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!!

 

 

 

 

Week 36 - Zone Conference In Singapore

Hey guys so just another week in the Malaysia Singapore Mission. This week we went to Singapore for our zone conference which was very needed.

But anyway we left on Wednesday and we had some time to go to Chili's before we needed to be back at the church so a huge group of us goes to Chili's except some of us get split up through the trains and what not, and we actually didn't know how to get to Chili's but fortunately we found a guy that worked there that was on his way to work so we followed him and he was the best server I've ever had. I had a Santa Fe salad, bottomless chips and salsa, and a chocolate cake to top it off. I was pretty content with my meal. We got back to the church for just a little training on family history from the Moulders and then later that night just chilled.

Zone conference was good too, but perhaps a little long. We had a brake for lunch for pizza, and then a 2 hour brake for dinner which we went to Carl's Jr for (YES FOR BACON!!!). Then I tried my first Monster before a zone activity, and I was just jumping off the walls for about 30 minutes, and then I had a hard time sleeping, but that's ok cuz I just knock out on planes. (What a blessing)

uhmm... yup then subway and what not. Ate some cookie crumbs... bought a few new ties and then the guy there gave out a lot of his ugliest ties out for free (with goofy and gumby and sailor moon, etc).

Then we get back going through KL and then back to Bintulu. We got back around 8pm so our night was basically over. The next day we just met with our investigators again and they're still progressing... Yup. That's about it.

Sunday rolls around and it's raining super hard. I left my umbrella at the church so I wore a garbage bag on the way there. (What a sight) We had a pretty good attendance despite the rain. Bujang (the father-in-law of our recent convert) had a daughter come from Kuching named Rainny. We met with them that night and had a nice little testimony meeting with them and taught about the importance of having a testimony and sharing it with others.

That's my week. Yay and now for transfers this week.

Just found out that  my companion is being transferred to Ipoh West Malaysia and I am staying here in Bintulu East Malaysia.  My new companion will be Elder Scott Sheranian.

Love,

Elder Vincent

Week 35

Hey guys so this week was just as busy as the last week. We have really focused on our 3 investigators, Boby, Therissa and Netelen, because they are the closest to baptism.

They did really good this week. We finally got all of them to pray by themselves and Netelen even taught a lesson on The gospel of Jesus Christ, the word of wisdom, and obedience to the commandments. That was really awesome of her. Even Therissa wanted to teach a lesson but it was already getting late by then.

Then we finished teaching them everything and we had our baptismal interviews with them.  Netelen has been reading the book of mormon constantly.  She is to 2 Nephi already. She picked me to baptize her. :)

We decided that we would put their dates to the 19th so we could have enough time to teach them more.

Also on Saturday, we had a district-wide activity. We taught our branch members how to make a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich, and that was our breakfast in the morning at 6:30.  All of our investigators came including another friend of Therissa's that she herself wants to help teach. (awesome investigators!). the first hour we taught 20-minute workshops on For the Strength of Youth.  Me and Ormsby were in charge of Music and Dance. I took an idea from a seminary teacher and decided to play a variety of good music and bad music to help them understand which songs invite the spirit and which don't. Turns out that they all are scared of Skrillex and Eminem songs.

Afterwards we attempted to play some games like Running Man, which is pretty hard when it's a hot day, Capture the Flag, which they just cheated at and the game was over in 5 minutes, and a game with blind folding people and then trying to find your friends by using different calls. At the end, it was the Elders and Leaders pouring water all over them with their blind folds on. What a day! Then we got home and took it easy for a couple hours before we went to teach our investigators. We got to the church and all the people that usually help us teach them are still there from the activity. They were absolutely hysterical because they were so tired. They didn't go home to sleep and so anything we said or did just make them laugh. So we had a different member help us teach on Tithing and Fasting.  And....That's about all for my week. :)

I am going to Singapore this week for Zone Conference. Wednesday morning I go from Bintulu to Kuching to Singapore, and then Friday we go to KL and back to Bintulu. Should be fun. :)

Love,

Elder Vincent

 

 

 

 

Week 34

Hey everyone again. This week was basically the same as last week. Except our pool of investigators is continuing to grow, and it is expected to go out of control this week.

Highlights:

Olivia, the daughter of our recent convert got interested in being baptized after teaching her parents about the temple.

Terissa, the friend of Netelen who has followed her to lessons, has brought a friend to church also, who happens to be in a part-member family anyways. 

Hey! so this week was one of the most stressful weeks ever. But a fantastic, hard working week as well.

Here is why:

We are still teaching our investigators, and then they have all decided to bring their friends. The only problem is, we now have to split our lessons, because our first investigators are already learning about the commandments, while their friends still don't know about the Restoration. So we have a chance of teaching 2-3 lessons per night. The only problem we have is that it's very difficult to find time to meet their families if we are teaching them every night. (And they all want us to teach them every single night).

Netelen, Boby, and Terissa are getting close to baptism, but two of them had to go back to their "hometown" (called kampung) for a few days, so we may wait a week or two before their baptisms. 

Evelyn and Tawi were together one night we met them and talked about the temple with them. It was a really cool experience, because after teaching about the temple, we asked them to prepare for the temple. Then Wat's daughter, Philomena, said Olivia hasn't been baptized yet. So instantly Olivia wanted to learn so she could go to the temple with them. Nice spark of interest I haven't seen before! 

We also got to see our recent convert, Preston. He has been swamped at work for this whole month working from 7am to 10pm at night, so we haven't seen his whole family at church until this week. It was fun to see them again.  :)

Week 33

Hey everyone!

So this week was very very quick. Here are my highlights of this week:

Elder Ormsby came back from Singapore on Tuesday night. He brought the mission call of a sister in our district, and she opened it and she is going to our mission on the 9th of May!

Another brother in our district was called to the Auckland New Zealand mission and he is going on the 22nd of May!

A sister in our branch came back from university, and has decided to get ready for a mission, and has activated her family because of it!

We have still been teaching Boby and Netelen. Their other friends haven't come for a while, so we will try talking to them this week. Might have an issue between family but I'm not sure. Netelen also decided to talk to her best friend about the church and she has started to learn from us. Her name is Tressa, but everyone calls her Key. (It's a kpop girl name I guess) So those are our main 3. Key's parents seem like they might be interested in learning too, but we just haven't had opportunites because we have been soooo busy. We also are teaching Suziela and Felicia, they are part of part member families, but they are really awesome families! I'm excited to go to their house every week. :)

A lot of good work was done this week. I am really happy with what I'm doing, but of course, I'm still not the best missionary or best teacher, so I know I can do better. Let's go for it! :)

Elder Vincent

Star Fruit

Week 32 - Cookie Baking Activity With Relief Society and Youth

Hello! so It's about time I send a letter. This week was just really crazy with lots of stuff going on, so I will have to just summarize a lot of it.

Highlights:

Making cookies with the relief society and youth! success!

Got 7 people on date, and 4 of them progressing in just one week alone. 

Okay so this week Elder Ormsby went to Singapore to check out what's wrong with him, but he got better after a couple days so he has been in Singapore staying with another elder that has an eye infection, so he will be coming back on Tuesday.

But in any case, we had a lot of referrals come to us the week before Ormsby got sick, so it was my goal to contact all of them this week, and it was a success. So...honestly, they are all children. Three of them are part member families, and then four of them are referrals from members that are their friends. So my goal for this week is to try to get their families involved (it will be easier to do that when I actually have a companion and have the time to go visit them all separately) because I don't want them to get automatically less active right after they get baptized. That's my biggest fear. 

But the kids I'm teaching seem to be really interested in learning and being baptized. I have brought a young man, Berendin, with me to help teach them all. He has been really awesome at teaching them. Shout out to him! Watt has also been helping me a lot to teach them too. It really helps to have members with you, especially since I had no companion for a week.

Boby, Mextervenson, Alexson, and Cincan are friends of the branch president's son, Adrien.

Netelen is the niece to one of our members, Sister Erin. She came to church with a different member across the street and now has a strong desire to be baptised.

Felicia is a girl I've been teaching for a few weeks now. Still working with her :)

Suziela is a girl of a part member family, Sister Jessica wanted us to teach her. 

So this week will be supppper busy with these kids, getting them ready for baptisms.

I am also excited to contact a family that has been living with this Filipino member that he wants us to teach. Immediately our work has changed from working with less active members to teaching people. It has kind of effected our attendance though, we had a pretty low attendance cuz I couldn't visit as many members as I usually could. When Elder Ormsby comes back tomorrow, we are just going to go hard on working with this branch, more than ever before.

Bintulu is the best!!!

Love you guys! Elder Vincent

 

 

 

Week 31

This is my weekly report...because this was basically all my week. not much happened besides this. So my companion, Elder Ormsby, went to the hospital Monday after passing out.  They admitted him for the night and they just gave him some antibiotics.  They couldn't really find anything abnormal about him. Everything was fine, but they weren't sure why he had passed out. So they kept him one more night, and released him on Wednesday morning and gave him an antibiotic.

So from Wednesday to Sunday, he just rested. We had a few appointments but maybe one for every day. Nothing to heavy for him because he just did not feel good all week. And of course, he doesn't like to just stay inside the house. It gets a little boring, but on Sunday, he had a hard time going through all the 3 hours of Church meetings, so the Stevens, the senior missionary couple, took us home.  Sister Mains decided that it was time enough that if he was going to get better, he would be better by now, and since he isn't she sent him to Singapore. He should be there for 3-4 days, but I can't really tell how long he will be there.

As for me, I will be with the Sungai Plan Branch Elders until he gets back. We will just have a pretty busy and hectic week, trying to work in both branches at the same time. But we will figure it out! :)

 

Please include my companion in your prayers.

 

 I'm including a picture of the week of a really cute Girl!

 Lala