kota sentosa

hey dad
sorry if you feel i havent been giving that much detail. i really do feel rushed while writing so i never remember what i did in the past week or what ive already written before, etc. so if the is something you'd like to know more specifically about, it would help if you asked a specific question so i could answer it. that's crazy about all the kids wanting to learn french. at least it will help you to sell those preps, yeah?

well, so i arrived in kuching. we've just been going around getting to know the members and investigators of the branch. it's been fun. there are lots of good people here. i'm glad to be here. the dynamics are a little different from my last area. i've been doing a lot more bike riding, so i'm starting to get back in shape. 8 months in sibu jaya made me weak. we almost never rode our bikes there because it was so small. kuching is huge! we live like 8-10 miles from the actual city of kuching. kuching recently split from 3 to 5 branches, so they extended the area from what it used to be to include another place way south of town called kota sentosa. so lots of biking. church at the moment is 40 min away. i'm still trying to get used to it here and to get to know the people. the area is a little slow right now, but things are already looking up. i'm excited. anyways, nothing much to talk about. sorry. hopefully next week will be more interesting.
love, zac

hey ma. so singapore was pretty crazy. the training we got was good. i guess we'll have another one in october to keep training our skills up and help us to be better at teaching. i think i said this last week, but i felt like i had learned so much about missionary work up to this point. these trainings are just showing me how much more i have yet to learn. so hopefully i'll be more effective as a missionary in the future. the next one will be just for people in east malaysia, so we wont be going to singapore again. good thing too. singapore really takes it out of me. (and the pocket)

the good thing about the word of wisdom, is that if the desire to stop is there and people rely on the lord, it can happen. i cant believe how many people ive seen give up smoking when they thought they never would be able to. the Lord really does take care of his children. so i'm confused. people are amazed at my success until you tell them i'm in a new area? pff like that makes the work easier. success can be achieved anywhere, you just need to take the right steps to get it. in this mission, west malaysia is seen as the part of the mission where no baptisms happen. but you do see those companionships that have crazy success there. i feel that elder lang and i just worked really well together and were blessed a lot by the Lord. i guess people can blame my success on the area being brand new, but i worked through plenty of hardship and sorrow to know what really happened in sibu jaya.

it is so crazy being back to kuching. i'm in an area that is really far from where i used to be, so lots of new things too. but we still go to church in the same building for now as i used to, so i get to see people from the other branches after our church is over. there are lots of people that i used to know., and there are even people in my current branch that i have met before from going on exchanges with the elders that used to serve here. it's a pretty cool experience. it's a litttle tough, because the area i inherited is low on investigators at the moment, but never fear, we'll get that crazy success going again. we've got a lot of good potential started, so we'll just keep it going. the church building is pretty far from our area like a 40 min bike ride from our house, but they are working on a new building that will be right near by, so hopefully that will help us to overcome more of the transport issues that come from living in a big east malaysian city. i tell you what, i've been lucky before this point to have never had to replace another elder. but this past transfer was my first time. i feel kind of awkward, just because i know the elder i replaced and i'm a lot different than him. you just never know what the people are going to think of you when you get to a new place. i feel like i've had a pretty warm welcome so far, but the investigators seem to still be trying to get used to me. hopefully things wil be back to normal soon.

also, like 2 weeks ago i caught bronchitis and i seem to finally be on the mend. we played indoor soccer again for pday today, and i was hacking up a lung, but it seems to be going away. the work just keeps going, you know? i really do love the people here in kuching and im excited for what the future holds here. besides that i dont really have much to talk about since i'm still really new here, so i guess i'll just talk to you guys next week. love you lots.
love,zac