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.