Glad you all had a
good week camping and trekking and such.
So basically the
doctor decided to take the day off... Hari raya, ya know!? Basically the month
of Ramadan, when Muslims fast is over and everyone is taking the week off. I’ll
go in on Wednesday instead.
Also, I did get the
letter from Brother Brower, also one from Brother Waters. I wrote them both
letters and went to send them, forgot my wallet... Then forgot to try again. They
are in my box of letters... Please apologize to them for me. I will re-write
them and send this week. Eeek, I feel like a jerk now...
SIB stands for Saints
in Borneo. A Protestant church started in the 1950s by some Australian
missionaries. They generally don’t like us. One of their members tried to bible
bash with me once...
This week went well.
Sister Lulong is
coming along. We went to the longhouse on Tuesday and shared the restoration
with her. She can’t read, but she said she would pray to know if Joseph Smith
was a prophet.
John and Kevin are
doing all right. We went over there on Friday to talk about Jesus and his life
and also faith. The family is very receptive, and Kevin has read some more. We
are having some difficulties with John. He is very knowledgeable about the
gospel but he doesn’t use it in anyway helpful. He has some attitude problems
that are making trying to figure out how to help him difficult.....
Brother Phillip and family
are good.
We got an old
investigator back. Victoria is 16, she is friends with a lot of the youth. Her
family doesn't care what she does but doesn't want to be involved. She received
2 lessons about 3 months ago and then went to Kampung where she disappeared for
3 months. Probably the most sincere
investigator I’ve ever had. She has come to church the past 2 weeks and is
reading the Book of Mormon. Yesterday we went over the plan of salvation with
her, she asked a lots of questions and took notes. It was very cool. She said
that she wanted to be baptized, but on her birthday, January 24, 2015.... Maybe
after we teach, in depth, about baptism she will want to be baptized sooner. I
don’t think she really understands it completely yet. Anyway, way cool.
So, basically, the calamities
keep coming to me... so first off my first week in Sibu Jaya I got sick one
night and had the infamous "double-headed dragon" symptom as it is
known.Tthen at the end of that week, of course, I broke my wrist. Anyway, on Thursday
I woke up sick, lost 10-12 pounds in the course of 4-6 hours. We have a scale
in our kitchen and I regularly stand on it. Weighed 220 when I woke up and 209
at lunch...
Otherwise things are
good. Elder Chan just got his release date in his email, September 25th. Speaking
of the 25th, Elder Strathearn has the same birthday as me. If we are both still
here we are going to go hard, since we can legally drink, we will probably go
to the night club across from the church.... Hahaha, just kidding.
Bathrooms that don’t
work are annoying. The light in our bathroom burnt out and we are too lazy to
buy a new one and replace it. I just tied my headlamp to the water pipe and we
use that. It pretty much illuminates the whole room. Also electricity that
breaks is annoying. Ours is particularly janky. We came home from church and
the outlet our refrigerator was plugged into had exploded and melted. We are using
a different outlet now...
With love,
Elder Halpin
Pictures:
Victoria, Sister Bia, the young womens advisor, and I.
The day we went into the jungle. This is rubber, latex. It dries on your fingers like a latex glove. It's what put Sibu on the map originally, rubber plantations. Basically people have been burning the jungle around Sibu Jaya all this week to make rice paddies. This tree was to be burnt so we didn't feel bad chopping into it.
The haircut Sister Kat gave me, I went to a barber and had it chopped off that evening, it was horrendous.
Cassandra, one of Brother Phillip's and Sis Sarawas children, found a kitten that somebody stepped on and brought it home. Basically its wrist is broken and it would hobble around on it bending it in all sorts of wrong directions screeching all the while. Anyway I made a "splint/cast" for it and now it slides on its forearm and doesn't scream. We will take it off when I take off mine and see if it heals, I don't have much hope...
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