Pictures are back!!

Vanicom! 🙂

First off just wanna wish my beautiful mother a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! I know it’s not until Wednesday but just pretend this came on Wednesday! 😉 I hope you have an amazing day and get to have some fun with those hooligans 🙂 I love you! 🙂

This week went well. Zone conference was good. It was a little bit different than the last but that is expected with a new mission president, right?! It was very spiritually uplifting and edifying! We learned a lot about becoming PMG missionaries and how we are going to start implementing that into every part of our work. I am excited. I love Preach My Gospel. It has so much great stuff in it. We also talked about the Simmons and got to know them a little better! President Simmons reminds me a little of you dad! I was dying when they showed us the video of when they opened their call. He is just a funny guy. He is also a lot of fun. They both are; full of spunk. It’s nice. They are willing to try new things which I think is great. We talked about how they are going to try and prepare us for the future when we leave the mish. That was an answer to my prayers, haha. Also, one thing that stuck out to me was that an eternal relationship is like a triangle, God at the head, you, and then others or someone else at the base. That is the only way a relationship can be eternal. I love that it goes with any kind of relationship we will ever have.

During Zone Conference, I stayed in the hotel with Sister Hales for the two nights, which I was kind of thankful for. I didn’t have to use a towel as a blankie to stay warm like the first night, haha. After Zone Conference we did a post zone activity and it’s usually like a fireside thing that is really hard to stay awake in, but this time we played games. We played lightning and it was awesome!!! I miss playing ball. We played a couple rounds and the first round I got out because I was worried about my skirt flying open. But never mind, I just tied that puppy together, pulled my hair up and went for the next round. I was like the only girl that would play…what the heck! It got down to the last two, me and an Elder and it was so funny. Every time I would hit a shot, they were all shocked. But then it got down to me and an Elder and….whaadd up! I beat him. Haha! You would have thought I just won a state championship. They went crazy and came running to give me high fives, haha. I was like, “What, haven’t you seen a girl play ball before!?” Then that’s all I heard the rest of the night! Made me laugh!

The night we flew back from Zone Conference, we had an appointment with Parkium, the coconut investigator. We waited for the bus for like 1 1/2 hours and I was ready to give up. I was tired and it was getting late we weren’t going to make it home in time! But Sister Chamings said we couldn’t go home, the traffic jam was so bad; it would be ok. We called Bany an Elsa, the members who were coming to translate to Tamil, and they came and fetched us. It took us forever to find the flats she lived in and it was now even later. I was not a happy camper! After some off roading and searching, we found it. She was soo happy to see us. She was watching her two nephews. It was pitch black at this point and they are so poor that they don’t have electricity. The only source of light in her place was a tea candle lit at the Hindu shrine. She sent her husband to go get candles. He came back with 2 candles, a bottle of strawberry soda and a tiny 3 oz. yakult for the two kids to share because he didn’t have enough to buy two. We lit the candles and stuck them to the cement and sat around them. We taught her about Christ and his importance. Then she wanted us to pray with her and teach her how. After we prayed, her husband felt the need to pray as well so he started throwing his hands in the air shouting, “Prayin haleighluia Jesus” That’s about all I could understand. It was in Tamil. Kind of frightening, ha. But the two kids were so precious. They were soo excited to have us in the home and just wanted us to love them. The two year old kept sitting on my lap and saying, “Momma this, blah”. Then the six year old was so fascinated to talk to us with his big toothless smile. Ah, I did all I could not to cry right there. I just thought how special these two kiddos are to our Lord and how precious. They are so happy, yet they have nothing. And how they went and bought candles and a beverage for us yet they don’t even have money for electricity. It was a humbling night for sure. Let’s just say I left in a better mood than I arrived in. Sometimes Heavenly Father puts us in situations to help us see that we need to not think of ourselves so much.

We did a Member MTC for all the members of the Subang Branch! It was way fun. We just taught them how to become better member missionaries and help them feel more comfortable sharing the gospel with people. They all seemed to really enjoy it. Elder Reynolds didn’t come and he was the master mind of it! Sister Chamings, Elder Reynolds and Elder D got sick right when they got back from Singapore. I’m not sure what that’s all about but I hope I am not next!

Our investigator pool may become really small here soon. We are struggling to get them to progress and there is not much more we can do. Maybe it’s just not their time right now. The Indian children especially. And Smit, he is starting a business so he never has any time anymore. I might have to go burn something down, haha. No, we just need to visit with him and see if he really wants to learn because his date is set for the 22nd and right now he still has too much to learn. We didn’t get to meet with many investigators this week, but we did get to meet with some less actives. Carmen is such a sweetheart. We met with her one day then the next morning she called us in a panic because her Mom went into the hospital and she is away here at college and not in Ipoh. So we went and met with her again the next day. We also were able to meet with Brother Emmanuel. He is from Nigeria. I love that guy. He has such a strong testimony and so much class. He’s the most fashionable dude ever!