Hello Everyone!

We are currently sitting at Changi airport after Zone Conference, thought I would write a quick letter for our week until now.

Monday night we started exchanges with Elders Stowell and Elder Jensen. Elder Stowell had served in this area before, so we were able to stop by and say high to a lot of less actives he had met before, it seemed to be a good thing for them.

Tuesday morning was District Meeting, which was actually mostly me. Elder Poppleton had felt to ask me share some insights we had been talking about, especially about how you can be Obedient without really being righteous, like Laman and Lemuel, or the Pharisees. It led to a lot of really good discussion, and turned mostly to Charity by the end.

Lunch at Cheese and Tea was good.

After doing The Thing for a while, Elder Stowell and I went to some places for contacting. He is a red head from Utah, and very nerdy about movies and such, so I listened to his rant plesently all day long. He had remembered a potential family that had a talking parrot, but they were all asleep when we arrived at Jalan Kedandi, but their next door neighbor Kevin, a chinese man, Buddhist, was kind enough to give the time of day. We had the common ground of a belief in Heaven, so we gave him a Plan of Salvation pamphlet with the Chinese Elders number.

Later we had felt to go to a place called Tabuan Laru, where we found that the Sisters in our branch had also went that day! Elder Stowell said that if we had both felt to go there, there was obviously a purpose behind it. We said a prayer and walked two houses down before turning and talking to an old Iban man sitting outside his house named Vincent. He had been given an English B.O.M. by a seniour couple a while before, so we gave him a copy in Malay.

Wednesday we arose, packed, and cleaned the house until the Taxi took us to the Airport for Zone Conference! We flew to Singapore for our annual 90 day visa run and three day stay and conference, but our flight was unusually late due to Chinese New Year. We got to the stake center about 7 P.M. to eat ice cream and see the end of what I'm sure was a good activity about presenting yourself in 30 seconds. We went to the hotel afterwards.

Thursday brerakfast was at Subway, and a glorious day of Spiritual Enlightment followed. The morning session was based on faith and how we build it, with a new mission vision for 2015 and standards of excellence. We have been challenged to do three things, find a new potential every day, two new investigators a week, and have an ultimate goal of baptising weekly as a Zone. It's been so amazing to see how much the mission itself has been building itself up since I've been here, and TODAY is my six month mark.

Lunch was all you could eat pizza with the mission slide show. The only missionaries there were all from East Malaysia, as West and Singapore had their own Zone Conferences earlier in the week.

Then came the Testimony meeting for all the departing missionaries in the next two transfers. Sister Anderson is going home next week, it's strange to see our sisters go from our group.

After Dinner and a zone conference picture, we had a real treat. We FINALLY got to watch Meet the Mormons! It was glorious.

Also, the man from the Spiritual Vertigo mormon message gave a fireside for us about future decision making,

Now it's Friday, going back to Kuching soon, love you all!Hello Family!

Here's to finish off the week!

As we were flying out, we were sitting in the terminal when I saw a man working on some power point on his laptop that featured a bible verse. Every time I go to Singapore, I pray for the chance to find one person that needs a B.O.M. more than anyone, and I hadn't been led to anyone yet. His name was Ivan, and he was a Christian Youth leader for a church in Singapore. He was going to Kuching to visit some friends, and very friendly himself. We talked for a while, and I shared him a verse from the Book of Mormon to introduce it to him. He kindly denied then, but I walked past him after he had taken his seat. I leaned over quickly and told him I knew the book was true and I sincerely wanted him to have it. He took it, and after we landed came up to me and thanked me for giving it to him.

We had a lesson Friday night with a less active, Valorie, and her non-baptized husband, when right after the opening prayer a bunch of her in-laws walked in the door. We don't know why they visited, but we were able to start teaching them all. The lesson we had planned had felt a little weird for the original family, but it went perfectly for the people that walked in the door. We gave them some materials, and the dad even looked up 'Alkitab Mormon' on his tablet as we showed them the book. He asked us to help him, and he now has Gospel Library on his Tablet. They didn't live in our area, but they were prepared. We passed them off to the Sentosa Elders.

Saturday the Chinese Elders called and asked us to go on temporary exchanges with them, as Elder Eggertson was sick. They had a lesson and it was their branches turn to clean the chapel, so I went with Elder Durrant to teach and dust the pews for a couple hours, then that night we attended a baptism for the Batu Kawa branch.

Sunday was present, but every thing fell through, so we went to follow up with some potentials for a while before dinner and Reporting for Elder Poppleton.

At midnight last night a random potential investigator named Nor Din called the Sentosa Elders phone, and scared us all to death until we found out he was probably drunk.

Till next week, this is Sister Anderson's last P-day! Love you all!

-Elder Christensen

Hello Wonderful Family!

This week, I can finally say, every hard week has payed off.

Here we go.

Monday night we had a great lesson with a less active, when our branch president invited us to attend a family night at his house. It was with Bro. Mandoh and Sis. Santi, who have been struggling for a while, but we found that the entire night was for them. President Changgai just taught a lesson about how great the Gospel is and asked Elder Poppleton to testify. He is such a great Branch President, he's been working so hard just on his own.

Tuesday, Elder Poppleton gave a great training on the differences between Stimulation and True Happiness. Part of our mission focus right now is finding Joy through Diligence and being worthy for daily miracles, and it's been working great so far. The biggest thing I learned from this week came later though, keep reading!

Wednesday, the great missionary work-halter of Chinese New Year began with a bang. Literally. huge fireworks until 4 A.M. Most of our members went back to Kampung for the next two weeks, and also some investigators. We also had exchanges with Elders Jensen and Stole. They apparently have been struggling for a while, but it was great just to talk with Elder Jensen that day. We went out to explore an area our Branch President suggested, which we found was completely Islam and Chinese. We did contact a very intelligent Chinese man in town for the season who teaches English to Ibans.

Then my tire went flat (2nd time that week actually), heavy rain came down, and every bike shop is closed until tomorrow. I've been riding a rental from Elder Pryzbyla, but I'll need some money in my account soon.

Thursday was a great weekly planning, before we started exchanges with the Zone Leaders. The town was desolated, as if a Zombie Apocalypse had happened a year ago. We visited the Governmental Administration building for fun.

The Next day, while I was with Elder O'Bryent, an amazing thing happened.

We had basically contacting planned the entire day, but E. O'Bryent had a brilliant idea to try something neither of us had done before. We started with prayer after lunch, they step-by-step planned exactly where to go by planning bit by bit what to do all day. We ended up deciding on three locations. We went out and acted on our plan, and although it might have seemed fruitless, we felt confident that we were where we needed to be in God's wisdom.

Saturday, Elder Poppleton and I did 'The Thing' again, and it was one of the most glorious days of my mission. We went back to a street we had seen before, to find many more Chinese houses then we remembered. Then we saw a man working on his car, and contacted Musiem, a Bidayu Christian that was very friendly and open. We talked for a while before leaving him a Kitab Mormon and setting up a day to call and meet again.

Then we had an appointment with Dion and his family, who would have been baptized in December last year except for not having a marriage certificate and having a difficult work schedule. President Changgai followed, and explained Self Reliance, a church program to help with the work schedule, and had a paper to help them get a marriage certificate. They then pulled out a completely valid marriage certificate from Indonesia, apparently they had thought they needed a certificate from Malaysia. Now they are working with President to obtain a better work schedule to attend church again.

Then we had a lesson with Jimmy, son of a less active, who brought a friend named Fidelis. He was really smart, really opened, and enjoyed learning about Jesus Christ. He asked us to meet him next week Saturday.

Sunday, our attendance actually increased because a lot of less actives came with work off due to the holiday. The District president attended, and praised the branch from the pulpit for having the first reverent, Spirit-filled sacrament meeting he had ever attended.

After praying for guidance that night when a less active lesson fell through, we were led to a man named Jeffrey wearing his father's old fedora. He talked to us for a half hour, telling us about visions he had which correlated to the spirit world. Everyone else thought he was crazy, but we just pulled out a Plan of Salvation pamphlet and explained that our church had restored truth that verified what he had seen.

Needless to say, life is great.

This work is the Lord's work, and the closer that we work with him the the more he will lead us.

Love you all!

-Elder Christensen

Hello Wonderful Family! 

Probably a shorter letter today, I have a lot of emails to respond to from last week. But that's a great problem to have!

Zone meeting was great this last Tuesday. The mission focus right now is trying to always be sensitive to the spirit, so that we could always be ready to take every opportunity to share the gospel. Door contacting is getting less and less prevalent or effective, but President believes that, when we are worthy, we will be able to see such opportunities come every day. 

Our Opportunity came at the end of the week, after a week of exploring, contacting, and 2 flats tires (one each). That might be leading us to the realization that Tabuan Dayak might be the only place that Elders and Sisters have been doing work for a reason. Everywhere else is industrial, Chinese, or private neighbourhoods. Maybe. 

Anyway, last night we met with a less active, Sister Sai, and her 17 year old non member son, Jimmy. We had been wondering about Jimmy before, but he had never really showed much hope. He has a lot of friends from other churches, and seemed a little apprehensive about meeting with us. We were able to sit with him and his mother though, and answered some questions he had about Jesus Christ and what will happen to other churches. The lesson lead into baptism, and he accepted to test Moroni's promise that night, and to be baptised if he knew it was true. It was an awesome miracle, and a great pick me up after a long week.

Saturday was a fun day as well, with a greatly planned Branch Valentines day party. We are so lucky to have President Changgai. He planned it entirely around increasing the love in the family, and Elder and Sister Slider were the keynote speakers. We also sang 'love is spoken here' with the sisters.

Love you all so much! We just got haircuts and have a nice, relaxing p-day planned.

Love you!

-Elder Christensen