Dear family and friends,
What a week. It has been crazy. Probably a little bit more than it should have been because I tweaked my back a bit and can only move it about half as much as I could before. It's not good. It hurts. But I've been doing stretches and might have to get it checked. But other than that, the week has been great!
Monday night we had FHE at the zone leaders' RC's house, who is the aunt of one of our RC's. So he was there too. It was in the outskirts of Pingdong. There were so many mosquitoes. It was so annoying. But it was really good. It was on gratitude. We all had a fun time. Altogether there was about 15 people there.
Tuesday we had a great DTM on Finding, particularly finding formers. We had some fun practicing on each other calling formers and trying to add them. It's a lot harder than I thought it would be. There's a skill behind it that I'm still working on after calling through 500+ formers on my mission. Afterwards we had a really sweet Zhang kid come meet with us. We had contacted him the first week of the move call. We've been meeting with him very slowly, but he accepted a baptismal goal! He's super cool. He came even in the pouring rain.
Wednesday morning was super hard with straight contacting and no success. But we kept doing it. And then after lunch as we were continuing our language study, a man self contacted us and flat out said he has interest. He said there's gotta be a relation between the US being such a super power nation and the fact that there are so many Christian believers. He says it must be a promised land from God. I was blown away. All of this from a retired policeman. So he set up for another time! That night at English class, I stayed here in Pingdong. My class missed me. They were happy to see me and we had a ton of fun. I missed them too. They wanted to learn about cowboy culture. It was a lot of fun. It's hard though because I don't have any members in my class, so the spiritual share is pretty hard.
Thursday we got to do service for a member. We moved a ton of furniture in their house. It was fun. And then they force fed us a ton of watermelon. I ate so much. It's so good, but I can't eat that much. Everyone here is so good to the missionaries. That afternoon I got to do a baptismal interview for one of the Sisters' investigators, and he is beyond prepared. I would ask her one of the questions and she would just start teaching me all about it and bear a ton of testimony. I just stared with my jaw dropped, thinking "how did you learn this much in a month?" It was so insane. She is so excited to get baptized this week.
Friday was all over the place since we had lessons scheduled all throughout the day with no time for weekly planning. So we had to fit it in everywhere possible. And the zone leaders said they wanted to exchange later that day. So we were running around all over the place. But it all came down to watching this video with a member on finding jobs. He had just come back from being less active. He's really cool and wanted out help. The ward gave him this video on finding jobs. It looks like a church video from the 80's. It's in English with Chinese subtitles, so he wanted our help just in case there was a weird translation. So Elder Limpanasriphong and I helped him out. He's been bringing friends to church ever since he came back. It's super amazing.
Saturday we met with an investigator that isn't allowed to get baptized. He has a huge desire to join the church and has been investigating for over a year, but his dad won't let him get baptized. He has already read all of the standard works and a lot on the history of the church. His testimony is amazing. He loves history and even did some intense research in China's history and found places where the script was taken out that proves that God exists and has His teachings. Once again, jaw dropping. He then brought up some questions about family history and brought up one of his relatives. Mao Ze Dong. Like you know, the famous Chinese dictator guy. He's related to him. What a weird conversation that was.
Later that day we met at a member's house and had FHE with them and Kang Zhe Wei, afterwards had a baptismal interview in one of the rooms in their house and he passed! He's really excited to get baptized.
Sunday was ward conference. So many people were there. The Sisters' investigator and ours were announced for baptism this Saturday. I'm way excited! The rest of the day was meetings and a ton of phone calls. But it was such a great day.
And that was my week. It was a lot of fun. We're all hoping to have a relaxing day today. I'm so tired. My back hurts. We'll see what happens with that. I love you all! I miss you so much. I'll keep you in my prayers.
Love, Elder Anthony Kai Buckwalter
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