Letter #27 - Week of 13 Aug 2008 - Salami in Singapore and Confirmation of Jamie and Ah Peng

Hello,

I am writing this email from a convenience store that also happens to be an internet cafe in the middle of Little India, Singapore.

Singapore has been deluxe. Yesterday I ate salami. Salami! Hungarian salami. It was so delicious. And I ate it on wheat bread. And I drank pomogranate juice with it. That was an excellent meal. Last night, I ate from a Japanese stall at a food court. It was an awful lot like a meal at yakitori, except the chicken doesn't come on a stick, and it just so happened that the only utensils around were chopsticks. So now, I've realized chopsticks aren't so difficult to pick up things with.

I also had some huge korean pears. I love those things. They're just so big and sweet.

I took out Grandma's money, and I'll probably use it today on some good ice cream, and some souvenirs around Little India. I used some of it to buy Indonesian hymn books to give to our new converts.

I did know the olympics started already. They're playing on televisions all over the place.

Elder Howes is indeed with me for his last visa run. We were supposed to go on exchanges, but the zone leaders here did not arrange things properly (I don't blame them- they've got a lot on their plate this week due to temporary transfers, several visa runs, and some elders going home), so we kind of went out by ourselves. I say kind of because we didn't get a whole lot of anything accomplished. A lot of pointless walking around trying to figure out what to do. Oh well. Last night, we were in a very cramped apartment. They did not have any extra beds, so we were on couches, and they didn't have any blankets or anything, so it was an uncomfortable night. I didn't sleep well at all. I don't have it so bad, though. Elder Howes was in the same situation, only he is also sick. I will be happy to get back to Sandakan, though.

Donnis and Julia are still doing very well. We haven't seen Zeezrom since. The one drawback with their family this week was that Donnis had to work on Sunday morning, and there was some miscommunication, so Julia and the family did not realize we could pick them up to bring them to church, so they went to the church across the street from the house, and were gone when we showed up in Brother Hiew's truck. Their family is so great, though. Julia asked us to help her husband get over his drinking problem, so we taught them about the word of wisdom. When we taught that as a commandment from God, Nenek started pumping her fist in the air. I think that was the first time I've ever had an investigator cheer us on like that. They really like having us over. On Sunday night, we were on the way out the door when Julia stopped us and said "Wait a minute. When are you coming back?" Because of a busy Monday schedule and the visa run, we weren't quite sure when we could come back. Julia continued "Tomorrow? Can you come back tomorrow?" We worked things out so we could go back on monday. Then, again, the same thing happened. We told them we were going to Singapore for a few days, but still, on the way out they asked "Are you coming back tomorrow?" We set an appointment to go back on Friday night.

Jamie and Ah Peng did get baptized on Saturday. Before the baptismal service, I'll admit, I wasn't quite sure that our teachings had really sunk in yet. During the baptismal interview, she asked (although we had already taught her) if it was okay to be baptized even though she had been baptized in the Anglican church. At the baptism service, though, all my doubts went away during her testimony at the end of the service. The first thing she said was "I am very happy today that I was able to be baptized into the True Church of Jesus Christ. I'm thankful the Elders came to teach me about it."

I performed the confirmations of both Jamie and Ah Peng on Sunday. That was a great privilege.

Love,
Elder Muffler