before thanksgiving

Re: ‏

From:	Zachary Hill (zrhill@xxxxxxx.xxx)
Sent:	Tue 11/24/09 7:54 PM
To:	quiltingqueen57@xxxxxxx.xxx

hey ma! thanks for the pictures. they are always so fun. how have you been?
thanksgiving is going to start over here in a few hours. we have two retired couples
here in kuching, and about 12 missionaries, and we are all getting together today to
celebrate, i'm really excited. i love my zone here in kuching. it smells so good
already, but i'm gonna miss all you guys back home. i hope you all have fun as well.
nyssa really shouldnt worry about any of that getting ready for the mission. it's
really easy. no sweat. i'm sorry it's been cold. it gets a little chilly here as well
 when we're soaked to the bone, even if it is 80°! it's been raining as much as ever,
 but i love it. there's something so fun about riding through water up to your calves
. especially since people we contact into know us as the crazy guys who ride bikes in
 the rain. that's a good conversation starter. we had one family move away the week
before their baptism date, but the rest of our investigators are doing well. we are
getting new ones all the time and just teaching, teaching, teaching! it's fun. we've
been trying to involve the members a lot more and they've really stepped up. our
members here are awesome, and the lessons really go so much better with a member
there, and when we make sure they are involved in the teaching. we are teaching this
new guy named castro. he's awesome. we were giving him some homework to read before
we came back a second time and we asked if there was something specific he wanted to
read about, and he said "something about my journey to baptism." he's really smart
and speaks really good english as well. he says my malay sounds funny :( hahaha.
tell everyone back home that i love them. i'm gonna try to snail mail some pictures
out to you this week. hopefully all goes well. it's really conbersome and time
consuming to send them over the internet, so never fear! anyways, i love you and
i'll talk to you next week.
love, elder hill

a short one

Re: ‏

From:	Zachary Hill (zrhill@myldsmail.net)
Sent:	Mon 11/16/09 10:39 PM
To:	quiltingqueen57@hotmail.com

hey mom and dad. well, the p day got moved up a day because we have zone conference
this week. i guess i'll just have to read your email next week. but this week was a
good week. we put a few people on date for baptism. we have such good investiagators.
i'm so excited for the upcoming weeks. this week we have a man who is going to be
baptized. he's an awesome old guy- the father of a member in the branch. we've still
been doing a lot of contacting. we have been going through our new investigators
pretty fast so our mission president challenged us to work harder to retain them, so
hopefully we'll have more solid investigators in the future. we now have the
sacrament prayer in malay, so things are really looking up! i'm really excited for
the future. i'm sorry i dont have much time to write. i guess i'll talk to you next
week. take care and remember that i love you.
love, Elder Hill

november 10

Re: RE: weekly letter‏

From:	Zachary Hill (zrhill@myldsmail.net)
Sent:	Tue 11/10/09 7:51 PM
To:	wodenowl@hotmail.com

hey dad. oh man everybody calls me bukit garang. the other missionaries even tell
their new investigators that i'm bukit garang. the members here really get a kick
out of it. especially when we ask who is going to pray. they look over and say
"bukit garang!"

it looks like the french club is fun. i miss cheese. i havent had cheese for a few
months. haha. so all the missionaries looked over as i pulled the picture up and
thought that the girl in the pic was writing me. they make so much fun of me, but
it's hilarious. i love all the guys that are in my apartment. we have so much fun
together and get work done while doing it. the work is coming along pretty well, and
we expect to have a good number of baptisms before the year is up.

i can't believe mom fell. i'm glad she's not hurt. typical mom to start laughing
after a fall tho. she's so funny.

thanks for the letter dad. i really appreciate that you think of me. but i have to
go. take care and have fun. i love you.

love, elder hill

Re: ‏

From:	Zachary Hill (zrhill@myldsmail.net)
Sent:	Tue 11/10/09 7:42 PM
To:	quiltingqueen57@hotmail.com

hey mom
i am having so much fun here. the time is sure flying by. i can't believe you fell! you need to take care of yourself ma! haha. i hope you are feeling all right. i got a pic of the watermelon. i'll try to get it sent off to you sometime soon. the "stinky" fruit is a "durian" i dont think it smells too bad, but there are times when i'm not sure if a smell is durian or garbage. i still have yet to try it. i share an apartment with another elder from my mtc group, and he tried durian for the first time yesterday. he said he almost threw up, so i dont know when i'll try it. haha.
the language is coming pretty well. i love to just talk to the people. they like to joke around a lot, so we have a lot of fun. i'm kind of worried i might come back less mature than i went out! haha just kidding.

so we've still been doing lots of contacting. we are meeting some good people. we met a family of five and they are pretty good. the wife only speaks iban and a little bit of malay, so it's kind of tough to communicate with her. but the husband was really excited to get a copy of the book of mormon. he seems to be able to understand most of it, so it's really exciting. hopefully they'll be baptized soon.

so before i talk about this next couple, i need to explain that many people here in kuching dont have transport and the public transport system leaves a lot to be desired, so the church has a van that goes around to pick people up. so we had these investigators who were going to go to church for the first time. we walked with them to an area where the van could pick them up. we saw the van approach, and then keep going by at full speed. that was a little saddening because needless to say, those investigators didnt come to church that sunday. but it was a cool experience because they were still so happy and said they still really wanted to go to church. we had taught them about trials in this life, and the husband was just like "i guess this is just another trial of our faith.' they are really awesome. so next week they will be coming. they are progressing well and they are just a fun couple to be around.
thanks for the picture of abby's party. i forgot to tell you there is a girl that we baptized back in october that really reminds me of abby. it's fun to be around that family as well. the people here are just really really great.
anyways, i'm sorry but i gotta go. thanks for the letter. i really appreciate all you do for me mom. take care of yourself and remember i love you.
love, elder hill

a candiless halloween

Re: ‏

From:	Zachary Hill (zrhill@xxxxxxx.xxx)
Sent:	Tue 11/03/09 7:51 PM
To:	quiltingqueen57@xxxxxxx.xxx

hey mom. thanks for the letter. it's good to hear about the news from home. so we didnt
 get any pumpkins here, but we did carve some watermelons. it was pretty sweet.
hopefully soon i'll be able to send you a pic of mine. we accidently left our pumpkins
outside for like a week and there was a swarm of insects flying around in there. pretty
 scary! i couldnt find any candy tho, so unfortunately i had a healthy candiless
halloween. for shame, for shame! we are doing quite a bit of teaching. we also do a lot
 of finding. finding new people every day. we have a mission goal for 10 new
investigators each week, which is 10 people who will accept a return appointment. so
we normally have plenty of people to teach. we have a good amount of appointments
fall through, but you know it will be pretty good when the people actually let you
come back. i love teaching so much. it's so fun just talking and getting to know
people. we just help them to understand about the message and answer their questions.
 nothing better than that. i can't believe i used to be shy, because it's so easy to
 go contacting now. i dont even get butterflies in my tummy. the language is going
pretty well. people are frequently surprised when i tell them i've only been in
malaysia for 2 months. but i know i'm still not that great. the are times when i
still struglle to understand what people are saying, but for the most part, i can
get in. i can even joke and have fun with the people now. it's so cool. the people
here are really funny. we have an investigator who jokes with us so much. he's
awesome. we've been working with him to get him to stop smoking. hopefully he and
his wife will be baptized at the end of this month. also, we've gotten a few other
families who are excited. they've expressed a willingness to come to church, which
is always good. i guess we'll see how it goes this sunday. there are a lot of people
that we are going to try to put on date for baptism this week. our mission president
tells us people should be put on date for baptism by the second lesson. it's really
cool to have mission wide goals because it pushed us to work really hard. it's hard,
 but it's so fun, even when we get rained on all day. last week i told you it was
pretty dry, but it has rained every day after that. haha. it's fun to go through
huge puddles sometimes. the bugs here aren't too bad. there are lots of little tiny
jumpy spiders, but nothing too bad. the locals say the spiders here arent poisonous
like they are in america, so im not too worried. the biggest thing is mosquitos. i
get bitten every day. but i hardly notice it now. i think my blood is getting less
sweet. i havent really seen any cool fabric, but it's because the missionaries i
stay with like to stay at the apartment and watch movies on p day. sometime, i'll go
looking for you. we've watched narnia and herculese every week since ive been here.
it's nuts. but anyways, tell nyss and abby happy birth day for me. i'll talk to you
next week!
love, elder hill

Re: RE: weekly letter‏

From:	Zachary Hill (zrhill@xxxxxxx.xxx)
Sent:	Tue 11/03/09 7:59 PM
To:	wodenowl@xxxxxxx.xxx

hey dad.
i shouldve known you would carve a cylon in your pumpkin. so what do you tell the people when they ask about not using elder? i guess it's kind of like when everyone thought i was going to china, i mustve told people a hundred times that i wasnt going to china. haha. good times. how is everyone at church? my branch here is really cool. we have some memebers that are always so willing to help us and it's awesome. it really helps to get people to church when they have a friend. i telly you, missionary work is so fun. i love just going to everyone and talking to them. oh, also, the people in my branch started to call me "bukit garang" which means "fierce hill." garang can mean either fierce or quickly angered. they always tell me that i look "garang.' it's pretty funny. we all have nicknames since most people here cant pronounce our names. even mine they have trouble with. that's funny about your story with mom. they sure dont have panda express here, but they do have kfc. just thinking about it is making me hungry. there's not much on a chicken that's really too bad for me to eat anymore, although i'm not to fond of really any of the chickens organs. they just dont taste that good. how is school doing? how are the students? i hope all is well back home. know that i love you. talk to you next week.
love, elder hill