Sunday, September 29, 2013

September 8, 2013 – Training in Matang!!! Week 12 in Kuching

Matthew: Training in Matang!!!!

Dad:  That’s it? You’re entire email for this week? I assume, transfers and you are training a new Elder?

Matthew: Yep, that's it.. lol. no

Matthew: Yep, Transfers. Elder Berger is going to be a Zone Leader in Singapore and I am training in Matang 2, the area I started with. Everyone in my MTC group is training a new Elder in the areas they were originally trained in.


Dad:  So, does that mean you have a new companion?  Who is he?  Have they split the Matang area into two sections again?

Matthew:  Yes. I won’t know until I go to Singapore to pick him up later this week. That also means that I will be picking up my package too. Yep, the Matang branch will be split again. It's President Mains' strategy. Because we will be receiving 75 new Elders by the end of the year all of our existing areas will be full leaving the President 2 options. Open new areas or split existing ones. Since our overreaching goal is to strengthen the Branches until we can establish Stakes and Wards he will be splitting the areas and doubling up the missionaries in all three of the main church centers in the mission, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Kuching. Then in a few years or so hopefully the church will be strong enough in the centers to start reaching out into the kompungs and outlying towns.

Dad: So, are you going to be sending an email with your weekly updates or are these individual emails going to be it for this week?

Matthew: I'm working on it as we speak

Below is Matthew's update for this week:

This week was pretty good.

On Tuesday, after district meeting, we helped the new Chinese Elders get oriented in Kuching.

On Wednesday we met a bunch of members and also helped with some other stuff.
 
Thursday we stayed in, Elder Berger was somewhat sakit (sick). We also had a lot of paperwork and planning to do because we weren't sure if we would be here the next week and we kind of suck at paperwork.

Friday we did a bunch of work, normal day.

Saturday I realized that one of my rear spokes was broken. So most of the day was spent getting it fixed.

Sunday we ate at one of our members house, really good. First they give us burgers and milo and then after we were finished and full, we find out that was just an appetizer.  The main course was kompung rice, (non processed all natural grown in the kompung white rice) with sayur (vegetables) bobbi (pork) and fermented mangos (actually ok) and fermented durian and dates (absolutely the worst thing I've eaten in my entire life).
 
Lot of fun. I'll send some pics as well.

Elder Halpin
 


Milos and Burgers.



The sayur and bobbi in the dish together.
Also the fermented mangoes

 
The dreaded dish of the night,
fried fermented durian and dates



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