I hardly even noticed Halloween pass us by.

hey dad and mom

those pics are pretty cool. the boys in the ward are looking older
(and weirder, i must say. haha) anyways, thanks for sending the pics.
halloween here was just another day. although one of the branches in
our district had a halloween party, so some of the youth from our
branch went to it after the baptism we had on saturday. we hardly even
noticed it pass us by. hopefully thanksgiving isn't as uneventful, but
if it is, oh well.

this week has actually been really awesome for us. everywhere we go we
ask people for referrals. our mission president has really stressed
the fact that we be grateful to the people we meet with and that we be
cheerful, enthusiastic, and smile. now you knew me before the mission,
so you know that's kind of tough for me. but, i've really been trying,
and it has been awesome. i never felt like people responded poorly to
me before, but they are just responding so much better. people really
seem to be more excited to talk to us. and with this excitement, we've
been talking to them how to share the gospel with their friends and
why they should also be excited about giving referrals, and the
referrals have just been coming in. some of our investigators just
brought some friends to church and at church a long time member came
up to us and told us to come to his house the next day to meet some
people that work for him. it was pretty awesome, so now i'm even more
excited and just want to get out there and talk to these people.

even while we were contacting, we kept that cheerful attitude and just
had fun while we were out there. we really tried to get to know the
people. now, we had always tried to get to know people and be
friendly, but this time we tried harder than ever before to just feel
genuine love and grattitude for the people we met with. it really paid
off too. everyone we talked to that day gave us a phone number and
said we could come back. so we'll see later this week how many of them
turn into actual investigators, but i'm hopeful for the future of this
area. we've refocused our vision to the area near the church, and
we're starting to get busy.

anyways, so i believe i already told you about ing's family. they are
the mother and siblings of two of our members. so this past week we
had an amazing lesson with them. when we got there, they all seemed
pretty quiet and didn't seem especially excited to meet with us. we
talked and got to know them better as we began, and had fun with them.
as we asked about how their reading and praying had been going,
however, we were somewhat disappointed because they said they were too
busy or even too lazy. their apathy towards what we had taught them
about prayer was apparent. instead of just launching into an
explanation that they needed to pray or whatever else we could have
said, we just paused for a second to listen. as i sat there, i felt
prompted to ask a few questions about her family and how she felt
towards them. and we even discussed her feelings towards God, and what
she would want to say to Him if she had the opportunity to talk to Him
face to face. you could really see a change in her face, and see that
she was really understanding our conversation, and feeling the spirit
and love of God. that sunday, she brought a friend to church, and then
when we went to see her next, she had prayed and said she believed the
church was true. we asked her why she believed, and she said it was
because how she felt after she read the book of mormon and prayed.
that was the best experience i've had when it comes to really trying
to utilize inspired questions and creating an invironment for the
spirit to open people's hearts. it was amazing.

so we went to see the friend that ing's family brought to church on
monday, and they seem really good. we're hoping to get the friend's
whole family to come to church this sunday. they seem pretty excited .

besides that, tho, i don't really have any news. good things have been
happening here in kuching. i am so grateful for the investigators that
i have and for the opportunity to be here. thanks for being awesome
and continuing to write me emails. i love you and i'll talk to you
next week.

love, zac