The One Where I almost became a Buddhist!

 Hey everybody!! So I know my title is probably very confusing but I'll get to that in a sec so be patient!

This week was sad because many lessons canceled but we still had a few really good ones!:))

On Monday night we had a lesson with Evelia and she is doing awesome! We read through the Intro to the Book of Mormon with her and really took the time to help her understand it! She seemed to understand it and we got her set up with the Gospel Library app so that she can listen to the BOM and watch the videos! So we are excited to see how that goes for her:)

On Tuesday we met with someone named Alejandro! He was a social media referral we received! He is super awesome and so receptive! He is from Guatemala and has only lived in Texas for 4 years. We has started reading the Book of Mormon and want to come to church with us! He has a work schedule that makes that difficult for church but he is trying to figure it out so that he can come:)

On Wednesday we went to the Buddhist Temple again to help out with the food drive like normal and oh boy was it busy!! They had SO much food to give out so we were busy from 9am til 2:30! It was crazy but very good to help out!!

On Thursday we recorded some of the duet! In the end, we weren't able to get help from the people we originally wanted so we are recording it ourselves! We got a really nice camera that a member is letting us use so that's really nice and we didn't have time to finish the recording but we will tomorrow! So that'll be fun:))

On Friday 3 of our lessons fell through so that was sad:( all of them ended up rescheduling though so that at least is good!:) we also went to the dog shelter which I mean is still the dog shelter kinds gross but someone's got to do it

Okay now Saturday, this is where I'm going to explain my title! So we normally do service at the Buddhist but when we got there they told us it was a day of celebration, not work. So they invited us to celebrate with them and participate in a ceremony. So we change into our missionary clothes and came back so we could do it with them because what a unique opportunity am I right? I still don't really understand why they were celebrating, but they said it was like Christmas for them

Lo and behold we were a crucial part of the ceremony and they had us walk three times around the Buddhist temple while holding wrapped robes on our heads. And some of us got to hold big umbrellas to give shade to 2 monks in the front who held a glass-ceramic container of sorts that was like a little Asian building! They also chanted the entire time and then we went into their temple and sat criss-cross apple sauce for 2 hours while they did a ceremony and had us participate in some other stuff it was all in Vietnamese so I definitely had no idea what was going on. There was a giant statue of Buddha at the front that I'm pretty sure they were all bowing to and some monk got new robes or something? Anyways it was definitely an experience I'll never forget they are so warm and welcoming to us hahaha it's cool that they love to share their way of life!

Anyway, Sunday was really good. I was asked to be part of this music committee and we are going to be working on a lot of the music stuff for the mission! It will be a lot of fun and we practiced some Christmas songs we are planning on doing:))

Anyway the week was good and a lot of change is coming with transfers! One thing that is awesome is my old comp my best friend ELDER GUAJARDO is coming to the district soooo I'm freaking STOKED. hahaha other than that some other changes will be sad with some people I love leaving:( but they will be awesome in their next places!!

Love you guys!! Keep killing it

Elder Hayes