed to put down about 2/3 of it and then couldn't force any more down. The rest of the day was downhill from there, I was just fighting through the stomach pain and disgust until the end of the day when I just crashed in my bed. Then I woke up at 2:30 am, puked in the bathroom, went back to sleep, and then all day yesterday I had to slowly add crackers and energy drink into my ...

  大家好！ This week was outrageous and time didn't exist, we were scrambling to get everything done. Also we rode a ferry out to one of the islands in our Mission because there is a family that lives out there and they wanted to feed us. So we took the 30min ferry ride over, they fed us some fire Mexican food, and then we headed back at nighttime through Victoria Harbor. It was SO COOL, we were so lucky to get to go. Also while there our friend Campbell was chatting with the family, named the Campbells. Turns out everyone in Scotland still hates everyone in the Campbell clan cause they killed a bunch of people while in their keep which is a big no no. So 800 years later and they still get bullied for being named Campbell. Crazy beef Highlights: - This week we met with a recent convert who just moved into our branch. He's from Nigeria originally and is in Hong Kong as a refugee. We gave him a priesthood blessing because he has been sick ever since he got detained for two weeks. Tal...

  早晨大家！ I lost my voice on Saturday and spent almost all of Sunday being a mute. I cannot fathom how Zacharius in the New Testament handled being mute. It was literally the worst thing ever, turns out I have a really hard time not talking. This has been instructive for me and has made me realize that despite the jokes I am indeed a D1 yapper. Highlights - Interviews with President and Sister Hill! I had a really good interview with them and they had some great advice for how to be a better and more effective Zone Leader and missionary.  - We had two ministering calls with companionships that have been having a hard time and they were so Spirit led and Spirit filled, we felt very blessed to be able to help them as much as we did! Elder Smith and I talked about how much we felt we were led by the Spirit - I went on exchanges with Elder Cheng and we had a blast. Went finding down in Aberdeen for a bit, then decided that we weren't having any success, so we hopped on the MTR and f...

  大家好！ We had a nuts week this week that ended in some mind blowing stuff. I'll just cover as much as I can without making this too long haha Highlights: - 2 weeks ago we met a guy on the street named Anthony. We met with him through call, then in person, and then yesterday he came to church for the first time. When we got him to church all the members were going crazy so we asked what was up and they said that our friend, Anthony, is Anthony Perry, or 黃秋生 (Wong Chau-Sang) and is an incredibly famous Hong Kong movie star. We asked how famous he is and they told us it would be like if Brad Pitt walked into Sacrament meeting. So that was pretty crazy to find out, we'll see if we can get him baptized haha - On Thursday we had a Zone find all the way up in the New Territories which was super fun! We talked to a ton of cool people and tried to get the Sisters there some more friends - Friday we went to the temple and then a service at the food angels place again. So super spiritual ...

  大家好！ This week we went to go do service for a family in our branch who is from Mexico! The family's name is Hidalgo, and they're so fun. I got to practice my Spanish a bit with them and it has officially died. But my accent was good enough they thought I knew Spanish haha. So there was that. The service we did was clearing out a concrete rain gutter that runs along a hill in their backyard, it was full of mud and stuff so when it rained it would overflow. In the process of clearing it out I was bitten by two mystery bugs, we saw a spider as big as a jar lid, and destroyed an entire ecosystem that existed in the gutter. Twas a fun time Highlights: - We had a packed week. So packed that we only got language study maybe two times - We had Zone Conference on Tuesday! So I helped give my first Zone Conference training. It was a little shaky but all in all the Lord made up for our weak points and it went great.  - Our Zone Conference had some amazing messages about companionship u...

  大家好！ We had a member meal with the Santos family this week, they're from the Philippines and made us some AMAZING food. It was so good. At one point Robloks got mentioned and he goes "hah, more like roadblocks. Cause it's a roadblock to your future. And don't even get me started on MindCrap." Then he told us not to play video games when we get home from our missions. I was just impressed that he came up with those, that's pretty good Highlights: - We taught our friend Noumonvi this week who is from West Africa, and it was such a cool lesson! He had started reading the Book of Mormon and had some questions about where it comes from and why there is more than just the Bible. But we answered his questions and invited him to pray to know if it's true, and he accepted it so well!! We had our member Nana from Ghana there too, and he served his mission French speaking, which is Noumonvi's native language. Noumonvi gave the closing prayer in French since tha...