April 27, 2015 - Transferring back to Sibu

Hey guys! this week was first of all transfers. My flight with Elder Yang and Coloma to Sibu was at 7:30pm.  Monday we visited Sister Dorkas' family for the last time and had just a great family home evening, played some games, and had a down to heart conversation together.  It was an expensive taxi ride though because prior to their house we were playing at another escape room, and we got out a bit late, it was like 6 pm when we finished so the sisters and us took a taxi back instead of busing back (which would have taken ages!) and ended up to be 90 ringgit.

Tuesday was our district meeting good byes. Elder Thatcher and Elder Halpin had left to go to Singapore by this time. Elder Hobbs followed us for the day, and we just met a few of our favorite members and those we couldn't meet in time we just called or texted.  I'm going to miss KK so much!

Wednesday was mostly just a bunch of waiting until my flight! I was way nervous about immigration, but by the time I got to the counter, I noticed that their computers were broke and they were just writing everything by hand and so even then they just wrote down my passport number and gave me a normal pass. :D :D :D

Since then Elder Chang and I have been trying to figure out our area together, which is pretty tough because the past elders have not updated the area book for the last 3 months, so any investigators that are "supposedly" on date will have to be taught again, if we can even contact them, since we have no idea where they live or what their phone numbers are.... So we've basically just had a clean start and making the best of it. It's been a long week out in the sun, but we've got a few things going a bit. Should be getting better each week. :)

Love,

Elder Vincent

April 20,2015 - Another Week in the Promised Land

Goooood morning everyone or afternoon or evening, depending on where you guys live.

So this week was quite interesting. 

Starting off with an investigator we found by contacting. We knocked on his door and usually Chinese people tend to just slam the door the second they see you. But this guy, having chains all around his body, opened up and gave us his number. Minutes after contacting him, we get a call and he asks where the church was, because he wanted to go stop by there. The next day we get a call and he asks to meet us to learn more at our house. Obviously we encouraged him to meet at a coffee shop instead and it turned out he has a real desire to "throw away the things of the past" as he said in Malay. Interesting dude!

Along with that, it's RAINY season again... YAY!! You know what that means? RAIN EVERY DAY! But not just rain all the time! Only when elders want to leave the house does it start raining, or if they want to leave their appointment it starts raining, but as soon as we get to that said appointment, it stops raining immediately. YAY!!! :D :D :D

We celebrated Elder Beliang's birthday which is tomorrow but we might not have tomorrow much if one of us gets transferred on Wednesday. A member made us a nice cake and then the member is going to make us both a traditional shirt from her tribe (Rungus) (look at this picture for details http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTCfQHSls4cUUQZ_uo-CSjew1rgOXiUOAq5GLKN3p3yLFMOtg5WUg )

Also, we had Elyjah my recent convert teach gospel principals. He was only asked to take about half of the class, but instead, he ended up teaching the whole thing. He is a natural teacher and he took the time to write notes and read the scriptures in the gospel principals book to do it. He did an impeccable job! I know he will be a great kingdom builder for the new members of the church. :D :D

Other than that.... oh another contacting story! haha we met a guy on the street wearing a cross, and when we asked him what religion he was, he waited for a couple seconds to think about it and told us he was Islam. Obviously not cuz 1) He's Kadazan and most of them are Christian 2) He's wearing a cross!. so we get that a lot, people say that so we don't continue talking to them about the gospel. And then my companion says "Oh that's OK. We are Islam too so we can just be friends." Haha, the guy was weirded out and walked away. 

We had a birthday party on Saturday for Samantha and Eddies' child of 1 years old (the 1 year birthday is very important to them, and they were going to do karaoke there. Well, it started off way boring. A member told me that she won't have elders write in her book of remembrance unless they do something crazy, and with that in mind, my companion and I started dancing behind the karaoke singer, and from there the party went from completely "GAH I WANNA GO HOME NOW" to "YES!!! LETS GO DANCING!!" haha OK not so crazy as that. it was just a little bit of fun there. The next day that member told me, "don't let me forget to have you sign my book before you transfer" :P so success! overall a great and fun week.

Elder Vincent

Transfers are coming today... dun dun dun...  

Going back to Sibu!!  This time Sibu 1st Branch last time I served in Sibu 2nd Branch.

April 6, 2015 - Easter Sunday

Happy Easter everyone!  Hope you had a great Easter with eggs and what not. First of all, I would like to start with my testimony of President Thomas S. Monson.  I know that he is a true prophet.  He lives and guides and spends his entire life to serve us, so that we can find happiness and truth in our lives.  It is his utter joy to bring people to the truth.  It saddens him each time a marriage is broken, or one does not believe in the church. He is a man, and as a man, has faults and weaknesses.  But God makes him to be one of the greatest that a man can be.  I appreciate all he does, and it grieves me to hear of our beloved brothers falling away and losing that truth and happiness that we know to cherish. Continue to love them, do not hate them for criticism is not the way to correction. Love is that way. 

But this brings us to a thought that I would like to share to all those who do raise their hands to support our prophet, seer, and revelator, Thomas S. Monson.  What are YOU doing to support him and sustain him?  Times grow ever nearer that the opposition and persecution of the church will grow stronger, and we cannot stand on the fence any longer.  We must make the ground to choose to follow or to not.  Remember and review the words of the prophet, and make choices and goals of what you will do to better sustain our prophet.  Renew your testimony by not just remembering the day you were baptized and how good you felt, but renew it by serving others and making spiritual experiences day by day.  Only then will you have sustained the prophet, and thus will not falter in your faith also. Satan doth ever desire you, for you can be used for evil if we are not careful, because he knows of our potential for good. 

D&C 123:

13. Therefore, that we should waste and wear out our lives in bringing to light all the hidden things of darkness, wherein we know them; and they are truly manifest from heaven—
14. These should then be attended to with great earnestness.
15. Let no man count them as small things; for there is much which lieth in futurity, pertaining to the saints, which depends upon these things.
16. You know, brethren, that a very large ship is benefited very much by a very small helm in the time of a storm, by being kept workways with the wind and the waves.
17. Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.

Did you know that this Easter also coincides with the week of Hari Hantu (Ghost Day) apparently the Buddhists burn things for their dead ancestors, and in Malaysia they have paper smart phones, paper wallets, paper watches, literally anything to burn for your ancestors! It's an interesting holiday... Little bit out of the ordinary, but interesting.

This week we didn't have general conference but next week lah! We had a fantastic week, even though all of our investigators went back to their hometown for the weekend. Didn't know Easter was so big here, wow.  Easter we had a couple big celebrations. One was our district 1st counselors's daughter's 2nd birthday. We had a huge party for them.  We taught Elyjah this week and shared some scriptures to help him get through some big trials he is having right now. The other recent convert, Steven, came back Friday from work so he should be getting the priesthood soon. :) 

Other than that we have gotten some strange people to try working with, including an exorcist. That should be interesting trying to teach him about the priesthood later. :) 

uhmmm uhmm... I can't think of anything else that happened... oh I went on exchanges with Elder Thatcher and we ended up getting lost trying to find a less active, meanwhile my companion was with Elder Hobbs and my comp was sick, so I got the better end of the deal. Haha. 

This week I also got a strange text from the Chinese sisters and asked me how to say "Where are you going?" in Czech, and I told them, then they asked me how to say "We are missionaries from a christian church" in Czech... and then later that day I asked them what that was all about and they said they met this Czech family on the bus that didn't speak any English, and they wanted to help them get to where they wanted to go, but they asked me how to say those things.  I tried telling them how to pronounce Czech, but it didn't work out. Strange since they have to learn a hard-pronunciation language, MANDARIN. :P

Dobry den! 

Elder Vincent

March 30, 2015 -District Conference, Take 2 in KK

Hey guys this week was absolutely great. We were so busy, so here are just some highlights of things that happened:

1) Taught a girl named Azura. Contacted by the sisters and when we started teaching her she was interested in what we had to teach but she had the strangest question ever. She opened up the bible and went to the scripture that said about being baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. So... what is the names of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost? Well the Father and Son is easy for me, but the Holy Ghost? where got a name? haha

2) Knocked on a door with an Indian Biddayuh campur of a guy. Really big guy. we introduce ourselves as missionaries and he says, just a second I need to get a shirt, and I'm just thinking, yup he's going for the gun. But he actually gets a shirt on and invites us to teach him. Way nice guy, and he said he really wanted to try our church out next week. His name is Abraham.

3) Sports night on Wednesday. Way fun and we had lots of good things come from it too.  Two friends came with KK 2nd Branch members and got two new investigators for the sisters (hopefully??).

4) President will be rasing our support to 900 ringgit next month since we have all been telling him we have been using maybe 200 ringgit from personal to survive. That will be nice.  I have been ok since I had extra money from Singapore.

5) We got two of our recent converts to come to a new member meeting early and one of them shared their conversion story. I was way impressed with him, being so new but being willing to share with others. :)

6) At district conference we had these two random families from Texas and Arizona, but living in Saudi Arabia, come to our conference on Sunday. They were vacationing in Sabah and decided to come to church, not knowing about our conference. Seemed way cool. First time I've seen LDS Americans besides missionaries in Malaysia.

7) We've had the Tawau elders in our house for the last 3 nights and it's been quite entertaining... Tough to get them around sometimes to appointments but it's been a blast just like the last time I was in KK when I was serving in Sandakan. Tonight we should have a blast at another family home evening. :) 

-Love Elder Vincent

 

March 15, 2015

Hey guys so if you haven't heard it was pi day yesterday (for you) and I wanted to bake a pie. Went to the store to buy some stuff, and then realized that I didn't have an oven...

I also received my mission call as of today! (for you again, my day is already passed).

 We had a great activity with our branch, played futsal with our priesthood quorum. Our team was kinda rigged though because we had 2 fat guys on our team, and only 2 people that can run around the place, while the other team was stacked with good players. In the end we fought pretty well 16-21.

This week I actually got sick, probably from wasabi. I don't know for sure, but it was probably wasabi, the most disgusting, spicy thing I've ever had. I was puking for an entire day, it was awful. Then the next day I still didn't want to eat anything. Now i'm OK and out and about.

We met with our district president who told us a lot of way helpful things on what he wants to do with the district, but needs our help. I think this transfer will be a lot of fun because everybody in our zone except 2 elders are down to do more activities and more branch-related stuff. One elder is doing a service project of cutting people's hair each Wednesday before district conference so KK looks the most "fly" before the 28th of this month. ;)

This week still following up with a bunch of our potentials. Nothing too positive but we are teaching a girl named Em that is doing really well. She was sick this Sunday, but she has been coming every week since she came to KK. We talked a bit about baptism with her and she said she would be baptised once she learns a little more. On top of that, I get to learn another language called Murut. :) as that is her native language.

March 8, 2015

Hey guys! Baptism this week.

Elder Newing baptized both of them though as he was the first one to start teaching them. I had been teaching them for the last 4 weeks though.

Well everybody was sick during the baptism because all of them ate the same pork that was not good at all, and then the next day they came to church, received the Holy Ghost, and left because they couldn't hold themselves together for three hours, :P We got  to take the sacrament to a couple of their family that just were so bad they couldn't get up. I finally met my branch president this week, as he came back to KK for a day just for the baptism before he went back to KL again.

We had Elder Funk also come this week and train us how to be more efficient missionaries. He gave me the example of a missionary starting to talk about the super bowl to his family and asked if my parents told me about who won the super bowl. I told him I didn't even remember it was the super bowl.  Now that I think about it I guess I heard about it but it seems like forever ago.

It was way good training and I was super excited about it.

 Other than that we found a way solid investigator that was referred to us last week and she has now been coming for two weeks now. She came back from her village and she said it's weird to her to speak Malay because she speaks only Murut in her village. The way to say "I want to eat" is "Asi'a aon angkan." way hard language to pronounce. :P

But then this Sunday we also got another 2 referrals, way way cool right now. That's when you know members are actually wanting to share the gospel with their friends and family. :)

And.... uhm... thats about all. for this week. I'm gonna try sending some pics with this but not sure if this computer can send any. 

and transfer news: Still in KK with Elder Beliang. :D

March 2, 2015

This week was just one of those weeks again... Hmm... Well to start off with we had a pretty good start of the week. We went to Singapore this Wednesday for zone conference.  During zone conference they focused on our new mission plan for 2015. Having achieved 365 out of 545 baptisms last year, the goal for this year is 585, and then split based on our districts. Each district is reasonable except Kuala Lumpur. They have a goal for 175 this year, and yet they only achieved 20 baptisms last year. But if they work really hard I know they can get it.  Bintulu, my favorite area's goal is 40 baptisms, and I know the elders there and they said that they are getting 20 baptisms within the next month, so I have high hopes for the growth there.

Here in Kota Kinabalu, we are just barley pushing to it. My area is barely starting to speed up in the work. I got here with nothing, and now we have 2 to be baptised this week, 3 referrals, 2 of which have started to come to church already a couple times, and multiple contacts to work with. I feel like when coming into areas like this, it's like being on a bike in the highest gear. When trying to start the bike, it's hard to pedal, so you have to stand up and pedal really hard to get it going. But if people have already been pedalling prior to you on the bike and just jump right on, then the pedalling can only get faster and faster. So the point is to keep building up the area no matter what.  Always keep a teaching pool and lots of work for the next elders to replace you. :) 

This week is going to be interesting also. We have Elder Funk doing a mission tour in our mission and we meet him on Tuesday morning. We are having all of Sandakan and Tawau elders come to KK to meet him. They should be coming later today.

Then after that we are going to go hard in our area. we need to really pump up our work as soon as possible. I have high hopes for this area and can see much potential, but it's so crucial that we find who we are going to baptise now! At zone conference, we were taught about being tigers and survivors.  In the war when bombing, there are people that go to the sites that they are required to bomb, and then come back. There are others that go and if they have fuel to hit more sites than required, they come back late. They were called the tigers. It's because of the tigers that the war was ended quicker. Same here, we have the war against Satan, and we can't just be survivors. No matter how tired we are as missionaries, we must hit that other place, even if our fuel is low. LETS GOOOOO!!!!!

Elder Vincent