Week 37

Hello all again. Good to talk to you again. So much has happened in the last week that it feels like forever since I've written to you guys. So as some of you already know, Elder Ormsby was transferred to Ipoh this week and he is training a greenie. I think his name is Elder Marvin or something? English elder, so his posterity has been tainted. Maybe it is because he didn't drink enough Mountain Dew...

So I guess I'll start with Monday. We basically had a huge party with the church members on Monday night. People gave lots of gifts to Elder Ormsby for his going away. Lots of people signed his Book of Remembrance, etc etc, took lots of pictures, stuff like that. 

Tuesday we tried to send his sword home. We went to four different shipping places and they are all scared to send it probably because of everything with MH 370. So we have made plans for it to be sent to Kuching with our friend Mazura (because she goes to school in Kuching) so hopefullly it made it there, and then the senior couple will take care of it there. 

Wednesday we just went around meeting a lot of the members, and then had a party at Martha's house at night. Once it was time to go home, it was very difficult for everyone. The members all had tears in their eyes as well as Ormsby.  Even I did, but that is also because I know I will have to be doing the same thing in a month, or three if I'm lucky. 

Something that Elder Ormsby said that really has changed my perspective on missionary work was roughly around the lines of this, "missionary work isn't hard because of the people that reject you, it's hard because the times you have to say goodbye to the people that love you."

So Thursday morning he left and then Elder Sheranian came in that afternoon. He got settled in and then we were on our way to meet all the members. Honestly it's been such a blur lately of everything we've done. We've continued to teach our investigators. The people seem to like him, but losing a missionary that's been in one area for 7 months definitely was a hard adjustment for all of us. 

But anyway, I'm excited for the future of this branch. I honestly hope I have some more time in this area, because the members are so amazing. 

We finally got to meet the family of Therissa and we got to teach a small lesson to her mom. She seems interested, but she has some pretty ridiculous working hours. 

We also got to meet Olivia again and go over the Restoration with her. It's been about a week and half since we've got to sit down and have a lesson with her. 

We had general conference, but it didn't work out quite as well as we had hoped. On Saturday they were starting to watch the womens general conference but I changed to the actual morning session, 

and then on Sunday our branch watched the morning session, and the other branch didn't come, and so the other barnch watched the evening sesion, and then our branch didn't see that session. Kind of was messy. But there were some good talks in there. I'm going to be watching it in english later on so I can actually understand all of it. Listening to translators is tough because they use the most monotonous voices ever. It's hard to listen for an extended period of time.

Anyway, love you guys. Talk to you later. This be week 19 in Bintulu, the greatest area ever!!