Week 37: 🐲 🎆 🧧 新年快樂🧧🎆 🐲

 大家好！心想事成！

This week was so packed cause of Chinese New Year and Zone Conference both being in the same week. It was super fun though, a lot of cool stuff happened!

Highlights
- Tuesday was Chinese New Year, so to start off the day we had a member of the mission presidency, President Woo, do a mission wide Zoom call to teach everyone about Chinese New Year. I learned a ton and it was super cool, and also a blast cause President Woo is so funny 😂 He's actually a member of the Ward I serve in right now and he's the best. After that they had us deep clean our apartments for two hours, which is outrageous cause you're not supposed to sweep and clean on Chinese New Year cause if you do you sweep away all the luck. So if I don't find new friends this week it's because of that. The rest of the day we just had studies and then walking around saying happy new year to everyone and looking at decorations and stuff. Super fun!
- Thursday morning we went to a Ward BBQ activity that we had to climb a a mountain to get to, and then went to Zone Conference right after. So we climbed said mountain in full suits. So fun. Zone Conference was amazing, I had so many insights about feeling the Spirit and being intentional about everything we do as missionaries. I also got to play guitar to accompany another musical number, but I didn't realize one of my strings was out of tune, so I kinda had to improvise. But no one noticed so we're in the clear
- On Saturday I went on exchanges with Elder Esplin who's the best, I love that Elder. Super fun exchange, we went to an island in my area called Lamma Island. So we took a 30 minute ferry ride to the island and went finding for two hours. We talked to some awesome people and met some characters. Met a British dude with a mile long beard who told us about how he used to be a TV interviewer and interviewed Pelé and Muhammad Ali. We gave him a Book of Mormon with our testimonies written in it and he said he would check it out and give it to his wife too! Also met a Filipina lady who I said Kumusta Po to and she went crazy cause she thought I spoke Tagalog (I don't) and then we got her phone number and now she's gonna come to church! After we left we went basketball finding and met a dude we met the last time we went on exchanges, and also invited like 8 people to church it was awesome. 

Spiritual Thought
Something I've been learning recently is that Jesus Christ really does understand exactly what we go through. I've mentioned this before but the area that I'm currently serving in can be hard sometimes. We haven't seen much progress the entire time that I've been here. So the other day during personal study I decided to study examples of when the Savior was rejected. I came up with some examples including Nicodemus, the people of Nazareth, and the rich young ruler. These were all people who Jesus taught and who either rejected Him or weren't quite ready for His message. Even Jesus Christ, the greatest missionary ever, wasn't able to change their minds because they have their agency. Coming to realize this has brought me so much comfort, knowing that Jesus Christ felt sorrow for those who chose not to follow Him too, and His must be so much greater than mine. I know that studying the teachings and life of Jesus Christ can bring us so much closer to Him and help us to feel His comfort and peace.

Love you all!!
Elder Blankenbiller 

Google Photos

Pictures
1. Zone Pday
2. Zone Conference
3. The amount of sushi we consumed on Chinese New Year's Eve
4. Lamma Island
5. Cutie Elder Esplin







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