who knows what we are doing?

hey dad.

that's pretty cool you and mom are going to saint george. how
long will you be there? what all are you planning on doing while
you're there? it would be pretty cool to go to the saint george temple
while you're there. i tell you, i never really thought that i would
miss the temple, but i guess it takes you being put into a position
where you can't do something before you realize how big of a blessing
it is. someday there'll be a temple here in malaysia. i'd definitely
like to come back then. it's just crazy to see the growth in this
mission. seeing new branches created, new groups, working towards new
districts and a stake sometime in the future. this chruch really is
amazing.

there are some new elders coming into the mission next week, which
means transfers, but i'm not going to be leaving. staying right here
in kuching, which is good. we're starting to have some good success,
so i would definitely like to stay here a while to keep that success
going. we've got some people coming up for baptism and quite a few
people who are potentials to get baptized. we just gotta work as hard
and effectively as we can and december will be a big month for us here
in kuching.

when it comes to thanksgiving, who knows what we are doing? not me.
maybe we'll have dinner with one of the couple missionaries. it's
close enough that i really dont know why i dont have a plan. but it's
all good. no one else in malaysia celebrates thanksgiving anyways.
christmas will be coming up soon as well. man time's going by so fast.
do you guys have anything cool going on for thanksgiving or christmas?

anyways, i'm sorry about the standardized french tests at your school.
i'm sure your students will all do well. good luck with those
students. tell them not to be naughty. but anyways, i should head out.
take care dad and i'll talk to you next week.

love zac

hey ma

well this week has been pretty interesting. i was in sibu again for
some more training. we went there on monday. it was pretty fun to be
able to see some of my friends from the mission. the bus ride is so
long tho. we left monday at 3:30 and didn't get into sibu until after
11. what a nightmare. but the training was good. we learned a lot
about helping the elders and sisters in our zone work together better
as a team and also about the importance of obedience. i love being in
trainings from president clark, our mission president. he's really
knowledgable and it's cool to just have discussions on church doctrine
with him. the training was only for one day, and then on tuesday we
got on the bus again. well, that was the plan at least. we went to the
bus terminal and the only bus avaible was one leaving at 12:30 am. the
bus didnt even sho up until 1am and we didnt get back to kuching until
8. that was a pretty crazy experience and i'm glad it's over. it's
nice to be back home. next month we'll have another training, but i
think it's in kuching, so it will be all good.

this week we should have 3 people getting baptized. an indonesian man
named ruzh, who is pretty awesome. he's really faithful in coming to
church even tho he works until 5am. pretty brutal work schedule. then
also a lady named puras and her daughter marina. i believe i've told
you about them. anyways, they all should be baptized this saturday, so
i'll let you know how it goes next week.

the family whose father won't listen is doing really well. the father
still hides when we go over. i don't know why. nothing we try seems to
work. but his family is really good. they should be baptized at the
end of the month- the mother and two of the daughters. there's a son
and daughter in law who live there that havent come to church yet, but
we're hoping to get them out this sunday, and then hopefully we can
get them baptized next month, but again we'll have to see.

last week we got tons of referrals, but unfortunately, none of them
came to church. i dont know if it was us dropping the ball, but we're
going to work hard for the rest of the week to make sure they come. if
we can get them to come, december should be a big month. and our area
will be doing really well. so i'm hoping and praying.

there's a family of 5 kids aged 9-17 and then their mother. only one
of the kids has been to church. she came as a referral with one of our
other investigators. the problem is that we havent yet seen the mom
for more than 5 minutes at a time. she seems really open and willing
to follow, but is hard to get ahold of and works a lot during the week
(we're actually not really sure on her schedule) but we're hopeful
that we'll be able to meet them tomorrow and get them all coming to
church.

there have been a few tragedies. anuar has just been really busy
lately and has been having a real problem getting an answer to his
prayer, and also hasnt been to church in 2 weeks. things are looking
pretty shaky. we're going to go to his house and see if we can't let
the spirit resolve his concerns. also, norina has been avoiding us.
won't pick up calls and when we go to her house her family says she's
not there. so we're going to give it a little rest and see if we can't
go back later to meet with her again and rekindle her testimony. i
dont even know what happened. but malaysia is just like that
sometimes. you get those people who seem really good and then
something happens and they refuse to meet or even talk anymore, and
there's nothing more you can do. i'm hoping that's not the case with
norina. we'll keep trying.

but besides that, our week was good. we got almost all our people who
are on date for baptism to church, which is always a good thing. and
then we had an investigator bring another referral to church. pretty
good. the area is looking up, and we're hoping to help it keep
growing. i'm having tons of fun here and we are getting good work
done. we do make mistakes, which is evident in some of the thigns that
go wrong i guess, but we never give up and keep striving for
improvement.

thanks for the pictures mom. they were awesome. jake is pretty silly.
i'm sorry i dont have any pictures for you this week, but i hope you
have fun in st george with dad. i gotta run, so i'll talk to you next
week. love you mom.

love, zac