Elder Zach Blankenbiller

  大家好！ Elder Smith and I did this week on hard mode because last P-Day we hiked Lantau peak, which is the second highest peak in Hong Kong, and we didn't wear sunscreen. So we got mega sunburned and our legs were pretty sore the next day. Totally worth it though, that was my favorite hike I've done in Hong Kong, it was so cool! Highlights - Our friend Rai came to church at the everyday branch on Tuesday, and we met with him before church. Our mission just released these Road to Baptism pamphlets that help friends visualize the process to baptism. Rai was already progressing towards baptism, but we gave him one and seeing the look of happiness on his face when we gave it to him was so awesome! He was just so excited about it, it was awesome - I went on exchanges with Elder Chin this week and it was so fun. He serves the Mandarin branch and they had a lesson in the morning up in Sha Tin, and it was so fun just sitting there having no idea what was happening and then both of them ...

  大家好！ Our friend Noumonvi got baptized yesterday!!! It was awesome, we had a pretty good turnout from the Branch and Noumonvi was so happy and excited the whole time. He shared his testimony in French during the service and it was so powerful, it was so cool to see how much he's changed since when we first met him!! Unfortunately I didn't end up in any of the pictures cause I was the designated photographer. But 唔緊要，唔緊要！It was an awesome day Highlights - On our way home we ran into this guy named Ben who was the most proper English man you will ever meet. Which is funny cause he was fully Chinese. But he had the accent, the mannerisms, the Britishisms, it was so funny. He was super chill though and wants to come to church next week! - We had to deal with so much rain this week, we kept getting Red and Black rain warnings, which is when the rain gets so heavy the mission President tells us to get back to our apartments ASAP and not to leave until he says so. So we spent a lot o...

  大家好！ We had been texting this guy who had been going to institute, and he was asking us to help him move some stuff (a non-member). So we went with the Elders who serve his area in Cantonese work to go help out. We met him at the MTR station, and he's like "Great, we're all here. But first we have to go to McDonalds." So he buys us some McDonalds and we eat, then we're like "Yo we don't have that much time, we should probably go." So we spend the next 30 minutes following him through active construction zones and random compounds to his house. By the time we get there we only have like 30 minutes til we need to leave. Then he plays "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley on his speaker, we put 10 umbrellas in a bag, and then he's like "okay that's enough for today." And then we went back to the chapel for a lesson.  Highlights - We planned our zone conference training with the STLs this week and it went super well! We g...

  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...