Quick Overview: Transfers!

Well, I am very surprised that I am now being transferred to Singapore (I hear they have really good Chinese there) seeing as how I have only been one transfer in Sitiawan. I am going to be District Leader again (yikes) and I will actually probably feel like a District Leader because there will be other Elders and Sisters in the District (not an outpost like Sitiawan). 

This week was pretty good though, and we had exchanges, so Elder Gould went up to the Zone Leader's area and one of the Zone Leaders came down to Sitiawan with me. I was grateful for the opportunity to go on exchanges with Elder Ng as he was a great example of how we can contact on the way to a former investigators, or less active person's house. Elder Gould and I did more of that following the exchange. While I waited for Elder Ng to arrive, I was with the some other member and I invited them to read the book of Mormon Consistently - as part of an initiative this year.

One of our big highlights of the week was our English class. We had 5 attendees on Thursday (1 member) and 12 on Friday (2 members). We saw new families and there are about 6 young Single Adults who attend the class.

Well, I feel like I should throw in some of the cultural things that happened. 1. I ate squid, stingray, and and exotic fruit called "jackfruit" on Saturday. 

Well, I am out of time, but I know the church is true, and I will let you know more about Singapore next week!​

Zone Conference!

This week we went to Zone Conference in Singapore! 

Shout out to Elder Todd in Calgary for sending me a letter. I was pretty surprised to 1. get a letter  2. have that letter be from Elder Todd and 3. find what I found inside the letter. Check out the picture to see the awesome Elder Nugget name tag!

Last Monday, when Elder Gould and I took a two hour bus ride to get up to a city called Ipoh where the Zone Leaders stay, we went to a cool castle built by some British man a long time ago as well as went to a cave that had some cool Buddhist statues. I am not sure why we went up to Ipoh so that we could stay there for all of Monday, but we did what our Zone Leaders asked us to and we had a great time.

We flew out of Ipoh on Tuesday Morning (it was a super small airport that only has one plane going at a time, I got to walk right up to the plane and get on it instead of going through some tunnel like you do in big airports). We then flew into Singapore and spent part of the day on an exchange with the only pair of Chinese Elders based in Singapore, and then started our zone conference that night.

We spent a lot of time going over the missionary broadcast that was sent out about a month ago from Salt Lake City that talks about Teaching Repentance and Baptizing converts, as well as the new missionary schedule changes. I really liked the training that we received on teaching the Doctrine of Christ, and applying it into our own lives.

One fun part of Zone Conference is getting to stay in the Pasir Panjung house (I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but the church has bought a fairly large house that basically just houses missionaries when they come in for conference.) That means that we get real cereal and real milk for to nights - quite a commodity for Elders living in Malaysia.

One quick thought from one of the things that Elder Bednar mentioned in the training that was given for the world-wide broadcast. He talked about fear, and how the main effect of fear is for us to not do anything - to not take action. Therefore, as we learn to recognize when we are fear, we can decide to act and so begin to conquer our fears by not heeding them.

Nathan's Zone in Ipoh at Kellie's Castle with Sister Koh and her son

Mary's Notes: Construction on Kellie's Castle, in Ipoh, began in 1915 and ended abruptly in 1926 with the death of Scotchman William Kellie Smith. Some believe the castle is haunted.

About half an hour way from Kellie's Castle is the Kek Lok Tong Cave Temple, also in Ipoh. It was used as early as 1920 as a place of worship. In 1960, the cave became part of an iron mining site and is now a tourist attraction.

Ipoh is the capital of Perak state in west Malaysia.

Nathan got Matt's letter when he got to Singapore on Tuesday. How in the world did he get an Elder Nugget name tag?

Pictures from Zone Conference

I gathered these precious photos from the Singapore Missionary Moms Facebook page - my happy place.

This was the Singapore Zone and Ipoh Zone Conference in Singapore, February 14-15, 2017

Elder Allen and his companion, Elder Gould

Jaden Howell, Lehi friend

Nathan - first on the left

The Big Blue

This week's email topic is a quote from someone who we talked to while we were contacting at the mall. Long story short people here are quite fascinated with people who have blue eyes, and I have gotten many comments on them. Lots of times, people ask me if I am where a contact lens, because that is a big thing over here.

Well one week ago on Monday we played badminton with our members, and it was my first chance to do that while in Malaysia. Today, I am emailing from a place called Ipoh (a two hour bus ride from my area of Sitiawan) because we are preparing to leave to Singapore tomorrow. The internet 'cafe' that I am in right now does not have wifi, and my computer does not have working usb ports, so I apologize for my lack of pictures this week. 

This week we had some good success while contacting, and we found what we suppose to be pretty solid potential investigators. We also had a good turnout for our English class, and we had our highest count of 6 people at our class, which makes things a lot more fun. We had the opportunity to meet with one of our investigators named Florence, and we are so excited with her comprehension and her ability to understand. 

This week, as I prepared for zone conference, I read in the second book of Nephi about the doctrine of Christ. I read in Chapter 31, and reflected as I have in the past about the reason that Chirst was baptized. I like how Nephi asks the question: how did Jesus Christ fulfill all righteousness by being baptized. We learn that it is to show unto the children of men how exact they need to be as they follow Jesus Christ. But to me, it also shows me that we need to have faith that we need to be obedient, even if we do not see a reason for a certain commandment. How could we ever justify disobeying a commandment if we truly believe in following Jesus Christ?

Church and Home in Sitiawan

Bill has been able to find, with lots of Nathan's help by email and google earth (yay for streetview), his church and home in Sitiawan, Perak, Malaysia.

Their house.

Their church is one of the doors left of the market in the center.

The Road to No Where

I feel like I have not been very creative with my subject lines in the past, so here is my attempt to get a few more reads from this week's email. "The road to no where" is kind of vague, but it is in response to an experience that we had when we tried to visit some less active members this week. We got over to the flat complex (kind of like apartments) a little after 7:00 so it was already getting dark. We had a list of 9 families who were listed to live in this complex, and every door we knocked on was either empty, or housing a family that did not know the people we were searching for. Those kinds of flats are definitely the sketchiest type of places I have been in, especially at night when you are walking in the dark and you don't really know what you will find around the corner.

So that was pretty big disappointment that we were not able to find them. Also, it seems that our active members don't really know too much about them...which is a problem (all of the families we tried to visit are Iban, Malay-speaking people. Our branch is almost exclusively Chinese speaking). But, we have hope that things will work out, and we did have success in meeting with a few other of our other less active members

One great part of our week came from contacting a former Investigator who had used to be really solid, and then suddenly was out of contact with the missionaries. Her name is Florence, and she went to New Zealand for 6 weeks, so every time Elder Gould tried to call her over the last transfer, the call never went through. We called her again as we were calling through our Former Investigator sheets, and she answered! She then came to church and we had a lesson with her. It was wonderful to see the strong relationship that she already has with the members, and to see her really searching to see if this church is true. 

We also had a branch New Years party this week that was really fun. We were able to see the members have fun together, and also saw some of our less active young adults get involved and have a good time. I attempted to draw some characters, and I think that my calligraphy still definitely needs some work. As we promise with God that we will follow him, he blesses us with the spirit, which brings increased capacity to do good, and also brings feelings such as comfort, peace, and love. I know that everything that God does is because he loves us, and when we do what he asks, we will be happy. 

Other than that, our week was pretty normal. We struggled a little bit earlier in the week with contacting, but we had a good day on Sunday. One thing that I am working in is keeping people engaged in the conversation, teaching according to their needs, and then relating our message to the Restoration.

Lastly, I want to bring up one of the concerns of our Investigator Florence this week. She asked if it would be ok for her to just try to follow the teachings of the church without committing to them so strongly as to be baptized. Alma, as he teaches his followers in the land of Mormon, near the waters of Mormon, addresses this question. In Mosiah 18: 8-10 he talks about some of the things we promise when we are baptized. He says: Now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him, that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon you?   As we promise with God that we will follow him, he blesses us with the spirit, which brings increased capacity to do good, and also brings feelings such as comfort, peace, and love. I know that everything that God does is because he loves us, and when we do what he asks, we will be happy.