June 24, 2014 – Package Received - Good Week! - Week 23 in Kuching

So I’m in the Singapore airport right now waiting for my flight back to Kuching.

This email’s going to be pretty short.

Got the package, way nice, the cookies are delicious and I’m wearing the jeans right now.

Also Katherine that’s a very nice picture of your bike, I’ll have to send you one of mine.

Last week was way good, we went to meet with Jarraus’ family but the parents were not home. We did meet with the kids and their Uncle whose name is Luke. He is way awesome. If he actually puts in the effort he will be way good. He told us before we had talked about the Holy Ghost, or anything, that if he felt it was true in his heart that he would join the church. We shared the Book Of Mormon so it should be way good.

Also, you remember Brother Clement, he had a heart attack - right, anyway Sister Lucy's (his wife) parents were at the hospital when we gave him the blessing. Anyway since then they have felt "pulled to your church" and are now learning!!!! Way cool!

Elmie was finally able to meet again this week, she read a bit and said that she would actually start now!!!!

Anyway, way sick week, Zone Conference was also way good, tied with the last one as the best I have been to.

Gotta go!

Boarding!

Love

Elder Halpin

June 16, 2014 – Following the Spirit - Week 22 in Kuching

So this week was way good.

Dad: I was re-reading some of your first emails and one of them talked about getting your malaria pills, etc…  Did you take them?  Just wondered…

Elder Halpin: Malaria pills, no need, no areas where you need to worry about it. Malaysia just gases everything. They don’t even give to people going to Indonesia, not sure why we got them.

Mom: I know you don't have time to say much in your emails.  Maybe you could send us a snail mail letter and share a few stories with us about your work...answered prayers...testimony...whatever you'd like to share.  Or...share them via email but please share.  Us folks in the trenches of day-to-day mortality need some uplifting!

Elder Halpin: I will send a few letters and I'll include some examples of what makes good lesson in there, I've actually been working on some recently.

Our appointment with #6 held and was way good. The father’s name in Jarrau his wife is Roda and then they have 5 kids, Rosni 18, Ervina 14, Frederich 11, Andy 9 and Johnathon 3, the last three are boys. He is retired army and is pretty strong in the Methodist church where he is a teacher. We went over with Raymond (BTW he just turned in his mission papers) and only Rosni, Ervina and Frederich were there, we were kind of disappointed because we thought we were meeting the whole family. Anyway we went ahead and shared the Plan of Salvation with them, they understood and asked questions way good. Anyway just as we were finishing up, the rest of the family showed up and asked us to continue so we taught the restoration, also way good, Brother Jarrau accepted a soft baptismal invitation. Way good going back again on Wednesday.

On Friday we were out knocking doors and Elder Lafontaine felt that we should pray, so we did so. Directly afterward we felt we needed to turn around and go to a small side street we had passed. First door we knocked, way cool people, didn’t get a number or return appointment but they said they would read and we could come back another day. Then we felt like we should go to a new neighborhood that we had discovered a few days before. We decided to play soccer with some kids playing there, way fun.  Started talking to this guy, Chris, who was the father of some of the kids, he made the field they were playing on and said we were the first Americans to play on it. He invited us back to play and then pray with him this week, going tomorrow. Should be good.

Today was way good. We went to Bako again. We went to a waterfall and the cliff this time way good.

Will send pictures next week. But maybe not. Zone conference is next week and we fly to Singapore on Monday. So maybe not until Wednesday evening, maybe not until the following week, not sure.

Love

Elder Halpin

June 8, 2014 – Gawai Continues, Some Work Got Done... - Week 21 in Kuching

We were kind of hit by Gawai this week but even still it was pretty good. We went over to house #6 and got a return appointment tonight, should be good.

Brother Clement is doing a lot better, he was able to come to church yesterday for the first time since the heart attack.

We had some way good lessons with some of our less active families this week.

I haven’t got the package yet, we will be going to Singapore at the end of this month and I’ll pick it up then.

That’s cool, the marimba thing in Seattle that is.

Brother Niga is making progress with memorizing the sacrament prayer so that's good.

Love,

Elder Halpin

Doors that look like they belong at the ministry of magic.

or something. Long story.

Heaps of boxes of books.

Another long story

June 2, 2014 – Gawai Celebration - Week 20 in Kuching

So, this week was interesting....

Gawai... You see, Gawai started on Saturday at midnight, so I thought we would be good until then. No dice. Everyone had either gone or was too busy to meet. We literally had 3 appointments this week.... A new record low... The other Samarahan Elders had 0.

Until Sunday…

Church was only sacrament meeting, we actually had 19 people, more than we were expecting.

After church we proceeded to go to 7 houses, Brother Sup, Brother Senen, Brother Niga, Brother Clement, a member from Batu Kawa branch who invited us, Brother Beliang and finally Bro Kelvin. At each one we were fed. There was lots of curry, normal rice, kampung rice, glutinous rice in leaves, chicken rendang, pork, jungle pork, bamboo chicken, normal chicken, many varieties of vegetables, various fruits, various noodles, various snack type foods, like crackers, rice prawn crackers, pastries, chocolates, other candy, various nuts, various random traditional things, and lots of soda. By my count I must have drank 2 liters of soda, coke soda, orange soda, grape soda, ice cream soda, fizzy apple soda, apple juice, water, strawberry soda, sarsi soda, and some milo to top it off...

For a list of strange foods I ate wild boar with the fur, sucked snail out of the shell, pork intestines, shrimp heads, and various other stuff.

Basically I have never been so full in my life. If it hadn’t been for Brother Jeff taking us in his car I would have thrown up a couple times while riding my bike I am sure. I am still full now 12 hours later.....

On Saturday Brother Kelvin invited us to his Kampung for opening Gawai, we went for the first few hours, got to play the gongs and such, pretty cool.

Other than that this week was a lot of empty time. Gawai sucks for missionary work.

It may or may not be the same this week, we don’t know yet....

That’s about all,

Love, Elder Halpin

Eating.

Brother's Kelvin and Jeff, 

the vests we are wearing are our Gawai clothes, 

Brother Kelvin is the Bidayuh style, ours are the Iban style.

Playing the gongs