Hey everyone!

This week, I could summarize everything I learned in one sentence: God's wisdom manifests itself in everything, and his wisdom is used only to love His children.

It's been full of good news and bad news.

Here's the bad news.

-We weren't able to meet Bro. Bangga, his sister in law passed away and they were in kampung attending the funeral. He also was not able to attend church.

-We weren't able to meet Bro. Jihap. We had planned to meet him after church, but he his son needed that car for work. They read the BOM together at home (I guess that is good news :-).

-We weren't able to meet Bro. Asin's family, who also had a relative meninggal dunia. They also were not at church.

-Sis. Mariana is on date for the 22nd, but she was not able attend church because she needed to help her sister with something in kampung. She was going to attend church in Stampin as it is later in the day, but she wasn't able to make it.

-Elder Call had two flat tires this week. Once in the front and once in the back.

-It rained a lot. We probably lost a days worth of proselyting due to lightning.

Here's the good news!

-Sister Wina, a Semi-active member, called us and invited us to a barbecue with her cousins, friends, and older sister. We had a great time, discussed spiritual things, and essentially had 3 referrals received and contacted. They want to meet again this week and come to church.

-We had two amazing contacting days. Both times were in areas we had never gone to before, the first day we met three people that had either met Elders or the Book of Mormon from either a week or 10 years before. The second was in a place called 'Sri Borneo', and we had two contacts that we had really good feelings about.

-Bro. Mike handed out the offical home teaching sign up sheet, things are rolling along!

-We met some new investigators that, in the spirit of Grandpa Jello, are perfect for the Gospel not as much because they are prepared but because they need it. Sister Musnah and her Chinese husband that I can't remember her name are our new investigators we met on the Street. Sister Musnah used to be an active Christian until she was fed up with all the churches that taught people and the people would not live their religion. Her husband had a stroke years ago, and the family is on welfare from the Islamic Buddhist societies.

-We went on exchanges with the Sentosa Elders on Wednesday, and had great day of contacting, me and Elder Tessers. It was way fun, Sentosa was the only area I haven't been in at all. We found a new kampung that the spirit was way strong at, finding a lot of prepared people.

The end message is that we do not feel deterred at all despite all the bad stuff. It was all in God's plan for the purposes we are slowly starting to see revealed to us.

This is the work of God. I know it, and I love to live in it.

Love you all!

-Elder Christensen

Hello wonderful family!

This last week has been another whirlwind. Ain't no rest for the Elders.

Monday we got to the Sarawak museum after it closed, but we had a great day wandering around Waterfront and the War Memorial next door. It was a cool, misty day, kind of felt like Washington DC.

That night we had an interesting miracle. We had our appointments fall through so we went to the 24 hour grocery store to do some after-dark contacting. As we sat at a food court for dinner, a Bidayuh man walked up to us saying he had met Elders at a bike store earlier that day. He still wasn't interested in meeting again as he was a busy government administrator in the Bidayuh counsel, but he took a restoration pamphlet and our number (without taking ours).

Tuesday had a great district meeting led by Elder Newing about being a Proactive missionary compared to a Patient one. It went really well, we practised responding to common refutes from initial contacts as companionships.

We had a lot of potential investigators fall through this last week, but a lot of cool things have been happening with the members! We met with Bro. Asin and Bro. Govin this last week in preparation for an exciting meeting that happened on Sunday. For the first time, Home Teaching is starting in Batu Kawa, as well as some other branches in Kuching. We already have many appointments to assist many of the diligent priesthood holders here to do it for the first time, they all promised to complete their assignments by the end of the month. The best part is that we didn't do anything to instigate it, we just offered our services.

The last 4 days President and Sister Simmons have been in Kuching with the A.P's. They were very busy, but they visited all the missionary apartments, met with the priesthood leadership, we went on exchanges with the Assistants on Friday and with President Simmons on Saturday. We had the 'distinction' of being the first missionaries he did exchanges with. 

Bangga had a dream that he was building the house of God, so we lent him a copy of Mountain of the Lord in Indonesian.

We met a grass cutter that referred his friend that both lived in Sentosa area, doing well.

We had a miracle lesson with Lawrence the (now former) security guard of our appartment. He met us and told us he had decided the Book of Mormon was just another bible and he was fine as as an RC. We asked him why and started to answer his questions, which he'd just hidden under the surface. His eyes literally popped out when he heard that there are living prophets and apostles though. He is deeply insightful and devoted, so we told him the story of Mormon and Moroni and challenged him again to Moroni's promise. That was all we could do for him.

So much has happened I can hardly write it all!

Love you all so much!

-Elder Christensen

Hello wonderful family!

Here's a story we just heard

The Dayak people had a tradition of leaving the bodies of stillborn babies in a basket and hanging them in the trees in cemeteries. A family had just done this for their little boy. A week or so later, an older man died, and when that happens they usually wrap them up in a mat and carry them to the burial plot on their shoulders. The family had just done this when they heard a baby crying. They looked at the basket in the tree to see a large jungle cat jump out. This cat had heard the baby cry and nursed it for a week.

That baby was the grandfather of our Elder's Quorum president, Bro. Mike.

Crazy weeks are crazy, and busy, and wonderful. I love you so much, I love this country, I love the people here, I love being a missionary.

Monday was fun, we were able to meet again for a B.R. singing day at the church again.. Tuesday mornin' started early when we sent Elder Stowell to the airport. He, Elder Lambert, and the Przybyla's were all leaving that morning, so we went to the airport to help the Sliders. It was really bitter-sweet, some of Elder Stowell's recent converts came to the airport to show him off so a lot of tears were shed. Elder Ee was left without a companion, as well as Elder Gara, so we put them together for the day. We were waiting for Elder Jahali, asal dari Kuching, who was also finishing his mission to pass through the airport so we could take his luggage for him. He somehow had troubles at immigration though, so we were delayed long enough that we had to do our reporting with the A.P.'s sitting at a little coffee shop. 

We barely got everyone to the KDC in time for District Meeting, where we locked up the luggage and managed to start on time. With the new Districts, we only had 1 District Leader in Kuching and we were missing a lot of people with the transfer that morning. We had a combined meeting then, giving Elder Bester a chance to give a final training of his mission to prepare us for what we were meant to do. He did a profound training, using Ammon defending the flocks as what we should do for the branches here. He has a profound love for Kuching, and was not happy to be leaving. He also did an activity involving plastic plates on the floor to show how we need to work with branch leaders.

We were busy getting things logistically coordinated for a while after that, but eventually we got home.

There was a lot of crazy other things that were going on this week, we got everyone in their area by the end of Wednesday though. There are a ton of new missionaries in the zone, and all of them have seen incredible miracles this week. We had a lot of people fall through the next couple days, but we saw some very compensating miracles. 

We have been cooking in a lot this week, because of Mr.Ng from last week. We were able to go Saturday morning to help him harvest vegetables to send to the market, then transport and unload. He was very grateful, and paid for our lunch. As we were cleaning vegetables we had great discussion about church and such with him and his wife. He told us that next Thursday was his hardest day and most profitable, so we said we could come back with the Chinese Elders :-)

Friday night we called Augustine, we had been trying the entire week to get in touch with Jihap, and he finally answered. Augustine told us that there had been forest fires near Bau and they had been helping to defend their neighbours gardens. Augustine had gotten a bug bite though and was sick, asked for a blessing, but the problem was that that weekend was the end of Ramadan and was a public holiday. All the members weren't available, but through a miracle change Elder and Sister Hammer were able to bring us out there. Kevin, Augustine, and Jihap were all there, Augustine had improved dramatically from the night before and was healthy, so we just reviewed Priesthood with Elder Hammer doing a great job explaining separate duties. They blessed and passed the Sacrament on Sunday.

Sunday morning we had another miracle, Mariana and Layau were able to attend church because her father drove them, they just had needed a ride home which the Govin's provided.

Bro. Mike also did a miracle starting Home Teaching in Elder's Quorum, we so happy to be a part of supporting the Priesthood here in full fellowship.

That night the Govin's took us to some Hari Raya houses with their family, and we found a new family through a referral, Sister Ge and her childen. They were very smart and had lost their Bible years before, so we were more then happy to supply them with a new Kitab :-)

Love you all!

-Elder Christensen