This last week was a very awesome week.
Reboni and Susie are a couple of our investigators that are progressing the most. I believe they are both Kadazandusun, about 20 years old, and I'm pretty sure they're married (when I first met Susie I asked Reboni who she was, and she said she's my t-something: I didn't understand the word, and I've meant to ask, but it feels aqward) They both seem more interested every time we come back. Really, at first I didn't expect much of them. The first time we went back for a return appointment, we realized Reboni didn't even tell us that he didn't live in the place we met him, and he only reluctantly accepted us again, but he has been reading from the Book of Mormon. They accepted a baptism date last week. The big problem with them, as Reboni told us, is that he understands maybe 10 percent of what we said. I asked, is it our language? No. Are we going too fast? No. I suppose I shouldn't be asking an Asian if I'm doing something wrong. Of course he's going to respect my feelings and tell me no. We'll try our best to help him understand, but I think the Spirit will be the most important factor in his understanding.
Bong also accepted a baptism date. He is a Filipino man, maybe 30 years old, with a wife and a couple new children (one of which was only a week old when we met him and his wife the first time). He was drunk when we met him, and he's drunk probably 70 percent of the time when we come back. When he isn't drunk, though, he is excellent. I mean, he's Filipino. He loves the Book of Mormon and brings it with him to read during breaks at work. He says he can't explain what he has read so far. With most people, I would look at that and say he just lied to me, that he really didn't read, but I really do think it's just an inability to explain to us in his 3rd language the things he read in his own language.
Sunday night and Monday were some of the most enjoyable days of my mission yet. Through something I consider a miracle (I won't go through the details in email), I went with the rest of our zone to Kuching on Sunday night. It was so much fun seeing 3 of my former companions again (Elder Hall, Elder Dhillon, and Elder Stone; alas, Elder Howes is in Utah already). After a lame night of sleep (I think that's necessary for you to get the full impact of some events), I woke up extra early to make sure I got in the shower and had plenty of time to make sure my pants and shirt were looking smooth and my shoes shiny.
I was so ready for that conference. It was one of the spiritual highlights of my life. An area seventy from Taiwan was there to share his testimony and conversion story, Sister Hallstrom gave us a really impressive discussion of the scriptures, then Elder Hallstrom gave a training. He talked about a lot of things that are very signifcant to me: about how my mission experience will be the basis of the rest of my life, about how the things I put the energy into learning now will help me the rest of my life.
Elder Hallstrom essentially talked on two things: learning at church meetings, and helping converts stay active the rest of their lives. For the first hour of his training, Elder Hallstrom talked about church meetings and trainings and other such experiences. He said something like "We just spent tens of thousands of dollars and are taking as much as two full days of your time to bring you together for this meeting today. Why?"
That's something you might think about. Why have a mission conference? Why have general conference, or stake conference, or really any church meetings? They all cost money, time, and effort? What is the result?
The point of his remarks was that church meetings are designed such that we learn something from the Spirit every time we go to a church meeting. Those little doses of inspiration are absolutely vital in the work we do for the church, in our families, or for our own salvation. Elder Hallstrom emphasized the need for us to prepare for such meetings, perhaps by thinking before about you might want answered or by going into the meeting with a willingness to learn. He says it always saddens him when he is sitting on the stand, looking into the congregation, and he sees people he knows does not want to learn anything, either from laziness or an "I've heard it all attitude." He said sacrament meeting can and should be somewhere we really learn a lot every week, but it takes focus and preparation. It really doesn't matter how boring or uneloquent the speakers are, because the significant things we learn do not come from the speaker, they come from the Holy Ghost. Elder Hallstrom expressed his wish that every time from now on we go to a church meeting or class, we try to find some way we can improve based on what he heard and felt in that meeting.
I felt the Spirit very strongly in that meeting, and gleaned many things I will be able to improve, but I suppose the one I just shared is the one that will help me the most in life. It will help me every week for the rest of my life. I've thought about how, since my mission will play a significant role in the rest of my life, and that zone conference will play a significant role in the rest of my mission, it would follow that Monday was one of the most significant days of my life. Elder Hallstrom also gave us some specific counsel to our mission. He made a few interesting comments about the Asia area, over which he presides. For example, the Asia area is just one of 28 areas of the church, but it contains over half of the world's population, with the 1st, 2nd, and 4th most populous countries (I didn't realize before that just how many people there are in Indonesia). Right now, the Asia area is essentially the frontier of the church. This is where the church will expand most rapidly in coming years.
I guess I never mentioned who all came to the conference. It was all the missionaries from Sabah and Sarawak, something like 40 of us young Elders, plus the couples.
After the zone conference, we got to go on exchanges in Kuching. I went with Elder Mattson. It was a lot of fun. In Kuching, they ride bikes. As you well know, although I did learn how to ride a bike, I rarely rode for fun. As I discovered at Aarons camp, I cannot steer, or really keep balance on a bike. Nonetheless, duty called. I got on my bike, and rode it to the end of the parking lot, and tried to turn around a pole. I fell off. It wasn't a graceful fall. It wasn't a fast fall. It wasn't a fall you would look at and laugh, because you knew that person knew better and either just had bad luck or made a dumb mistake. It was a totally slow, aqward fall that you would see and close your eyes and sigh and say to yourself, you must be so embarassed right now Elder Muffler. Elder Mattson asked if I'd be okay riding, and I said "I'll be fine, let's just go." So I got on, and followed Elder Mattson onto the highway, slowly at first, but it was all right. It was a little scary going on the six way roundabout off the first exit to the main highway in Kuching, but luckily car drivers are a lot more skilled at steering then I am, so I didn't get hit or even hit anything (I came darn close to hitting a parked car one time though; when I tried to steered away, my bike just started wobbling and I lost control).
One of the pictures I'll include has a story with it. It's rainy season on Borneo. Unlike cities in Sabah, Kuching has terrible drainage systems, so there was a lot of flooding. Elder Mattson and I were going to a recent convert's house, but the area was completely flooded, and we were worried and wondered what we could do, so we locked our bikes to a light pole, put our shoes in our backpacks, rolled up our socks, and waded through the knee deep water to their house. They had a couple of inches of water on the floor, but apparently they deal with this for a few weeks every year, and they didn't care one bit. I suppose if they aren't upset about it, neither should I be.
I did get my card back just fine and took out some money this morning. We probably won't get to the souvenir market until next week, but I did get that Indonesian bow and I took a picture of it, so thanks Grampy and Nana Bev! That'll be fun to play with some day. It's a real bow with wooden arrows, but I don't want to hurt myself or anyone else, so I'll just leave playing with it till I get back.
Well, I should probably be going.
Love,
Elder Muffler
Here is a picture of Elder Muffler in the Kuching Flood:
Here is a picture of Elder Muffler with his new Indonesian Bow in his apartment:
Here is a picture of the view outside Elder Muffler's Apartment:
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