Monday, October 6, 2014

September 15, 2014 – Jetliner in the Water… - Week 11 in Sibu Jaya

So, this week was pretty good.

Sigai came back from Kapit early, on Thursday. As a result he wants to go with his original date of the 20th, so his baptism this Saturday! Tomorrow, before we go to Singapore on Wednesday, one of the zone leaders will come to Sibu Jaya to interview him. The other Elders are also baptizing 2 people on Saturday, so I’ll be interviewing them. Way excited!!!!! It’s been really cool teaching him. Easily the most prepared person for the gospel I’ve ever met, far and away.

The sisters are doing well, they have been coming to church and praying. They haven’t had any problems with the Word of Wisdom. Had a really good discussion with them last night about the priesthood and the restoration.

Gilbert is doing really well. He came to church again on Sunday, afterwards we were able to meet with him. Very solid. We are just going to review all the lessons with him. He will be baptized on the 27th of December, when his mother allows him to.

All of our less actives are doing good. One particular family that we have been working with is Brother Donny and Sister Nayan. Long story short her calling of primary president caused her to go less active but now has caused her to become active again. Really cool to see her come back.

Today was way cool. We went to Kapit. Basically it’s the hub of the Sarawakian jungle. This morning, at 6 am, the entire zone got on "Express" boats - think jet liner with no wings on the water- that’s an express boat. After a 3 hour boat ride up the Batang Rajang or Rajang river we arrived at Kapit town. We met Brother Rachnam, one of 7 endowed members in Kapit. A bunch of them meet as a group. He showed us around the Kapit town area, got to see some cool stuff, monkey meat for sale and such, there were so many people, basically Kapit is the hub for upriver sarawak and there were heaps and heaps of people about. Anyway we rented a couple vans and went to his long house 15 minutes away in the mountains. Kapit is definitely the coolest and most beautiful place I’ve been so far in Malayisa. It’s in the mountains on the river, the jungle is all around, big jungle not scrubby jungle. The road to his longhouse reminded me of the road to Jacmel in Haiti, or maybe Hawaii a bit. Longhouses were everywhere, the running joke was "oh look, there’s a longhouse", "oh look, there’s a longer one". Anyway we met his family and had a devotional, then hustled back to the boat. We almost missed the morning boat, the Elders who were already there stalled it for us but even then it was already starting to move as we jumped onto it.

Wednesday is zone conference, we will be there until Friday evening.

The big changes weren’t actually that big. Rumor mill. Basically there are Elders that are teaching 1 hour plus lessons, that’s teaching time only, not including crackers and milo and asking them about their week,  just the actual lesson.... Just being dumb. The whole don’t teach for more than 35 minutes unless directed by the spirit was the biggest thing.

Anyway, gotta go, sorry it’s short. Gotta be home in 10 minutes....

Love,

Elder Halpin

Pictures:

Gilbert and I.


Express boats with cargo boats in the background.


Dressed up as an Iban warrior.


One of innumerable longhouses on the river to Kapit. 
This one is pretty long.


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