Week 60: The Sunday Morning Monster and Jesus is Black

 大家好！

Well this week was interesting for a lot of different reasons, but two of which were: one, we had 14 friends confirm for church on Saturday night, and then the Sunday Morning Monster got all our friends and only 4 of them showed up. It was sad, but the friends we did have come were so lit and the members helped so much! Super cool to see the members just take our friends under their wing and help them feel welcome. And then the other thing. We went all the way to Tung Chung and me and Elder Shields met this guy named John who was an African American guy from Texas. He started talking to us and was like "I know you Mormon boys, yous my homies." And then he told us a story about a time he rescued two Elders who got kidnapped by some high gang members who made the Elders read them the Bible while they were high. So that was nuts. Then he said he had a question for us and asked "Where's Judah?" And we were so lost. He then spent the next 30 minutes of our time explaining to us all these different scriptures in the Bible that he claimed proved that Jesus was black and the African Americans are the true descendants of Judah. Then he left. Super sweet guy, crazy knowledge of the Bible but man that was a nuts interaction haha. Elder Shields and I were in shock after that

Highlights

- Other than that stuff though there honestly wasn't too much else of note that happened. The STLs called us at one point during the week and made us go pick up their food cause there was a drunk dude chasing girls in the area, so we had to go do that

- We also met with our friend Charlie 3 times this week and continued to teach him the Plan of Salvation. It's been interesting to teach him because his prior beliefs are the most different I have ever seen. So it's been kind a long process, but he's slowly starting to accept what we teach!

Spiritual Thought

Something that stood out to me this week is that our example really does have more effect than we think it does. I was shocked this week to hear how much of an impact I have had in the past without even realizing it. Elder Chiang who is my DL right now was originally called Mandarin speaking and didn't learn Cantonese, but then got transferred to Cantonese work. He told me recently that a lot of the methods he used to learn were the ways that he saw me use. And in Fast and Testimony meeting today Sister Santos got up and shared her testimony about the power of loving others and mentioned how thankful she is for the example of love that us missionaries had showed to her less active son that helped him to start coming back to church, and led him to now be at a YSA conference in Thailand. I was shocked at how much my simple actions had influenced. Really hit home to me how important it is to be a representative of Christ at all times and to share the light of Christ through our actions

Love you all!
Elder Blankenbiller

Google Photos

Pictures

1. I came quite close to making an impulse buy with this one

2. District Council pic

3. Elder Chiang being adorable