"district leader hill"

Zachary Royden Hill
to me
show details 7:06 PM (17 minutes ago)
hey dad how's it going?
sorry i didnt stay on for longer. i figured you were just busy with nyss leaving, so no big deal. that's hilarious about your second period class. there are tons of little bamboo stick like things here. maybe i can buy you one and you can make use of it in your classes with naughty students. the people here also make use of hangers, so i guess you could give that a try. teach those kids a lesson or two, and not just in french. i'm a little bummed when i think about french. every time i try to say something to myself in french, malay comes out so ive pretty much given up. i remember it was the opposite when i first got here. french words always came out. but now malay just feels so natural. so what are you going to do for summer break? i can't believe summer is already coming up again. it feels like i just barely left.

about the phone issue, i'm not sure i entirely remember! sorry. there's this little like u-turn looking button that takes you back to the previous screen, and if you hold it down it will cancel out of any windows you have open. i dont know if that will help or not. there are a few people here with the same phone, so if i remember and i have time, i might just ask to borrow theirs and mess around with it. i'm sorry about the loud music. i was young and rebellious back then. but i'm not gonna lie, every once in a while, i catch myself singing a song or two while i'm out and about. there are just mobs of kids that run around wherever we go, and they seem to think it's hilarious when i sing and dance randomly while walking down the street.

yeah so i'm still in sibu jaya. my new comp's all right. it's still a little weird, just because it's only been a week since i've known him, and it's just the two of us at home. i remember people telling me that the mission will give me a little taste of what being married to someone will be like, and after being cooped up in a house all day with one person for 3+ months, i'm a little afraid. anyways, my comps name is elder lang, he's from some place in california. i think i may have told you that last week, but that's still about as much as i know. the baptisms last week had a slight issue. well, so it's two sisters that want to be baptized together. one of the sisters had a death in the family and went out of town the day the baptism was supposed to take place. that was a little stressfull having to tell everyone that it wasnt going to happen. the problem is, this weekend, the other sister is going out of town. and ibans have a tradition where they wear black cloth for two weeks, and then they go back to the place where the person died, and they take off their cloth. so next week, the first sister is going out of town again for her deceased relative. so this snowballed into a few weeks of delay. we're hoping tentatively that they will be baptized on may 8th, and that by that time, one of the sister's husbands will also be ready. tomorrow, however, we have someone else who is going to be baptized, so we're pretty excited about that. she seems pretty excited too.

we got a lot of new investigators last week. we got like 5 families with men, so we're hoping a few of those pan out so we can have some potential priesthood holders. this last week was fairly fun. we've been pretty busy. the prime minister of malaysia has this slogan of "one malaysia" trying to get everyone united i guess. so they had this concert to promote "oneness" that my comp and i spied from afar. it wasnt very good tho. there was a huge crowd. pretty much all of sibu jaya came to take a look. so it was funny to see all the strange looks with two white kids walking around and checking things out. they also had some booths with things for sale. this group of melayu kids came up and started talking to us, and then wanted to introduce us to all their friends. it was pretty crazy.

so last sunday, we had conference. unfortunately, it was in indonesian. these poor ibans just didnt understand a lot of it, i'm afraid. it's sometimes already a stretch for people to understand malay fully, since it's not these people's first language. indonesian just throws them for a loop. so that was interesting. they built this little game booth outside of the church that started thumping music during boyd k packers talk. but luckily we got the people to turn it down until church was over. it will be a lot less stressful i think to go back to normal sacrament meeting.

so on saturday, we were stopped for a dinner break at a place called the sulu cafe. when we got there, there was this family staring at us. i said hello trying to be polite. then they asked if they could take our picture, which really isnt all that uncommon. i can guarentee no white tourist has ever been to sibu jaya, so we're wtill pretty much the first white people theyve seen. so we ordered our food and were sitting there, and they started asking what we were doing here. we told them how we teach about church, and then they asked if we could teach them. so tonight we have an appointment, and i'll let you know how it goes. it's pretty much the best when an investigator contacts into you.

so things here are still running smoothly. life is good and not any problems that we cant take care of. how are things back home? how's that new dishwasher working? here we wash all our dishes by hand. and i even wash most of my laundry by hand, since our machine isnt working 100%. but i think that's pretty much all that went on this week. i'm sorry if it feels like i was rambling. talk to you next week.
love, zac



Zachary Royden Hill
to me
show details 7:29 PM (1 minute ago)
hey ma. dont worry about not writing. i'll still write and life goes on for me. so i may have exaggerated a little bit about the spider. but not much! i'll let you be the judge with the picture i send. if you look closely, you can even see his glistening fangs! dont worry about nyss tho. she'll be just fine out there in the big world. if i can do it she can. and you'll still be able to email her. just wait til her crazy stories start rollin in. like i told dad, there was a problem with the baptism. which snowballed into a larger problem so it will be delayed until may 8th. hopefully no longer. until then, we've got another lady being baptized tomorrow. she's a lady crazy, but good. we had her interview yesterday and she fed us corn drink and this nasty.. i really dont even know what to call it. every one here just calls a wide variety of snacks "kuih". but it was nasty kuih. the people here just have different tastes than us americans, that's for sure. maybe when i'm coming home i'll bring you a few things for you to try. yam and corn drink being the top priority. it's crazy that you can see me on a soap box, because i still can even see myself just preaching like that. it's crazy how easy it really is to go contacting tho. i think a mission can cure any shy person. but it's created another problem. now i just talk and talk and talk. i even annoy myself sometimes.

so the new comp is all right. like every comp, there are going to be things that bug you. but you just gotta work through it and not let it bug you too much. get the work done. eventually you'll get a new one. i guess since you asked, i'll tell you. yes, i'm senior comp now. the big cheese, top dog. and just to let you know, it doesnt end there. i expect to be referred to as "district leader hill" at all times from now on! the power!! but for reals, it's not any different than i was when i was junior comp. also,my district is also just me and my comp. it's kind of silly when i think about it. i just want to go out and teach and baptize. that's all. conference was kind of strange. it was all in indonesian and we only watched the first saturday session so far. so i'm not sure exactly what to think of it yet. the couple made a coupy of the english version, so they're going to let us borrow it for personal study for the next week or so. they also have the priesthood one, which i'm excited for. in kuching i only got to see sunday conference. so things are looking up. the work is going well. we're getting lots of people in our teaching pool. we just got to weed out the ones who dont really want to learn. a lot of people here just think that all churches are the same and that it doesnt matter which one you go to as long as you believe in Jesus. so sometimes it's a little bit of a struggle. but things are going well. we've got some new people that i'm excited for, but i'll hold off on talking about them too much until we see how interested they really are after a few lessons and see if they'll come to church. that's the real test.

tell jake good luck on finding a new job. so anything new going on there? i have to question whenever you say there's nothing new now, because i stumbled across nyssa's blog and saw that there's been a change in stake presidency that i have yet to be informed about. i'm sorry about you being lonely tho ma. things will get better. dont worry. life is good. but i should probably get going. i love you ma. if there's anything i can do for you, let me know.
love, zac