WEEK 52 - Raw Meat

What is upppp everyone!? I hope y'all had a splendid week, because I sure did! I really do miss and love each one of you and I hope you're aware of that. POV you're me last Saturday night and the clock has struck "bath time" so you're excited to go have a revelatory bath experience and as soon as you walk in the bathroom the Spirit stops you and says "CALL KEYJUN." Keyjun is one of the best friends I have ever had, we met in Tyler and we shared the most spiritual experiences of both of our lives together. Keyjun has super difficult life circumstances and I hadn't even heard from him in 2 months AND it was already bath time so this was an interesting prompting. But I decided a while ago, that when the Lord speaks, Elder Horsley will listen no matter what. So I meandered my way out of the bathroom and gave him a call. No answer. Spirit says "call again" so I did. He answered and it was so hype to hear his voice again I nearly shed a tear. We talked and caught up for a minute and it was so great. While we were talking I just knew I needed to bring up the most sacred experience of my whole life that happened with Keyjun and Elder Yee in his apartment (shoutout Elder Yee you know what I'm talking about I love you). Keyjun needed to be reminded of that miracle so bad. The Lord is so good, I am so grateful that bath time was interrupted. These experiences that I am having and these promptings I am receiving from the Lord are so sacred and priceless to me. I used to get questions all the time like "why would they send a Chinese missionary to Dallas?" and then I got to Tyler and they would say "why would you send a Chinese missionary to Tyler?" I know why and the Lord knows why. These people that I have met and these experiences have literally saved me. Sitting on the floor in Keyjun's apartment that night with Elder Yee has brought me to my Savior and literally SAVED me. I can answer all of those questions so easy now and I am just so grateful for my mission ahhhh. Heavens I guess I've been a missionary for a year. Imagine Po in the original Kung Fu Panda trilogy and what happened to him and that pretty much describes this first year of my mission. It was elite, enjoy my first year stat line: Companions: 6 Areas: 2 Difficult times: a lot Baptisms: I don't count they aren't numbers (shoutout Brent) Times I shined my shoes: no times Miracle I've witnessed: a ridiculous amount Times I saw Kung Fu Panda 4: none Doctrinal knowledge increase: +1800% Times the color of my socks matched the color of my belt: few (sorry Dad) Love for my Savior increase: cannot be recorded So ya, first year was great if you can't tell. This week was also wonderful, before I share the main stuff here are the little things: - I'm training now and his name is Elder Christensen and he's dope and way prepared to be out here - It was testimony meeting at church and Peter Chen decided to bear his testimony. Halfway through the testimony he changes to English and hits the crowd with "you know, women just aren't reasonable creatures." He went back to Chinese and delivered an interesting hormone related comment, sadly I was the translator for this white family so I talked into the mic and was just like "ok I'm so sorry I'm not translating that haha" and it all worked out, ah it always does - I've been a general conference talk listening fiend (especially Thomas S Monson). I have literally evolved into a dang general conference AI, you tell me what you need and I'll give you the talk to solve everything - Our friend Billy who we've been teaching for 9 months just switched up on us by changing his name to Antony, idk the reasoning - We had hotpot with some of the branch and my stocks were heavily discussed throughout this meal - The Lord is just blessing this area so much Anyways those were like little things that I don't want to expound on, but I want to remember them in like 20 years haha. Here are the fun things of this week: - Later in the week we had a hot pot with some members in our branch. The hot pot was good, the only concerning part was that everytime our member would throw any meat in his wife would be like "8 SECONDS 8 SECONDS" because she wanted everyone to know the meat needed to be taken out after 8 seconds of being in the pot. After like 4 seconds of it being in she would be like "go it's ready!" and really pressure me into grabbing this completely raw meat, it would be like completely pink pork haha but it was all good. I was sitting by one of the members and he is so nice and kept grabbing me stuff from the hot pot. I would be eyeing some like beef or something, and boom, in go his chopsticks, and he grabs me some like pig blood and like this octopus genitalia or something idk what it was. It was wonderful until Elder Cox suffered the consequences of consuming very undercooked meats for an hour and a half. Something that is so funny is that Elder Christensen can consume like max 800 calories in a sitting and the members do not like that. They are used to me and Elder Cox putting down like a combined 12000 calories per meal, so that's definitely a point of concern right now. - Elder Christensen got here on Tuesday and that night we had his first lesson with our friend Billy. Our members Bigrain and Lucy and their son Henry were helping out, so I was hyped to have everyone there. So they pull up and our member Lucy whips out her apple vision pros and puts them on and she's like "ok let's start the lesson." I was slightly taken back but I was like "alright" so we got going. I was a little stressed because there were a lot of moving parts and I was trying to make everyone feel useful in the lesson. Elder Cox was teaching the ten commandments and it was going well until our member decided to bash and make a statement about worshipping idols that was not true whatsoever. Elder Cox wasn't necessarily understanding what she was saying so he started agreeing with her, and then like everyone started talking, and poor Elder Christensen had no clue what was going on. Anyways, Billy pulls out a picture of him with an idol that he saw in China and then our member was like "wow you have gotten a lot fatter Billy" and that struck a chord within Billy, so now we had 2 confused people, 1 child begging his father to let him download a mobile game, 3 people arguing about Billy's physical state, and 1 man (me) trying to bring it back to the lesson. So ya that was Elder Christensen's first lesson on his mission, it actually ended really good, but I literally might die of stress one of these lessons haha. Oh how I love you all! If you want me to send something that will change your life (ESPECIALLY if you're a missionary) lmk and it'll change you. I love you all! Have just the best week please! Pics: 1. Me and the fellas at the airport 2. Elder Christensen 3. Cool guy who did a glasses trade with me at walmart 4. Elder Barker literally dawging in the dating game 5. Hot pot with the best 6. The only currency I accept 7. Elder Campbell keeps me enlightened 8. Cool Bluey shirt