people just screamed like they thought they were going to die

Zachary Royden Hill
to me

show details 9:07 PM (23 minutes ago)

hey dad. sorry i forgot to email you. normally i save your email for last, and last week something came up where we had to leave the internet cafe earlier than normal so i didnt get a chance. so i guess i'll write you first. so far this week not much has happened. i'm emailing from singapore right now. i came to renew my visa. but while i was flying to singapore from kuching, the plane experienced some heavy turbulence and went through a split second of free fall and people just screamed like they thought they were going to die. maybe it was more of a surprised gasp, but it was pretty loud and fear filled. i thought it was pretty funny. maybe you had to be there. but so we teach lots of people. we mainly work in an area of apartments. the day before i came to singapore, there were two fights that involved people we teach. one kid is like 18 and i dont know if he was drunk at the time, but he took a hocky stick and started swinging it at other people at the flats. and then we were walking by this other families house and we see all these people gathered around. which normally is kind of fun because you can go up and meet new people that know the family being taught, but i looked over and saw one of the ladies we teach just bawling and her mother was on the inside of the house just yelling at her. unfortunately i couldnt quite understand her, but it was pretty crazy. so hopefully when i get back we can sort the craziness all out and get things back to normal again.

besides those fights though, everything is going well for our group. we almost had 60 people at church. lots of people were still gone for gawai but lots of investigators still coming out. we just got a new group leader which i'm really excited about. i think he will be able to get things done and that our group will be able to grow even faster. speaking of growing, we have a new family coming to church that was a little unexpected. we knocked into them, and they were pretty reluctant to let us in. we told them that we had a message to share about church, and they said they couldnt let us talk because they belonged to another church. so in my head i already saw that meeting kind of going no where. but i never like to leave people with doubt that our church is true. so we weasled our way into a lesson right then and there. (this occurred a few weeks ago.) they didnt seem like much was going on, but we made a return appointment. after some struggling, they came to church. the father has been twice. it's a miracle they are actually progressing. i just look at the people we baptized and are the ones doing the most progressing now, and i always think how different it is now from when i first met those people. if i made a guess upon meeting, i wouldve suspected they wouldve been dropped not too far after that. but they come to church and they get converted. it's awesome. the indonesian lady we baptized is still doing well and gave us her first referral, another indonesian woman. so hopefully it works out. i'm glad to see her progress in the gospel. she recently told me, that she hated me a few months ago because we told her that our church was the true church. and look at her now. hopefully i'll get a picture sent to you of her. she's one of the shortest people i know. but she's funny. no baptisms this week, but we're hoping for next week. i guess i'll inform you next week what is going on. things are moving. we are even starting to get a youth program. there's a youth conference thingy for all the youth in sibu, and we have like 8 or so member/investigator youth who are planning on going. it's nice. someday, the church will be strong here.

so yesterday i went teaching here in singapore with an elder from my mtc group. it was pretty fun. we only taught one man who was like a rich business man. he had a pretty crazy background story and was quite the talker, but he seemed interested as we taught about God and Jesus Christ. we didnt have much opportunity to teach him more than that, but hopefuly he becomes a more solid investigator. work in singapore is a lot different, is basicaly what i learned from that encounter. it was a lesson one in a ritzy hotel lobby with lots of high class people walking around. i felt kind of out of place. people speaking in english and all different kinds of people. man singapore is nuts. but the food is good. carl's junior. wendy's. dairy queen. yeah.

so then we went to a birthday party where everyone else there was from the philippines. it was nuts. they have some delicious food though. and since it's in singapore, all of them could speak english at varying levels of skill. there was a man who was a 2nd generation or so member and also returned missionary who sounded almost exactly like an american. he seemed pretty talkative and i talked to him pretty much the whole night.i didnt know it before, but filipinos are pretty awesome. anyways, that's pretty much how my week went. hope you are doing well at home. love you all at home. talk to you next week.
love, zac

achary Royden Hill
to me

show details 9:37 PM (5 minutes ago)

hey ma. i dont have much time but i wanted to send you a few pictures so you can see whats going on here in sibu. the one title pig is pretty gory. it's headless. so if you are feeling weak, dont look at that one. but the rest are good. i hope you can read the email i sent dad to get the rest of the scoop on my week. love you. talk to you next week.