WEEK #80 - I'm Filipino

Ni Hao ma? (How are you in Chinese)

Another week flew by! Here's some things that happened this week:

The shades

On Monday we visited the mosque, a place of worship for the wonderful muslamic people here in Malaysia😊 The interior design and architecture is beautiful!

 The Sibu Mosque.

 Arabic writing

Elder Hong taught us how to make chicken adobo, and it was waaaaaaay good. I'm officially Filipino!

AHHHHHHHH this took me around half an hour later to get me focused on missionary work again hahaha.

"The Sibu 2 Sisters gave us a good challenge this week. If we didn't get 2 hours of finding in everyday (meaning the time spent talking to people about the gospel), Elder Haerewa and I had to eat butter (AND YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I HATE BUTTER), and they had to listen to an alarm of that cat Christmas tie my mom sent. Well, WE WON! Now they have to listen to it for the next month! Hehehe

 Brownies 

Elder Hong and I went on exchanges this past Wednesday. We went finding in sungai merah. There was a chain of shoplots with rooms for rent. The first 3 stair cases were locked. We saw a guy walk up the last stair case and ran after him. The first thing he said to us was, "You're from the Church of Jesus Christ, right? Come upstairs to my house!" We thought this was a joke. Turns out he was a member from the Sibu Jaya branch, but moved here to Sibu a while back. He couldn't come to church on Sunday but recently found a job that allowed him to. We read the Book of Mormon and helped their family of 6 feel the sacred Spirit again.

 Free burgers for preaching the word!

Thursday we normally do English class advertising. As we were handing out flyers, this man stopped his truck and said he wanted to buy us some water. Without further explanation, he runs a red over to the gas station and gives us some water. When we asked what his name was he wouldn't tell us. When we asked where he was from he wouldn't tell us. When we asked what he did for work he said he couldn't tell us. Either this man is some spy or he's one of the three nephites. Really nice man though, we got free water!

Free English classssss! 

On Friday we took the 3 hour bus trip to Mukah for exchanges. I went with Elder Vijayakumar, an Indian from West Malaysia. He's been out in the field for 2 weeks. He is already really good! We tore it up there for the day.

This is how we roll.

Elder Evans, a member of the Seventy (the body of church leaders under the 12 apostles) came and visited Sibu! It was focused on motivating youth to serve missions. He shared one verse from Alma 27 that can be applied to all aspects of life. Verse 7 says:

 Elder Evans, a member of the Seventy

"And Ammon said: I will go and inquire of the Lord, and if He say unto us, go unto our brethren, will ye go?"


Put this verse to test every time you have a conflict: "If Heavenly Father says unto you (x), will you (y)?

If Heavenly Father says unto you (read your scriptures), will you (read them?).


Look how big this banana is!

Love you all have a great week!

WEEK #79 - The Trek to Zion

Howdy y'all??

This week was way crazy!!!

There are a lot of responsibilities that we have as missionaries. On a daily basis we need to keep track of members we want to work with, members who haven't attended church in a while, new members, people learning, people with interest, people who have been previously taught, missionaries in our area, and much more. I am so grateful to lose myself in this amazing work.

Every 1.5 months there needs to be a focus for a certain amount of missionaries (called a zone). Elder Haerewa (my companion from the land down under) and I wanted to mix things up. Our focus for this month and a half is called, "The Trek to Zion." Early members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints migrated west when heavy persecution took its tole. Those saints, or pioneers, where the forefathers to a better world. As a Sibu Zone, we have our own "trek to Zion." Zion means "unity" or the located intended to be traveled to by the Pioneers. We have our goals we want to achieve which in a sense can represent "Zion." Having the video be shown is a lot easier than describing it, so I will send to link and hopefully it works. On the trek we face a lot of obstacles and challenges, but alas we made it to Zion.


https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xikJGy5NuX00q9VbMUN312AS_gD3NQPZ/view?usp=sharing_eil&ts=5c3be9c5

On Wednesday we had MLC which means "Missionary Leadership Conference." It was 6 hours long. We discuss the needs of the mission and give training accordingly. As a Sibu Zone we decided to have a goal of 100 baptisms this year! I am excited.

Andre's family has a date for the Temple!! They will be leaving this December! Ahhhhh so awesome.

Missionary work isn't always kicks and giggles. If someone where to let you into their home during tracking(knocking on doors), that would be considered an OTS, or "on the spot lesson." Elder Haerewa and I knocked on the first two doors and we got into both of them. Each had a big family. After we shared with them the message of the restoration, both families decided to not continue learning. It is what it is, we are here to "reap the harvest."

The most appointments I've ever had in a day was 8. That was this past Saturday! Normally a lot of appointments "fall through," or are cancelled. For the first time, every one of those appointments happened! It felt like we were running around Sibu for the whole day but it was so awesome to have happen!

Sunday was a miracle day! Brother Khimmy is going to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood, ministering is finally starting, the branch attendance goal for this year was 120 and we had 106, there were 10 people learning at church, Brother Khimmy's relatives are on date, and we got free fruit, (rambutan!).

In that last paragraph, there was a lot of terminology that many of you might not be aware of. You are more than welcome to talk to a member of the Church or my family so they can helped you learn more!

Love you, have a greaaaaaat week!!

WEEK #78 - How Ah Ya Mate?

Hello hello!

The Shades

Does everyone have their new year resolutions? Send me them if you are brave enough. When I was a kid my mother had me write my life goals, When I was 6 years old, I wrote these:
1. I want to be a good moose hunter.
2. I want to be married in the temple.
3. I won't cry when other people find deer antlers.
4. I wont smoke or drink or kiss girls.
5. I will let my mom kiss me when I get home from my mission

I am still destined to accomplish them all! Haha

The Chinese new year platform. 

The Stare

Transfer news came out and Elder Cox is going to Masai! I came from Masai to Sibu, and he came from sibu to Masai. He will love it there.

The companion that's leaving

My new companion is Elder Haerewa, from Brisbane, Australia. He's been out for 6 months and is just as fired up as I am! We will work really well together. Unfortunately he didn't bring any nutella or Vegemite with him.

The stud named Naning

On New Years Day we had a Branch Activity. We did a member missionary workshop. There were 3 stations: at church, in a lesson, and sharing the gospel. We role-played scenarios of new people coming in the church (how to fellowship them), members coming to a teaching lesson(how to bear a sincere testimony). and sharing the gospel(how to invite non-members to learn more). It turned out really well!

The chapel!

The Workshop! 

Saturday morning we were up and out the door by 7 to teach an appointment at 7:30. Brother Naning is doing amazing. He is the one that finally sat in on a lesson after his wife was a member for 10 years! He is on date as well for the 9th of March.

The Umbrellas. Every store or mall has a bucket of umbrellas. Everytime it starts raining, anyone can talk one and be safe from the rain! 

The Lilliepads. 

We were planning to have a lesson with Brother Bilong right after he came back from work, but he went to his friends work first. We tried to find him but were running around in circles. We stopped by this one guy named Joshua. Turns out he just moved to sibu 2 DAYS AGO. He doesn't have work on Sunday but he normally goes back to kampung (his home village) every Sunday. We were able to just give him our card and walk away, but Elder Haerewa asked, "When do you come back to sibu?" He replied, "10am." Church starts at 11:30am so he can definitely make it!

The District!

We were finally able to meet with Brother Bilong and set a specific vision, with specific goals and plans to help his family become eternal. What an exciting turn of events!

The Eternal Family of Bilong

Love love love you all, have a great week!!!