Chinese New Year

Dear family and friends,

What a week. What a week of food. Not a whole lot of people are left in the city. They've all returned home to their families in the more rural areas. Tuesday morning we left early as a district and went to a lady's house in our ward to help her clean. It's tradition to do a deep clean of the house before the new year to welcome a good full year. And her husband isn't healthy enough to help. So we did! It was a lot of fun cleaning all the windows and getting out on ledges to get the upper windows. We all had a super delicious beef noodles for lunch. It was a relatively good day. But not a whole lot happened after that. Time is flying faster and faster though.

Wednesday we went to Daya for interviews! I love seeing the Blickenstaffs. We had to stay there for a bit because our planner check time with the assistants and our interview times were far apart. It just worked out that way. But we had a great time there. We made it back just in time for dinner at Subway (still my favorite), and then English class! And no one showed up. It was insane. Well in the end we had 8 people come. And they're all really fun. It was a very chill English class with everyone in the same class. There wasn't enough to split up into classes. We sat with Zhuang dixiong afterwards and he's been doing his studying. He asked us about the Arc of the Covenant. I've never had a recent convert ask about that before. He loves to read the Book of Mormon!

Thursday was the day that the ward started making us meals. All the shops on the street are closed, so the ward signs up to have us over to celebrate the new year. And the feasts are huge! It's like Thanksgiving twice a day for 5 days. We got to eat at the Sisters' investigator family's house for lunch. It was a good hot pot. They're all doing so great, but want to do it as a family. So they're coming along. We then went straight to our DTM, which was really short since we had to run to our dinner appointment at the Li family's house. They always love having us over. It was a good fishy dinner. But they always have a ton of sausage. I eat that up! And by the end of dinner, it was time to go home. Crazy day right? The Sisters left they're keys in the church and couldn't get in they're apartment. So we had to go all the way back to the church and open it for them. And that was after we had gotten home that they called us. Love it...

Friday we were taken to an all you can eat hot pot that I love so much for lunch! Some of the family members are less active and are just here visiting from Japan. It was really nice to talk with them. They've also lived in Provo before! We got to skype the husband of one of the siblings that's still in Japan. It was pretty sweet. Then we had to do a late weekly planning and head to dinner. A nice young family with they're first child on the way. They're pretty new to the ward and loved talking to us about how they wanna help!

Saturday we had a lunch to ourselves. We've been stuffed to the point of explosion. So we took it easy on lunch. But we then had a super spicy Korean/German sausage dinner. The lady studied in Germany for 12 years and opened a restaurant that combines the meat of Germany with the spicy of Korea. It was hot. But it was so good! I got to talk to a member named Ben for a while. He's really cool. He loves missionaries.

Sunday we had a combined Donghai/Fengjia Sacrament meeting. Church was only an hour because of the holiday. But Zhuang dixiong got confirmed! He was super excited! We then got a miracle phone call from a member in Fengyuan. She has a friend that's investigating the church that has cancer and is in the hospital in our area. We went there to give her a blessing. When we got there, she had the Book of Mormon and the most recent Liahona laid out in front of her. After the blessing, we sang some hymns and read to her from the Book of Mormon. The husband stopped investigating a while ago, but is really supportive and liked us being there. There were tears as we sang one last hymn and then left. The Spirit was definitely there. She feels the struggle, but she doesn't blame God at all. It's only letting her draw closer to Him.

We then had a great dinner with a part member family. The dad isn't a member, but the mom and two of the kids that are old enough are. The mom really opened up to us about her desire for her sons to grow up in the gospel and serve missions. The oldest one that is 13 said he wants to. We played some games with the family. The dad is really nice and loving to us. And that ended the week.

After all these meals, I have actually lost weight. The mystery of my body continues... But I love this mission! I'm so glad to be out here! I love you all! Until next week!

 

Love, Elder Anthony Kai Buckwalter