Teamwork Makes the Dreamwork

I made it. I worked hard. I loved the people to the best of my ability. I learned 2 languages fluently.  I baptized on my last Saturday.  I cried on my last Sunday. And now I am enjoying my last P-day.  It's been the best two years of my life, and the best two FOR my life. I will love Malaysia for the rest of my life, and the people mean so much to me. I can't bear to leave them, especially when they are just barely maturing into becoming a stake.. God bless Malaysia and all those that follow Christ therein.

Elder Vincent

July 6, 2015

"It has been proposed that Miri and Bintulu combine to become one district, to push forward to make a stake in the coming years." -President Simmons

Honestly tears came out a bit to hear that. During my mission, all I've heard is that Kuching and KL will be stakes within the next two years or so, but nothing about anywhere else. Well, Bintulu being my home and hearing that it could have a stake in 3 or 4 years is just astounding. We have the numbers. We have 3000 of the 1900 members that we need, and Miri has been prepared for it, they just need the number of units to be 5 or more (which brings it to 6, soon to be 7 as the Chinese Branch is rising up from it's group stage within a few more months).. This is fantastic news for the Miri/Bintulu District. I am very very excited for them. :)

Love Elder Vincent

June 29, 2015

This week is Elder Fowler's last week in the mission.  It feels kind of strange he is going home.  We both came to the mission the same time, but he is going home two weeks before me.  So I am in the mind set that I am going home too, but I'm not... Strange feeling.  But it will be a very busy two weeks, so it'll be okay.  In fact, this next week will be very interesting because...
1)  I have no companion for 2 weeks.  I will be with the Chinese Elders until I go home.  So I am a Chinese Elder now.
2)  We are going to Miri on Saturday and we'll be there until Tuesday. We are having a special district conference where Bintulu and Miri combine to meet Elder Funk and our new mission president, President Simmons.

So yup, President Mains goes home on the 1st of July. New one comes, and then in 2 weeks I leave... But I got to meet President Mains this last Wednesday for interviews.  He just gave some good advise for the future and congratulated me of the good work I've been doing.

This week we just tried to visit everyone before Elder Fowler left.  We're still teaching some of our investigators, while a few of them went back to kampung for a week or so.  We had an incredible attendance for this week, of 73 people at church including 9 from the Chinese group, so 82 is pretty good for us. It's been struggling at about 55 lately.  President Antonius, a former branch president came back with his family.  Been a few weeks since he's been around. 

Just excited to be here for another week.  Other than that, just running to the finish line. That's about it. :) 

Love, 

Elder Vincent

A Week To Begin all Last Weeks...

Well, this week was absolutely crazy. We've had lots of investigator work and it's really hard to keep up with everything, but that's not a bad problem to have. Well, this week will be even crazier. President Mains will be coming for interviews on Wednesday, my companion has gotten permission to go to Miri to see one of his areas on Thursday, (same zone, but different city) and then we should hopefully be having a baptism this Saturday. :)  Then after that, my birthday on the 30th, my companion goes home on the first, and then I'm really not sure what is going on for the last 2 weeks. Maybe I'll spend it by splitting time with the  Chinese Elders to go to my area and their area.

This last Sunday we made brownies for the branch's fathers.  Delicious as always. This week we also found 5 new investigators, 4 from a part member family, and 1 referred from another investigator that we have only taught twice.  S. M. is the best investigator of all time, just saying. :P 

Just a heads up, Elder Funk is going to be coming to Miri on the 5th of July, and so me and all the members from Bintulu get to go to a special district conference for that day.  We will probably head there on AMERRIKUUUH's Independence Day and leave the afternoon of the 5th of July. (which happens to be the day of my baptism 12 years ago)

the District President is hoping that Elder Funk will make Miri/Bintulu a stake.  We have enough members and Miri for sure is strong enough for it, but Bintulu still needs to work some things out before it can even think about getting a stake...

Anyway, have a great week guys, and Happy Father's Day!

Love

Elder Vincent

June 1, 2015 - Final Stand

Transfers are out. I am going to Bintulu Branch 1 for my 6 weeks of my mission. I will be with Elder Fowler, who is also in my group going home in 6 weeks, so... Well it should be a very interesting transfer. I am very excited to go back to Bintulu, but I am so lazy to pack... This being my eleventh area in the mission, averaging about 2 and half months in each area... -.-

Well, I wish I could tell you everything, but I have lots of stuff to do in two days!

Anyway, this is the Gawai Festival week. We had quite a bit of work going on for a few days, and then BAMMMM. Not only was everybody going back to their villages, but my companion was sick from Thursday to now, and he slept through most of Friday and Saturday... He's feeling good, but it's way tough to be in just a 2 elder house and not have anything to do. Honestly, you can only read the scriptures and update the area book and clean the house for so long, and then what else is there to do??

That meant we had about 10 people come to church, 8 of them being missionaries. And then I GOT TO CONDUCT SACRAMENT MEETING!! It doesn't mean much because it was just me and the elders and one other member that didn't go back to his hometown, but oh well. I did it. :D :D :D :D

So...that's about all I have time to say, love you guys see you back in BINTULU!!!

Elder Vincent

May 18, 2015 - Gawai In Malaysia

So.... Interesting Sunday. We missed the sacrament, due to a few strange accidents. I started my day by biking and I looked back to see why everyone was riding their bikes way slow, and in the midst of that I ran my foot into the side walk curb and hurt my foot a bit, not too bad though.  Still can walk. Ripped open my shoe. Then we get to the church, the meeting is about to start when a member asks us to help her with a flat tire to get to church, so we go there. We're only like 5 minutes away, fix the tire within 10 minutes, and then on the way back, a car in front of us runs over the curb really badly, and then 5 seconds later, my companion does the same thing but falls down lightly on the grass... strange 4 events all in the same hour. :P

We get back and I have a talk which went into having a TRUE Testimony.

The reason I talked about that was when a friend of mine from an old area told me about her situation.  She misses church really badly. She needs to get a job to help save up for her mission, but just as Malaysia is not very understanding of Christians, she can't go to church very often, and she started crying and told us how she misses church so badly. This came from a member which was very active when I was there, but still perhaps lacked on her testimony.  Needed friends to bring her, for her to come. Now, to working for her mission but being in an emotional state of being upset for not getting to go to church. Her testimony has grown a lot since I last saw her 11 months ago... That is what brings me true joy.  To see somebody grow from what they were to what they are now.  She does have problems still, and I can't help solve all of them, but just to hear her say that, I know she understands now the importance of the Sabbath. :)

April 27, 2015 - Transferring back to Sibu

Hey guys! this week was first of all transfers. My flight with Elder Yang and Coloma to Sibu was at 7:30pm.  Monday we visited Sister Dorkas' family for the last time and had just a great family home evening, played some games, and had a down to heart conversation together.  It was an expensive taxi ride though because prior to their house we were playing at another escape room, and we got out a bit late, it was like 6 pm when we finished so the sisters and us took a taxi back instead of busing back (which would have taken ages!) and ended up to be 90 ringgit.

Tuesday was our district meeting good byes. Elder Thatcher and Elder Halpin had left to go to Singapore by this time. Elder Hobbs followed us for the day, and we just met a few of our favorite members and those we couldn't meet in time we just called or texted.  I'm going to miss KK so much!

Wednesday was mostly just a bunch of waiting until my flight! I was way nervous about immigration, but by the time I got to the counter, I noticed that their computers were broke and they were just writing everything by hand and so even then they just wrote down my passport number and gave me a normal pass. :D :D :D

Since then Elder Chang and I have been trying to figure out our area together, which is pretty tough because the past elders have not updated the area book for the last 3 months, so any investigators that are "supposedly" on date will have to be taught again, if we can even contact them, since we have no idea where they live or what their phone numbers are.... So we've basically just had a clean start and making the best of it. It's been a long week out in the sun, but we've got a few things going a bit. Should be getting better each week. :)

Love,

Elder Vincent

April 20,2015 - Another Week in the Promised Land

Goooood morning everyone or afternoon or evening, depending on where you guys live.

So this week was quite interesting. 

Starting off with an investigator we found by contacting. We knocked on his door and usually Chinese people tend to just slam the door the second they see you. But this guy, having chains all around his body, opened up and gave us his number. Minutes after contacting him, we get a call and he asks where the church was, because he wanted to go stop by there. The next day we get a call and he asks to meet us to learn more at our house. Obviously we encouraged him to meet at a coffee shop instead and it turned out he has a real desire to "throw away the things of the past" as he said in Malay. Interesting dude!

Along with that, it's RAINY season again... YAY!! You know what that means? RAIN EVERY DAY! But not just rain all the time! Only when elders want to leave the house does it start raining, or if they want to leave their appointment it starts raining, but as soon as we get to that said appointment, it stops raining immediately. YAY!!! :D :D :D

We celebrated Elder Beliang's birthday which is tomorrow but we might not have tomorrow much if one of us gets transferred on Wednesday. A member made us a nice cake and then the member is going to make us both a traditional shirt from her tribe (Rungus) (look at this picture for details http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTCfQHSls4cUUQZ_uo-CSjew1rgOXiUOAq5GLKN3p3yLFMOtg5WUg )

Also, we had Elyjah my recent convert teach gospel principals. He was only asked to take about half of the class, but instead, he ended up teaching the whole thing. He is a natural teacher and he took the time to write notes and read the scriptures in the gospel principals book to do it. He did an impeccable job! I know he will be a great kingdom builder for the new members of the church. :D :D

Other than that.... oh another contacting story! haha we met a guy on the street wearing a cross, and when we asked him what religion he was, he waited for a couple seconds to think about it and told us he was Islam. Obviously not cuz 1) He's Kadazan and most of them are Christian 2) He's wearing a cross!. so we get that a lot, people say that so we don't continue talking to them about the gospel. And then my companion says "Oh that's OK. We are Islam too so we can just be friends." Haha, the guy was weirded out and walked away. 

We had a birthday party on Saturday for Samantha and Eddies' child of 1 years old (the 1 year birthday is very important to them, and they were going to do karaoke there. Well, it started off way boring. A member told me that she won't have elders write in her book of remembrance unless they do something crazy, and with that in mind, my companion and I started dancing behind the karaoke singer, and from there the party went from completely "GAH I WANNA GO HOME NOW" to "YES!!! LETS GO DANCING!!" haha OK not so crazy as that. it was just a little bit of fun there. The next day that member told me, "don't let me forget to have you sign my book before you transfer" :P so success! overall a great and fun week.

Elder Vincent

Transfers are coming today... dun dun dun...  

Going back to Sibu!!  This time Sibu 1st Branch last time I served in Sibu 2nd Branch.

April 6, 2015 - Easter Sunday

Happy Easter everyone!  Hope you had a great Easter with eggs and what not. First of all, I would like to start with my testimony of President Thomas S. Monson.  I know that he is a true prophet.  He lives and guides and spends his entire life to serve us, so that we can find happiness and truth in our lives.  It is his utter joy to bring people to the truth.  It saddens him each time a marriage is broken, or one does not believe in the church. He is a man, and as a man, has faults and weaknesses.  But God makes him to be one of the greatest that a man can be.  I appreciate all he does, and it grieves me to hear of our beloved brothers falling away and losing that truth and happiness that we know to cherish. Continue to love them, do not hate them for criticism is not the way to correction. Love is that way. 

But this brings us to a thought that I would like to share to all those who do raise their hands to support our prophet, seer, and revelator, Thomas S. Monson.  What are YOU doing to support him and sustain him?  Times grow ever nearer that the opposition and persecution of the church will grow stronger, and we cannot stand on the fence any longer.  We must make the ground to choose to follow or to not.  Remember and review the words of the prophet, and make choices and goals of what you will do to better sustain our prophet.  Renew your testimony by not just remembering the day you were baptized and how good you felt, but renew it by serving others and making spiritual experiences day by day.  Only then will you have sustained the prophet, and thus will not falter in your faith also. Satan doth ever desire you, for you can be used for evil if we are not careful, because he knows of our potential for good. 

D&C 123:

13. Therefore, that we should waste and wear out our lives in bringing to light all the hidden things of darkness, wherein we know them; and they are truly manifest from heaven—
14. These should then be attended to with great earnestness.
15. Let no man count them as small things; for there is much which lieth in futurity, pertaining to the saints, which depends upon these things.
16. You know, brethren, that a very large ship is benefited very much by a very small helm in the time of a storm, by being kept workways with the wind and the waves.
17. Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.

Did you know that this Easter also coincides with the week of Hari Hantu (Ghost Day) apparently the Buddhists burn things for their dead ancestors, and in Malaysia they have paper smart phones, paper wallets, paper watches, literally anything to burn for your ancestors! It's an interesting holiday... Little bit out of the ordinary, but interesting.

This week we didn't have general conference but next week lah! We had a fantastic week, even though all of our investigators went back to their hometown for the weekend. Didn't know Easter was so big here, wow.  Easter we had a couple big celebrations. One was our district 1st counselors's daughter's 2nd birthday. We had a huge party for them.  We taught Elyjah this week and shared some scriptures to help him get through some big trials he is having right now. The other recent convert, Steven, came back Friday from work so he should be getting the priesthood soon. :) 

Other than that we have gotten some strange people to try working with, including an exorcist. That should be interesting trying to teach him about the priesthood later. :) 

uhmmm uhmm... I can't think of anything else that happened... oh I went on exchanges with Elder Thatcher and we ended up getting lost trying to find a less active, meanwhile my companion was with Elder Hobbs and my comp was sick, so I got the better end of the deal. Haha. 

This week I also got a strange text from the Chinese sisters and asked me how to say "Where are you going?" in Czech, and I told them, then they asked me how to say "We are missionaries from a christian church" in Czech... and then later that day I asked them what that was all about and they said they met this Czech family on the bus that didn't speak any English, and they wanted to help them get to where they wanted to go, but they asked me how to say those things.  I tried telling them how to pronounce Czech, but it didn't work out. Strange since they have to learn a hard-pronunciation language, MANDARIN. :P

Dobry den! 

Elder Vincent

March 30, 2015 -District Conference, Take 2 in KK

Hey guys this week was absolutely great. We were so busy, so here are just some highlights of things that happened:

1) Taught a girl named Azura. Contacted by the sisters and when we started teaching her she was interested in what we had to teach but she had the strangest question ever. She opened up the bible and went to the scripture that said about being baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. So... what is the names of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost? Well the Father and Son is easy for me, but the Holy Ghost? where got a name? haha

2) Knocked on a door with an Indian Biddayuh campur of a guy. Really big guy. we introduce ourselves as missionaries and he says, just a second I need to get a shirt, and I'm just thinking, yup he's going for the gun. But he actually gets a shirt on and invites us to teach him. Way nice guy, and he said he really wanted to try our church out next week. His name is Abraham.

3) Sports night on Wednesday. Way fun and we had lots of good things come from it too.  Two friends came with KK 2nd Branch members and got two new investigators for the sisters (hopefully??).

4) President will be rasing our support to 900 ringgit next month since we have all been telling him we have been using maybe 200 ringgit from personal to survive. That will be nice.  I have been ok since I had extra money from Singapore.

5) We got two of our recent converts to come to a new member meeting early and one of them shared their conversion story. I was way impressed with him, being so new but being willing to share with others. :)

6) At district conference we had these two random families from Texas and Arizona, but living in Saudi Arabia, come to our conference on Sunday. They were vacationing in Sabah and decided to come to church, not knowing about our conference. Seemed way cool. First time I've seen LDS Americans besides missionaries in Malaysia.

7) We've had the Tawau elders in our house for the last 3 nights and it's been quite entertaining... Tough to get them around sometimes to appointments but it's been a blast just like the last time I was in KK when I was serving in Sandakan. Tonight we should have a blast at another family home evening. :) 

-Love Elder Vincent

 

March 15, 2015

Hey guys so if you haven't heard it was pi day yesterday (for you) and I wanted to bake a pie. Went to the store to buy some stuff, and then realized that I didn't have an oven...

I also received my mission call as of today! (for you again, my day is already passed).

 We had a great activity with our branch, played futsal with our priesthood quorum. Our team was kinda rigged though because we had 2 fat guys on our team, and only 2 people that can run around the place, while the other team was stacked with good players. In the end we fought pretty well 16-21.

This week I actually got sick, probably from wasabi. I don't know for sure, but it was probably wasabi, the most disgusting, spicy thing I've ever had. I was puking for an entire day, it was awful. Then the next day I still didn't want to eat anything. Now i'm OK and out and about.

We met with our district president who told us a lot of way helpful things on what he wants to do with the district, but needs our help. I think this transfer will be a lot of fun because everybody in our zone except 2 elders are down to do more activities and more branch-related stuff. One elder is doing a service project of cutting people's hair each Wednesday before district conference so KK looks the most "fly" before the 28th of this month. ;)

This week still following up with a bunch of our potentials. Nothing too positive but we are teaching a girl named Em that is doing really well. She was sick this Sunday, but she has been coming every week since she came to KK. We talked a bit about baptism with her and she said she would be baptised once she learns a little more. On top of that, I get to learn another language called Murut. :) as that is her native language.

March 8, 2015

Hey guys! Baptism this week.

Elder Newing baptized both of them though as he was the first one to start teaching them. I had been teaching them for the last 4 weeks though.

Well everybody was sick during the baptism because all of them ate the same pork that was not good at all, and then the next day they came to church, received the Holy Ghost, and left because they couldn't hold themselves together for three hours, :P We got  to take the sacrament to a couple of their family that just were so bad they couldn't get up. I finally met my branch president this week, as he came back to KK for a day just for the baptism before he went back to KL again.

We had Elder Funk also come this week and train us how to be more efficient missionaries. He gave me the example of a missionary starting to talk about the super bowl to his family and asked if my parents told me about who won the super bowl. I told him I didn't even remember it was the super bowl.  Now that I think about it I guess I heard about it but it seems like forever ago.

It was way good training and I was super excited about it.

 Other than that we found a way solid investigator that was referred to us last week and she has now been coming for two weeks now. She came back from her village and she said it's weird to her to speak Malay because she speaks only Murut in her village. The way to say "I want to eat" is "Asi'a aon angkan." way hard language to pronounce. :P

But then this Sunday we also got another 2 referrals, way way cool right now. That's when you know members are actually wanting to share the gospel with their friends and family. :)

And.... uhm... thats about all. for this week. I'm gonna try sending some pics with this but not sure if this computer can send any. 

and transfer news: Still in KK with Elder Beliang. :D

March 2, 2015

This week was just one of those weeks again... Hmm... Well to start off with we had a pretty good start of the week. We went to Singapore this Wednesday for zone conference.  During zone conference they focused on our new mission plan for 2015. Having achieved 365 out of 545 baptisms last year, the goal for this year is 585, and then split based on our districts. Each district is reasonable except Kuala Lumpur. They have a goal for 175 this year, and yet they only achieved 20 baptisms last year. But if they work really hard I know they can get it.  Bintulu, my favorite area's goal is 40 baptisms, and I know the elders there and they said that they are getting 20 baptisms within the next month, so I have high hopes for the growth there.

Here in Kota Kinabalu, we are just barley pushing to it. My area is barely starting to speed up in the work. I got here with nothing, and now we have 2 to be baptised this week, 3 referrals, 2 of which have started to come to church already a couple times, and multiple contacts to work with. I feel like when coming into areas like this, it's like being on a bike in the highest gear. When trying to start the bike, it's hard to pedal, so you have to stand up and pedal really hard to get it going. But if people have already been pedalling prior to you on the bike and just jump right on, then the pedalling can only get faster and faster. So the point is to keep building up the area no matter what.  Always keep a teaching pool and lots of work for the next elders to replace you. :) 

This week is going to be interesting also. We have Elder Funk doing a mission tour in our mission and we meet him on Tuesday morning. We are having all of Sandakan and Tawau elders come to KK to meet him. They should be coming later today.

Then after that we are going to go hard in our area. we need to really pump up our work as soon as possible. I have high hopes for this area and can see much potential, but it's so crucial that we find who we are going to baptise now! At zone conference, we were taught about being tigers and survivors.  In the war when bombing, there are people that go to the sites that they are required to bomb, and then come back. There are others that go and if they have fuel to hit more sites than required, they come back late. They were called the tigers. It's because of the tigers that the war was ended quicker. Same here, we have the war against Satan, and we can't just be survivors. No matter how tired we are as missionaries, we must hit that other place, even if our fuel is low. LETS GOOOOO!!!!!

Elder Vincent

February 23, 2015

Hey guys this week was great! It was actually Chinese New Year, and you would think that is a great time to meet people, but just like any other holiday nobody is home. We didn't get to meet a ton of people this week but there was a couple parties here and there from members that aren't Chinese (regardless of whether you are Chinese or not you still celebrate it no matter what).

So anyway we are still working with our investigators here S and St. They are so close to their baptism.  If we weren't going to Singapore this week then we might have them baptized this coming Saturday. They are way way cool. They have a very interesting history.  One of them being a caterer in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, you name it.

So anyway this week Elder Beliang and I have started the Beverly Hills Project. Essentially what Beverly Hill is (here in Sabah) is a set of 104 flats that have 84 doors each flat.  So there is more than 8000 doors to knock, and we have so far knocked on 250 doors and have gotten 7 potential investigators from it.  So we are just going to do our best in following up and just keep building up our teaching pool until it explodes. This is only a small portion of our work though.  Members obviously will always make the best work, as we work with them, make friendships with them and receive referrals from them.  9 times out of 10 referrals usually end up being the investigator that stays in the church far longer. But we see lots of promising stuff in just knocking too, so we will continue to do that every now and then.  I'm also going to categorize each door based on whether they are Chinese for the Chinese sisters to knock if they want because Chinese people do not like talking to us anyway unless its in Chinese.  Every door that has opened that has been Christian has accepted for us to come back.  That's a pretty stunning percentage so far.  Annndd yuup so this Wednesday I go to Singapore and hopefully coming back Friday. Each time I go to Singapore my passport gets jankier and jankier, So I never know for certain whether they'll let me come back. :P

So maybe next week, see you in KK or in Singapore. Still not sure yet. haha

Love

Elder Vincent

Ang Mo Kio - Just for kicks and giggles

Okay everyone. This week has been a crazy week.  So many things happened this week that I would like to list them off in a different email, but as of this Saturday, I was informed that another elder in another ward will be going home due to chronic migraines for the last 6 months.  So that means there has to be some sort of emergency transfer. ANDDD that happens to mean I am effected, being the only Malay elder in all of Singapore. So I am to be transferred later today to Kota Kinabalu (KK) with Elder Beliang in Branch 1.  I have been there before 3 or 4 times already, so I know the area. It is a great place to be, but I am very disappointed that I did not get to stay here in Singapore longer.   My assignment here for only 1-1/2 weeks was just way short.

As of this week, however. I enjoyed it very much. We got to do two service projects this week. Usually we do one a week, but this week we had an especially blessed week. The first one was with a less active member originally from Canada.  He needed our help to set up his trampoline park, in which he owns two and making his third one now. (He is the first one to ever do it in Singapore).

The second service project was with Sister Kei, a recent convert in our ward who has a friend that wanted to volunteer at the animal shelter. We got to clean up a bunch of dog's feces and what not, and play with them for a little while.

Other than that, we are making way good progress with our referrals and potentials. One named R is from Malaysia who is married to a less active member in our ward. She has never learned but is now interested in learning. Very intelligent, and even knew what baptism is. Even Christians I have taught in the past didn't know what baptism was. 

Our investigator, Junior, who has been to church the last 5 weeks but has been too busy to meet with us finally took the time to sit down with us. While we planned to teach him the plan of salvation, however he sat down and he asked "what does the church expect of me before I commit to be a member of your church?" So he basically demanded to know all of the commandments, and he wrote them all down, and committed to follow all of them. Pretty crazy lesson. Never in a million years did I think I would teach all the commandments in one sitting. 

We had to drop one of our old investigators though. He just showed no sign of progressing and no desire to go further... so yeah that's about it for him right now. 

And just lots of work with potentials and other referrals.  Nothing more to report other than I will be in a different area anyway today so here I come KK.

Love,

Elder Vincent

The Ang Mo Kio Ward

This week was incredible. I got into Singapore this Wednesday, but perhaps I can start at the beginning of the week.

So after I got transfer news we hurried to meet all of the members. Tuesday was ridiculous, because I had been up late trying to get myself and Elder Smith packed (cuz elder smith leaves on Tuesday to go home) so Tuesday I was dead tired already and I survived on maybe 5 or 6 cokes so I didn't go to sleep while meeting everyone. We took out one of our investigators for dinner that night. I was pretty sad to leave, because so many memories and so many friends I'm leaving behind. On Wednesday I woke up at 4 am to get my flight at 7 am...kind of early but I shared a taxi with Elder Jahali who had a flight at 6 am.

Anyway, got to Singapore just fine, except I got held up in immigration (surprise surprise) because I have the jankiest passport of all time. But I just gave them President Mains number and they called and let me get 90 days into Singapore with no problems. Get dressed, then look around until I find some other elders, who tell me that my companion is waiting for me in the other side of the airport. Get there, and meet the new missionaries from the MTC too.

During this last week, I have been able to teach a less active family with the stake president's counselor, President Kwan, in which he shared a powerful testimony. I have seen the Elders Quorum president do his utter best to persuade the importance of church to one of our investigators, I have seen another Member help her friend commit to a date of baptism, and I have had some wonderful food.

President Kwan shared something from his journal to this family about how HE 20 YEARS AGO had taught the husband and the brother (Elton and Fredric), and it was way cool to see how things have changed. After being baptized, going less active, but to see them be activated again in the last couple months has been incredible. This message that President Kwan shared not only touched Fredric and his wife Hazel, but Elton also, who has not allowed elders to visit him for quite some time. He is now excited to visit us this next Wednesday with his wife and has asked us to teach him about how he can have a happier marriage with his wife.  Isn't it a perfect introduction to teach the plan of salvation?

I love the Ang Mo Kio ward and it has changed me only in the last 5 days.

I am happy.

  

January 27, 2015

This week was pretty crazy. I still have no idea how this week went by so fast.
This Tuesday I went on splits with one of my zone leaders, then the AP's came on splits with them that night, and then I had to go on splits again with the district leader. Then Thursday we had to get ready for President to come to do Mains house inspections. We still haven't been able to get everything in order because we just moved all of the church's beds, fridges, and other furniture all in our house while we wait to find a new house to move into. So while getting that in, we got another person on date this week and hoping to get another couple people on date too. A member's husband is down to use the van to pick people up, and he may want to be baptized as we continue teaching him too. :) 

Brother Lawren got his mission call.  His video of him opening call I am in, and I guess it's on Facebook already.  I joked about training him at the end of my mission and finishing his training. Way exciting too.

Friday President came and I got some counsel that really has touched me to help me just keep going and never slow down until the end. I hope to keep it to heart until the end of my mission.  District conference took up the rest of the week and unfortunately it rained all day long and my investigators have to walk a whole hour to get there, so they couldn't attend. It was pretty sad. But what can you do? Just keep working with them to help them have stronger faith and come as much as they can.

I read this verse and I want to start finishing my emails to home with a scripture. just for kicks and giggles, I translated this one into Iban (there is no Iban book of Mormon yet)

Lalu dalam semua masa, enggau semua endur, iya deka muka ka mulut iya lalu nusui injilKu enggau nyawa baka terumpit, maya siang enggau malam. Lalu aku deka meri ngagai iya pengering ti enda kala dipeda di antara mensia.             Ajar enggau Sempekat 24:12

Doctrine and Covenants 24:12

P.S.  Just got transfer news.  I'm being transferred to Singapore and my companion is going to Sandakan.

Called to the Singapore Mission

January 19, 2015

Hey guys! This week was pretty good, save the wrecked shirts.

So about that uhmm...Well let's just say Sibu has been raining non-stop for the last week and trying to get to appointments has been interesting. Wet all day long, cold all day long. My mudflap broke off and so about 5 of my white shirts got destroyed from muddy water. I bought a new one, but it wasn't long enough so a couple days later I modified it to extend twice as long so the water doesn't splash up and hit my shirt. I ended up just buying a jacket to wear while I'm biking, not just because I am getting dirty, but I have been so cold here!  I thought I would never say that but I truly have been cold this whole week.

Anyway, this week we had our zone meeting, so we had a bunch of elders in our house.  Twelve to be exact. Eight of them slept on these taco mats that we have laying down. We also moved our house out because our contract suddenly ended and nobody had warned us. Fortunately we got the whole zone to help us out to clean it up.

We also had some great experiences with our investigators. We got two more investigators on date for next month. They are working out way well. I got the opportunity to talk to a half active member and have maybe one of my most spiritual lessons about the temple and his desire to go to the temple this year so he can get the work done for his deceased wife. Way cool desire and I hope to be able to get him started.

:)

This week is gonna be pretty busy.

Tuesday I'm going on splits with Elder Smith my zone leader

Then Wednesday I'm going on splits with Elder Thatcher my district leader

then Thursday and Friday we are having interviews with President Mains

And then Saturday and Sunday we are having district conference.

Got to do a lot of stuff before district conference happens...

Love you guys!

Elder Vincent

January 12, 2015

Hey guys. I don't have a lot of time again so I will just put some hi-lights. And also I know that those that are on missions don't have time to read them, (unless you are a lot better at reading emails than I am) I'll just put some highlights for this week:

• Got an investigator on date for 7th of February. Hoping to get 3 or 4 more on date this week.
• Moved houses this week to the zoneleaders house. Somebody kinda failed to tell us that we are getting kicked out on the 15th.
• we have the entire zone together this week for zone meeting so we will be bowling later this afternoon
• got to meet one of my old investigators from Bintulu. She is moving to Sibu for university...maybe
• I now have only 6 months left on my mission. Time to go even harder this year before I come home!
• Found a great way to get people to church by bus. It involves gathering people from house to house and getting to the bus stop which is about 15 minute walk away. Lots of less actives don't have transport so maybe we can use that as a way to get them back.
• I  ran into 2 different Chinese people within 30 minutes that were willing to talk to us for a while. (That doesn't happen too often. But it's a referral to the Chinese elders anyway)

Love you guys! Have a great week. Maybe soon it will be warm enough to go play futsal or badminton.

Wait do you guys even do that stuff? ;)

Elder Vincent

Happy New Years Everyone!

Happy New Years everyone!

For those who are lazy to read a huge email, here is just the jist of my week. I honestly get a bunch of emails from other missionaries and I'm way too lazy to read them all. Tl;dr

3 investigators came to church this week by WALKING there for an hour.

English class was successful. We had maybe 10 come this week and then some came later.

One of our new investigators asked us to help him get to baptism before we even invited him to baptism.

I had exchanges with one of my zone leaders on Saturday. We had to go through multiple floods on our bikes to get from house to house.

Another plane has gone down. Third one this year.

We are bringing back family home evenings in Sibu.  An elder before destroyed family home evenings and so we are going to bring it back starting on the 22nd of January.

 FLOODED ROAD - RIDING THROUGH IT ON MY BIKE

FLOODED ROAD - NOTICE THE KIDS SWIMMING IN IT