Monday, March 18, 2013

Back from Singapore

Dear family,

hope you all had a great week.  I'm glad the highlight of everyone's email was about the cat.... haha i actually only read the first one (no time for repeats!)  

Singapore was a lot of fun.  I was pretty upset that I didn't get to go to Pulau Ubin... because we literally didn't end up doing anything.  On the other hand, we got to be with some other Elders to just relax and catch up.  The Elders who went on the bike trip said it was way fun though >.<  We stayed in a nice hotel and had a nice Zone Conference.  President Mains did a great job, as always.  It felt super short.  The sad part was that this was the last Zone Conference for a huge group of Elders before they go back, including my old Companion Elder Matheson, Putnam, Sroufe, Brookes, Corob, etc.  I'm going to miss those guys haha.  It was cool to catch up with them again.  It was also fun to be with Elder Bodhaine and Crum again.  Those Elders are a fun time.  It was so short that we had to run straight from Zone Conference to the other side of Singapore to catch our bus to Kuala Lumpur.  Five hours later.....  we got to KL way late and ended up staying up late and sleeping in the KL apartment.  Another fun time.  

I don't know if this made any headlines, but there is a little bit of a war going on in East Malaysia right now.  Apparently, a tribe of muslim Filipinos that immigrated to Sabah years ago decided it was going to create it's own sultanate.  So some random guy proclaimed himself the new sultan and sent a bunch of guerrilla fighters against the government.  The missionaries have been on close watch in Sabah.  The government is quite literally trying to eliminate the problem.  No one knows exactly who has died, but supposedly the govt. is trying to keep the news away from it.  Lots have died.  Anyway, the reason I mention this is because of it, Sabah wouldn't let the missionaries come back in.  They gave them 7 days to leave.  So.... thankfully transfers are next week, so there is going to be big changes in the mission.  I am positive I'm staying here (so glad!).  Elder Trotter is sure he's leaving.  

Do you have a copy (or can you get a copy) of our priesthood line of authority?  I would like to show that to people here.  If not, let me know.

One of our best investigators, Beh, is getting so close to baptism.  We just found out the other day, however, that there is something he needs to take care of before he is fully ready.  We had a really memorable time with him last night.  Everything has been so easy for him to accept and understand to this point.  Now, there is something that is much more difficult.  President Mains talked about how the problem in our mission isn't a retention problem, but a conversion problem.  This is the perfect opportunity for Beh.  I'm glad that he sees it for himself too.  Not that we told him, but that he can see the desire to change, and the need also.  I don't want to say much more about it, but it was one of the best moments of the mission so far.

Yesterday at church we had members from the Subang Jaya branch visit our group, which doubled our numbers haha.  It was so nice having more people there.  We taught sunday school, and it was so much nicer when the members get up and say something so our investigators can see another's perspective.  We also had a FEAST afterwards.  I think every sunday we've had food... which is nice because we used to starve on sundays.  So much curry, fried rice, shrimp, meehoon, and CARROT CAKE.  american style.  So good.  Oh, and one of the expat families from Subang brought real turkey, and being the missionaries... we get all the left overs ^___^  One thing I've noticed on my mission is that free food = delicious food.

On saturday, we had kind of a cool experience.  The KL district had all the missionaries come to the church in PJ to take the youth on exchanges with us.  I've never done this.... and I feel like I'm one of the only people who didn't do this before the mission haha... It was a fun experience though.  It destroyed our proselyting day, because we had to travel so far.  Luckily, we had a lesson early in the morning before so the day wasn't completely lost.  It was funny because they took us (the Elders who live the furthest away from KL on one side) and sent us to take these young men to a member on the OPPOSITE side of the KL valley.  It was good for them to see because finding your way through malaysia, when you have no idea where you're going, is often a struggle.  

Oh, I'm going to a tailor today to get two custom suits designed.  I'm thinking of getting a dark navy blue one, and then maybe a nice dark black one.  There's four elders who are doing it too.  On of the members is hooking us up with a friend.

If you send a package, could you include some nice tooth brushes/ tooth paste?

This week was kind of slow because 3 days were taken up with Singapore, and then Saturday was taken up with the youth activity.  So not too many stories.

Ok goodbye
Elder Robinso

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