Dear family and friends,
To start out, you'll never believe where I am right now!! I moved
to Xihu in the Zhanghua zone. And ELDER SPENCER GREER is my new
companion!! So epic. I just about lost it when I found out. I'm way
excited to be out here. It's still the same stake as Yuanlin and Nantou.
So if I'm still here for stake conference, I'll get to see a ton of old
friends. But that's not until August I think. So we'll have to see. I'm
also District leader and English leader. How did that happen?! I'm so
excited, and also nervous. It's already a humbling experience.
As for last week, I had an interesting exchange from Monday night
at 9:00 to Tuesday night. Since Elder Taylor was going trainer, he
couldn't do a normal exchange on Tuesday to Wednesday because of a
trainer meeting on Wednesday, and he was picking up his new companion on
Friday. So we had a really sweet exchange. It was a lot of fun. We
formed a new way of practice teaching that no one has ever heard of
before. It's really sweet and gets you to see in the eyes of the
missionary, investigator, and peike. It takes some getting used to, but
it's really effective. We used it in teaching for DTM.
We met with Jack that night and really just talked a lot. We ate
dinner with him right before. It really helped build our relationship
with him. And he suddenly got really open with us. It helped us a lot to
see where he is and we were able to set a new goal with him! It was a
really great experience.
Wednesday we had a super huge EARTHQUAKE!! I just learned that it
was a 6.1? Something like that. We were still in our apartment and it
was so crazy. The biggest one I, and I think every missionary here,
have ever experienced. We were being thrown around. Big things were
getting tipped over and we lost our power for a bit. We had to make our
emergency calls to make sure everyone was alright. Then we were told
that if we had any cracks in our apartment, we had to get out because it
might not be structurally sound. So that was quite the experience. A
few missionary apartments are a under inspection now. That night we
had an interestingly small amount of English Students. I was really
surprised. But there's testing and the annual sweeping of the graves all
across Taiwan going on. So it was expected.
Thursday is a big blur to me right now. It was a good day though.
We watched "On the Lord's Errand" with Jack. He liked it a lot and says
he for sure believes that he's been called of God. Super good!
Friday was when the crazy started. Since Elder Taylor is now
training (which by the way is Elder Wudrow that went to Timpanogos high
school and knows Nathan and a ton of other of my friends), Elder
Vandiford got kicked out and was living with us. That day for lunch, we
were taken to this really fancy steak restaurant by a man named Brother
Gibbs that comes back to Taiwan every year and takes the missionaries
out in Yuanlin. His wife has all the missionaries sign a book. Inside is
a picture of Chase Gluch. Oh the connections! But yeah Brother Gibbs is
really sweet. He's super friendly and served here in the 80's. It was
way good. Then we had zone leader exchanges. So Elder Lathen went with
Elder White and Elder Fiso (who also got kicked out of Nantou 3 days
early because his companion is now training), and Elder Kasner (Super
sweet guy from Canada) came here with me and Elder Vandiford. We then
biked out to Beidou and had a super sweet lesson. Then went even further
to Xizhou, which I have never been to before, and met with another
really sweet kid. Then we booked it home, 1.5 hour bike ride, and had
our basketball activity with a bunch of investigators. It was super fun.
Saturday we had some more really great lessons. We just had a ton
of investigators that could suddenly meet. It was amazing. Then we
switched back. That night Zhu Zhang Qi came back from Taoyuan and helped
Peike with Jack. It was a really good lesson. That night we got move
call and I found out that I was moving here and Elder Greer is going to
be my companion.
Sunday was a sad day of goodbye's to the ward. After being there
for 5 months, I'm going to miss it. We had a great FHE and a family that
somehow got our number called us and said they wanted to come check out
our church. They came and are now super excited to meet with us. It was
a super sweet miracle! We ended the week with 10 people with baptismal
goals. I'm so excited for all of them!
And that was my week. It's been so crazy. I'm now in the middle of a
ton of fields. It's really peaceful out here. We're in a 4 man. The
other two are Taiwanese and one just barely started his mission and is
being trained. It's going to be very fun. I'm way excited.
I love you all! I haven't gotten the package yet. Possibly due to
me moving. And I'm so glad. I have no room left in my bags. I need to
send a package home. Thank you for all the letters of support! I'm
trying to write back as fast as I can. I struggle sometimes. But I love
you! Until next week.
Love, Elder Anthony Kai Buckwalter
No comments:
Post a Comment