Zachary Royden Hill
to me
show details 8:16 PM (53 minutes ago)
hey dad.
so that's sounds like a pretty crazy week you've had going on. i hope things are getting better with your sickness. anyways, my week was pretty good. i got back from singapore safely. we were pretty busy trying to get all our people to church and it turned out well. we had 72 people total at church, which was awesome. 27 were investigators, which is pretty crazy. lots of people wanting to learn. so we should have a few baptisms this week. some actually just a few hours from now hopefully. i'm excited. the people getting baptized today are the mother and sister of the 21 year old guy we baptized back in march. so that's pretty cool. and also there are 2 teenage boys whose father should be baptized in the coming weeks. they have been coming to church faithfully for months and we're trying to use their baptism to excite the father so he'll quit smoking. they're pretty awesome. on sunday, hopefully we'll baptize a man named clement that i've talked about a time or two. he's awesome. loves to have us over and learn. so he and his wife should be baptized. it's nice to get a family all at once. their kids are all young, so they'll be able to grow up in the gospel.
We had been teaching a man and his family for a few weeks and they had been really struggling to learn and come to church. We were feeling like we might have to drop them as investigators so we gave them a lesson about who God and Jesus Christ really are, and that to show Them we love them we need to go to church and worship. It really worked, and now they have been to church 2 weeks in a row. sweet!
Also, we had been working with a man for quite a while who had never been Christian before, but is a very good investigator when it comes to learning. He likes hearing new things and actually studies and learns what we teach him. The past few weeks he had really been struggling with smoking. He was even to the point where he didn’t have a desire to quit, I think mostly because he didn’t think he could. So we asked him to pray for help right there, and we fasted for him. Now he is doing much better. He said he hasn’t smoked for a few days and doesn’t really want to anymore.
We just got a new group leader, and he is doing well. He seems pretty excited to help us out with missionary work when he can. he's a good man. so that's pretty all that went on in my week. next week we should have some baptisms as well, but we'll see what goes on next week. you never know what can happen in malaysia.
anyways, i gotta run. love you dad. take care of yourself and mom.
love, zac
Zachary Royden Hill
to me
show details 8:33 PM (40 minutes ago)
hey mom, dont worry about the letter not coming. i really like getting pictures, so if you want, you can just send multiple emails so i can get all the ones that you want to send. or, if you want, you can edit the pictures and resize them to like 30% of their usual size, which makes the file smaller so it's easier to send. you can still see it fine, but it's easier for over email. that's what i do with my pics.
i'm sorry i'm not looking my best in that baptism pic. it's intentional tho. i gotta do something to keep these ladies off of me. just kidding. my eyes just hurt a little bit. i'll try to look extra nice in the next baptism pic i send. i'm just not very photogenic, you know what i'm saying? but yeah, i've been having a good time. it's surprising how much the group is growing. there's just more growth in the future. you never know when i'll get transferred, but i'm glad to have had this opportunity to serve in sibu jaya. it's an aweosme place, even if it is tiny. the aerial photo i sent is actually of sibu jaya, in case i forgot to mention last week. so you can see for yourself how small it is. that's where the magic happens. i'm sorry i dont have any pics this week. just not been much going on that i want to take pics of. when did you get this sandbox? where did you get it? sound slike fun for the kids. it's good that youve been enjoying them around. i hope things have been going well.
so elder lang and i go to the church and clean on saturdays and when we got there, we found out there was no power. we went down the stairs and found out that the power box had been hit with something and it severed the cord. it was pretty nuts. unfortunately there are no phonebooks or electrical stores in sibu jaya so we had to go around to different places and ask if there was someone who could fix electrical problems. we got the phone number for some random guy and he came and fixed it. that was kind of crazy but easily fixed. also, there have been a few yelling fights here in the flats between drunk people. i imagine living in the flats here in sibu jaya would be a pretty crazy experience. you cant keep anything private. but it's been fun. oh yeah, there was one thing i forgot to write about. so tomorrow we should baptize this 17 year old girl we've been teaching for a while who is the sister of a lady we baptized in march. she lives here on the weekends. anywyas, the sisters tracted into her mother, and the mother had been going to church and wants to be baptized now. the girl we've been teaching was pretty strong catholic and even tho she believed the story of joseph smith was hesitant to be baptized, but with her mothers interest and us still teaching, she has finally decided to be baptized, which is pretty sweet.
so that's all i have for the week. i'm sorry it's short. i always say that. sometime i'll write better emails somehow. anyways, i love you. take care of yourself and talk to you next week.
love zac
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Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
have you seen a pig run around without a head?
hey ma
malaysia is doing well. it's still pretty hot and still getting a lot of rain. i'll try to send more pics next week. gawai was this week and it was pretty crazy. the first day we went around in our area and we ate at investigators and members houses. they fed us until we couldnt eat anymore, and then we ate some more. holy moly i thought i was gonna die. but it was fun. we went to the flats and they had a pretty big party we stayed for. everyone was excited and startled to have a white guy come. lots of people drinking which was a little strange. not that great for missionary work, but what can you do. anyways, we had zone conference so we went into town and had interviews and on that, but on our all day p day we went to a long house and ate some more. we also saw a live pig get beheaded. i dont know if that's iban tradition or what but it was pretty gruesome. you know, you always hear about the chickens running around without heads, but have you seen a pig run around without a head? well it didnt actually run around, but it looked like mesh when he's running in his sleep. i'm sorry if you dont want to hear about that, but it was one of the main events of my week. how often do missionaries get to see that on their missions? the long house was huge. 40 doors. there's like a big hallway in the middle and from one end you could barely see the other. they also have this tiny palm tree that they cut down and bring inside and hang all these drinks and things to eat all over it and people dance around the tree and cut things off of it. and eventually they chop all the leaves off and cut it down. i'm not quite sure what that's all about but it's pretty cool. anyways, yeah lots of people have been out of town, so proselyting has been a little slow, but we've still got some good things going on. hopefully at the end of the month we'll have a good amount of baptisms. that one last week went well. again hope pictures will be there next week. anyways, i'm sorry this is so short, but we dont have a lot of time. i'll have to finish my ramblings next week.
love, zac
malaysia is doing well. it's still pretty hot and still getting a lot of rain. i'll try to send more pics next week. gawai was this week and it was pretty crazy. the first day we went around in our area and we ate at investigators and members houses. they fed us until we couldnt eat anymore, and then we ate some more. holy moly i thought i was gonna die. but it was fun. we went to the flats and they had a pretty big party we stayed for. everyone was excited and startled to have a white guy come. lots of people drinking which was a little strange. not that great for missionary work, but what can you do. anyways, we had zone conference so we went into town and had interviews and on that, but on our all day p day we went to a long house and ate some more. we also saw a live pig get beheaded. i dont know if that's iban tradition or what but it was pretty gruesome. you know, you always hear about the chickens running around without heads, but have you seen a pig run around without a head? well it didnt actually run around, but it looked like mesh when he's running in his sleep. i'm sorry if you dont want to hear about that, but it was one of the main events of my week. how often do missionaries get to see that on their missions? the long house was huge. 40 doors. there's like a big hallway in the middle and from one end you could barely see the other. they also have this tiny palm tree that they cut down and bring inside and hang all these drinks and things to eat all over it and people dance around the tree and cut things off of it. and eventually they chop all the leaves off and cut it down. i'm not quite sure what that's all about but it's pretty cool. anyways, yeah lots of people have been out of town, so proselyting has been a little slow, but we've still got some good things going on. hopefully at the end of the month we'll have a good amount of baptisms. that one last week went well. again hope pictures will be there next week. anyways, i'm sorry this is so short, but we dont have a lot of time. i'll have to finish my ramblings next week.
love, zac
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
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