Josh Mission Email April 20, 2026: Elder Banker

Guys I still don’t have a name tag in Chinese characters so everyone at church just calls me Elder Banker it’s great. This has also confused a couple of our much older members, they thought I/my family owned some banks and they asked if I could share 🤑. OK so the journal did in fact not even get opened this week, so this’ll be short again as well. BUT the reason I didn’t keep a journal was because I was working on my talk most days after I got home. Apparently, it’s a tradition to make all the greenies speak in their first week or two. When the presidency member first asked me, I laughed him off because I thought he was joking. He was not. Luckily, I was able to give most of my talk in English because translation is provided. It’s pretty funny to look out over a church congregation and see people with air pods in. I thought it went pretty well, and one of our friends that came to church speaks English too and he said he liked it🔥.

We had exchanges this week, which meant I got to go with Elder Thompson and do English work for the day. It was pretty interesting, and I was able to speak a lot more in the lessons we had. We put one of the people we taught on date (scheduled their baptism) which was super cool. He has a neat life story and a super strong desire to follow Christ so I hope I get to meet him again. 

The language is still brutal but I’m still seeing progress little by little. My ability to understand seems to be growing a lot faster than my ability to respond and teach but hopefully that just comes with time. I’ve been learning more of the characters which is fun, but it’s also so hard because you have to know how it’s said and what it means just by rote memorization. It feels really cool to be able to read, which hopefully should be good study motivation. 

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT 🚨

Mark 4:38-40

“And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?

39 And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.

40 And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?”

No matter what storms we are facing, we can feel the love of our Savior. He can calm the waves and bring peace to our lives. 

Next P day isn’t until next thursday becuase we’re going to the temple, see yall then ‼️

Love you guys!

Elder Banks