Dear family and friends,
It has been quite a week for rain. I've never seen so much rain in my life. It was nuts. There really wasn't a whole lot that happened because of the rain. So this will be a bit shorter. We had a really great lesson with Pan dixiong before he went off to Taibei. He let us know that he wants to stay in contact with us as he's up there. And in the end he said he's found a job, but it's not set in stone. So we might be referring him to the Elders up there... But I'm just glad he's really willing now! We also got to visit Su dixiong at his house. He's an RC. We had a lot of fun with his two year old son and their puppy again. It was really good for him. He got a good laugh as his son tried to force feed me dog food. I can make a lot of different sound effects that makes him laugh.
Wednesday was the start of the constant rain. It was seriously non stop. Every single lesson cancelled. But at English class we still had a pretty good turnout. I even had a few students that haven't come in a while come back! It was a good lesson on serving others. Somehow the topic got turned to Christmas and America's culture with Christmas. But I can easily wrap that back into service!
Thursday we got to go to Gaoxiong for a trainer/trainee meeting as a follow up on how the past few weeks have been. But since a typhoon hit, a ton of train stations, including ours, were shut down. Everything was flooded over. The river was crazy high. So a lot of people were late to the meeting and it got pushed back. But it was really fun. President Blickenstaff is really cool and funny. We're having a lot of fun.
Friday after weekly planning we went out and tried to find people, but no one wanted to talk. We had a few good lessons that night. One was a guy named James. He self came to the church a few weeks ago and we sat with him. He's a former of 7 years ago. After we met the first time, he said he wanted to meet again. So we met again. He's beyond receptive. He's also fluent in English. So our lesson switches languages constantly. And he flat out opened up to us about why he stopped investigating the first time. It was so cool. And then he said he's not like that now and is willing to push forward more! It was a super great lesson. He actually said he really wanted to keep learning more. He asked us what we were going to share with him that night, but we spent so much time talking about his previous fears that we ran out of time. So he was devastated and excited to meet again!
Saturday was our adventure day. We didn't have any lessons after the morning, so we made a plan to bike to Sandimen. It's a town in the mountains really far away that are purely aborigine villages. I'm pretty sure missionaries haven't been there for a long time. So in the pouring rain, we set off. We were soaked completely through in the first 5 minutes. We biked through foot deep roads flooded over. And over a bridge with a raging river. And 10 minutes in to biking up the steep mountain, Elder Teerlink's tire popped. But luckily there was a repair shop the switchback before. So we got his help. We then asked him if he could point us in the direction of an LA's house. Turns out that the LA is his uncle! They're all aborigine. He was super cool. But he said it would be impossible to get there on bike. It was another 3 hour bike ride up super steep mountain roads. And it was almost 5. So we turned back. I was sad. But the repair man is pretty interested about our church! Success.
Sunday was a great Fast Sunday. We had a good amount of people come to church despite the rain. We watched The Testaments with him and he liked it. I was super light headed though. So the rest of the day we had to take it easy. I made those Biscuits and Gravy for dinner though. Also at the church we found a picture of an LA that we've been visiting when he got baptized! And last night we met with him. When we told him about it, he was really happy and wanted it. He's doing really well. He's just this cool 28 year old guy that kinda looks like me. Really weird.
And that was my week. It was seriously raining nonstop for 5 days. And some of those days were raging storms. It was crazy. But it's already nice and hot again today. So this week will be great! I love you all! Time is flying super fast. I'll be reaching the start of my last 6 months this week. Super weird.
Love, Elder Anthony Kai Buckwalter
No comments:
Post a Comment