hey dad. thanks for the email. sorry about your teaching experience. anyways, i dont have much time. pday went crazy this week. but i can explain everything you want when we talk on christmas. my phone number is xxx-xx-xxx-xxx-xxxx and i have asked mom to call me on christmas anywhere from 3-5pm your time christmas day, so she wont be at work and i can talk to her as well. hopefully this works for you. anyways, talk to you whenever you call.
love, zac
hey mom
no problem about the pics. i understand it's pretty tough to remember things like that. i've printed out some pics, and hopefully i'll be sending them to you via snail mail so you have something to look at. i tried to describe them a little bit in pen on the back, but it got all smeary and ugly. shame. hope you enjoy it anyway.
but as it comes to christmas, it would not be christmas without talking to both of my parents. so i imagine you dont work on christmas, but if you do, please take it off. i'll have time for you to call anywhere from 3-5 pm your time christmas day, which will be around 7-9am 26 dec my time. right before i go to church, so that would be great. i hope this works out.
anyways, a bidayuh is a tribe here in malaysia. the kids are naughty in that they just run around and get everywhere. i guess one thing i have to explain is that malaysians use the word "nakal" (which loosely translates to naughty) in reference to all kids. i've just gotten so used to calling kids nakal it just carries over into english. anyways, i dont have any time really today, so you can just write down any questions you want to ask me for when we talk on christmas day. (remember to call me anytime from 3-5pm your time on christmas). love you lots mom. talk to you later.
love, zac
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Thursday, December 23, 2010
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
"brightly beams our father's mercy"
hey dad.
how's it going? well things are going just fine here in kuching. happy as a clam and all kinds of excited that you guys are helping the missionaries. keep up the good work. it reminds me of the hymn "brightly beams our father's mercy" now i dont mean to be like cheesily spiritual or falsely pious or anything, but this is a song that i have come to love on my mission. "unto us is given the keeping of the lights along the shore. let the lower lights be burning... some poor fainting struggling seaman you may rescue, you may save." look at the good your example is doing in the lives of others. awesome. thanks for being a good example to me in my life and helping me to get where i am.
anyways, i was emailing jake just barely and i told him a story from my mission. no i love hearing mission stories and also sharing my own. i probably already told you guys this one. it's one of my favorites. but i think i'll recount to you the way i shared it with jake. who knows, maybe it can help you guys too.
"all i know is this: anyone whoe reads, prays and goes to church faithfully will get a testimony and will join the church. so let me tell you a story. a real life tale in the life of elder hill. bcak in the days.
so i was chillin in sibu jaya, we were teaching this lesson in a house with the door open. all of the sudden, this crazy indonesian lady walks by and comes in and just starts talking to us about church and how she thinks our church has some false doctrine. we got her number, and sent her on her way after like 30 min of crazy conversation which completely ruined the lesson we were in the middle of before she walked in.
so like the next week we went to see the lady, but she was just as crazy as before. she would read the book of mormon and pray, but we couldnt overcome any of her concerns by talking. she kept saying "but there aren't any prophets anymore. no one can see god.. etc" but we kept testifying that we knew joseph smith's story was true. after a few weeks of nothing, we stopped visiting this lady. it seemed hopeless.
but a few weeks after that, she showed up at church! we were like "what the heck!" and she kept coming every week after that. but she would bring her religious debates into our church. "but no one can see God, there are no prophets anymore... blah blah blha" it seemed like a pretty big trial at the time. anyways, after a few weeks of coming to church, she seemed to be making progress. we brought up baptism, and she accepted. and then she told her other christian friends and they tore her budding testimony to pieces. but she kept coming to church. one month after that, i got a new companion. we kept going and testifying. she kept reading praying and going to church. shortly thereafter, she realized she believed what we had been teaching. and although she didnt understand everything, she decided she wanted to get baptized.
a few months later, i was on splits with a 16 year old kid from the little branch i was in. we showed up at her house to ask her to help us with an appointment, and there was a pastor from another church sitting there telling lies about the church. so we sent the pastor off (no one in malaysia will mess with a white man face to face) and took her to a lesson. anyways, i got transferred and all that. i've been here for 4 months now. but i just got a letter from that indonesian lady. she told me she was really thankful for all that i had helped her with, including telling that pastor to go away. but the best part of the letter was a line that was to this effect: "the more i learn about the church of jesus christ of latter day saints, the more i love it." so please don't give up. keep doing those three things sincerely and regularly, and you will feel the same way."
live is good, and i am loving it here. so i am anticipating talking to you guys next week on the phone. it's christmas time already. time goes fast. anyways, like i told mom, if you guys could call 5-6pm christmas eve for you, it would be the easiest for me at around 9-10am christmas morning. i hope my jumbly english isnt too confusing. anyways, i love you dad. thanks for all your help. talk to you next week.
love, zac
hey mom! you guys are the best! the only unfortuante part of that awesome package, is that i am a candy fiend. it was all i could do to not gorge myself on the candy. i think it lasted me a week. but it was a delicious candy filled week. best week of my mission! naw i'm kiding. but it definitely was up there. although it was unfortunately coupled with my eating some intensely spicy fried noodles with curry that kind of messed up my insides. i've never experienced something so crazy and terrible after a delicious plate of fried noodles. but i'm over it now.
man i'm getting so excited over you and your missionary work mom. keep it up! thanks for the updates. but you mean the missionaries even didnt do a good job of explaining a patriarchal blessing? shame! just kidding. i've definitely run into those situations before. but i dont think it was just chance that that very night bro laton happened to speak on patriarchal blessing, or that the missionary brought it up. God is always preparing his people, and he works in mysterious ways. it is really cool to be able to see his hand in our lives tho. if there's anything i can help you with in your missionary efforts, please let me know. missionary work gets me all kinds of excited. tell desiree that she's awesome for meeting with the missionaries and coming back to church.
but i am sitting here to myself wondering, where are those "cute pics" you took? really, any pics you have i'd love to see. i apologize i havent been sending pics, but it's because of the computers here in my area. i'll have to manually print pictures out and snail mail them to you.
lets see tho, this week not much went on besides a bunch of meetings. we had a missionary training meeting and distirct conference. all was good, and there were good talks, but it took a lot of time out of our missionary work, so not many experiences to relate. we did meet with this man named binong. he's pretty good. he's bidayuh married to a chinese iban. they have twin sons who are naughty as all get out. we found them on the way to a potential investigators house. he was standing in his front yard staring at us. we both had the feeling to talk to him. he imidiately invited us in. we've been working with him for a few weeks. he has yet to come to church because he works, but the good thing is that we have been working with him and the book of mormon. so now, he himself said he believes that the book of mormon is true because he is really happy when he reads it and always wants to read it. he also said he wants to come to church. there are definitely some things he doesnt yet have a testimony of, so we are still working on him. we're hoping he can get work off this sunday. we tried to invite him to the baptism of some other elders in the zone, but for reasons unknown, he just kept telling us he wasnt ready.. very strange. maybe it was because we invited him like 2 hours before the baptism. i guess that was our bad. but he's looking pretty good as an investigator so far. we also have a dude named gregory who is the son of a member who should be getting baptized at the end of the month. so things are going well.
speaking of christmas, yeah my mission president said that the parents have to call. i guess it's a world wide policy. but if you guys could call me around 5-6pm your time on christmas eve, that should be around 9-10 christmas morning for me. that would be great.
but yeah, that's all i got this week. please keep me informed on the things you have going on in your life, and please keep sending pics. but i'll talk to you guys next week.
love, zac
how's it going? well things are going just fine here in kuching. happy as a clam and all kinds of excited that you guys are helping the missionaries. keep up the good work. it reminds me of the hymn "brightly beams our father's mercy" now i dont mean to be like cheesily spiritual or falsely pious or anything, but this is a song that i have come to love on my mission. "unto us is given the keeping of the lights along the shore. let the lower lights be burning... some poor fainting struggling seaman you may rescue, you may save." look at the good your example is doing in the lives of others. awesome. thanks for being a good example to me in my life and helping me to get where i am.
anyways, i was emailing jake just barely and i told him a story from my mission. no i love hearing mission stories and also sharing my own. i probably already told you guys this one. it's one of my favorites. but i think i'll recount to you the way i shared it with jake. who knows, maybe it can help you guys too.
"all i know is this: anyone whoe reads, prays and goes to church faithfully will get a testimony and will join the church. so let me tell you a story. a real life tale in the life of elder hill. bcak in the days.
so i was chillin in sibu jaya, we were teaching this lesson in a house with the door open. all of the sudden, this crazy indonesian lady walks by and comes in and just starts talking to us about church and how she thinks our church has some false doctrine. we got her number, and sent her on her way after like 30 min of crazy conversation which completely ruined the lesson we were in the middle of before she walked in.
so like the next week we went to see the lady, but she was just as crazy as before. she would read the book of mormon and pray, but we couldnt overcome any of her concerns by talking. she kept saying "but there aren't any prophets anymore. no one can see god.. etc" but we kept testifying that we knew joseph smith's story was true. after a few weeks of nothing, we stopped visiting this lady. it seemed hopeless.
but a few weeks after that, she showed up at church! we were like "what the heck!" and she kept coming every week after that. but she would bring her religious debates into our church. "but no one can see God, there are no prophets anymore... blah blah blha" it seemed like a pretty big trial at the time. anyways, after a few weeks of coming to church, she seemed to be making progress. we brought up baptism, and she accepted. and then she told her other christian friends and they tore her budding testimony to pieces. but she kept coming to church. one month after that, i got a new companion. we kept going and testifying. she kept reading praying and going to church. shortly thereafter, she realized she believed what we had been teaching. and although she didnt understand everything, she decided she wanted to get baptized.
a few months later, i was on splits with a 16 year old kid from the little branch i was in. we showed up at her house to ask her to help us with an appointment, and there was a pastor from another church sitting there telling lies about the church. so we sent the pastor off (no one in malaysia will mess with a white man face to face) and took her to a lesson. anyways, i got transferred and all that. i've been here for 4 months now. but i just got a letter from that indonesian lady. she told me she was really thankful for all that i had helped her with, including telling that pastor to go away. but the best part of the letter was a line that was to this effect: "the more i learn about the church of jesus christ of latter day saints, the more i love it." so please don't give up. keep doing those three things sincerely and regularly, and you will feel the same way."
live is good, and i am loving it here. so i am anticipating talking to you guys next week on the phone. it's christmas time already. time goes fast. anyways, like i told mom, if you guys could call 5-6pm christmas eve for you, it would be the easiest for me at around 9-10am christmas morning. i hope my jumbly english isnt too confusing. anyways, i love you dad. thanks for all your help. talk to you next week.
love, zac
hey mom! you guys are the best! the only unfortuante part of that awesome package, is that i am a candy fiend. it was all i could do to not gorge myself on the candy. i think it lasted me a week. but it was a delicious candy filled week. best week of my mission! naw i'm kiding. but it definitely was up there. although it was unfortunately coupled with my eating some intensely spicy fried noodles with curry that kind of messed up my insides. i've never experienced something so crazy and terrible after a delicious plate of fried noodles. but i'm over it now.
man i'm getting so excited over you and your missionary work mom. keep it up! thanks for the updates. but you mean the missionaries even didnt do a good job of explaining a patriarchal blessing? shame! just kidding. i've definitely run into those situations before. but i dont think it was just chance that that very night bro laton happened to speak on patriarchal blessing, or that the missionary brought it up. God is always preparing his people, and he works in mysterious ways. it is really cool to be able to see his hand in our lives tho. if there's anything i can help you with in your missionary efforts, please let me know. missionary work gets me all kinds of excited. tell desiree that she's awesome for meeting with the missionaries and coming back to church.
but i am sitting here to myself wondering, where are those "cute pics" you took? really, any pics you have i'd love to see. i apologize i havent been sending pics, but it's because of the computers here in my area. i'll have to manually print pictures out and snail mail them to you.
lets see tho, this week not much went on besides a bunch of meetings. we had a missionary training meeting and distirct conference. all was good, and there were good talks, but it took a lot of time out of our missionary work, so not many experiences to relate. we did meet with this man named binong. he's pretty good. he's bidayuh married to a chinese iban. they have twin sons who are naughty as all get out. we found them on the way to a potential investigators house. he was standing in his front yard staring at us. we both had the feeling to talk to him. he imidiately invited us in. we've been working with him for a few weeks. he has yet to come to church because he works, but the good thing is that we have been working with him and the book of mormon. so now, he himself said he believes that the book of mormon is true because he is really happy when he reads it and always wants to read it. he also said he wants to come to church. there are definitely some things he doesnt yet have a testimony of, so we are still working on him. we're hoping he can get work off this sunday. we tried to invite him to the baptism of some other elders in the zone, but for reasons unknown, he just kept telling us he wasnt ready.. very strange. maybe it was because we invited him like 2 hours before the baptism. i guess that was our bad. but he's looking pretty good as an investigator so far. we also have a dude named gregory who is the son of a member who should be getting baptized at the end of the month. so things are going well.
speaking of christmas, yeah my mission president said that the parents have to call. i guess it's a world wide policy. but if you guys could call me around 5-6pm your time on christmas eve, that should be around 9-10 christmas morning for me. that would be great.
but yeah, that's all i got this week. please keep me informed on the things you have going on in your life, and please keep sending pics. but i'll talk to you guys next week.
love, zac
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
marshmallow heads
hey dad
thanks so much for sending that byu thing to me. you guys are the best! by the way, i apologize i didnt explain about the contents of the package. the two things of fabric are for mom and the carvings are for you, like you had assessed (but i had intended the prayer rug for myself..) i'm sorry the shield broke. malaysian pst takes special care with items, as you can tell. but unfortunately no insurance. i guess that'll be that.
anyways, there are a few more things i ask your help with.
please visit the site below and order my official transcript so it can be sent to byu. you have access to my account, so please use my funds for the required fees.
also, i was wondering if you could visit the byu application website you sent me to just check the info i've written so far. i wont complete it this week, hopefully next week. but i would ask you to check it over and please correct any errors you find.
[sensitive info deleted]
anyways, i apologize i dont have much time. the work has been pretty slow this week anyway, so i'll give you guys an update next week when time permits. thank you so much for your help dad. i am helpless without you guys. if all else fails, we can talk on christmas. in regards to that, i will call on your christmas eve around the afternoon if that works with you guys. please let me know the phone number you would like me to call.
also, i got the package you guys sent me. such an awesome package! you guys are the best. those pickle head marshmallows. you guys really know what i like. i'm sorry for the trouble of sending me a package, but i really do appreciate it so much. thanks. talk to you next week dad. i love you.
love, zac
Hey mom. you are the best!! thanks so much for that package. it was so awesome. the marshmallow heads. where in the world did you find those? my package got opened up in the air port from singapore to kuching and the people were trying to figure out was those marshmallows were. nothing happened, they just wanted to check nothing dangerous was inside.
pretty crummy about the package i sent. but i told dad what to do with the things. i guess you guys can really do whatever you want with it.
that's pretty cool that desiree went to church. i know that as she stays active and coming to church functions, she will learn to really enjoy it (even if there are lots of criers at testimony meeting. i didnt learn to appreciate it til i was on my mission) is she in our ward boundaries? that's cool you guys are meeting with her at your house. it's awesome to have missionaries over. i cant wait to help them out when i get back. anyways, not much happened, and i dont have much time. i apologize this is so short, but there'll be more next week. love you so much mom! keep being awesome!
love, zac
thanks so much for sending that byu thing to me. you guys are the best! by the way, i apologize i didnt explain about the contents of the package. the two things of fabric are for mom and the carvings are for you, like you had assessed (but i had intended the prayer rug for myself..) i'm sorry the shield broke. malaysian pst takes special care with items, as you can tell. but unfortunately no insurance. i guess that'll be that.
anyways, there are a few more things i ask your help with.
please visit the site below and order my official transcript so it can be sent to byu. you have access to my account, so please use my funds for the required fees.
also, i was wondering if you could visit the byu application website you sent me to just check the info i've written so far. i wont complete it this week, hopefully next week. but i would ask you to check it over and please correct any errors you find.
[sensitive info deleted]
anyways, i apologize i dont have much time. the work has been pretty slow this week anyway, so i'll give you guys an update next week when time permits. thank you so much for your help dad. i am helpless without you guys. if all else fails, we can talk on christmas. in regards to that, i will call on your christmas eve around the afternoon if that works with you guys. please let me know the phone number you would like me to call.
also, i got the package you guys sent me. such an awesome package! you guys are the best. those pickle head marshmallows. you guys really know what i like. i'm sorry for the trouble of sending me a package, but i really do appreciate it so much. thanks. talk to you next week dad. i love you.
love, zac
Hey mom. you are the best!! thanks so much for that package. it was so awesome. the marshmallow heads. where in the world did you find those? my package got opened up in the air port from singapore to kuching and the people were trying to figure out was those marshmallows were. nothing happened, they just wanted to check nothing dangerous was inside.
pretty crummy about the package i sent. but i told dad what to do with the things. i guess you guys can really do whatever you want with it.
that's pretty cool that desiree went to church. i know that as she stays active and coming to church functions, she will learn to really enjoy it (even if there are lots of criers at testimony meeting. i didnt learn to appreciate it til i was on my mission) is she in our ward boundaries? that's cool you guys are meeting with her at your house. it's awesome to have missionaries over. i cant wait to help them out when i get back. anyways, not much happened, and i dont have much time. i apologize this is so short, but there'll be more next week. love you so much mom! keep being awesome!
love, zac
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