Christmas Week

Hey guys! This week was so crazy! We basically had parties all through Monday to Friday and then didn't get a lot of missionary work done, but I ended up with 6 more investigators in my teaching pool and still met with every single member and got to carol to them and I tried sharing a small message with them before we went to the next house.
Basically, like I said last Christmas, Christmas week is just a week of eating, and sometimes it's a little overbearing.  My Sibu Christmas was pretty well-rounded.  Not too much, but still a lot of food. Especially the pork. I gotta love the pork. With chilis. Yummm..... :)

Anyway I'm doing very well right now.  Like I said, we got 6 new investigators.  Two from some other elders that just moved to our area, two from a part member family that we found, and two from contacting, so once I find out which ones will turn out to be good, I'll let you know. But from my experience, the ones that are from part member families are always the ones that work out the best. ;)  But you never know, each soul is important to God.

This week I have realised more than ever how much I need to stop caring about myself and think of others. The people here have a lot less than I do. I thank all those who give me gifts for Christmas, but as my mission is starting to come to a close in about 6 months, I am trying to find how I can help those that are in need.  Although I am certainly not a rich person on my mission, but I have enough for myself and also to give others.  But it's so easy sometimes to use that extra money on a nice KFC or something. ;)

As for New Year's Resolutions, I am thinking about studying the Bible more earnestly.  I have not really enjoyed the Bible much on my mission, but now I'm trying to understand it more clearly. I also want to continue learning my mission language by learning at least 10 words per day. That may seem like a lot, but I know I can do it. I've learned 100 words in one day before, so I know I can do it. I challenge all of you to push yourselves and do the best you can with this new year. We only have so many years to prepare before the great and terrible day of our Lord.

Love
Elder Vincent

Masuk Hutan, Cari Miding

Hey guys, this morning I woke up to go to Sister Madeline's house to help her find what is called "miding".  It is a special kind of vegetable (they are all just leaves here) that we were looking for. We waded through the forest for a while when we got to a lovely, bushy, thorny area that loves to scratch up my legs, and she starts pulling leaves down from the bushes, but not just any kind of leaves. They are speccciial kind. But honestly, they look like every other leaf in the forest.  She then taught us what ones are good and what ones aren't.  She can point them out from a mile away, and yet while she is pointing we still couldn't see them.  After a few minutes of trying to pick these out, I got the general idea of what makes this "miding" vegetable different.  And then I picked the most out of my group.

This idea of having a hard time picking out the right leaf could be an important idea of missionary work... still processing it in my head. I'll be thinking about it more later, but I think it's good that the member had to show us which ones were the good ones and which ones to leave alone. Just like they know which people are good investigators, etc.

Anyway this week was probably our most productive week. I had this crazy thought in my head to go through the area book and find all the names of people that DON'T have phone numbers on them, and then to just write down those names in my planner and just hunt them down. This has helped find some potential investigators, and one time we knocked on the wrong door  (cuz when it said the third floor of a place, it doesnt specify whether it is the left door or right door, so I knocked on the one that looked Christian, and the person answered, we asked if she knew the member we were looking for and she didn't know, and then I contacted her and she asked us to come and teach her a little bit. Nice little miracle for this week! :) )

Otherwise, we have had a few Christmas parties.  One on Saturday, again on Sunday.  Both were followed AFTER a baptismal service, one being the son of the branch president that just turned 18. The water accidentally started draining about an hour before, so it was pretty low.  President Gara tried getting him all the way down but failed the first time, and then everyone laughed! wow, I was a bit shocked. When I baptised somebody back in Bintulu, and had to do it twice, everyone was quiet. Quite a rowdy crowd here in Sibu.

This week is Christmas, or better known here as the Day of Eating. Yup... I will be eating all throughout the 24th and 26th.  More than any of you have ever eaten before in your life. It's.... going to be quite an experience. :) *gulp in fear*

Love

Elder Vincent

Zone Conference at Christmas Time in Singapore

Hey guys. So This last week I was in Singapore like I said earlier. The main thing we learned from our Zone Conference is sharing the Gift. They shared the Mormon message with us about sharing the gift. I learned a lot from that and now I'm pumped to share the gift with others.

This last Saturday we had our Pre-Christmas party. We were asked to do a little play on the Joseph Smith story. My companion was Joseph Smith. I was the dark spirit that came and bound his tongue. That was a lot of fun to do. We also were asked to be wise men in the party, but it wasn't as big of a part. Our church finally got air conditioning back this week. It was out for 2 weeks and church has been very very hot.

Our investigator, Ju came to the party too! She's starting to make friends in the church. She basically is another member, except she has been so busy this month to meet with us, so that's the downside. But I'm hoping that this new transfer will come out well.

We are starting to get a lot more referrals coming in and so this next week will be in for contacting them all and start teaching them. We have our youth conference today through Wednesday, so a lot of our members will be there, but we aren't allowed to go there with them. 

We also found a recent convert that got lost in the works when she changed her phone number (here in Malaysia, they just go buy new sim cards every now and then. they are cheap, like 3 or 4 ringgit usually. I'm not sure why, but it really is difficult on missionary work here when members change their number every other week) but she is super awesome, but has not been to church for a few months now. I am excited to work with her and try to bring her back. Our branch is doing extremely well still. Christmas is coming up though, but it isn't Christmas here in Malaysia. It is the Day of Binge-Eating-Until-You-Want-To-Die. I thought it would be rather relaxed because most people go back to their village for the vacation, but I just found out yesterday that there will still be plenty of people here to make sure we get stuffed from sun up to sun down... Yay.... errrrr. :/ but it should be fun. it will be my last Christmas in the mission, so I gotta make the most out of it. :)

That's all for this week.

Love,

Elder Vincent

December 10, 2014

Hey guys so this week I went to Singapore for Zone Conference, so I couldn't email this Monday. I have had a great week so far, but it is very saddening to me.  My favorite elders are going home next transfer and they just gave their testimonies.

One of them gave me a pair of socks that their parents send every single package, which is good cuz all of my socks have holes in them already.  I got a picture with almost all of my companions there, because 3 of them are going home.

I got back into Malaysia with 90 days, which is the miracle of the mission, because I might have the sketchiest passport in the mission atm...

This week was kind of the breaking point for our investigators.  If they didn't come this week, that means they can't be baptized for this year. And... one of them came. Which is great, but she is really hard to meet with, so she won't be ready until maybe January. The one that could be baptized this year had problems coming to church, but I'm not going to give up. There's still hope. For next year at least. ;)

I actually can't remember what happened this week.  It went by so fast. We have a Christmas party coming up this Saturday and we are in charge of putting a 10 minute activity together. We've been asked to do some sort of Joseph Smith story.  Not sure how that has to do with Christmas, but I think I tied it in well with the branch president's goal to have every member read the book of Mormon all the way through next year. I am going to go very hard in getting them to follow up with that. It's a good idea and should be done by everyone! That's how I got a testimony, and I know that's how everyone will be able to strengthen their testimony.

Love

Elder Vincent

December 1, 2014

Hey Guys Happy Thanksgiving and Black Friday to ya. :)

This week was a great week and also a very sad week. To start off everything, everyone is dying! Death is thrusting his sickle with his might, and literally every single investigator we have taught has had a relative die in the last week, and so they go back to take care of the burial, which usually means they will be gone for a month. So bye bye investigators, we bid thee farewell... hopefully in a month you'll come back.... :)

And Then there's us americans. eating our hearts delight out over a night thankgiving feast.

Yes. thanksgiving... yummmy and delicious with chicken, mashed potatoes, and pie. lots and lots of pie. and bergers and fries and waffles and everything else.

After all that food, there was still two chickens left, so I took them home, made it into curry chicken one day, and then the next day I made it into black peppered chicken. mmmm :) 

This week we have had quite a bit of success finding some new less actives and some potential investigators with part member families. We had 3 major families commit to come to church but didn't come...dang it... but it's ok there's always next week, right? 

We practiced for our Christmas party coming up on the 13th of December, we are doing a little nativity play and what not. I am a wiseman. 

I also translated that garment video too into Malay to help the senior couple in their temple prep class. That was fun, since he gave it to me and to a native and we tried to use as deep Malay as possible until it got so ridiculous we had to dumb it down. haha that was fun. :) 

uhmmmmmmmmmmm

Oh yeah and the church had no power for church. No air conditioning. We were all burning up.

Somebody apparently came in WHILE we are all in the church, cut a wire, and left without being noticed. Sad day.

Oh and its raining every day all day long now. welcome to rainy season! :) 

Love

Elder Vincent

 

 

 

 

 

November 24, 2014

Thanksgiving day three days early for me and the Elders in Sibu. We got some rules about our Thanksgiving dinner not being able to be longer than 2 hours, so our senior couples are going to be doing our thanksgiving today (Monday P-Day) and maybe we can get to watch a movie too, maybe like Ephraim's Rescue.

we'll see. :)

 

This week was good. Lots of trials with dropped appointments. This week actually overall was pretty hard with just strange things happening all around the zone. Our goal has been extended from 75 baptisms to 100  this year and ever since our sights have gone further, we've just had problem after problem. Satan definitely doesn't want us to get those last 25 people, but we sure can try! :)

Last Thursday I went into the immigration office and they gave me an extension until the 30th of December, but it doesn't matter because I will be going to zone conference on the 8th.

Hopefully I will be able to get back in after zone conference! :) I love this area and we have some investigators that are good, just having some really hard trials right now. 

James has been a huge help for us. He has the sickest car in Malaysia. He has his car painted with GB-13, which is the soccer team in Malaysia. He also has a PA system in his car so he can heckle people, haha. He is our main source of how people can come to church. If people can't find a way to get to church, he will pick them up. 

Our church is trying something different.  Because James is picking up people until 30 minutes after sacrament starts, we have a post-sacrament for him and the people he picks up. Only takes 5 minutes to do. I think that's a pretty good idea for those that are not able to come early.

We also have a functional Branch Council.  FINALLY! 16 months on my mission and my first branch council that meets together every week to talk about missionary work. Woohoo!! :) Anyway you guys have a great thanksgiving!

Love you,

Bye.

PICTURES FROM KUALA LUMPUR (KL)

 

 

Walk like a White person, Talk like an Iban

In church after I introduced myself and bore my testimony in Iban, a
woman whispered to me and said in Iban, "I thought I saw a white
person walk up to the pulpit, but when he started talking, I didn't
hear a white person. I heard an Iban."
That made me super super happy to hear something like that. I am back
in my hometown state, Sarawak. I absolutely love Sarawak, and I am
getting better at Iban than ever before. I can also tell that my Malay
advanced so much in Sabah, because I feel so confident with my
language. My teaching skills are doing a lot better than ever before,
and now I feel like I have the potential to blow up the area. Maybe
those are some dangerous thoughts of pride, but I feel really
confident in myself and I think that is good to feel. I am very happy
with this area. I am whitewashing it, meaning me and my companion,
Elder Weston, are both new to the area, but once we get on our feet,
we want to try to blow up the area. Elder Weston is from Oregon, the
vampire state as he says it, and he just barely got out of training. I
finally got to Sibu on Wednesday with only 14 days on my visa, but I
am hoping to extend it to at least our zone conference in Singapore. I
will be going to Sarikei on Thursday with the District president.
We have some incredible members here. They are really down to help us
with our work and following us. We also have a couple investigators
right now that have been coming to church now for 3 weeks, Ju and
Emile. They have been church shopping for a while and they have been
at this church for a while. After church I asked them, "Kani ka
berasai dik saritu?" (How was church today?) And they responded that
they felt very comfortable here. They loved our Sunday school teacher
today. Supper awesome family.
And yup.... that's about it for this week. other than that, I'm just
extremely excited about everything.  :) this is gonna be a good area.
I can tell that. I just hope my passport doesn't ruin anything.

Love
Elder Vincent

Halloween Comes and Goes

Happy Halloween everyone!

I just think of the song "Written in the Stars"

Oh written in the email
A thousand miles away
A message to the mains
Oh
Transfers come and go
But I will never change
And I'm on my way

haha those who know that song will know that's wrong, but that's the missionary song after you've been in an area for a while. haha well I don't have transfer news yet but we will see what happens. 

My buddy Ormsby and I think we're getting white washed together in Singapore. haha but we will see...

This week was OK. We have this amazing investigator named N who is Kadazan, Chinese mix. She speaks Malay, Chinese, a little Kadazan, and a little English. She is a freaking boss at everything. She is super smart, and retains everything we say. She was super super shy to come to church last Sunday, but once she met the members, she came and just was like a natural member. Like she belonged there. 

She even came with us to the Cheshire Home, which is for the mental handicapped, we do a little service for them about once a week when time allows.

Then we showed the restoration video to her, but we couldn't change the language because we don't have a remote so we had to watch it in English. She said it would be OK, but if anybody knows, the restoration video uses some tough English to understand for foreigners.

Then we ask her what she understood of it and she just basically made a full synopsis of his life, and she was really sad for all the bad things that happened to him.

Golden, kan?

Anyway, other than that, Saturday we had a huge service project at the church. We cleaned it with some members IN and OUT. The grass hasn't been cut for years, so it was growing everywhere and it took a bunch of time to clean and throw into a huge heap and burn it. Yes, I was in charge of the burning. BUAHAHAHAHA. Huge pile of smoke.

As For Halloween we didn't have much going on, but we had a little dinner at somebody's house. Nothing too big. We did get some Australian candy from a member's house that we felt to just stop by at for a second. 

And now... Basically just waiting for transfer news to come out. That's all for this week. :)

 

P.S.         SIBU 2nd Here I COME!

 

 

September 29, 2014

Hey this week was okay.

Got my 30 day extension in the area and then had to deal with 3 of our district leaving. Big apartment for me and my new companion, Elder Strathearn. We get our own showers which is nice. Elder Ormsby also commented that they get to sleep in beds the next time they are here. haha. They usually use the couches.

Overall things have been going ok with our work. We got quite a few referrals and one of them is from a member from Kuching that has a friend in Sandakan. She seems super excited to meet us, we will be going to see her at 3:30 on Saturday. I say that because I have never had somebody in Sabah tell me what time exactly they want to meet. They usually have this idea that they don't know what time they are available. This girl is different though.

Anyway, we are white washing the other part of Sandakan. I already kind of knew the area before hand from doing splits, but still don't know where a couple of the members live in their area. But we will keep going like normal.

Anyway, that 30 days means that I probably only have 3 more weeks before something has to be done with my visa. That means either I get an early transfer to Singapore, or I try to extend my visa in KK. Still waiting to hear any instructions from Prez. That's about it. Not much for this week.

Zone & District Conference

We started our journey to Singapore Wednesday for Zone Conference first stopping in Kota Kinabalu (KK).  I slept through the next plane ride and then landed in KL an hour and a half later.  While in KL waiting for my next flight to Singapore I received a call from a potential investigator saying he wants to learn. Yay! Woohoo.  We got into Singapore around 5:30, however Elder Jacobs lost his bag in transit so we waited till about 6:30 to get back to the church. We played sports games outside of the church, basketball, pingpong, soccer. I played soccer and I thought I was doing incredibly well at goalie. Then I accidentally hit the ball with my hand and it went flying over onto the roof. That kind of killed the game....

 

Zone conference was about being more bold, expounding more on people's feelings on the Holy Ghost and how to teach lesson 5 better and more effectively.  It was a very good zone conference.

 

Just a side note, I went to the BIGGEST book store in all of South East Asia. Oh my gosh, I've never seen so many books in my life. This book store makes the Portneuf library look like a sad excuse for a single book shelf.  I just went to buy some G2 pens. They have every color and have mini g2 pens, which I have never seen.

Friday after the zone conference we flew back to KK and stayed there for a district conference.  I was on exchanges with Elder Baranov, and I met an author of a dictionary/phrase book for the Kadazan language. He gave us a free signed book. Totally not interested in our doctrine, but still a nice find. Haha. :)

District Conference was Saturday and Sunday and it was SOOO FUN. I got to meet a lot of people that I knew from Kuching.  Took a lot of pictures and just enjoyed it a lot. The theme for the district conference was "Come come ye saints" and was talking about strengthening families as husbands, wife's, children, and about going to the temple. Huge focus for this district conference.

One of the members in KK was also the member who translated the Book of Mormon in Malay, and he just finished the Doctrine and Covenants, so maybe in a year or so that should be out too. :D

Transfers just came out and I am staying in Sandakan, getting a new companion Elder Strathern.  The other set of missionaries are being transferred out of the area.

 

Have a wonderful week.

Love

Elder Vincent

 

 Some of the Companions I have had.  Taken at Zone Conference in Singapore

Most of  MTC Group. Taken at Zone Conference in Singapore

 

 Sabah Zone at District Conference in Kota Kinabalu

 

 

September 15, 2014

Selamat pagi.

This is my last week of the transfer, and it also is my week to be in Singapore and Kota Kinabalu for 5 days for zone conference and district conference. It's going to be a pretty crazy week. It seems that whenever I am going to blow up, there is always zone conference. Just a little break every 3 months to be inspired to know what to do. Then 3 months back to work.
This week was pretty rough again, especially with church this week. We've been in charge of blessing, passing, and teaching every lesson for the last month. The teachers have gone less active, so we've been taking the weight trying to keep church going smoothly. Our youth are super super good. I'm extremely impressed with the youth. But the rest of the branch has been extremely tiring trying to get things back up the way they were.
We had our zone leaders on splits with us for 2 days. We were trained on the same training that Elder Allen and Funk (general authorities) told them in MLC last week. There are some new changes to our focus in the mission. The normal 3 fundamentals in missionary work has been Find, Teach, Baptise. It has now been increased to Find, Teach, Baptise, Retain, and Reactivate.

They also have taught us that it is possible to get one baptism each week per companionship. And then gave us a training on how to do that. It was mainly based on our trainings. Elder Allen (not my companion) went through the planners of some zone leaders to find them all blank or not very much in them, and then made the point that it is extremely important to plan every single hour and second of every day out to fit the 5 principles of our mission, especially when it comes to finding. To make more plans to find. We did just that and we got quite a few numbers, and a couple return appointments. This week our progression with those numbers, but hopefully they don't disappear in the next week.
One of those people happens to be living in one of the biggest houses I've seen in my entire life. Including in America. It is sooooo big maybe 20 times bigger than our house. They have a bunch of really sick cars.

The morning after meeting them, we wake up to a bunch of fancy cars honking their horns at each other, just driving around the neighborhood for kicks and giggles. I guess that's what rich people like to do with their time.

A good miracle is that Michael came back, and he said his Dad gave approval for his siblings to get baptised, so he is going to live with his siblings so they can come to church every week and get baptised. I hope I stay for that.
Transfers are next week and most Elders don't stay in this area for more than 2 transfers, so my time might be up. But I guess we will let the Lord decide what is in store for me.

Wish me luck on my 4 flights this week. Love you all and talk to you again next week.

Love,
Elder Vincent

September 8 Report

Assalamua'alaikum saudara dan saudari. 

I hope you all had a good week. This week was rather challenging as a few disappointments came up, but it wasn't entirely bad. This week Elder Allen and I had one of our investigators drop us. She told us on the phone that she didn't want to continue learning the "Bible" anymore. So after that we have a couple other investigating families to work with, one of them are the siblings of Michael. But he was stuck in KK all week and his siblings were sick so they didn't work out either this week. Our branch social activity also failed when our games kind of fell apart when the white board fell down from its stand.. But there is always next week. :)
 

Just as a small announcement, I will not be going to KK this Saturday but I will be going next Saturday. Meaning Wednesday through Friday I will be in Singapore and Saturday and Sunday I'll be in KK. So that is one loooooonnngg p-week. Seriously we might get three lessons in maybe if we have time. The rest of it is meetings and travelling. I am kind of excited for the 6 hour bus ride with the members next Saturday though :). 

Also I get to see elder Ormsby again this Wednesday for zone meeting but I don't think he will have time to do exchanges again, only enough time for zone meeting and lunch before they fly to Tawau. 

As for good things that happened this week, we do have 3 other investigators that have been deemed as eternal investigators, but I can see a real change in them as they truly take the commitments to read and pray sincerely. In my opinion, people can go to church every week for 10 years and still not internally have a testimony of the Church. Same with me. I would say I didn't have a testimony until I read the book of Mormon all the way through about when I was 15. Same with the people here. It is necessary to read it, or no true conversion will jadi.. (happen)

Weve been trying our best to find new investigators. We just did a huge fireside on missionary work and challenged the branch to bring two new people to church each person. We've been following up with those members and it hasn't shown any results yet but still working on it.. 

A member gave me a pink pokadot shirt because of my pink skin..... 

So yeah that was basically my week. This week I'm hoping Michael comes back from KK so that we can start meeting our investigators Ericsson and Mau. 

Anyway Elder Funk and Elder Allen (from missionary department) came to the Singapore mission but didn't come to Borneo. Seemed like their meeting was pretty intense. Don't know the full story yet though. 

 

Love
Elder Vincent

The Penguin Trot

Hey everyone, this week started out rough after our sunburns. The face was fine, but our knees hurt really bad this week, so much that it was hard walking. Until about Friday we were doing the penguin trot until we started peeling. My lesson learned: Never share your payung (umbrella) with others. I have been using an umbrella the whole week so the sun doesn't lick my skin anymore.

But otherwise, this week was very good. :)

 

We met a couple eternal investigators, and we of course could have just taught them the same old lessons, but instead we just had a basic conversation, first about why they have a religion, and what's important to them. And then we worked to figure out what was keeping them from joining our church, because they have come to our church on and off for years, and then we brought it all around the Gospel and seemed to get a solid commitment from them to actually take the steps of reading, praying, and coming to church to see if it was true. In the past, they would do one, and perhaps one would pray and feel like the Catholic church was true, but then they wouldn't take time to read the Book of Mormon, which is the one sure way to knowing the church is true. I hope that they ponder what we taught and take the time to read. :)

Then our other investigators, Mau and Ericsson weren't able to meet this week, but we called them up and tried to set up a time to meet with them, and we asked if they had done their home work (which was a hand written sheet of questions, asking about the Introduction to the Book of Mormon) and they said they were in the middle of doing it. Kind of cool.

 That is something Elder Allen and I are doing now, giving them homework each lesson so that we know if they are bothering to read or not. That's one way we can know if they are progressing or not. This next week our goal is to get them on a date. I'm really hopeful for those two. They are the younger siblings of an awesome member, Michael. :)

On Friday we had a little party anniversary for the death of a member's son. one year ago he died. It was actually kind of sad, because not very many people came. They made the best pork and spaghetti ever though. I will definitely miss the pork from Malaysia, because in America we sure don't know how to cook pork right. (Unless it's bacon)..

This week my companion and I went hard on learning Tagalog. We've been making good progress on it, but it's the members that are our main source. Most people even if they aren't from the Philippines understand Tagalog, just because it's a pretty commonly used language here. There's another language up my sleeve. Malay, Iban, and Tagalog.

Che ching, one more week over, 2 more until next Singapore trip. Cheers, my friends.

 

 

 

The Sandakan Approach

I'm emailing on Tuesday because the power went out a few minutes after getting onto emailing yesterday. This week was very memorable for me and I will always remember it for the rest of my life. This week was so awesome in so many ways.

Elder Ormsby and Elder Lundquist came on splits with us for Wednesday and zone meeting that morning. It was awesome to catch up with him after a few months of not being in the same zone. I got a package from my parents and a letter from my Bishop's wife. Thank you Diane! :)

Then afterwards, they weren't really given time to do splits, because they immediately left to the airport after eating lunch.

We worked a lot with R, an investigator for the other elders. He and another 8-year old in his family, U were baptized this Saturday.

Saturday was probably the most stressful day ever. We were trying to make sure everything went to plan, but we got to the church at 1pm and we found out that the program wasn't made, and that we had to make it, so I had to make a new template for a program (which is super difficult on OpenOffice) just to find out that it doesn't work out, so I had another Elder get my hard drive from the house, which had the baptism programs I made in Bintulu.  Just like the Mormon Standard Time, the baptism started 30 minutes late, but by then we had more members there than a normal sacrament meeting.

Then after the baptism, we had a bunch of youth together like I'd never seen before. We had a night games activity with them, which included a twisted version of cops&robbers and dodge ball. However, the robbers were chasing the cops, so something was wrong there... Haha.

While playing dodge ball, my shoe finally gave way and it ripped apart. It was Saturday night and I didn't have any other pair of shoes, so that Sunday morning I was forced to tape my shoe together. Our branch mission leader laughed and said "If you were in my mission, the members would heckle the crap out of you, and then even though they are poor, they would buy you a new pair".

Fortunately, we don't have to wear shoes in Church, so I got away with my taped-shoes for the day, and then I just barely bought a cheap pair of shoes until I can take out my other pair in Singapore next month.

Anyway, we had 48 people at Church on Sunday!! 48!! That is a huge jump from what we were getting in the last 6 weeks.  I am really pumped and hopeful for this Branch. We are really trying to form this Branch not by teaching lessons and getting numbers, but by actually fixing problems and bringing people back to activity with a DESIRE to learn, not a forceful desire that we push on them.

Then finally Monday is the part I will always remember.

We went to catch crabs with Michael, but an hour away from home, he doesn't remember where to catch them. We are all hungry and tired, and don't know how to get home. We're super sun burnt, and I'm the only one with a phone or wallet. We finally have somebody stop and pull us out to their village, which happened to be only a mile away.  A Muslim family was very hospitable and gave us some food and drinks before we hit the road. We then got back to Michael's house to pick up our stuff and we were pretty miserable. We decided we would just go email and then take a nice cold shower afterwards.

10 minutes into emailing there is a blackout in Sandakan. So much for emailing... Then we go home, and then blast the air conds and the showers, and just relax for a little while. It was one of the worst and best and memorable days ever. :)

 

 

 

 

Building the Sandakan Empire

Hellooo everyone.

This week was fantastic. Elder Allen is now my new companion, and although we are starting on a rough start, many things happened this week that just brings my hopes up for this branch. 

First of all, we now have a member named Michael that is super down to follow us to lessons. Not only that, but he wants to show us all the former investigators that he went to teach that got forgotten about after our area got whitewashed a million times. So we brought him on our first day yesterday and he was an impeccable teacher! Very interested in making sure they understand the doctrines. I am super excited to have him. He is willing to help every single day of the week. So long as our schedules are available... Our zone leaders are coming tomorrow and that means Elder Ormsby one of my previous companions will be going on splits with me! Yes, super jacked out of my mind! :)

So Elder Allen and I are just going to try wrecking through the branch trying to visit them and get them back to church, and then also fix some of the problems in the branch. 

As most transfer weeks go, not a whole bunch of work was done, just a bunch of visiting, but I'm excited for this next week.. Very promising. :)

 

 

The Magic Conch Shell LU LU LU LU LU LU!!!

(Ethan, Brigham, you should read this part if you have time:)

Hail to the magic conch shell! I just got back from fishing at a member's house, and I wasn't having any luck with the banana leaf branch with a worm tied to a string, so I decided to pick up this conch shell and praise it like from Spongebob "The magic conch shell!!!" lulululululu!!!" and then I threw it into the water, and then immediately some bubbles were popping out of the water, and so I put my worm near where I threw the conch shell, and BAM I caught a fish. 

All hail the magic conch!!

Ok now for my week, and this also is my week for being a year out so... I did have an enjoyable time at Pizza Hut. Uhm, this week we really tried focusing on our investigators, but they kind of blew us off every time... Tuesday on our way to go to their house, they called and said Thursday.  Thursday they called and said Saturday. Saturday they called and said at church . AT church they called and said they were out of town until today... So we still weren't able to meet with them. Our plan was to get them on date for 3 weeks from now, so we'll see how it goes with them soon.

In other news just some less active work. I'm learning that a bunch of the less actives don't remember anything from the missionary lessons... So...That's awkward. Anyway, I'm reteaching them the lessons, because I feel it's necessary for all members to know the plan of salvation and the gospel of Jesus Christ. :)

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfiltri, saudara dan saudari!

Happy Raya Day, brothers and sisters! (It doesn't really translate very well in English...)

Just imagine a bunch of of Muslims going off a month-long fast and then you understand how every single store is completely run out of food.

This week was pretty good. Our work was a little slow cuz we have to be back home by 6pm, but our investigators are doing super super great. They had their son over for the last time we taught them, and they invited him to learn with them. The daughter wants to learn too, but she is having difficulties getting over the Sabah border. (not that she is illegal or anything, but Sabah isn't too friendly to Philippines right now) The three of them came to church and the mother tried to pay tithing, even though we haven't taught her about it yet haha.

President and Sister Mains came on Friday, so throughout the week we made the house super super clean, and we meant to keep it that way after they left, but that's not what they had in mind. They had known beforehand the senior couple left a bunch of stuff at our house in boxes, and they took those boxes out and for 3 hours we went through it and sorted out what to throw away and what to give to members. Our house is in shambles right now, as we're trying to sort out the stuff we sorted through. President bought us Pizza Hut though, and threw down 100 ringgit. That was awesome. 

Hari Raya is today, and we went to some Muslim's houses and ate at their place for a while. Literally making us sick... But it was fun too. Never been in a Muslim's house for real. And...that is about it. :)

Love,

Elder Vincent