It's Cold

Dear family and friends,

What a week. I'm loving it here in Donghai. Chase Gluch and Jordan Chronister (high school Chinese teacher) served here. Super cool. It's way cold here. I'm just freezing everyday. It's better today, but last week was so cold. We were wearing jackets all week. I've never been this cold in Taiwan. We have a really big hill that we climb twice a week to get to our secondary area. Coming down is way cold. So good.

So on Monday night we had FHE. It was a lot of fun. We talked about how we can get more members to come. There's only 5 or so that come. So we talked about that. The wards here are pretty cool. They're both pretty small. Oh, and I don't know if I said this in my last email or not, but THE CHURCH IS ON THE 19TH FLOOR OF A SKYSCRAPER!!! It's super cool The view is so crazy.

Tuesday we had a huge drop in lessons in under 10 minutes. It was weird. We had all our lessons call and drop right as we left the door. But we had a great DTM. We all got to know each other and then talked about the importance of investigators at church. Then we had to run back and forth to the apartment because my luggage got there, had to send off Elder Yang's luggage, then we left the phone there. Super annoying. But English proselyting was super fun. There's a lot of people here. And my favorite cheap hotpot is here too. We had that for dinner.

Wednesday we biked our to Longjing, our secondary area. It was an epic ride up the mountain. That place is full of miracles. We were let in with the first door while tracting. And then we contacted a guy walking his dog that met with missionaries 30 years ago and still remembers that missionary's name. It was crazy.   We then went back down the mountain at a super cold fast pace. I missed going fast. We met with a member that's just coming back into activity. He's super humble. I love him so much. Just talking to him brought peace into the room.   Then at English class I helped out with the table out front and checked out what the classes were like here. I'm English leader. Elder Cuartas is actually teaching Spanish to a few people. It's really cool. I joined in on that at the end with the spiritual share.

Thursday we had weekly planning. We have it on Thursday here every week so we can meet with the bishop and the ward mission leader on Friday morning. After planning, we had to do some planning at the church, so we could open the door for a member to teach piano. We then met with Lai dixiong. He's super close to getting baptized. He's just getting over some Word of Wisdom problems. We have a super sweet peike for him. Then we met with a less active. He's super open with us. He's really cool. He has a ton of potential to come back.

Friday we had ward correlation. Then we went on some epic hunts for formers and less actives. It was a cold day with a lot of sadness. Well not really. Just not a whole lot of success in that. But we had a great experience at night. These two guys in the ward took us out to that super good hotpot that I like. Then we went to a part member family's house to give the littlest boy a blessing. He just had surgery on his eye. It was super cute. The family is super strong.

Saturday we had lunch with the less active we sat with a few nights before. He's super cool! Then we biked up the mountain. Not a good idea after lunch. It wasn't until after we got to Longjing that we realized we didn't bring our ward list or the former records. So we just tracted.   That night we met at the church to learn some kung fu thing that we're performing at the ward Christmas activity. It's super weird. But it's really sweet. And we get shirts and sweats for it! We had a lot of fun practicing it.

Sunday was a super rainy day, so church attendance was a little low. But the ward is really great. The Sisters had a baptism right after church. It was so great. The girl loves the church. She's so happy to get baptized. There was a big lunch afterwards. Then we had a big dinner at Li mama's house. She loves missionaries. The whole family does. So they make dinner for missionaries often. It was really good. We then had another FHE that has a lot of recent converts come. It was a good chance to get them to be friends.

And that was my week! It was a little rough, but we're giving it our all! I'm way excited to be here. Elder Cuartas and I are having a blast. He's so funny!  I love you all! Christmas is right around the corner. Get in the spirit! I'm so psyched!  Until next week!

Love, Elder Anthony Kai Buckwalter