Dear family and friends,
Dear dad, this week I'm sad to say I've made some pretty bad
choices. I ate fish balls, squid, lobster, shrimp, crab, tuna, something
really slimy and chewy that I think resembled whale blubber, and
something crunchy and chewy wrapped in bacon. That is what came from the
Mid autumn festival and people inviting us to dinner. I'm pretty sure I
won't ever get used to eating fish. But they also had some extremely
amazing steak and other stuff. It was quite a week of food...
Now, I would first like to tell everyone to not say anything about
conference in next week's email! I don't get to watch it here until the
13th and the 14th. You can tell me which talks stood out to you the
most, but don't include any details until the following week. Us and the
Zone Leaders get to chill in one of the classrooms and watch it in
English while everyone else in the two wards at our building get to
watch it in the chapel in Chinese.
The week went fast and slow at the same time. I can't tell what it
felt more like. Tuesday we had a good District training meeting on how
to use "how to begin teaching phrases." It was Elder Smith's first time
teaching a meeting and was pretty nervous, but did a pretty good job!
And then the long week of being stood up by our investigators started...
Wednesday we did a bit of tracting and searching for less active
members. And we pretty much got no results. It was pretty annoying.
English was pretty fun though. I just want them to talk more. I thought
they'd be more talkative after 6 weeks, but it's pretty much the same.
One of them told a funny joke though and I pretty much died of laughter.
I haven't heard a joke since I got out here. They don't do that here.
No one else thought it was funny. And then some more lessons fell
through...
Thursday we biked down to Qieding to visit the Ke family. We really
wanted to talk about the word of wisdom and commit the dad as well as
get him a baptismal date. But we had no way of wrapping the random
Mormon messages they were watching into the word of wisdom. But then
they clicked on one about Daniel refusing to eat and drink the king's
food. And I just got so excited. We talked about Daniel and how he did
all he could to obey God's commandments. In the end, the Ke dad
committed to obey the word of wisdom and now has a baptismal date!
That night we got to meet with Jones and David. They're doing
really good, but both still have a hard time coming to church. But David
said he won't have class because of the holiday. So we were really
excited! And then we were stood up some more... We ended the night at
Chen dixiongs house. It was really cool hearing his story of how he met
the missionaries and got baptized.
Friday we got in contact with Michael and he took us to lunch after
weekly planning. It was cool because he is a taxi driver and we got to
ride in it. While we were eating, we talked about baptism and got him to
set a goal! So we were really excited for that. Then he said he was
going to take us for a drive while we talked some more. We thought that
was kind of interesting, but ok. Until we realized he was taking us out
of our area. So we panicked and said we had to head back. That was
funny. That night we went tracting again and met a really cool kid that
set up for later this week! I felt good since we were stood up a few
more times that night as well...
Saturday was a good finding day. We set up with some really cool
people and got to contact a lot of people. And by the way, we hit our
mission goal to talk to over 100,000 people! We were also stood up some
more, and then went to dinner at a part member family's house. It was
really good, and there was a lot of fish...
Sunday got a little stressful before church because everyone that
confirmed didn't show up. But then Michael showed up a little late and
stayed the whole time! We were about to head up to Sacrament meeting and
Kevin hadn't shown up yet. So us and the ward mission leader were
panicking. But then he got there a few minutes before. He was so nervous
to get confirmed because he didn't want to sit in front of the entire
ward. But once the blessing was over and he came to sit back down, he
looked so happy. He said it felt so cool and powerful.
That night we had a good search for some less active members and
then had a big dinner at another part member family's house. A girl in
the family just got back from serving in New York and invited all the
missionaries over. She also knows Jordan Egbert. I thought that was
pretty cool. Connections through missions! And food was also very good.
That was my week. It was probably one of the most stressful weeks
so far because of how many times people didn't come to their
appointment, even after they confirmed. I also had to act as senior in a
lot of cases because I knew the area and have to get Elder Smith used
to it. I didn't realize how stressful that was going to be, having to
plan where to go and what to do. But it's getting easier each day as he
learns more about the area and can help me decide. I never sleep well at
night. I just wake up whenever I turn over and it takes a while to fall
back asleep. So my mornings are always pretty rough, but it gets better
as the day goes on.
Well I love you all! Thank you for all the love and support! Have a
great weekend watching conference! I'm so excited for conference, I
just have to wait an extra week...
Love, Elder Anthony Buckwalter
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