Week 26

Okay so I guess I should be sending you guys a weekly letter of what's going on.

This week starts out with a wonderful nonstop rain for about 4 days. It rained and rained and rained and rained some more. This is the reason why so many people are sick right now. That includes me and Elder Ormsby, although I got it a lot worse. He was able to endure through it a lot better than what I had.

On Tuesday, we were going to have our district meeting, but we were on our way to the chapel in Park City (Elder Stevens picks us up almost every time) and he hit a HUGE pothole. It literally slashed his tire open. So... we got to the side of the road and immediately the cars stacked up behind us (because there is no such thing as the side of the road besides a bunch of mud)

It was pretty funny because we were there for 2 hours and so many people were mad at us.

We didn't have a jack or lug wrench so there was no way we could put on a spare tire, so we had to wait for a mechanic, but the only way to get to us is through all of the traffic.

Needless to say, our meeting was postponed until Wednesday, which we got a taxi instead of having the senior couple getting us. We didn't want to go for a second time through that.

So something that has been driving us crazy are these cats that just meow and meow while we sleep, while we study, etc etc. Ormsby is ready to kill them. 

Our investigator, Evelyn, is doing really well. She is still reading, praying, and coming to church. We are teaching her about the plan of salvation right now, which was perfect because our topic for church yesterday was about the creation of the world. 

We found an American restaurant and we got fish and chips. It was delicious...just saying. :)

That's about it. I'm feeling a lot better now. :) Just hope we can do more work this week. :) 

Love you all!

Elder Vincent

P.S.

Ahhhhh already a fourth way done. :O :O

Week 25

Hey guys,

I have a pretty small email this week just because not a lot of exciting things happened this week to talk about. I didn't even take pictures! Sorry. It's been really rainy all week so I didn't want to risk taking it out of the house.

So this week involved Elder Reid going home. He is an Elder in our district that has been really really cool. He was a great leader. Always made sure we were working strong. It was really sad to see him leave even though I knew him for 6 weeks only. I will definitely miss him a lot!

So I got my transfers though. I am staying in Bintulu with Ormsby for another 6 weeks, which I'm pretty happy about. :) 

We had to buy more food on Wednesday because we didn't want to buy food on Monday. Why buy food if you're going to leave in a couple days? I'm completely poor from zone conference though. I have 100 ringgit (30 dollars) to last me the rest of the month. That usually lasts me about a week though.

We have continued to teach Evelyn. She came to church this week with Brother Wat's daughter. We taught her about the Book of Mormon and the Restoration and she has had a ton of questions for us.  We have her on date for next month sometime, so hopefully she continues to progress!

This is something I don't quite understand though. She told us that when she reads the Book of Mormon, she feels a peaceful type of cold. She gets so cold that she has to wear a jacket (and her house is pretty hot too). Then later she said she got hot and then cold. I guess it could be the spirit? I just have never heard that before.

One day we went adventuring a little bit. We took a van to the hospital, because there was a person that we needed to find. Couldn't find her though. Then we went to a place to look for houses. We tried finding the person selling new houses, but the guy didn't want to sell it to us because we were missionaries. Then we tried to get another van back home, but no van wanted to pick us up. So that was a tough day! Just everyone seemed to hate us, but ou well. We finally got a van that took us home for free! Yay I love free. :D :D

Other than that, my trainer, Elder Dailey has come to Bintulu! :D should be fun to have him again in my area.

Love you guys. The weeks are flying by now...

Miss you!

Elder Vincent

Week 24 - Conference in Singapore

Hello everyone!

This week was a very fun one, but also very productive as well. 

I guess I will start out with my Zone Conference.

I went to Zone Conference, which is in Singapura, on Wednesday. It's about an hour and a half plane ride there from Kuching, and it takes an hour to get to Kuching. (So I was on a total of four planes this week).

When we got there, we dropped our stuff off at the church and went to a place called Sentosa. It is basically like a fun American park, but better. We went to an aquarium this time, and saw a ton of really cool stuff. Sadly my camera didn't do it justice, but I got some pretty good ones. I'll try to send them with this letter. After we ate at chilis! Yamai-lah! (Delicious!)

Our zone conference was the next day on Thursday.  Elder Wilson, a member of the quorum of the seventy, came to talk to us. It was really cool! He shook every single person's hand and talked to us for a few seconds. I found out that he graduated from Highland High School in 1968! It was good to see a fellow Idahoan (because there aren't very many of those here).

He taught really good stuff about how to ask people to be baptised and how to use the Book of Mormon. (The cool thing was is that on Saturday and Sunday we asked 3 people to be baptized, and all of them said they would. Only one of them would commit to a specific date.  I will talk about that in a minute.

After our Zone Conference, we went to Marina Bay. That is the place that has all the really pretty stuff that if you Google Singapore, you will find everything about Marina Bay. We didn't go to the main areas. We heard there was a light show, so we went to that part instead.

There was this huge bowl there designed so that you could speak into it and everybody could hear from you anywhere around the bowl. It was pretty neat. We played with that until the light show started. But it wasn't what I was expecting. They shot water out of the lake and they played a 12 minute video on the water, and shot fire out at certain parts. It was really really cool!

Then we got home and we met all of the people we contacted last week. We had a really really long lesson with our chinese investigator, because he went on and and on about the Bible. We tried to end it, but he kept talking. It was successful though.  I just hope we don't have a 2-1/2 hour lesson again next time we go.

Then at Brother Wat's house, there is a family living with them. Evelyn is not a member, so we have been teaching her. We set her a baptismal date in February, so if I stay in Bintulu, I hope I get to see that happen. :) :)

At Sister Sheera's house, we had a great visit with her and her dad. Apparently we are the first elders out of many to get him to read the Book of Mormon. That was something cool I found out this week.

This morning, we went to the beach to have our "end of transfer" barbecue. We forget a lighter though. Good thing this is a Muslim country and everyone smokes, so we were able to get somebody to help us out. It's kind of funny though to think about though: "Thank you, Heavenly Father, for still having people that smoke on this earth." Somebody said that jokingly.

That's my week! I hope all of you are great. :) I am really hoping I stay in Bintulu, but I am still waiting on transfers. The mission president had a hard time getting home last night because his car battery died and so did his phone, so he wasn't able to finish transfers, so I just have to wait for now. 

I love you guys! Have a indubidibly great week.

Elder Vincent

 

Week 23

Hey guys! So this week was really great. Super busy too!

I will start out with my New Year's Eve day. No, I did not do any partying that night. I was way too tired and I knew that the next day would be too tiring for me anyway so I just didn't bother to stay up till midnight (plus I'm not supposed to anyways)

But we had a great couple surprises on the 31st of December. The first one was how we have been meeting Wat lately, and his daughter just appeared out of nowhere! so she started school and is staying with him until she finishes high-school (she is 13 now). That was a really nice surprise so he can be with some family now. :)

The other great miracle that happened this week was how we went to Sheera's house, who is one of the less active members that we went to see on Christmas, and we gave a Book of Mormon to her father, and he seems really interested in learning. So we now have a new investigator! We haven't really had any investigators besides Preston, but now that might change this week.

We went on splits this week on Friday. I went with Elder Reid, and we decided to do some contacting. We found 3 families that are really good potential investigators, and I am super excited for that. Then the next day, we found 3 more people we could teach. People were just literally flying at us this week that we have appointments with throughout this next week. It was so insane. We don't even have much time this week to do a lot, because we are going to Singapore on Wednesday and coming back on Friday, so we really have no time to meet people except Saturday and Sunday.

The other great thing that happened this week was Preston's baptism. We have been teaching him for a few weeks now, and he was really excited to be baptized. He is the only one in his family who hadn't been taught about the Gospel yet, but on Saturday he got baptized, along with the branch president's kid. Elder Ormsby baptized Preston (and he put him down in our GREEN WATER font pretty far so he made sure he was completely immersed)

I will have to send you a program sometime, but I will just send you a picture soon. :) That was basically all my week. Baptism, and lots of new people to teach. :D I have a feeling I will move again, because we are just having way too much success, which is really new to me. I definitely know that God is blessing us at this time. I'm truly grateful.

I love you guys!

Elder Vincent

Week 22

Hello everyone! So this was a super busy week as you would expect at Christmas.

Some of you already know about this, but I will explain it for the sake of this email.

Christmas is NOT celebrated in Malaysia. It is not a holiday. They don't celebrate the birth of Christ at all. Instead, it is "Hari Makan" which is the Day of Eating. 

This is basically what my Christmas was like. It started on Christmas Eve evening, and we went to 2 dinner appointments, and they stuffed us full until Elder Ormsby and I were both sick. Then the next morning at 10, we started at our branch president's house, and ate a ton, and then went to 7 other members houses throughout the day, and if you don't eat they will just say "Don't be shy! Eat more eat more!" And by the end of Christmas, we are just soooooo sick of food. I hated chicken curry after that day. The day after Christmas, I ate one meal at a members' house, and that was it. I didn't want anything else to eat because I was so sick. But horray for Skyping that day. :D :D

During the week, we met a few people that really made my week. For start, we found a lady named Sister Sheera that hasn't been to church in a few months. We went over to her house on Christmas Eve and she was really really nice. We watched the movie Joy to the World with her family. 

The next day (Christmas) we went to her house, and we found out that her dad was never taught about the Gospel, but he was interested in learning. So we taught him about the Restoration of the Gospel. That was a pretty cool experience. He speaks better English than Malay, so it was weird teaching in English. We're hoping to go over again for New Years day. :) (Btw, his name is Simon)

Preston is our investigator that I've been talking about. and guess what! He stopped smoking on christmas eve! So we are almost set for our baptism on this coming Saturday. He just needs to be interviewed. He will be baptised by Elder Ormsby. Really super excited for that! :)

Thanks for the Christmas presents! I have been eating all the candy pretty slowly though because I just feel sooo fat right now from Christmas. Good thing you can just sweat off the weight here basically.  Love you all! :) 

Sorry I have very few pictures this week... I barely did any picture taking it was such a busy week.

Love,

Elder Vincent

Week 21

Hello everyone. So this week is finally heading up to Christmas and I am super excited to Skype you guys! :D :D But I am not excited for Christmas eve or Christmas because I am eating and eating and eating and eating...I have plans to meet with so many members. I am going to be soooo sick.

But anyway. I should tell you about my week. :D

To start out with, Elder Ormsby and I got up early this morning to go meet with a less-active member. Unfortunately, we could not find them at all. We tried calling them and found out  they're at work. That was kind of a bummer. BUT as we were looking for them, we tried searching around the area, and we found another less active family that is really struggling. So we are going back to her family to meet with them on the 24th. :D (Tomorrow I guess, wow, that's so quick)

Uhm....

So we went to Kuching on Friday and it was soooo fun! Jeffery picked us up from the airport and we went shopping (and he bought us curry puffs and doughnuts! :D ). Then we ate at the mall there, and then we stopped at a Christmas store that had nativity sets. There were some nativity sets that were 1000 dollars! but I got a decent sized one to bring home for you Mom. :D

He took us to the KDC chapel and we got our mail :D :D That means I got a Christmas package from Ellie and a few letters from you, mom. :D ou, and one from Diane Schow. I read them and it was all really nice. I haven't opened the package yet though. I want to wait till Christmas. :D

Then we had our Christmas conference with our mission president. It was really good, but it went 6 hours instead of 5, and the 6th hour I was just about super super tired. I really was ready to go to sleep (in fact, I couldn't stay awake for the full Christmas devotional so I need to watch that again) 

We did a service project too by helping put lots of materials into bags to go to the kids in Kuching. It was crazy cuz we had like 50 missionaries all in one place.

That night I showed the other elders the mall in Kuching. I bought a media player there and also had some amazing food there. The Blessed Church (Chinese church here) came to carol at the restaurant we were at. That was pretty cool. :D :D

So the next day we got up at 5:15 am to catch our flight at 7:10 am. Sooooo tired..... So our Christmas party at the church started at 7:30 pm, so we helped a little in preparing for it. Brother David and his family took care of most of it though (the German who married into an Iban family)

That was a really fun party. I took a lot of pictures which I'll send in a little while. :D

Mazura is a member that was going to college in Kuching, but I found out that she lives in Bintulu, and came to see her family (Brother David's family) for the week. It was really cool to see another member. I tell her that she is just following me around. 

Preston, our investigator, is doing really well. He is down to 2 cigarettes a day, which is super good. We've challenged him to stop by Christmas, which means he can be baptized on the 4th of January! :D We also blessed his wife, because she has been having a pretty hard pregnancy. 

It's been a crazy week and this week will be even crazier! I'm so excited to talk to you guys again.! Don't forget, alright? :D :D

Week 20

Hello everyone! Time to talk about another great week in Bintulu. This being my second week in Bintulu still, I'm still new and I don't know exactly what I'm doing quite yet, but it's still pretty good. :)

There is so much to write about and so little time, (or I am just too lazy to write everything down)

First off I will start with a culture prospect. So....here there is no milk....At all...Well there is millk, but it is like 5 times more expensive than in KL and Kuching. So all we have is milk powder, which we mix with water and bam, milk. It's okay, good enough for cereal, but not for drinking. Ou well. :)

We are working with quite a few less active members. I will start with Martha!

So Martha is a member that Elder Ormsby started to reactivate in the church right before I came here. She has been really good and has a really strong testimony. We have started to teach her the lessons and we want to make her comfortable in teaching it back to us, so that she can teach her husband things. We want to try helping her with teaching her husband, but he doesn't believe in anything so missionaries in the past haven't had any success. But we will see! :) She also got me a Bible in Iban, which I am super excited about. It's almost impossible to get one of those, so I feel really lucky to have bought one. :)

Preston is our investigator, and he is the nephew of one of our less active members, but because we are teaching Preston, his whole family has become super super active, and now the uncle (Bujang) has a teaching calling. We taught him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and we also talked about the Word of Wisdom. Turns out he has a problem with smoking (as does 99% of everyone here in Bintulu) but he said he wanted to stop. This is really cool because he said he smoked 20 cigarettes a day, and then 2 days later, we asked him how his smoking was, and he was down to 7 a day already. Super super awesome!!!  He's progressing quickly.

Sister Listi is a member in the other branch, but we found out she could teach us how to make stuff out of beads. We went there twice. Once, she taught us how to make chili peppers out of beads, and then the second time, she taught me how to make a neck tie (the missionaries of course love that) So I have been making a neck tie. I think it will look really cool but I'll send you a picture of the small bit that I have already done. :)

Sister Sena is another less active member, so we have been going to her house. Like I said last week, her son was having problems with his stomach, so on Monday, we found out he went to the hospital because he is having appendicitis. We went there to give him another blessing. We haven't been able to meet with her since then, though.

A couple nights ago we had a sarung night, where we wear those little skirt things that Muslims wear. We took quite a few pictures which I will try to send in a second. It was really funny because we were trying our best to do our "kampung smile" which is the term for the people's smile here. They always look super super grumpy when they take pictures. 

Ou hey did you know that Vincent was a name for a cigarette brand? One of the members always tells me that. He will say to me, "Hey how are you a missionary if you are smoking all the time?" :D :D

So this week, we are going to Kuching for a Christmas conference!! :D :D That will be on friday. We get up early for our flight at 7ish, and then we have a couple hours. Jeffery is going to pick us up to go to Rhyno, an Iban store. Then we will stay the night and come back to Bintulu. Should be great. :D :D I'm excited.

So yeah, on the 26th, I will be skyping with you guys. :) dont forget! :D Just kidding, I know you won't.

Love you guys,

Jesse