Mandarin Skills

So, this week was really good and kind of crazy. One of the Elders from Sitiawan had to make a trip to Singapore, so his companion has been up here with us since Zone Conference. Long time, but, he's awesome so it's been pretty fun. The best part though, is that he's a mandarin elder, meaning he's got mad chinese skills which is incredibly useful here in Ipoh. There's a certain hand gesture Chinese people here make when they "can't speak english" (notice the quotation marks there, it seems a little unlikely that every Chinese person in this whole city can't speak English or Malay) that has started to drive elder porter and I crazy. I'll have to send a video of it or something, but basically it involves putting your right hand up beside your temple and twisting it back and forth two or three times. It is the most obnoxious gesture on Earth. But this week we beat them. This week we had an Elder who could speak Chinese, and it was totally awesome. Plus I got to brush up on my own Mandarin skills, I can now officially say the following: "Hello" "How are you?" "Do you speak Mandarin?" "This is a thing" "I don't know" and say a very basic prayer. Sweet. I'm totally ready to serve in Taiwan.

We just had our district conference, which turned out to be pretty awesome. The highlights were any time that President Clark said anything. He's really, really awesome, and the missionaries here have a lot of respect for him. Just has a ton of awesome gospel knowledge and a pretty great speaking ability. Plus he's got the Spirit, he's awesome. That's something to be grateful for, I don't know how I'd manage with a really hard-to-get-along-with mission president.

Anyway, things are still going great here in Ipoh. It's a really awesome place to serve. I hear things are warming up a little bit in Utah, hopefully that's true!

Alright, love you so much! The church is true, I learn that more every day that passes by. It's *the* path to happiness in this life and in Eternity.

Love you so much!

Elder Blissett