Another Week in Butterworth

This week we were able to teach Catherine a handful of times, but not as much as we wanted because we went on exchange in a town that is two hours away from us by bus, and so that took up about two days of traveling and what not. Catherine is very ready for her baptismal interview, which we are having tonight. I talked to her on the Phone Tuesday night when we were following up with her for her book of Mormon reading. She was in Alma, reading about the Anti-Nephi Lehi's. She bore her testimony about how cool it was, she thought, that those people had that great faith to die for their cause.   

I am getting transferred, and I am pretty sad about it. This has been my favorite area and I have thoroughly enjoyed the last two transfers I have had with Elder Florence. I am city (biggish (?)) in East Malaysia, which is the other half of our Mission that is on an island is quite a bit less developed. 

We have had a good week here, and were able to set up an activity that we hope will be continuing every week for the next week. We will be starting a YSA Family Home Evening, that will be happening tomorrow. We are hoping that our branch members will start inviting their friends so that we can start to grow the branch. 

I am grateful for the people I have teach, and I hope those I am still teaching here will continue to progress after I leave.

Sincerely

Elder Allen

Cockroaches

Well, I actually don't have anything on cockroaches, other than the fact that they hid under the outside portion of the church ceiling to hide from the rain. They were huge, (at least a couple inches long). 

It is definitely the rainy season right now. We got drenched on the way to our Branch Mission Leader's home for our missionary coordination meeting on Friday, and ended up cutting off some branches of his tree after because the wind and rain was so bad that his tree was banging against some of his porch roof and breaking it. Penang (the Island across the water) got it really bad, and you can check out videos of the Penang Flood if you want (our member showed us some pictures).

Catherine is doing well, and is progressing well. We have had a member at every single lesson that we have taught her (probably not that impressive to missionaries serving in the US but we are very grateful that it has happened that way). We taught her about praying every day, reading the scriptures every day, and keeping the Sabbath day Holy. We also taught her about the Word of Wisdom (which was very helpful to have a member present for as they know which teas you can and cannot drink). We taught her other things as well. In one more lesson, she will have been taught everything that she needs to know for her baptism and confirmation interview (which will be one week from today).

We taught her yesterday about Keeping the Law of Chastity, and about the 10 commandments. She had come to church for the first time that day, and we asked her about her experience. She said it was good, but that there were a few things that seemed strange at first (such as singing the hynms) that she got used to by the end. During church, our Sunday school teacher went into a meeting with Elder Florence, our branch President, and one of our other investigators, and I was told to start Sunday school. I did, and the Sunday school teacher never actually showed up, so I taught the whole thing. Lesson 34 in the Doctrine and Covenants and Church History Manual, and reviewing the previous lesson. 

Catherine says that she has been facing a lot of opposition. And a lot of her friends have expressed open opposition and disapproval to her decision to be baptized. It seems hard for her, but she expresses a surprising amount of faith. It was really helpful in our last lesson to have a member share his experience about how his family and friends rejected his joining of the church, but how they now (after 7 years) are slowly starting to come back.

We have had a mission wide study of Humility recently, and I was able to feel a lot of peace through my study. I have found that being real, and being thankful for the things that I have been given, has brought me a lot of peace in my life. I feel more aware of what is going on around me, but I feel like my faith is growing despite the imperfections I see in myself and the world around me.

Ipoh Zone Conference - September 8-9, 2017

Thanks to facebook,  I have these great pictures of the Ipoh zone conference just days ago.

The Rain Came Tumbling Down

This week's title comes not because we are built on a sandy foundation, but because the rainy season is definitely under way. It rains almost every day in the afternoon now. But we will live.

Well, this week, we had two awesome lessons with our investigator Catherine. First off, when we asked her about the Book of Mormon, she had read all the way up to 2 Nephi chapter 2 since our last meeting. She shared with us a scripture that meant a lot to her as she read. She liked the scripture in 1 Nephi 15:11. She shared about how she thought we needed to not harden our heart, and then we would receive answers to our prayers. 

It helps that she has a Christian background. One thing that was cool while we taught her was how we asked her about her thoughts, and she volunteered the information that before meeting with us, she had kind of thought that all the purpose in this life was to excel in work (professionally). She said that after she started meeting with us, she has started thinking that there is more to this life. catherine 

We invited her to be baptized, but she said that she needed to understand more first. Later, after the lesson, she told us that basically she had thought over it more, and that she really did want to be baptized, but that she was worried about her parents. She then asked if she could be baptized earlier than the date that we suggested, and so October 2, her birthday, is her scheduled baptismal date. 

On our second lesson this week, we shared with her the gospel of Jesus Christ. Again, she shared with us a scripture that had meant a lot to her from her reading last week (this one from Mosiah 3, a chapter that we assigned her to read last week). She shared the scripture Mosiah 3: 11 

11 For behold, and also his blood atoneth for the sins of those who have fallen by the transgression of Adam, who have died not knowing the will of God concerning them, or who have ignorantly sinned.

 Catherine said that the fact that Jesus Christ had died for her, even though she didn't know him, filled her with a feeling of His love for her. We taught her the rest of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and found out that she is near the end of 2 Nephi (she had struggles with the Isaiah Chapters). Our branch President did a good job reassuring her that this was normal, and that she was doing fine. Our branch president also reassured her after the lesson when we talked about how she could ask her parents about baptism. He told her that as her parents see the change in her, they will see that it is good. A few days went by, and we followed up with Catherine. She had asked her parents, and although her dad said "ok," her mom said no. Catherine told me on the phone how she had born her testimony to her mom after that. This is pretty amazing.

Other news, we did a lot of finding this week. We knocked on many doors. We went to Ipoh (a two hour bus ride to the south of where we are) to have Zone conference. It was good, We were trained on working more with our branch members, which we were able to do last night with our Branch Mission Leader as he took us to visit his neighbors.

Picture: Found this little guy crawling in the middle of the road right next to our apartment last night. Malay people eat turtles, and we have a big Malay neighborhood near to our apartment, so we hope our friend makes it. 

Doors and Doors

Well, lets start out with a miracle.

We were contacting on a food street (lots of tents and small vendors), and we were going for about 30 minutes without too much success. After talking to a lot of people, a girl walked up to us and asked us what we were doing. We were able to meet with her, and we shared the message of the Restoration. She understood well, and actually comes from a Christian background since her school that she attended was largely Christian. She had a good lesson with us, and we were able to invite her to read the Book of Mormon. She accepted, and has been reading a surprising amount since we last taught her. The real miracle comes from after our meeting with her. She shared with our member who was present in the lesson (she has some of the best English I have ever heard from a Malaysian, but does not speak Mandarin very well - Cantonese is better, and so she talked to our member in Cantonese). She told him that she was not planning on going to the market the day we found her, but something had prompted her to go there, and when she was there she saw us and came over to talk with us once she saw us. Quite a gift from God.

Our investigator Eco is still not progressing, and we are worried about him. He texted us about two weeks ago after his girl friend broke up with him, and we haven't been able to meet with him since. This is combined with the fact that he has been working more lately. He has been texting us back recently, so we think there is hope.

This week we tracted a lot, and talked to a lot of people. On one day, a Malaysian Holiday, we talked to probably over 100 people, with about 40 of those attempts turning into conversations where we talked about the Gospel. We talked with a lot of more people throughout the week, and we had doors shut in our faces many a times. This week has been very hard, but I am grateful for the chance that I have had to learn and grow.

Sincerely

Elder Allen