My Blog List
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
67 people at church
Zachary Royden Hill
to me
show details 9:28 PM (20 minutes ago)
hey dad
how's it going? things are going pretty well here. so about the ringworm, it wasn't a bad case. i had had it before so i had some medicine left over. when i wrote last week it was already pretty much gone. it's just adding insult to injury to have it on the face. the work here is going pretty crazy. last week we had 67 people total at church. it's getting pretty big. there's a big holiday next week, so we'll have to see how things go. but next month is looking like it will be good. we've had like 3 separate families ask us if/when they can be baptized before we even brought it up, so that was pretty cool. anyways, one of the families are the mother and sisters of a 21 year old dude we baptized back in march. they're pretty cool and they've already been inviting friends to church. we're starting to get some talkative members and it's really helping out with our success. another family is a 16 year old daughter of one of our investigators and her 18 year old husband. they're young, but theyre pretty good. they've been to church and they understand well about Joseph Smith and the need for a restoration. the problem is he might start working far away, so we're gonna see what we can do about keeping him here. we are in dire need of some men. i know it'd be really good for his family for him to stay here. we're working on a man who has 13 children. not all of them live at home, but they are a pretty big chunk of our investigators. we're working on getting them to stop smoking, and they seem to be doing pretty well. we've been calling them at night to remind them about their goals to stop smoking and to help them whenever we can. we also are doing that with another man named clement. the man is hilarious. he's pretty big for an iban. almost as tall as me and a lot stockier. we call him at night and he loves talking to us. he went from smoking 20 in a day to 2. he's hovering at 2. but he said he's gonna try to put it down today, so we'll see how that goes tonight. he's a truck driver so he only can meet with us on saturday and sunday. but like i said there's an iban holiday this upcoming week that tons of people are going out of town for. he told us he wanted to wait til after church to go out of town. what faith. anyways, that's about all i got going on so far. things are going awesome and i love malaysia. wee! it's pretty cool that you are nearing an end on the school year and you get to spend a summer with the grand kids. i hope things are going well at home and ill talk to you next week.
love zac
hey ma.
you know sometimes ring work just likes to appear on it's own. maybe i shook hands with a kid and scratched my face or something like that. but yeah i had some medicine so it's all good again. but yeah we're hoping to get some parties for our little group going on pretty soon. get people getting to know each other and become friends. we've been kind of doing that already by bringing memebers to other members house to teach recent convert lessons. things are all going pretty well here. lots of people to teach. lots of people coming to church. hopefully lots of good baptisms coming in the future. we've got zone conference next week, so i may be writing a day early or a day late. who knows. hopefully next week wil be fun. the people here have a harvest festival called gawai and pretty much everyone in the group that is still in town wants us to go to their house and eat. so i could gain a few pounds next week. anyways, that's pretty much all the news i have. i hope you read dad's so you can get the rest of the scoop on my week. anyways, i gotta go. love you ma. talk to you next week.
love, zac
to me
show details 9:28 PM (20 minutes ago)
hey dad
how's it going? things are going pretty well here. so about the ringworm, it wasn't a bad case. i had had it before so i had some medicine left over. when i wrote last week it was already pretty much gone. it's just adding insult to injury to have it on the face. the work here is going pretty crazy. last week we had 67 people total at church. it's getting pretty big. there's a big holiday next week, so we'll have to see how things go. but next month is looking like it will be good. we've had like 3 separate families ask us if/when they can be baptized before we even brought it up, so that was pretty cool. anyways, one of the families are the mother and sisters of a 21 year old dude we baptized back in march. they're pretty cool and they've already been inviting friends to church. we're starting to get some talkative members and it's really helping out with our success. another family is a 16 year old daughter of one of our investigators and her 18 year old husband. they're young, but theyre pretty good. they've been to church and they understand well about Joseph Smith and the need for a restoration. the problem is he might start working far away, so we're gonna see what we can do about keeping him here. we are in dire need of some men. i know it'd be really good for his family for him to stay here. we're working on a man who has 13 children. not all of them live at home, but they are a pretty big chunk of our investigators. we're working on getting them to stop smoking, and they seem to be doing pretty well. we've been calling them at night to remind them about their goals to stop smoking and to help them whenever we can. we also are doing that with another man named clement. the man is hilarious. he's pretty big for an iban. almost as tall as me and a lot stockier. we call him at night and he loves talking to us. he went from smoking 20 in a day to 2. he's hovering at 2. but he said he's gonna try to put it down today, so we'll see how that goes tonight. he's a truck driver so he only can meet with us on saturday and sunday. but like i said there's an iban holiday this upcoming week that tons of people are going out of town for. he told us he wanted to wait til after church to go out of town. what faith. anyways, that's about all i got going on so far. things are going awesome and i love malaysia. wee! it's pretty cool that you are nearing an end on the school year and you get to spend a summer with the grand kids. i hope things are going well at home and ill talk to you next week.
love zac
hey ma.
you know sometimes ring work just likes to appear on it's own. maybe i shook hands with a kid and scratched my face or something like that. but yeah i had some medicine so it's all good again. but yeah we're hoping to get some parties for our little group going on pretty soon. get people getting to know each other and become friends. we've been kind of doing that already by bringing memebers to other members house to teach recent convert lessons. things are all going pretty well here. lots of people to teach. lots of people coming to church. hopefully lots of good baptisms coming in the future. we've got zone conference next week, so i may be writing a day early or a day late. who knows. hopefully next week wil be fun. the people here have a harvest festival called gawai and pretty much everyone in the group that is still in town wants us to go to their house and eat. so i could gain a few pounds next week. anyways, that's pretty much all the news i have. i hope you read dad's so you can get the rest of the scoop on my week. anyways, i gotta go. love you ma. talk to you next week.
love, zac
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
ring worm
Zachary Royden Hill
to me
show details 8:03 PM (25 minutes ago)
hey dad. how's it going? i hope things are going well for you. how is school? not too much longer and you'll be on summer break right? lucky. things here are going well. lots of people wanting to learn. having lots of fun. learning how to speak more correctly. watching muslim healing video on the computer next to me. life is good. who could ask for more? i'm really enjoying life as a missionary. it's made me a lot more talkative. i rode a bus from sibu town to sibu jaya after district meeting and i sat next to two indonesian men. we talked for a good 30 minutes just about nothing pretty much. i just really like speaking malay so i speak it whenever i get the chance. i like to practice and try different things i've heard. i'm sad there arent too many malay speakers in the states. maybe some time i'll run across an indonesian or two. so what's the news dad?more rowdy students? did you already go to the tournament of kings? time goes by so fast it feels like, i dont even remember what's going on anymore.
so yeah. last week i got ring worm on my face. what a terrible thing. i was embarrassed til i realize we teach a lot of people with skin diseases and no teeth. i figure i'm just becoming one of the natives, you know. just trying to fit in. anyways, we've got memebers giving us referrals now, so that's pretty sweet. that's when the good stuff happens. we've got one lady who's given us like 5 referrals, and it seems like 3 or 4 are gonna get baptized soon. we're still working with the others, but it's too early to tell. we've been bringing our recent converts in on the lessons with us to help us teach. they still have a lot to learn, but i think it's really good for them to hear the lessons all over again. slowly by slowly they are learning the gospel. it's good. they're all becoming friends too. we had a party for gawai which was fun. lots of dancing. since we're just a group we brought everyone into town to be with the branch we are attatched to. that was pretty chaotic. we had to get an unknown amount of people 30 km away. well, ive witnessed miracles on my mission, and that was one of them. everyone who wanted, made it and even more, they had fun. they requested we throw a potluck party after gawai, but just for the people in sibu jaya so they can get to know each other better. sounds good to me. but that's up to the group leader. i'm just a lowly missionary. anyways, i'm sorry for chatting your ear off. i'll write next week. love you dad.
zac
Zachary Royden Hill
to me
show details 7:29 PM (1 hour ago)
hey ma.
yeah i knew a.n. was there. i heard her talking. i'm sorry if she felt like i was ignoring her or something. it was pretty crazy having everyone there. sometimes i couldnt really hear what people said. but it was fun. that's crazy that all the grand kids are coming down. sounds like a lot of fun. if jared comes you'll have to kick him in the pants for never writing me. but i guess it's payback for me never writing him on his mission. what can you do. i was just a kid. anyways, why in the world are brittanie and matt going to california? how's work going for you mom? i hope you're staying healthy. it's interesting that you mention taylin. i was thinking about him just yesterday because i looked at the date and realized it was his birthday. he's getting old. how's taylin doing?
things here in malaysia certainly are going well. we've got 4 people getting baptized- a lady and her two sons and then another lady whose son was baptized in march. it's exciting. unfortunately both of their husbands only come back for a week every few months. what can you do. so we hit another record for sibu jaya with 60 people at church. it's nuts because we fill up all the chairs we have every week. i feel like if we would just get a ton more chairs, we would fill them up. because there's always families that shouldve come that didnt. every week we get a few more chairs and we somehow fill up the amount of chairs we have exactly. we're starting to have member now, so i dont have to give all the prayers or talks anymore. it's pretty cool to see the progress of this area after just a few months. so here's something i wrote to nyss that i figure i'd cpy so you can read also. it's just some experiences that have made me realize you really never know who will accept the gospel whenyou teach. you gotta just keep teaching. >remember that lady i told you about who was crazy that was our investigator from indonesia? well, she's a member now. it was pretty sick. it's nuts to see her story unfold, just because i can see myself telling people about her when i get home. when we first met her, we were in a house teaching other people and she walked past, saw us, walked in and started talking to us. ruined our lesson. she was going on about how all churches are the same and she was impossible to talk to. so my comp and i decided we'd probably never go back to talk to her. so two weeks later, she shows up to church. since then, she's only missed one week. so we started teaching her, but she wouldnt let go of her old church and friends. we'd teach something to her, she'd talk to her friends and they'd anti her. we had her on baptism date and then it didnt happen because of her friends. so we stopped going to her house. but she kept coming to church. so when i got my new comp, i brought him over to her house and we taught again. we invited her to be baptized again and all of a sudden she wanted to. afterwards, she bore her testimony how she thought our church was false at first, but now knows it is true. after that, her friends from church found out and all started anti-ing her and gainging up on her. she talked to me about it and told me how she just prayed so God would help her not listen to them. they told her they were going to erase her name from the record of her old church. she told me she didnt care and had no desire to go to another church any more. it helps that she was baptized the same day as 3 other friends. it shows me that you never know who are gonna be the ones to get baptized and stay. when we first met her, i never thought she would be baptized. and now she's one of our best members! what a crazy world it is. also, we have this other family. the man is clement and the with is cindy. they've been coming to church but not really reading or keeping other commitments. but after church last week they said they really liked it and believed joseph smith. so we put them on date for baptism and taught them the word of wisdom. clement smoked 20 a day. we set up a plan to help him quit. his commitment didnt seem very good so we decided to call every night and check up on him. well, the next day he only smoked 2 and the day after he didnt smoke any. he's pretty good<
so yeah, clement and cindy are some investigators we're pretty excited about. they should be baptized next month. after a holidy called "gawai" which is coming up in a few weeks. i havent experienced a gawai yet, but from what i gather people invite you over to their house and you eat traditional iban food all day. and dance to iban songs. all day for a week or two. so that sounds like it should be fun. i'll let you know how it goes and hopefully ill get some cool pics.
that's cool about the sister who gave her talk. who was it? and where did she serve? it's funny she asks how i like my mission. i love it. malaysia is the best. about the flower painting, yeahi saw it. i put it with all his other paintings but i cant remember exactly where that was. it's been a long time since i did that. anyways, i'm gonna get outta here. i'll talk to you later ma. love you.
zac
to me
show details 8:03 PM (25 minutes ago)
hey dad. how's it going? i hope things are going well for you. how is school? not too much longer and you'll be on summer break right? lucky. things here are going well. lots of people wanting to learn. having lots of fun. learning how to speak more correctly. watching muslim healing video on the computer next to me. life is good. who could ask for more? i'm really enjoying life as a missionary. it's made me a lot more talkative. i rode a bus from sibu town to sibu jaya after district meeting and i sat next to two indonesian men. we talked for a good 30 minutes just about nothing pretty much. i just really like speaking malay so i speak it whenever i get the chance. i like to practice and try different things i've heard. i'm sad there arent too many malay speakers in the states. maybe some time i'll run across an indonesian or two. so what's the news dad?more rowdy students? did you already go to the tournament of kings? time goes by so fast it feels like, i dont even remember what's going on anymore.
so yeah. last week i got ring worm on my face. what a terrible thing. i was embarrassed til i realize we teach a lot of people with skin diseases and no teeth. i figure i'm just becoming one of the natives, you know. just trying to fit in. anyways, we've got memebers giving us referrals now, so that's pretty sweet. that's when the good stuff happens. we've got one lady who's given us like 5 referrals, and it seems like 3 or 4 are gonna get baptized soon. we're still working with the others, but it's too early to tell. we've been bringing our recent converts in on the lessons with us to help us teach. they still have a lot to learn, but i think it's really good for them to hear the lessons all over again. slowly by slowly they are learning the gospel. it's good. they're all becoming friends too. we had a party for gawai which was fun. lots of dancing. since we're just a group we brought everyone into town to be with the branch we are attatched to. that was pretty chaotic. we had to get an unknown amount of people 30 km away. well, ive witnessed miracles on my mission, and that was one of them. everyone who wanted, made it and even more, they had fun. they requested we throw a potluck party after gawai, but just for the people in sibu jaya so they can get to know each other better. sounds good to me. but that's up to the group leader. i'm just a lowly missionary. anyways, i'm sorry for chatting your ear off. i'll write next week. love you dad.
zac
Zachary Royden Hill
to me
show details 7:29 PM (1 hour ago)
hey ma.
yeah i knew a.n. was there. i heard her talking. i'm sorry if she felt like i was ignoring her or something. it was pretty crazy having everyone there. sometimes i couldnt really hear what people said. but it was fun. that's crazy that all the grand kids are coming down. sounds like a lot of fun. if jared comes you'll have to kick him in the pants for never writing me. but i guess it's payback for me never writing him on his mission. what can you do. i was just a kid. anyways, why in the world are brittanie and matt going to california? how's work going for you mom? i hope you're staying healthy. it's interesting that you mention taylin. i was thinking about him just yesterday because i looked at the date and realized it was his birthday. he's getting old. how's taylin doing?
things here in malaysia certainly are going well. we've got 4 people getting baptized- a lady and her two sons and then another lady whose son was baptized in march. it's exciting. unfortunately both of their husbands only come back for a week every few months. what can you do. so we hit another record for sibu jaya with 60 people at church. it's nuts because we fill up all the chairs we have every week. i feel like if we would just get a ton more chairs, we would fill them up. because there's always families that shouldve come that didnt. every week we get a few more chairs and we somehow fill up the amount of chairs we have exactly. we're starting to have member now, so i dont have to give all the prayers or talks anymore. it's pretty cool to see the progress of this area after just a few months. so here's something i wrote to nyss that i figure i'd cpy so you can read also. it's just some experiences that have made me realize you really never know who will accept the gospel whenyou teach. you gotta just keep teaching. >remember that lady i told you about who was crazy that was our investigator from indonesia? well, she's a member now. it was pretty sick. it's nuts to see her story unfold, just because i can see myself telling people about her when i get home. when we first met her, we were in a house teaching other people and she walked past, saw us, walked in and started talking to us. ruined our lesson. she was going on about how all churches are the same and she was impossible to talk to. so my comp and i decided we'd probably never go back to talk to her. so two weeks later, she shows up to church. since then, she's only missed one week. so we started teaching her, but she wouldnt let go of her old church and friends. we'd teach something to her, she'd talk to her friends and they'd anti her. we had her on baptism date and then it didnt happen because of her friends. so we stopped going to her house. but she kept coming to church. so when i got my new comp, i brought him over to her house and we taught again. we invited her to be baptized again and all of a sudden she wanted to. afterwards, she bore her testimony how she thought our church was false at first, but now knows it is true. after that, her friends from church found out and all started anti-ing her and gainging up on her. she talked to me about it and told me how she just prayed so God would help her not listen to them. they told her they were going to erase her name from the record of her old church. she told me she didnt care and had no desire to go to another church any more. it helps that she was baptized the same day as 3 other friends. it shows me that you never know who are gonna be the ones to get baptized and stay. when we first met her, i never thought she would be baptized. and now she's one of our best members! what a crazy world it is. also, we have this other family. the man is clement and the with is cindy. they've been coming to church but not really reading or keeping other commitments. but after church last week they said they really liked it and believed joseph smith. so we put them on date for baptism and taught them the word of wisdom. clement smoked 20 a day. we set up a plan to help him quit. his commitment didnt seem very good so we decided to call every night and check up on him. well, the next day he only smoked 2 and the day after he didnt smoke any. he's pretty good<
so yeah, clement and cindy are some investigators we're pretty excited about. they should be baptized next month. after a holidy called "gawai" which is coming up in a few weeks. i havent experienced a gawai yet, but from what i gather people invite you over to their house and you eat traditional iban food all day. and dance to iban songs. all day for a week or two. so that sounds like it should be fun. i'll let you know how it goes and hopefully ill get some cool pics.
that's cool about the sister who gave her talk. who was it? and where did she serve? it's funny she asks how i like my mission. i love it. malaysia is the best. about the flower painting, yeahi saw it. i put it with all his other paintings but i cant remember exactly where that was. it's been a long time since i did that. anyways, i'm gonna get outta here. i'll talk to you later ma. love you.
zac
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
seven at one baptism
Zachary Royden Hill
to me
show details 6:58 PM (31 minutes ago)
hey ma.
when i called you for christmas, i just got a calling card. the card itself cost like rm30 so that's like $10 or so. not too bad. i'm sorry if the call cost you guys a lot. anyways, so about the baptism.. we had 7 people getting baptized on one day. it was pretty cool. the problem is, we live in a little town that is 40min-1hr away from town by bus. and there is no font here because we are still just a group. so we had to round all 7 of the people up and get them shipped to town for the baptism. normally that wouldnt be too bad, but we were in town for two days before the baptism for zone conference, so we had to try to coordinate the whole thing by phone calls. sometimes people didnt pick up when we wanted. so that was a little stressful. it seemed like not everyone would be able to make it at the last minute, but as a testiment to miracles occurring in our day, all seven showed up 30 minutes early. with one of their husbands who is not yet interested in learning about the church. (we're working on him, dont worry). so it feels good to have that all done. we met with them all a few days ago in a group. they are pretty hilarious because they are all pretty good friends. they just talk and laugh and joke around. i'll send some pictures of them hopefully after this. the work is going really well here. so that sunday we had a pretty good amount of people getting confirmed as well. most of the people attending our group are newly baptized or investigators, so i think they still didnt quite understand that it's a prayer when we confirm someone. we'll explain to them this week. so our attendance at church has improved yet again this week. we got 50 people exactly to come out. 22 investigators, so we're expecting many baptisms in the next month or so. well over half of our group is new or investigating. it's nuts. but it's really cool because you can just see them becoming converted. one of the people who got babtized was a lady named katarina. she's from indonesia and for most of the amount of time knowing her, i thought she was nuts. dont get me wrong, she's pretty funny, but we just felt like we couldnt get through to her when it came to teaching. she's a big talker, and plus she was a strong christian for a long time. it's taken a few months. but she just kept coming to our church for months. her friends from church would always tell her how bad our church is, so she always felt confused. then all of a sudden she accepted the commitment to be baptized. that was good. so she got baptized with her friends that were investigating our church. the day after she got baptized, the pastor from her old church came and told her that our church was wrong and that he wanted to send preachers from his church to convert her back to the truth. she told me on sunday that she was praying the whole time that she would have strength to not listen to what he said. sunday came, and she was at church and got confirmed. she told me that she didnt have any desire to go to another church any more. that was a pretty big shock to me, and she's turning out to be one of our best members. miracles do happen.
if you remember me talking about a man named patrick, he came to church on sunday with all of his kids and his mother in law. the man is awesome. i'm so excited for him. he just loves the story of joseph smith. he tells us about how there are so many people around here that dont know about joseph smith and that we need to tell them. we tell him we think we can fit it into our schedule. he's getting missionary work on the brain, and thinking of his relatives that he can share this message to. it's awesome when people just innately understand about the importance of sharing the gospel. there's also this lady we baptized a few weeks ago named jovina. when we first baptized her, i had no idea she would be our best member missionary. every time i talk to her, she has a new person she wants us to go meet. on the way to go meet one of her friends, she turns to me and is like "i gave away all the joseph smith pamphlets you gave me. when can you give me some more?" she's nuts. a missionary machine. most of her referrals are women, but at least she's got the right idea of sharing. i can just forsee this branch having a huge relief society and being filled with jovina's friends.
malay sounds oriental eh? i'm not exactly sure what oriental sounds like, but i tell you what, it's nothing close to chinese! you wouldnt believe how many chinese people there are in malaysia. we run into them all the time. most of them for some reason cant speak malay very well. even tho they live in malaysia, they have a pretty bad chinese accent. malay used to sound crazy to me, but now it just sounds normal i guess. i cant really remember what it was like when i couldnt understand it. but here in sibu jaya, we work with a lot of ibans. they have their own language that's fairly close to malay. similar grammar and lots of similar words. they always tell us we need to learn it and they try to speak to us all the time in iban. sometimes they think its funny to talk about us behind our back. so with out even trying, i'm picking a bit up because i hear it all the time. it's pretty sweet sounding, so hopefully i can learn more.
anyways, that's pretty much what's been going on in my life. lots of good things. no baptism this week, but we have a few planned for next week, so watch out. and i guess lots of good things are going on at home. i'm really excited to hear the news about jake. what a stud. i had no idea brittanie would be there for mothers day. it was nice getting to talk to you all. i love you mom. talk to you next week.
love, zac
Zachary Royden Hill
to me
show details 7:44 PM (2 minutes ago)
hey dad.
that's pretty crazy news. the lord really does answer prayers. as a missionary that's pretty much the most exciting news you can receive. i kind of dont know what to write anymore. haha. tell jake i'm proud of him and i cant wait to see him when i get home.
well, i guess i'll tell you a bit about my week. it was pretty awesome. pretty much everyone that we invited to come to church and we expected to come, came. there were a few extras as well. so we're starting to get pretty busy. getting new investigators all the time, so next month should be pretty big. hopefully as big as this month was for us. we've got some good families. i told mom about a man named patrick. that family just really likes to have us over. it's awesome because sometimes as we're leaving you can hear people talk about how much better they feel as a result of our visit. it just helps me to know we're doing the right thing and that the people we are teaching are responding to our message. we still get those people who wont even listen to us. they say they've received enough knowledge about God already. but we always meet those people who want to learn and who are prepared. i love being out here. i'd like to stay in sibu my whole mission, but we'll see how that goes. no matter what happens, i'll be happy. so next week we've got a lady and two of her sons getting baptized. i met her that day i told you i felt like i was a soap box preacher. she came right up and listened and said she wanted to learn and go to our church from listening to me teach about joseph smith. i remember learning about gifts of the spirit and one of them being the gift to believe others' testimonies. i think a lot of ibans have that. most of them that want to learn feel good and start to believe just from us teaching. and then they pray and get an answer and everyone is happy. this past week, nothing too wild went on. on saturday we have a gawai party which is the iban harvest festival. we're hoping for a good turn out from sibu jaya because it is combined with the branch in town. that should be fun. i'm pretty sure people there are going to try to make us dance. they dont think there's anything funny than seeing a white man dance. but anyways, i'm gonna let you go. love you dad. talk to you next week.
love zac
to me
show details 6:58 PM (31 minutes ago)
hey ma.
when i called you for christmas, i just got a calling card. the card itself cost like rm30 so that's like $10 or so. not too bad. i'm sorry if the call cost you guys a lot. anyways, so about the baptism.. we had 7 people getting baptized on one day. it was pretty cool. the problem is, we live in a little town that is 40min-1hr away from town by bus. and there is no font here because we are still just a group. so we had to round all 7 of the people up and get them shipped to town for the baptism. normally that wouldnt be too bad, but we were in town for two days before the baptism for zone conference, so we had to try to coordinate the whole thing by phone calls. sometimes people didnt pick up when we wanted. so that was a little stressful. it seemed like not everyone would be able to make it at the last minute, but as a testiment to miracles occurring in our day, all seven showed up 30 minutes early. with one of their husbands who is not yet interested in learning about the church. (we're working on him, dont worry). so it feels good to have that all done. we met with them all a few days ago in a group. they are pretty hilarious because they are all pretty good friends. they just talk and laugh and joke around. i'll send some pictures of them hopefully after this. the work is going really well here. so that sunday we had a pretty good amount of people getting confirmed as well. most of the people attending our group are newly baptized or investigators, so i think they still didnt quite understand that it's a prayer when we confirm someone. we'll explain to them this week. so our attendance at church has improved yet again this week. we got 50 people exactly to come out. 22 investigators, so we're expecting many baptisms in the next month or so. well over half of our group is new or investigating. it's nuts. but it's really cool because you can just see them becoming converted. one of the people who got babtized was a lady named katarina. she's from indonesia and for most of the amount of time knowing her, i thought she was nuts. dont get me wrong, she's pretty funny, but we just felt like we couldnt get through to her when it came to teaching. she's a big talker, and plus she was a strong christian for a long time. it's taken a few months. but she just kept coming to our church for months. her friends from church would always tell her how bad our church is, so she always felt confused. then all of a sudden she accepted the commitment to be baptized. that was good. so she got baptized with her friends that were investigating our church. the day after she got baptized, the pastor from her old church came and told her that our church was wrong and that he wanted to send preachers from his church to convert her back to the truth. she told me on sunday that she was praying the whole time that she would have strength to not listen to what he said. sunday came, and she was at church and got confirmed. she told me that she didnt have any desire to go to another church any more. that was a pretty big shock to me, and she's turning out to be one of our best members. miracles do happen.
if you remember me talking about a man named patrick, he came to church on sunday with all of his kids and his mother in law. the man is awesome. i'm so excited for him. he just loves the story of joseph smith. he tells us about how there are so many people around here that dont know about joseph smith and that we need to tell them. we tell him we think we can fit it into our schedule. he's getting missionary work on the brain, and thinking of his relatives that he can share this message to. it's awesome when people just innately understand about the importance of sharing the gospel. there's also this lady we baptized a few weeks ago named jovina. when we first baptized her, i had no idea she would be our best member missionary. every time i talk to her, she has a new person she wants us to go meet. on the way to go meet one of her friends, she turns to me and is like "i gave away all the joseph smith pamphlets you gave me. when can you give me some more?" she's nuts. a missionary machine. most of her referrals are women, but at least she's got the right idea of sharing. i can just forsee this branch having a huge relief society and being filled with jovina's friends.
malay sounds oriental eh? i'm not exactly sure what oriental sounds like, but i tell you what, it's nothing close to chinese! you wouldnt believe how many chinese people there are in malaysia. we run into them all the time. most of them for some reason cant speak malay very well. even tho they live in malaysia, they have a pretty bad chinese accent. malay used to sound crazy to me, but now it just sounds normal i guess. i cant really remember what it was like when i couldnt understand it. but here in sibu jaya, we work with a lot of ibans. they have their own language that's fairly close to malay. similar grammar and lots of similar words. they always tell us we need to learn it and they try to speak to us all the time in iban. sometimes they think its funny to talk about us behind our back. so with out even trying, i'm picking a bit up because i hear it all the time. it's pretty sweet sounding, so hopefully i can learn more.
anyways, that's pretty much what's been going on in my life. lots of good things. no baptism this week, but we have a few planned for next week, so watch out. and i guess lots of good things are going on at home. i'm really excited to hear the news about jake. what a stud. i had no idea brittanie would be there for mothers day. it was nice getting to talk to you all. i love you mom. talk to you next week.
love, zac
Zachary Royden Hill
to me
show details 7:44 PM (2 minutes ago)
hey dad.
that's pretty crazy news. the lord really does answer prayers. as a missionary that's pretty much the most exciting news you can receive. i kind of dont know what to write anymore. haha. tell jake i'm proud of him and i cant wait to see him when i get home.
well, i guess i'll tell you a bit about my week. it was pretty awesome. pretty much everyone that we invited to come to church and we expected to come, came. there were a few extras as well. so we're starting to get pretty busy. getting new investigators all the time, so next month should be pretty big. hopefully as big as this month was for us. we've got some good families. i told mom about a man named patrick. that family just really likes to have us over. it's awesome because sometimes as we're leaving you can hear people talk about how much better they feel as a result of our visit. it just helps me to know we're doing the right thing and that the people we are teaching are responding to our message. we still get those people who wont even listen to us. they say they've received enough knowledge about God already. but we always meet those people who want to learn and who are prepared. i love being out here. i'd like to stay in sibu my whole mission, but we'll see how that goes. no matter what happens, i'll be happy. so next week we've got a lady and two of her sons getting baptized. i met her that day i told you i felt like i was a soap box preacher. she came right up and listened and said she wanted to learn and go to our church from listening to me teach about joseph smith. i remember learning about gifts of the spirit and one of them being the gift to believe others' testimonies. i think a lot of ibans have that. most of them that want to learn feel good and start to believe just from us teaching. and then they pray and get an answer and everyone is happy. this past week, nothing too wild went on. on saturday we have a gawai party which is the iban harvest festival. we're hoping for a good turn out from sibu jaya because it is combined with the branch in town. that should be fun. i'm pretty sure people there are going to try to make us dance. they dont think there's anything funny than seeing a white man dance. but anyways, i'm gonna let you go. love you dad. talk to you next week.
love zac
Thursday, May 6, 2010
More Pix
Zachary Royden Hill
to me
show details 1:09 AM (15 hours ago)
so the last one is an old iban man that fought the japanese back when they came to malaysia. his neck tatoo means he was a warrior.
above that is a picture of a flat with all it's laundry on a sunny day after a few days of rain. i was impressed at least.
then there is a picture of me and elder lang with kitty, the lady who got baptized last week. i love that woman. she's awesome.
above that is a birthday party i went to for the sister of a recent convert. it's tradition for them to feed their guests the birthday cake, so this pic is me getting a slice. mmm!
above that was a funny pic of two kids we caught on a date. i tell you what, they sure do start early here in sibu jaya!
above that is a lady named jovina who got baptized 2 weeks ago. she's the only one who's been giving us referrals. pretty awesome member, if a little crazy at times. haha.
above that is a lady named bintang. she's a pretty funny iban lady. i liked her hat. she should be baptized in the group getting baptized tomorrow with her daughter.
above that is the long awaited spider zilla. look at his red eyes and glistening fangs. what a terror.
and the last picture on the very top is a lady named ramlah, the first baptism we had in sibu jaya with her daughter, priscilla. what an awesome family.
so that's all the pics, from bottom to top. hope you enjoy and hopefully next week i'll get you some more.
love zac
EH Phone Home!
Zachary Royden Hill
to me
show details 12:52 AM (13 hours ago)
hey dad. long time no see. anyways, so this sunday is mothers day. i told mom, but i figured i'd tell you as well. like i said a few weeks ago, theres a memorandum from the prez that says we have to have our parents call us if we want to talk. so i guess you can save the money you gave me for my birthday and buy a calling card or however you want to do it. my phone number is xxx-xxx-xxxx . you should be able to type in xxx-xx-xxx-xxx-xxxx or if that doesnt work you will have to look up the dialing codes on your own. hope to talk to you guys soon. the only time i really have for you guys to call would be at 4pm for you guys on sunday. that would make it 7am monday morning for me. (sorry, thats just how it worked out) anyways, so this week was pretty fun. i got to eat snail. it was pretty gross. i dont know why french people would ever eat it. we walked past and some people had a huge pot of boiled snail. nothing special. it looked like a snail you would find in your garden. little did i know, when cooked, it smells like poop.that was a fun experience tho. the work here is going really well. we're experiencing some good sucess, which hopefully means i'm not gonna get transferred for a while. i think i'll make it til july. there's a pretty big transfer coming up at that time, but hopefully i'll be here for even longer than that. i love it here in sibu jaya, and i really love the people. anyways, i could ramble on for another couple paragraphs, or i can send some pictures. so i think i'll stop here and get some pictures sent. hope to talk to you in a few days. love you dad.
love, zac
Zachary Royden Hill
to me
show details 12:33 AM (14 hours ago)
hey ma
while my comp was in singapore, i went on splits with the zone leaders. that was kind of fun. but i dont like splits. the people are always so confused and shy around me since theyre not used to me. it's better to be back in your own area. i dont know exactly how many members we have, but last week at church we had 40 attending. that's including kids. so there's some pretty good growth. tha baptism last week went well. we have another one this week. 4 women and 3 of their daughters. it should be pretty big. hopefully everything goes well. with that many people,. i get a little nervous. we have run ins with spiders all the time, but most of them are tiny and can be squished with a shoe or a hand or whatever. look at how fearless ive become on my mission. we dont really have many long time members to fellowship the new comers, so we've been trying to get the investigators to just fellowship each other. it's funny because everyone thinks that everyone else is already baptized. we're working on it tho. lots of up and coming people that get me all kinds of excited. i'm hoping this sunday for a man named patrick to come to church with his family. i'll be pretty disappointed if he doesnt. he's so good. he's got an answer from when he prayed and knows the joseph smith story is true. when we went to leave, i heard the wife tell him how much better she feels when we come to teach, so it made me feel good. they are on their way to conversion. we've got a few other families, but we're not quite sure how committed they are. a few are looking at a drop. we've got another family that has been to church twice and seems to like having us over. theyre still not quite sure about the church, but i think they are starting to like it more and they are definitely progressing. it's good. i'm happy for them. both of those families i talked about we're big surprizes to me when something actually came from talking to them. after both the initial contacts, i figured we would go no where with them, just because they didnt really seem like they wanted to listen. but now look. things are pretty awesome. just teaches me to rely on the Lord and know that things will work out.
so is the kid from bountiful like new from the mtc, or just new to our ward. also, does he know a kid named ben thomas? that's a kid from bountiful who was in my mtc group.
so now it comes to the topic of mothers day. i wrote you guys a few weeks ago about it. theres been a new policy sent out by the mission president that says you guys have to call us. you can buy like a phone card or call via internet. however best suits you. my phone number is xxx-xxx-xxxx . you should be able to type in xxx-xx-xxx-xxx-xxxx into the phone and reach me, but if that doesnt work you will have to look up a list of international dialing codes and figure it out yourself. i'm sorry, but that's the rules. it would work out best for me if you could call me at 4pm on sunday for you. that should make it 7am for me on monday. we could talk for a few hours. i hope that works well for you. it's a kind of strange system. but what can you do.
thanks for wishing me a happy birthday mom. i appreciate it. well, i'm gonna let you go. hopefully we'll be able to talk later. love you
love, zac
to me
show details 12:52 AM (13 hours ago)
hey dad. long time no see. anyways, so this sunday is mothers day. i told mom, but i figured i'd tell you as well. like i said a few weeks ago, theres a memorandum from the prez that says we have to have our parents call us if we want to talk. so i guess you can save the money you gave me for my birthday and buy a calling card or however you want to do it. my phone number is xxx-xxx-xxxx . you should be able to type in xxx-xx-xxx-xxx-xxxx or if that doesnt work you will have to look up the dialing codes on your own. hope to talk to you guys soon. the only time i really have for you guys to call would be at 4pm for you guys on sunday. that would make it 7am monday morning for me. (sorry, thats just how it worked out) anyways, so this week was pretty fun. i got to eat snail. it was pretty gross. i dont know why french people would ever eat it. we walked past and some people had a huge pot of boiled snail. nothing special. it looked like a snail you would find in your garden. little did i know, when cooked, it smells like poop.that was a fun experience tho. the work here is going really well. we're experiencing some good sucess, which hopefully means i'm not gonna get transferred for a while. i think i'll make it til july. there's a pretty big transfer coming up at that time, but hopefully i'll be here for even longer than that. i love it here in sibu jaya, and i really love the people. anyways, i could ramble on for another couple paragraphs, or i can send some pictures. so i think i'll stop here and get some pictures sent. hope to talk to you in a few days. love you dad.
love, zac
Zachary Royden Hill
to me
show details 12:33 AM (14 hours ago)
hey ma
while my comp was in singapore, i went on splits with the zone leaders. that was kind of fun. but i dont like splits. the people are always so confused and shy around me since theyre not used to me. it's better to be back in your own area. i dont know exactly how many members we have, but last week at church we had 40 attending. that's including kids. so there's some pretty good growth. tha baptism last week went well. we have another one this week. 4 women and 3 of their daughters. it should be pretty big. hopefully everything goes well. with that many people,. i get a little nervous. we have run ins with spiders all the time, but most of them are tiny and can be squished with a shoe or a hand or whatever. look at how fearless ive become on my mission. we dont really have many long time members to fellowship the new comers, so we've been trying to get the investigators to just fellowship each other. it's funny because everyone thinks that everyone else is already baptized. we're working on it tho. lots of up and coming people that get me all kinds of excited. i'm hoping this sunday for a man named patrick to come to church with his family. i'll be pretty disappointed if he doesnt. he's so good. he's got an answer from when he prayed and knows the joseph smith story is true. when we went to leave, i heard the wife tell him how much better she feels when we come to teach, so it made me feel good. they are on their way to conversion. we've got a few other families, but we're not quite sure how committed they are. a few are looking at a drop. we've got another family that has been to church twice and seems to like having us over. theyre still not quite sure about the church, but i think they are starting to like it more and they are definitely progressing. it's good. i'm happy for them. both of those families i talked about we're big surprizes to me when something actually came from talking to them. after both the initial contacts, i figured we would go no where with them, just because they didnt really seem like they wanted to listen. but now look. things are pretty awesome. just teaches me to rely on the Lord and know that things will work out.
so is the kid from bountiful like new from the mtc, or just new to our ward. also, does he know a kid named ben thomas? that's a kid from bountiful who was in my mtc group.
so now it comes to the topic of mothers day. i wrote you guys a few weeks ago about it. theres been a new policy sent out by the mission president that says you guys have to call us. you can buy like a phone card or call via internet. however best suits you. my phone number is xxx-xxx-xxxx . you should be able to type in xxx-xx-xxx-xxx-xxxx into the phone and reach me, but if that doesnt work you will have to look up a list of international dialing codes and figure it out yourself. i'm sorry, but that's the rules. it would work out best for me if you could call me at 4pm on sunday for you. that should make it 7am for me on monday. we could talk for a few hours. i hope that works well for you. it's a kind of strange system. but what can you do.
thanks for wishing me a happy birthday mom. i appreciate it. well, i'm gonna let you go. hopefully we'll be able to talk later. love you
love, zac
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