Monday, March 24, 2014

March 23, 2014 – Attendance is UP! - Week 10 in Kuching

March 23, 2014 – Attendance is UP! - Week 10 in Kuching

So this week was mixed bag.

We started the week off with some good ole tracting, and for once actually got some good results!

We found 3 families that said they were willing to listen to our message. That being said almost the first door we knocked was an anti guy and he glared at us as we knocked the rest of the flats.

Anyway, now he has anti’d all of those people and it is going to be much harder to meet with them than originally thought, so yeah, I’ll keep you updated on how that goes.

We also have some good referrals. So first off, President Sup, (the old branch president) has a son who everyone calls Ben. His wife (her name is Josepher) is not a member but used to learn (they stopped because she was very pregnant). Anyway they have come to church the past 2 Sundays (we helped bless their baby on Sunday) and we finally got an appointment this week! Should be good, the fact that they have come to church 2 times in a row is very promising!

Our less actives are doing very well! We are meeting with and teaching a whole bunch, and overall I would say we are somewhat successful. When I first came to the branch attendance was averaging 20-30 every Sunday. We are now averaging 30-40 and the past 2 Sundays we have broken 43 and 45 respectively!

We are still working with brother Uching’s family.  They invited us to family home evening tonight so hopefully that goes well.

Anyway sounds like you guys are doing well.

Forgot to move my pictures....

Love,
Elder Halpin



March 16, 2014 – Baptism's in Ipoh! - Week 9 in Kuching

That’s really sad about Argus....   He was a good dog.

Note: Argus was our dog who was hit by a car…

Otherwise this week has been good.

So first off flight MH370... So basically the entire country is in an uproar about it... Our members have many theories... Basically the 2nd hour of church was spent first, discussing Jacob’s wives, then discussing ghosts and the missing plane.... People here, in general, love ghost stories and supernatural stuff...

Samarahan branch can get a bit crazy at times.

Last week, after emailing, we went to the crocodile farm. Basically the crocodiles here are the big man eating saltwater variety. I didn’t realize how they could eat people until I saw how big they really are.... Basically huge.

Earlier today we went to the Kuching Kucing (cat) museum... Basically it was what you get if you google image the word cat.... Not my cup of tea...

We keep working with the families we have been working with and I think a lot of them have been making progress. Good things in that court.

Now for the bestest news!!!!

You remember, in Ipoh, Elder Coloma and I had a lot of investigators right? Well, 2 of them were Angel, from mainland China, and Raj the Indian man we found. Anyway, I called Elder Coloma the other day and Angel actually met the Baptismal date we put her on (the 1st of March) and Raj got baptized on Friday!!!!!!!!

So yeah, pretty exciting!

Sorry, don’t have a lot of time to email.

Love,
Elder Halpin

Elder Coloma's companion, Angel & Elder Coloma

Elder Coloma's companion, Raj & Elder Coloma


Monday, March 10, 2014

March 9, 2014 – Less Actives Come to Church! - Week 8 in Kuching

This week was pretty good.

So we had lot of good appointments this week with the Less Active families we have been working with.  On Sunday, almost all came to church! We had 43 people at church up from the average of 25.

Anyway, Brother Niga continues to try and read, its going all right with him.

Sister Sherim continues to read and came to church.

Brother Kelvin and Sister Caren are another family we are working with, they are boss and read every night and then discuss what they read. We go over once a week and spend a long while answering their questions about what they read and such.

We had a lot of good lessons with people this week.

We are still struggling to find people to teach, but have some really good potentials we are working with and such.

Andrew is just so-so, he just doesn’t seem to be motivated. We are still working with him though.

Anyway sounds like things are going good at home, nice job on your talks guys!

Random fact: Learning English is easier for high school students here than Malay. Students who get A's in English get like B's and C's in Malay.  Even the Melayu people think its harder... (this is, of course, high level not conversational)


Love

Elder Halpin

No pictures.......... kidding here they are.

Kuching zone except for a few missionaries there are 22
 
Every monday night one of the senior couples holds FHE for the YSAs in their home. Because Kota Samarahan is a college town, we have lot of YSA in our branch and we typically try and gather them up and go to it.
 
Brother Juni, Sister Lain and there daughter with her newborn son. This baby has the most hair I have ever seen in my entire life.
 
The first councilor, Brother Senen, and his family, really strong in the gospel.
 
Thats right, I'm a boss. It only took 9 years for me to solve...
 
Random Dinosaur. Yes, a dinosaur.
Borneo is home to many strange creatures.
 
Speaking of strange creatures, check out this thing we found in the caves. We also found birds, normal scorpions, bats (duh), spiders the size of my hand and a whip scorpion.
 
A quarantine center we found contacting
 
In the caves...

 

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

March 2, 2014 – New Companion, Apartment Redecorated? - Week 7 in Kuching

This week sucked....

Kidding!!!

Dad: What is Bahasa?  Is it another language like Iban?

Elder Halpin: Dad, Bahasa means language in Malay, so when I say Bahasa I mean Malay.

No actually it’s been pretty fun. So to start off transfers went over pretty smoothly. Elder Poppleton left on Tuesday and Elder Lafontaine got in later that evening. He’s pretty cool. He’s from Brighton Michigan. He’s been out 13 months so about three more than me.

Andrew is coming along alright, we are teaching him the basics again because he still isn’t really sure about some things.

Otherwise our investigator pool is kind of nil. That being said there are a lot of potentials that Elder Poppleton and I found that are beginning to show, hopefully we can meet some of them this week.

Also, the Less Actives we have been working with are doing well. There is one less active that Elder Poppleton and I and Elder Griffon before me have been trying to meet for the past 3 months. Her name is Sherim. Anyway she finally answered her phone for the first time on Wednesday and we were able to meet with her. She is a college student from Sibu and is really smart. She had read until Mosiah 27 so we read that with her. She actually asked questions and highlighted stuff (basically in east Malaysia if you highlight AND ask questions you’re an absolute boss). So pretty cool, maybe just a bit lazy to get on the bus, so if we can get her to do that then she’ll be good.

Brother Beliang and company came to church again for all three hours. Good stuff. I was finally able to meet his oldest son Brother Jackson or Brother "Menyebot" as everyone calls him because he is always busy. Very funny guy, I feel like we can get him to church if we can start working on him more.
 
Bro Uching and family is doing well, they are starting to read.

Bro Niga, our Recent Convert, is doing well. He finally has the alphabet down and now we are working on sounding out words. While we were there a member who lives across the street came over and said hi, after which, his neighbor came over and said he wanted to join our church... So I was like “yes you can,” he gave us his number and then went next door to a Less Active member’s house and proceeded to get drunk... We’ll see...

Anyway, good week, we also found a very promising place to knock, we will try that later this week.

I realize my photos have been pretty scanty over the past transfer, next week I’ll send 3 emails worth, I promise.

Also our apartment was inspected by President and Sister Mains last week and some major changes were ordered. We had to give away our sofas, armchairs, extra desk and TV (used for church films and music) to a member.

Anyway, not really very happy about it all...  Now all we have to sit on and study on are hard plastic chairs.... Also Sister Mains pretty much hates our apartment so we might be moving soon....

Love,

Elder Halpin

Sunday, March 2, 2014

February 23, 2014 – The Work Continues - Week 6 in Kuching

So this week went pretty good. We were able to meet with a lot of people.

Charlie unfortunately is pretty much done. He is a board member for the Catholic Church he goes to and the church officials basically told him that they would kick him out and make him pay for all the "free" literature he has received from them over the years (such as bibles, prayer books and other things) if he continues to learn from us.... So yeah. We left him with the promise that he could know if it was true if he sincerely read and prayed about it. We will maybe visit him again later but there's not much we can do now.

Andrew is doing much better although Anthony wasn’t able to make it yet. He continues to read and pray, but quitting smoking has been tough and he is still working on it. He lives with some of his siblings and other extended family. Usually they maintain a cool attitude towards us, but the last meeting I felt like I should invite a man sitting on the other side of the room to join us. His name is Aflek and he is Andrew’s older brother. He is married and has 2 kids (Uber & Nakal). He doesn’t read though. We ended up teaching the restoration to them. Aflek seemed mildly interested. We will be going back on Tuesday to teach again.

Also, this Saturday was transfers. I am staying in Kota Samarahan and Elder Poppleton is going to Kota Kinabalu in Sabah. Elder LaFontaine is coming here from Tauwau, Sabah. He is in the MTC group before mine so it will be the first time that I have been the "junior companion" since I was trained. I’ve heard that his Bahasa is pretty good so hopefully I can pick some of that up. I talked with him on the phone and it sounds like he is excited to work, so that’s good. The transfers happen tomorrow so we are pretty busy today getting ready.

We also have lot of really good potentials that I hope will start to come through in the next couple weeks.

The less active members we have been working on have been making progress.

Brother Beliang came to church for 3 hours again yesterday. We have been really trying to get them to read the Book of Mormon every day, and it’s going well.

We were able to meet with Brother Kelvin and Sister Karen yesterday. They are recent converts that were baptized last year. They are doing really well. They read together every night and always have questions when we come over.

I learned the other day from a reputable source that the Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price are most likely going to be finished in Malay and printed before the end of the year! Also, an Iban Book of Mormon translation has been given the green light and work should start on it if it hasn't already.

Anyway, sounds like things are going good at home. Great work at basketball Adam and Rosemitha! Also great work Adam for sharing the gospel. After seeing how fearless people are about sharing it here I'm going to have to pick up my ball game a bit when I go home.

Sincerely,
Elder Halpin

Pictures:

 
 


Elder Poppleton and I
on a bridge to a member’s home.


Me standing in front of what
 quite possibly are the only
pine trees in Malaysia...