Josh Mission Email July 20 2026: One Day Only: The Return of 班长老
Hey everyone! Hope everyone’s summer is going good.
Tony and Emay got baptized yesterday! The Chinese branch is all the way on the other side of my mission, but luckily the church service is early in the morning, and the ward I am in doesn’t meet until the afternoon. I got permission to drive down to watch their baptisms and it was awesome. We usually don’t have time to tell people that we are leaving when transfers happen, so it was great to see a lot of the branch members and tell them where I disappeared off too. I got to talk to my old companions and get the run down on how everything is going with the people we were teaching when I left, which was fun too. The baptismal service was great, they both looked (and were!) so ready, which was awesome to see after months of teaching them and helping to answer questions. I didn’t get to stay long after because we had to get back for church, but I got to congratulate them and say hi.
This week, I also had the opportunity to become a Spanish missionary for an hour! The Spanish missionaries met a young guy with great English who was interested in our young adult congregation, and he said we could come over Thursday night. He said his family would be home as well but they only spoke Spanish, so we arranged for both us and the Spanish missionaries to come over. We thought we would be having a classic lesson where we share about Jesus and our church, but we get to this guy’s apartment and there’s like 10 people inside, all holding Bibles and sitting looking towards a centerpiece. Our friend tells us that this is his family, or to be exact, his church family, and this is their small Thursday night service. We introduced ourselves to them and then sat down, and the pastor gave a sermon. My companion and I pulled out google translate and listened. They sang some hymns, said some prayers, and the pastor spoke some more. All in Spanish. During one of the hymns, our friend asks about the Book of Mormon I am holding, and so you already know I had to give him the rundown. I made it super quick on account that it was a tiny service and everyone else was actively singing. At the end, Elder Peccoso, a greenie from Bolivia, gets up and drops a fire spiritual thought, the pastor talks some more, and then the service ends. They had food afterwards which was delicious, and we got to talk to our friend a little more about what we believe. The pastor was nice, we talked to him for a bit too and how even though we believe some different things, we’re all just trying our best to get closer to God. Definitely one of the craziest hours of my mission, not what I was expecting at all.
We also had a guy try to recruit us to be military chaplains this week. The place where we live has a HUGE military presence, and so when we invited this guy to church he said he was alright, but pulled an uno reverse on us and asked us if we wanted to do a different job working in ministry. He is apparently one of only a couple military chaplain recruiters in the country, so when a couple of young guys came up to him talking about church he was READY to give us the pitch.
Spiritual Thought🔥🚨
Romans 8: 26-28
26 Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
27 And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
The baptisms this week were amazing, and the conferral of the Holy Ghost afterward really stood out to me. I only caught bits and pieces of the blessing, but I know that there is real power in having the guidance, comfort, and power of the Holy Ghost with us. As we have his companionship, everything can work together to bless and/or teach us.
Love you all!
Elder Banks
