Monday, August 25, 2014

August 24, 2014 – Where There Is Smoke… - Week 8 in Sibu Jaya

This week was rather difficult for me, but also way good!

Sigai came back and we’ve met him a couple times! He came to church on Sunday and has been reading and praying. His wife is still really not interested, but we will just give her time. The next lesson we will be going over the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We will also go over the word of wisdom with him. It will interesting to see what happens, if he has any big word of wisdom issues then it could make meeting his Sept 20th date difficult and we may have to push it back, but if he is good or is easily able to overcome them I think he will be good.

Church, ah church. So, basically we forgot stuff at the house and had to go back so we were 10 minutes late. After sacrament meeting when everyone went upstairs for classes it became apparent that somebody had locked the door to get into one half of the building. Nobody has a key to this door, and it’s a nice knob, you can’t “butter knife” it. Anyway it has happened a couple times before and basically an Elder has to climb out the back window and walk along this ledge holding onto window grates and climb in the window on the other side and unlock it from the inside. The new senior couple wouldn’t have any of it so we were stuck in one half of the building for classes...... Ugh. Anyway people kept asking what this smell was, nobody could place it. Finally the primary kids were all like "it’s smoke, it’s smoke" and then everyone realized that is what it was. So everyone proceeded to leave class and look for the fire. We were worried that it was in the locked half so we went out the window and unlocked the other half – NOPE, it wasn’t.  Turned out to be the electric meter (not an Itron one) at the bottom of the stairs. It basically was melting and smoking and had been charring the wood board it was mounted on. Anyway, end of church for the day.

The sisters are doing good, met last night and talked about priesthood and priesthood authority to do baptisms and such. They came to a district activity Monday night, however there was a problem and they nor Sister Seleha, (their ride) were able to come to church, next week though.

Victoria came to church, also met her this week while riding to an appointment. She agreed to meet after church but then the whole church was filled with electrical smoke, so that was scratched. I don’t think she’s working as much anymore so I’m hoping we can start meeting her during the week.

Brother John is still Brother John. He knows the church is true, he’s just telling himself he’s not sure because he couldn’t kick smoking last time. Whenever I try and direct the conversation towards something deep he just avoids it. Anyway, I feel like the only way he can make any progress is if we can actually talk to him without all the random rhetoric. Still trying to figure out how to do that.

Last Monday we stayed the night at the Zone Leaders house and on Tuesday had Zone Council, just a new name for Zone Meeting. It was way good. Afterwards went on splits with the Zone Leaders. I stayed in Sibu Jaya and Elder Kavapalu stayed in Sibu. Pretty good. On Thursday one of the APs went on splits with the other Sibu Jaya Elders. That was pretty good, got to hear a bit about President Mains' vision for the mission and such.

So ya,

Thanks a lot for the birthday present!!!  If you guys really want to open the tube you can.... Just don’t let somebody break it. Also there are no darts in there and I had to remove the bayonet and sight before I shipped it.

Can’t wait to see the new cabinets & kitchen when I get back!

Love you guys!

Elder Halpin




Sigai, his wife Bibi and their daughter Pira. 
Classic example of "Kampung face," this is a condition a lot of Ibans get where they don’t smile in pictures.

Elder Kavapalu and I at church, 
he wore his Tongan dress "pants" yesterday.

Random Melayu guy we met down the street from our house, 
moments before he had killed this king cobra.




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