Week 25

This week has been an awesome one. I really love Sibu, and I'm extremely happy here. It's crazy to think this transfer is already over half over, but I should be in Sibu for a while. This week, we had a few awesome miracle experiences. Yesterday, we had some less active members we really love come to church, and our attendance was higher than it has been for a while. Our branch members have awesome testimonies. We also had miracles that led us to new investigators. A referral from a couple weeks ago became an investigator this week. We also had another investigator give us a referral, so that's a good sign that he knows how amazing our message is. The lady we found while knocking has accepted a couple follow up visits, and we're really excited for what might happen there. We tried three main finding methods this week. The first was knocking, and we didn't find success there, but we met some interesting people. The second was calling potential investigators, and a few of them even agreed to meet. The third was walking around (in Malay it's called jalan jalan) and talking to people. The first person we even opened our mouths to was willing to meet with us and everything. We also ran into two Indians, who don't speak Malay or Chinese, but I spoke some Hindi with them, and they were so happy and impressed, they wanted to take pictures with us. We gave them copies of the Book of Mormon and suggested we meet again. I'm excited for them. We did exchanges with one of the Assistants (the Chinese elder, Elder Harper), and we got to learn from him. He's an awesome guy, and he helped us a lot. Overall, it was an awesome week. My Chinese is improving, and I'm starting to know the members really well. I'm super happy here, and that's what the gospel can do for everyone. I'm so glad I can share that same message of happiness with Sibu. Have a great week! Love, Elder Earl

Week 24

This week has been super good! Transfers did come on Monday after email time, and, surprise to everyone here, no one left our zone. But we did get six new elders, four who now live with us (one is Elder Scott, who I lived with in KL), and two in Sibu Jaya (which is really small, so it's funny it was split). I guess Sibu just needs the gospel really badly right now! Elder Cranford is now the new district leader here. One fun experience we had this week was eating dinner with the senior couple and some people in the branch. The waitresses were really funny and absolutely loved my companion. So as white people, we got a lot of attention and took many pictures with them, one of which the restaurant people said was going in their magazine. We spent some time this week considering different housing options, since six elders in one house is not optimal (the president compared six elders together to a fraternity house). So we may be moved this time next week. We brought an awesome member to an awesome part-member family's home, and put the mother on baptismal date there this week. She is super awesome and already interacts with other branch members like she's a part. We also got some good contacting time this week, which was really awesome. The first time, we walked around downtown, giving a few copies of the Book of Mormon out and even running into a former investigator from a while ago. The second time, we decided to go knocking, and the very first house that answered had a cool girl let us in. We taught a lesson and got a return appointment. She's actually been taught a few years ago, too. We had a Halloween party on Saturday, that was really fun. Tons of awesome food, and some cool games. We were in charge of the fishing game, where you put candy on the end of the hooks. Today for p-day, the whole zone got together and we played football. It was fun! And I ate my recent favorite meal: a MegaMac. It's like a really big BigMac. And I don't know how many calories are in it. We also had a really awesome weekly planning this week, where we set some goals for our area, and decided how to better plan for upcoming weeks. So hopefully the work can move even faster along! Love, Elder Earl

Week 23

I love working in Sibu, so this week was, of course, amazing! First of all, I'd just like to explain Sibu a bit. It's a city probably like as big as Orem/Provo (or a bit bigger), probably about half Chinese, but also lots of Ibans (the local tribe, generally Christian, that makes up most of the church here) and some Malays. We live in a really big house in a nice area. We bike usually, but we also go with a senior couple who is assigned over two branches here to many appointments. There is an evil bird that lives by us that for whatever reason likes to attack bikers. Good thing we have helmets. Dogs are also a little rude, but definitely manageable. The food is good here, but mostly we go to just one of a few places that missionaries have discovered to be delicious. One interesting thing that I have learned here is the solution to when a missionary's bike is broken. It's called "pumping" and it involves one person sitting on the handlebars and the other person riding as normal. It's fun. This week, we had many cool miracle stories. On Monday, we decided to do what we are supposed to do, which is buy batteries to replace in our carbon monoxide detectors. While we were in line, a random lady started reading our tags aloud, and she was interested in our church. Then on our way out, we ran into a lady who had been helped by Elders Cranford and Sutherland a few weeks before when her motorbike stopped working, but they didn't have time to contact her. We got an appointment with her right then. Later in the week, the miracles kept coming. We contacted a headquarters referral (someone who went on mormon.org) at a local Methodist preacher school. We were told she got out of class at 4:30, so we came back at 4:39, and the building was already locked up. Miraculously, we ran into her on the way out, and we talked with her and her friends about our church and gave them copies of the Book of Mormon. They, too, are willing to meet again. The people here are super awesome. Everyone we meet with seems to be making progress, and it's really exciting. Our investigator work has been a bit slow, but we are going to really do our best to have one new investigator a week. We also want to focus a bit more on giving out copies of the Book of Mormon, since our mission president has invited us to give at least one copy every day. Another fun experience I had this week was doing exchanges with the district leader's companion. I spent a day in Sibu Jaya, which is really small. Almost everyone knows the elders there. We taught lessons to Ibans, and we taught a man in English who had flagged down the missionaries to request a Book of Mormon just a couple days earlier. It was a really good day! We watched the Asia area broadcast for church yesterday, which was also really good. It was my first time at a real church meeting, and I love the branch here. There are many awesome members! I hope all is well with you, and know that I'm having a great time here and working hard. I love you all! -Elder Earl

Week 22

This week was super awesome! I started the week by preparing to leave and a couple appointments. It was sad leaving the area, because I really love KL, but I was also excited for my first transfer. I packed all my bags, had a celebratory dinner with the Zone Leaders at Chilis, of all places, and left. The transfer went smoothly. Sibu so far has been amazing. We focus a lot on less actives and building the branch, but we also have a goal of one new investigator a week that we have to work hard to achieve. The branch here is super cool. I love my companion, and our house is very large. We bike around everywhere, or go with the senior couple around to appointments in their car. The food is good, the areas we've worked in are very nice, and I'm excited. General conference was something we watched this past weekend, but I only watched one session in English, so hopefully later I can catch up. It was a good experience watching conference in Chinese, though. I'm really excited to work in this new area, where I will probably be a while. I love it here, and I am excited to get a lot of work done. Wo ai ni men! -Elder Earl

Week 21

It's been a good one, but we have learned a few lessons about patience. One fun experience we had was having someone throw an egg at us before we started a lesson. It did explode everywhere, but we still taught the lesson (we moved so they wouldn't get us again), and our investigator wants to follow all the commandments. We also spent some time looking for missing members. Unfortunately, we didn't find any. So that was sad. But we got to see some cool areas we've never seen before in the process. We got to take a bus this week to visit a family in our branch that lives in a different state, in a place called Seremban. That was pretty fun. The most exciting part of the week was transfer news, which happened today. I am going to Sibu with an Elder that just trained my MTC companion. Elder Chong is going to be with Elder Broadhead, who I lived with in Singapore. I'm excited that all three of us from the MTC will be in East together! I can't imagine many missionaries have been able to serve in the three separate land masses of the mission so quickly as I will. I hope all goes well this week packing and leaving, and I hope the work in Cheras picks up very soon. Have a good week, everyone! Wo ai ni! -Ge Zhanglao

Week 20

The week was a super good one, and who knows? It could be one of my last in Cheras. This week we were able to contact a lot of people who may or may not have interest. So that's good. Hopefully some of them choose to start investigating the church. One of them I talked to on the LRT told me he was an 18 year old boy in Form 5 not sure if he wants to go to college. He took a Book of Mormon, and afterwards texted me saying he had really lied and he was 25 already in college, and just thought it was funny seeing if I believed him. I got to do my first district leader exchange this week, which was super fun. Elder Chong went to Puchong and loved it. He told me "If you go to Puchong, you will be happy all day every day no matter what!" People there apparently even say "hi" back. :D I stayed behind in Cheras, and we contacted several people who had some interest. One person from the night before even called me and requested to learn more about the Book of Mormon. The KL Elders have an appointment with him to do just that. Two people approached my district leader and talked to him in Chinese randomly (despite the fact he's totally blonde and had an English tag on), and I got to talk to both of them about the gospel. We also ran into a member who has been looking for the church, and she brought a non-member Chinese family member to church this week. At the end of the week, I looked at the training book and the "application in proselyting" for the week is that the new missionary takes the lead in all teaching and planning, and looking back, because we taught in English with Elder Chong and Chinese when I did the exchange (it was kind of weird, so I went out two days with different Malay Elders), I did without even thinking about it! We watched some of the Work of Salvation broadcast in church yesterday, which was cool. Hopefully it inspires the members to give us lots of referrals! ;) Last week for p-day we went to Batu caves, which was cool. This week we are going pretty far out to visit a member family, so yeah. Anyway, have a great week! I love you all! Elder Earl

Week 19

This week has been a good one! Last week on preparation day, we went with a couple cool members around. Both are planning on missions, one is only waiting on a visa. We first ate at a Tamil banana leaf place. It was super good! They gave us lots of food! After, we took some pictures at KLCC, then we went to a Relief Society activity. We ended by eating a great Iranian dinner. It was a good day for food. I had some cool meetings this week as well. The first was a zone meeting, where we learned about a district goal to find all the missing people on the branch lists. That will give us a great thing to keep us busy! We ate at a house of some Americans working here, and it was super nice. The coolest meeting though was I finally had my New Missionary Training! After that, the Mission President and wife came to our house to interview us and do a cleaning check. He has to be one of the most busy people in the world with such a spread-out mission, but they are both so wonderful. One cool thing he said, regarding our area, was "Not all the soil is good, but you need to plow it all." We had a couple cool miracles this week. #1 was we went to find a brother whose record was recently transferred from BYU, but hasn't been to church yet. The first time, no one was home, so we left a card. The next time, the card was still there, so we kind of figured no one was there, but right then, his father pulled up and we were able to talk to him on the phone. Also, yesterday we felt we should go to a mall after church to contact, which we have never done before, but it just so happened a giant Chinese checkers tournament was going on, keeping countless young Chinese people occupied. I have never contacted so many people before, and we were able to plant many seeds. We're excited to do the Lord's work here in Cheras another week! Hopefully we'll be able to find success, but if not, we at least know we are doing what He wants us to. I hope you all have a wonderful week, as well! Love, Elder Earl