Elder Zach Blankenbiller

  What's up everyone! This week we had the hands down best class we've ever had, so normally we have two teachers, one in the morning and one in the evening, but our evening teacher left on a trip on Wednesday, so our morning teacher has been teaching both classes. Which is awesome for me cause that teacher is like literally my favorite person in the MTC, he's the best. So anyways, this class was about how to shop for things and bargain for stuff, so first we played gagaak haih ngāam, or the Price is Right, but played for Hong Kong items and how much they normally cost so we don't get ripped off for being white boys. It was seriously so much fun, and also shocking to see how cheap some stuff will be there. Then we did a market simulation thing where half the district was buying and the other half was selling random stuff you find around the room. It was super random and fun, and it got super chaotic and everyone was yelling at each other in Cantonese, it was AWE...

Léih deih hóu!! Cantonese has had some pretty legendary moments this week not gonna lie, we've gotten a lot of entertainment.  1. On Monday night we started learning about food in Hong Kong and OH MAN am I excited!! It all looked so good. But we also learned how to say McDonalds in Cantonese, our teacher (who's a native from Macau) goes "Does anyone have a guess about what the word for McDonalds is?" and it goes quiet for a sec and then my comp with a straight face and in the most racist Chinese voice I have ever heard goes " Mac DOWN alds" and our teacher just goes "YES YES, THAT'S IT!!!" Somehow he was spot on and the actual way to say it in Cantonese literally sounds like you're doing a racist impression. So that was wild. 2. We found out how to say I'm pregnant in class the other day because an Elder in my district accidentally said that while giving a spiritual thought 3. Elder Clayton and I had another helping others appointment w...

Helloooo everyobody! This week was pretty crazy, we've been picking up speed in our Cantonese classes and learning how to teach more of the gospel, teach object lessons, and explain how to pray. It's been pretty difficult so far but I can definitely see myself improving a ton! The gift of tongues is absolutely real.  Some highlights: - We learned the Cantonese birthday song and sent a video of our district singing it to one of the Sister's grandpa's who had a birthday that day (he's Chinese and grew up speaking Cantonese.)  - I had my favorite reaction anyone has ever given to my last name: President Newman from the MTC Presidency came to our Branch meeting on Sunday and was teaching our Elder's Quorum lesson. I raised my hand to make a comment and he said "Yeah, Elder... (squints at my tag) Blankenbiller?? Wow that's a long name, that must be a pain to write out every time, bless your soul." - President Newman actually gets a double feature for th...

Léih hóu! Honestly this has been the fastest week so far, yesterday I woke up super confused cause it was already Sunday again. My district is pretty sure the MTC is a simulation and they're speeding up time or something.  One of the biggest highlights from this week was the Fourth of July! We got out of our evening class half an hour early and they had us watch the an hour long movie about Joseph Smith which was actually not too bad. Either that or it's been too long since I've seen a movie and my judgement is off. Could go either way. It did go over some stuff about his story that I totally forgot that are pretty incredible though. It reminded me of how strong my testimony of Joseph Smith as a prophet is, he's amazing. After the movie they gave us BYU Creamery ice cream and we got to watch the BYU Stadium of Fire through the gaps in the buildings and it was awesome!! I love fireworks so it was really cool to get to watch. This week I also had a ton more friends show u...