Here Comes The Sun

Dear family and friends,

What a great week! I'm just gonna start talking about it. Well Monday night my bike totalled itself. I have gone over 13,000 miles on it. The beauties of serving in really big areas with long biking distances. So my back tire broke in almost every way possible. So Tuesday I had to go in and fix it up a ton. But now I'm flowing smoothly again! We had a sweet DTM that day on teaching according to needs. While doing our practice teaching, I had my own realization of the Plan of Salvation. We practiced so that we just talked to the missionary pretending to be an investigator and we had to figure out what their need was. We found that the Plan of Salvation was it. I started talking about the creation of the world. I pointed out the window (19 floors in the air) as I said it. And I myself took a pause and looked. Seeing all that Christ had created. It was super cool. And that was just a small part of all of it!

We then went on exchanged with the zone leaders. I got to go with Elder Terry! It was so much fun! And Elder McKenzie came here with Elder Cuartas. Elder McKenzie served here early last year. So he loved it too. Elder Terry and I had a lot of fun contacting, English contacting, and meeting with their investigator getting baptized this week! There were tons and tons of fireworks here. Like 5 stadium of fires going on around their part of the city. It was crazy.

Wednesday was really weird. Since our ward had an activity far away, we weren't sure when we were going to be able to exchange back. We ended up being together all day until 15 minutes before English class started. But we went all over the place in their area while we waited for Elder Cuartas and Elder McKenzie to get back from that party. It was a lot of fun. English was really great too. The operations manager and the two recorders came. The new recorder that is being trained on how to be a recorder is Elder Cuartas' trainer. I just replaced him. So he loved being back. It was a good night.

Thursday we had weekly planning and went out looking for a bunch of less actives. Not a whole lot of luck. But we found a lot of great people on the street that we set up.

Friday we went to visit a former that is filthy rich! Him and his wife own a ton of businesses in Taiwan. All from air conditioning to apartments. We went to their house and there was like a whole wine cellar in their living room. They had so many big statues of animals and things carved out of wood. They said this jaguar statue on their coffee table was made out of gold. I was in shock. But they were super nice. The mom treated us like her own kids. But they didn't have a ton of interest.

Saturday was a long day of lessons falling through. But we had a great new investigator that came from English class! He is super willing. His name is Alex. He was really fun to talk to and really thinks about the things we say. Then we got lost while tracting. I didn't think that could happen in the city.

Sunday was so great! Alex came to church and liked it a lot. Zhuang was going to come, but had family things but came to our FHE that night. There was just a ton of people that came to church. It was a full house. We got the church later for a lesson, but he fell through. As we were leaving to do some more English contacting, a family comes out of the elevator that we were about to get into. Two kids, ages 6 and 3. We asked who they were looking for and they pointed at us! They somehow knew about our church and knew we taught free English. So they looked us up online and saw there was a church by their house! They want their kids to learn English in a good environment. And they also want to bring their kids to church to be a part of the primary and learn good values! And the parents want to stay during all of it too! So they're coming to English and church this week! I'm so excited! Super miracle!    We then did English contacting at this park that has a lot of weird bear statues. I can't even describe it. But the Taiwanese love it. Met some great people.

Then we had a great lesson with a man named Pony again. He has questions about the story of Korihor. So we broke down that lesson so much. It was amazing. It all came down to faith in God. And he could see the need for it. It was really amazing. Then we had FHE. We watched The Testaments. In the middle, two foreign guys show up that I had never met before. I thought he was a returned missionary. But he only spoke Chinese and Spanish. It was really interesting. Turns out one is from Paraguay, served in Uruguay, and is studying near here and goes to church at the English branch. He has good English. The other is from Argentina, served in Bolivia, and lives in China studying Chinese. He was visiting his friend here. They met somewhere at church. They both speak Chinese. So it was weird how normal it felt speaking Chinese to one even though he wasn't Chinese. But it only felt that normal because he didn't speak English anyway. Elder Cuartas went crazy and spoke Spanish with them so much. It was a cool night! I loved it!

This week will be crazy too! I'm so excited! I love you all! Until next week!

 

Love, Elder Anthony Kai Buckwalter