Elder Zach Blankenbiller

Hey everyone!  This week has actually been so crazy! I've gotten such crazy whiplash with a lot of really difficult finding days, but then finding some absoultley golden people!  Highlights: - We've had like 6 total member meals this week, which is insane! The members here are so kind and so fun, I love getting to spend time with them. My favorite was when we went to the Ward we serve in Bishop's house, it was him and his family, his sister's family, us, the Sisters, and a recent convert Andrew who's 13. And we were all crammed into this tiny apartment having a super good time, they have this little kid named Kingston who's 6, and he knows a bit of English but all the English he hears is just super funny phrases and stuff he's heard online and from other people, so it was so funny, I was dying. He also started singing Despacito at one point which had me dying laughing - On Saturday we went finding in the morning and found this guy named Jack, invited him to ...

Hey everyone!  This week I made it to Hong Kong!! On Tuesday I left the MTC and had the longest travel day of my life that lasted until Thursday morning in Hong Kong. It was super long and tiring, but I made it and got to start doing missionary work!!  Highlights: - Right after we landed and got driven to the mission offices it started POURING rain, so hard that they had to tell all the missionaries not to come to the mission offices for transfers until the rain died down, so we were stuck there for a while before our trainers and everyone could show up.  - The food here is AMAZING, I actually love it so much. The members here are even more amazing, and are some of the best people I have ever met in my life!  - There have been so many miracles so far since I've gotten here, it's been crazy! I'll mention a couple of the best: I ended up in an apartment with Elder Zhao, a good friend from BYU which is actually insane!! It's been so fun so far.  - On the first day ...

What's up, everyone! So this week we were pretty much just reviewing all the Cantonese we've learned so far, so we reviewed navigation and stuff like that. A new word we learned was "dīng dīng," which is the word for trolley and might be the best thing ever. Highlights: - We got to do a Zoom call with some members in Hong Kong and practice teaching them, which was super fun and made me super excited for heading out TOMORROW!! Still so crazy that this time tomorrow I'll be on my way to Hong Kong. Super excited!! - Playing a TON of beach volleyball over at the MTC field and managing to get a block and a spike in, which sounds impressive but that's from like 4 total hours of volleyball haha - In the devotional last night President Newman was going talking with an Elder about a scripture, and President Newman asked "At the judgement, it's gonna be just the Savior and you. So it'll be you and who?" And the Elder said "... the devil?" And...

Hey everyone! Okay so this week the huge news is that I GOT MY VISA!!! So I'm officially gonna get to go to Hong Kong in like one week, which is actually insane. Hence the title of the email, because we are all shocked that we will be leaving soon since we've kinda been here forever so far. Highlights: - We got a new district of Cantonese speaking missionaries that got here on Wednesday, which has been super fun! We've all gotten to go help teach them a bit and hang out with them, it's been awesome. Super weird to remember when we first got here though, feels like forever ago.  - My roomate Elder Cannon from BYU got here on Wednesday, along with two of my other really good friends from BYU!! It was great to see them all and talk to them for a bit, and my roomate has class on my floor which is sick.  - On Wednesday when the new missionaries got here we lost a bunch of our teachers cause they went to go teach the new Cantonese missionaries instead, which we were all very ...