Week 62: Anson, stop anti-ing our friends please

 大家好!


We had a lesson with our friend Vicky where we went in planning to teach about the Godhead and instead ended up teaching him about baptism! It was so fire, he was super interested in the gift of the Holy Ghost, and when we asked him if he would want that in his life he said "of course, who wouldn't?!" So we invited him to be baptized and he accepted the invitation! We had invited one of the Elder's Quorum Presidency members named Anson to join for the lesson and right after we invited him to be baptized Anson goes "The more you learn about our church the more you will hear some negative things, just remember not to pay attention to them and to ask us your questions." Okay super chill, great thought. Then he goes "For example you will hear that Joseph Smith had lots of wives and you will probably be like "What the heck?" I don't know why he did that but I'm sure he had a reason." Elder Shields just looked at each other and we were like... Yo what the heck 😭 He then called us after the lesson and let us know he didn't like that we invited him to be baptized so early. So we had to explain that we have authority to receive revelation for our friends and we hope that he can have a little more trust in us and to kindly not go off script next time. Kind of a wild spot we got into there haha

Highlights
- We had a member visit where we thought our member's wife wasn't a member, but then got there and his wife walked in and I was like "Oh hi Sister Shum," because she's actually just a member in another Cantonese ward that I used to serve in haha
- Zone Conference was this week and we were in charge of leading an activity to go along with the trainings given and it went super well! It was all about becoming more Christlike and how to apply things we learn
- Our Summer missionary Jake made us another legendary ad for social media, it's actually crazy good. You can check my Google Photos if you want to see it, he cooked
- Got invited to a YSA activity at this super nice restaraunt and the branch was paying for it. Got to have these pinneaple barbacue sauce smoked ribs and HOLY MOLY they were so good. We also got one of our friends there and he connected with a ton of the YSAs which was awesome. Our member Emmanuelle also came which was awesome, I've mentioned him before but he used to be very less active and has been coming back recently!!
- We met with this guy Narinder who is from India, and he's not super interested in church but absolutely loves missionaries. He is a Sikh, so he believes that everything is God and all gods are true. So it's really hard to explain the gospel to him, especially since he only really speaks Punjabi and we had to have our member Nick translate. His story is really sad though and he shared it with us. It was really hard to sit there listening to his story with no way to help him. He even told us that he didn't expect us to help him, he just wanted to tell us because we're his friends. That was a tough one to sit through

Spiritual Thought
During Zone Conference President Hill was sharing about confidence in the Lord. We talked a lot about promises the Lord has made and the power and authority of our calling as missionaries. To end everything off he said "Whenever you feel like something is too hard, or that you can't do it, remember that Jesus Christ bled so you can." That hit really powerfully for me. Whenever we feel that our burdens are too heavy to carry, remember that Jesus Christ bled so that we can carry it. He has made it possible for us to carry every burden, endure every trial. All we have to do is turn to Him and trust Him and He will carry us through

Love you all!
Elder Blankenbiller


Google Photos

Pictures
1. YSA activity
2. Zone Conference
3. Biking in the New Territories last Pday
4. Ribs
5. Bruce Lee statue







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 26: 兩個洗禮

Image
  大家好！ This week was so amazing, we had zone conference and I had my first two baptisms on the mission in the same day yesterday!! Such a spiritual week and experience. Both Charles and Jack had asked me to Baptize them, and it was honestly one of the best moments ever. The entire morning I felt so happy and elated and afterwards I was so excited for them. Genuinely one of the best feelings, having so much joy for the choice they made to bring the most joy in their own lives. So excited to continue doing this work and finding more prepared people! Highlights: - Yesterday our mission had 12 baptisms in one day, which is insane because for the first couple months of the year they were having around 4 per month. We are now only 33 baptisms away from our mission's baptismal goal of 185 people! We've had so many miracles happen recently, and it's been awesome to see. - Zone conference was amazing, we had Elder Buckner from the Asia mission area presidency come and speak, and he ...
Read more

Week 4: I Am an American

Image
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...
Read more

Week 44: Heart attacking doesn't work in Hong Kong 😭

Image
  大家好！ Last night we tried to go heart attack some of our ward leaders to show appreciation for the work they do. Sounds like a great idea. Except in Hong Kong they have security guards in the building who call the person you're trying to visit to make sure they know you. So the surprise sometimes gets completely ruined. Also in my area the wealthy members live on the side of a mountain. So after spending half an hour hiking up the side of a mountain and the Sisters politely refraining from crashing out, we got the apartment building of the Stake President who lives in our ward. And then the surprise got ruined by the security guards. So they invited us in and fed us and the drove us home after. Super nice of them but seriously could not have gone less according to plan 😂 Highlights - I've been in pretty consistent contact with my friend Charles who I baptized in my old area, and about a month ago he told me that his father had died. He invited me to come attend the funeral an...
Read more