Life on a Mission 25 March 2014

Everyone should have one of these

I finally found the button. If I stand here and push the button I will stay off the road and my safety will not be threatened. The problem is, this is in a Mall and I can not stay here. I guess I will just hope for the best and trust the Lord as we drive over here.

Butterworth-Penang bridge

This is the bridge from Penang to Butterworth and it is over 6 miles long. If we take the wrong turn there is no way to turn around.  We have to get on the bridge, drive, across, turn around, pay the toll and drive back across to get where we want to be it takes a good 20 minutes.
Sometimes life is that way, when we make a wrong turn we have certain requirements to do in order to get back where we want to be. It can be quite challenging to get back but if we follow the steps and pay the toll we can get where we want to be.
We made the wrong turn once, when we were with President Lai visiting the Seminary students. We were on our way to an appointment. We were not watching as closely as we should have been. It made us late for our appointment and that made us late for our next appointment. We had a 3 hour break which gave us a chance to catch up for our last appointment.

Sister Perkins (holding the blue quilt) and her husband are Ex-Pats, who have had a contract in Malaysia for work, has started the sisters making quilts. Seems funny in a country where it very seldom gets below 80 degrees but the members love them. Sister Joyce (green quilt) has a day care and she wanted quilts for the children to use. It gives us a chance to get to know the members better so we went over and helped her make them. This is getting to be quite common, we have helped on quite a few quilts and it helps us get to know the members

Activities is the Penang Branch 19 March 2014

Tan Family and President and Sister Mains our Mission President

The  baptism of Brother Tan Wee Ming was a great event in the Penang Branch. All of his family except
himself and their youngest son, Tan Jie Yang have been members for quite a few years. He has been very involved in branch activities for years and has been very good to help clean the building and bring his son to early morning Seminary. He has given rides to the other students and helped any way he can. His baptism was very well attended including his sisters and Sister Pah Im's Mother.They are not  members but family is very important to them.
His baptism reminded how important families are in the plan of our Heavenly Father and  why Temples and the work completed in them is so important to us. We are so grateful that we have had the opportunity to be sealed in the Temple and have the opportunity to be an "Eternal Family". I cannot imagine heaven without all of our family with us.

Brother Tan Wee Ming and his son Elder Tan

Sisters from the Penang Branch and Sister Mains

On Saturday there was a Women's Conference for the District. Sisters from Ipoh, Sitiwan and Penang attended. Sister Angus spoke and then conducted a workshop on journaling and the importance of journals. She did a very good job and everyone had a good time.There was a very nice meal and all of the participants received a matching tee shirt.

Sisters from the District

 We have been asked to have the Young Single Adults Family Home Evening in our home.We include all of the Single Adults in the branch. We have a great time and it is a good missionary tool. The Missionaries bring their investigators. There is a lesson and activity as well as treats. It is pot lock and we furnish a dish and drinks. It has given us an opportunity to get to know the members and investigators better.

President Lai is the man on the far right

President Lai is the Stake President in Singapore, he is also over the Seminary and Institute Programs in the Mission. The young  people in the church have such a hard time finding a member to marry that the need to attend a church school to find a companion.The leaders in the branch and  district do not fully understand the requirements and they go strictly by the letter of the law as they interpret it. It causes hard feeling with the members so we wanted to know what the requirements are. It was a very informative day and President Lai is a wonderful man.

Sister Lisa, Sister Romney, Sister Shoba, Sister Bradfield, Sisters SriDavi, Perkins and Michelle

Alex and Vanessa

 We have young people attend the branch quite often who are backpacking around 

Asia and stop on Sunday for church. Alex and Vanessa have been working on a Cruise Ship for about 5 years. They have been married for a year and completed their contracts so they decided to tour Asia before settling down. Alex is from England, not a member and Vanessa is from Orem.

Our work 21 March 2014

We have had several assignments over the past couple of weeks. We were asked to substitute teach Seminary for two weeks. Up at 5:00am and at the church ready to teach at 5:45am so we could be finished by 6:30 so the students could be on time for school. It was a wonderful experience, teaching not getting up so early, the students were great and we to love them. They are very quiet but have a strong desire to learn about the  Book of Mormon.

Addy, Jie Yao and Danielle

We are getting to know the members. We have better luck remembering the members when we can meet with individual families. Sometimes we go to their homes to visit and sometimes they come to ours. We had the Yong family over for Sunday dinner.  We roasted a chicken and had rice only to learn that King Son doesn't like chicken but their son, Zi Heng loved the rice and now he wants to come over to our home for rice all the time. He also likes cake. Next time we will fix fish and rice.

King son, May Ling, Zi Heng and Zi Yao

Zi Heng is very cute and so polite. He tells
his  father that he "can not" do something
and on their way home he will smooth it
over by saying how sorry he is.









Brother Phillip loves to fish so we went fishing with him. We had a lot  of fun and we caught some "big" fish.
Malvinder said we needed to catch 20 fish as a goal. We caught about 30 but some were to small to keep, about 2" and some were puffer fish which are posionious. The biggest fish was caught by Malvinder, an 8" catfish and I caught a small sting ray which was a very valuable catch. The sting ray is very good eating they say.

Big fish Brother Phillip and Malvinder

 Sister Chrissy and her family took all the missionaries out for a special dinner. We went to a Korean restaurant which was very nice. You get your food at a buffet line and then take it to your table where there is a bar-b-que to cook your own food. There was chicken, beef, squid, lamb and pork marinated in different sauces as well as many different kind of fish balls, vegetables, fruits and ice cream, the missionaries favorite.

Front to back Elder Ung, Joselyn, Sister Chrissy, Joash, Elder Sutherland, Sister Bradfield and Sister Romney

It was very good but you had to be sure the meat was cooked enough. It is called a soup bowl and some places in the mission are off limits because the missionaries weren't cooking it long enough and  they were getting sick. We ate some interesting things, but very good.
 Joash is preparing to go on a mission this summer.

Our trip to the beach 24 February 2014

Just before transfers, some of the missionaries wanted to go to the beach, we had a good time. It is the Penang National Park and we were headed for Monkey beach. It is an hour walk through the jungle and along the beach, a beautiful hike. We got of the trail somehow but we made it to the beach and we saw monkeys so everyone was happy.      
Sister Angus slipped and cut her leg on some barnacles growing on the rocks. Because of her injury and because we needed to be home for YSA FHE, which we hold in our home, we hurried home. We will go back to see the things we missed.

Sister Bradfield gets directions

OUR  GUIDE

This is where we want to go

I don't know how we got off the trail but
Sister Romney said they were at Monkey
beach earlier and where we ran out of trail
was not where we were headed for.

Waiting to collect the toll

We went with the Elders when they taught Brother Ming Tan the lesson before his Baptism interview. We will be teaching the new member discussions to him. He is a wonderful man, most of his family are members. His youngest son, Jie Yang is  not ready to be baptized. Their eldest son, Tian Muh is serving a mission in the Singapore Mission. Their middle son, Jie Yao is getting ready to turn in his papers about May. They are a wonderful family, Sister Poh Im Tan, the mother is the Relief Society President and Brother Ming Tan has been the best "dry Mormon" in the branch for quite a while. He has been waiting for Jie Yang to want to be baptized. Elder Tan has special permission to come home and baptize his Father. It is going to be a great Branch activity.

Back row left to right Elder Ung, Elder Sutherland, Malvinder Singh, Brother Tan, Jie Yang and Sister Tan

Our work 22 February 2014

We are a taxi service during transfers. We have made 6 trips to the airport to take Elders and Sisters and pick them up. It is a Muslin country and they cannot change religions. We cannot teach them or we could get kicked out of the country. When the missionaries go to the airport they dress in casual clothes and do not wear their name tags. It is suprising how many countries do not want the church in their country. They limit the time missionaries can be here so all of us make trips out of the country every 90 days to get passports stamped. It is very expensive but the church wants to obey the law.

We have been teaching the new member discussions to Sister Sri Davi Ramaswamy. She has been baptised about three months. She lives with Sister Shoba Scott. They are both from India, working for Intel designing a new chip for the I-phone. Their contract is up the end of March and they will be going back to India. Our goal is to have all of the new  member discussions completed before they go. We meet in their home and it is such a pleasure to teach them. Sister Davi is so excited to learn all she can. She is the only member in her family.

It was Sister Shoba's birthdayand it is her tradition to take her friends and family out to dinner. We were invited to go with them and the Sister Missionaries. It was a very nice evening. They are going to come to the house and teach (try) us how to make Indian food.

From left to right Shoba, Sri Davi, Sister Bradfield, Sister Romney and us

Shoba in her Indian dress