week 79: slump : January 11, 2021

As you can see, I made two separate emails this week. So if you only have time to read 1, I encourage you to read the other one, not this one ha. Larg plates vs small plates if ya know what I mean 

This week was insane. We had the privilege of playing some more tennis with non members, we had a handful of chinese lessons leading up to the happiest day of my mission, Saturday. 

Saturday was great, and I'll just go into more detail. We first drove an hour and a half down to a place called fayetteville, where we had lunch at B dubs with 2 of my favorite elders ever, Elder Johnson and Elder Hullinger the 2 ZL's down there who I served around a while ago. Hard to beat that. Then we drove another hour and a half down to a small place called Rockingham; which is close to South Carolina and literally the bottom corner of our mission. While we were there, I had the privilege of baptizing Livia 郑, who has the most incredible faith I've ever seen. For example, the baptismal font water was freeeeezing cold because the elders down there didnt know how to work it, and she was so scared about getting baptized in cold water so I was worried when I walked into the font first, but when she got in she didnt even notice haha it was definitely a blessing from God. Shes had so many trials in her life and only recently decided that she needed to turn to Heavenly Father, and from that point on she never looked back. After an amazing baptismal service we trekked back home 2 hours, so about 5 hours on the day haha, definitely like top 3 in terms of how long I've driven in one day on the mission. The morning of the baptismal service I put a pot roast in a slow cooker I found in our apartment, so we came home to a nice pot roast to end the day off. 

The day after, yesterday, was the mission "slump" in my dad's own mission terminology. Basically I hit my 18 months which is super weird. We went to a church that a guy we met is a pastor at, just to check it out, I got some serious throwback vibes to Alpine church with Landon Brenchley and Halle Livingston haha. We also got transfer texts; I will be grinding out in a chinese trio again in this same area! By the end of the transfer I'll have been in this area for 7 and a half months, which is by far the longest in the zone. 

高长老 (Elder Ensign)

2 Nephi 22:2

Pics:

• baptism (we didnt take much pictures unfortunately)

• bdubs with elder johnson and elder hullinger