Sunday, December 8, 2013

Week 19

Hello everyone! So this week was super crazy. I can't believe how quickly this week has gone by.
So from Tuesday, I had a couple days left in Kuching, so we basically just did everything that we wanted to before we left, because I am only there for 6 weeks. So we went to a few people's houses too. One of the members told me that there was no ice cream in Bintulu, so they tricked me into eating a ton of ice cream (they love to stuff us full of food). But there is actually ice cream here, so I don't have to worry about that.
Thursday my flight was at 2, so I still had some time. Jeffery took me out to lunch and I gave him all my pictures since I've been in the mission. I also gave him a hat and tie for memory. I really am going to miss him! He helped me out a ton in my time in Kuching and he was just so awesome!  So I was a few kilograms overweight, but they didn't charge me fortunately.  I didn't know that I wouldn't have to go through customs. I was just so used to doing it every flight that I didn't think about it. But anyway, Elder Lundquist came with me on my flight so I talked to him all the way there. The flight was an hour long, pretty short. We had such a small plane though! It was pretty cool. It was really hot in there. Air-cond wasn't on until the plane started flying.

When I got to Bintulu, Elder Stevens, the senior missionary, came to pick me and Elder Lundquist up. He is cool.  He was a teacher in China before he came on a mission with his wife. After that we immediately started meeting people. I only had time to drop off my bags at the house before we went to meet people. We stopped at the church (it's only like a 5 minute walk there) and there seems to be people there all the time. Members from The Sungai Plan branch and the Tanjung Kiderong branch both go to this church.
Our branch, TJK is not very strong. There are a lot of less active people, but hey we are working with it. We actually got 17 less active members to come to church this week!! so we had a total of 75 members come to church, including our recent convert who was baptized a couple weeks ago.

So we did a ton of things this week so I can't tell you everything, but I want to tell you about a couple things and a couple people.
First off, there is a member here named Wat. He has had a really hard life, but he is super strong. I would say he would be the "Jeffery" in this branch, but of course you can't replace Jeff ever. We go over to his house a few times and he comes with us to other people's houses to help us out. We've been reading the Book of Mormon and he ALWAYS has questions about it. He is really sweet.

Then there is Preston. He is our only investigator right now, but he has prayed about the Book of Mormon and knows that it is true. He is on a baptismal date for the 21st, but we might not make that so maybe the 28th of December. I met him last Saturday, and we will try to meet with him again on Wednesday! His family are less active, but they came to church last week and this week, and gave us 2 referrals, so that was a huge miracle.

Another miracle that we had this week was that we were going to meet with somebody, but they weren't available, so Elder Ormsby was trying to figure out who to go meet. He decided to meet a lady named Sister Sena, so we went to her house. When we arrived, we were told that she had a sick son, and she wanted us to come over. She said (in Malay/Iban) "Elders, thank you so much for coming. I wanted you to come over but I knew you were going to come over for caroling tonight, but you already knew to come." That was super cool what she said.

Uhm.... At church I met a lot of the members, but there's one that I want to mention here. There is a guy from Germany that is staying here for 2 weeks. He was a missionary here in 2002 and he married an Iban after his mission. They stay in Frankfurt, but they came to Bintulu to stay with his mother-in-law for 2 months. He has been super awesome, and has been kind enough to take us around to places on P-days. He may also help us out with Skype on Christmas cuz he has a lot of computers at home, but we will see later.

So this morning, we went to play futsal. It is like football (soccer for you American noobs) but it is played in a cage. It's pretty fun! We play it a lot apparently, and we had a few kids come with us and they killed us. They are super good at it.

And now I am emailing you guys! :) :) that's all for my week. It's been a super great week. I love my companion, Elder Ormsby. He is very excited to have me work with him and it will be a very awesome transfer. :) 

Elder Reid is also in our house. He has been out for 23 months, so he leaves on the 15th of January. He's helped out a lot and is a lot of fun to be around. Elder Shorts is his companion. He has been in Melaka for most of his mission so he hasn't spoken Malay much yet...But we have some laser pointer parties together. :D :D

I love you guys! You're awesome. :) :)




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