Last One.

Welp,

this is it. im done. finished habis. 

last wek was a blast in singapore. had a "final" farwell party on saturday. "" because im having a party tonight and tomorrow haha. i love these people so much. I gave my final chruch address in a way that i didnt provoke tears. my branch president remarked that i was "naughty" to do so hahaha. 

the conference with Elder Wilson was really awesome. focused on the restoration and the Book of Mormon in conversion. Really good stuff about emphasizing the reading of the BofM. he shared a few personal accounts of members reading the BofM with investigators, which led to the person being baptized. all in all good stuff. 

i cant say im sorry about your cruise. actually i can hah. but you know we kids always have those feelings of resentment when the parent flee the winterland in search for higher temps. but i cant say much cuz ive been in the 80s for two years :DDD

so dont bother preparing the upstairs guest room mom. just makes space in the basement, as that will be my HQ. base camp. living quarters. seriously though.

I would love to write a huge letter about how great my mission has been and ALLLLLL the great things i have done and experienced, but i know i wouldnt have time to do so. i will try my best in my homecoming talk (this week? if possible id prefer to do it right away actually) but i have attached my final weekly letter to President Mains. its a good one:

I want to start off by thanking you for everything you have done for me. It has been my great privilege to see you come into the mission, and to see you grow and become the great Mission President you are now. I know you have also seen me and many of my fellow elders grow. I know that the direction and inspiration you give to us originated from God. I thank you for that.

It's true that this work is not easy. The longer I was a missionary, the more and more i realized that despite my increasing language skills and people skills were not the deciding factors in people being converted to the Gospel. No amount of what I alone bring to the table would ever be enough. for that I thank God for showing me that it is His and the Holy Ghost's work, and They are the ones influencing the hearts and minds of those i taught.

I feel that while i have regrets of disobedience, and too many days of putting forth less than my full effort, I have fulfilled for the most part my duty to God. I know He is pleased with my successes and is patient with my shortcomings. It has been so interesting to me to see the parallels of mission life to a lifetime. It doesnt really matter how much experience or skill I have, I will ALWAYS need to rely on The Spirit and on my Heavenly Father. I will be eternally grateful for all the many chances, opportunities and experiences i have had since starting my mission. I'm really finding it hard to express in words my feelings. Mostly simply remembering times of great bliss when there is success and lives are changed. Remembering that there were hard times, but not recalling the details. 

That is pretty well summation of my feelings now. It has just been the best. I cant wait for the challenges that lie ahead, even though it means i will have to focus on my own needs. thats a bit daunting. anyways. I go to singapore on wednesday and have my exit interview and farewell dinner with the Mains, then early thurdsday morning head out. Pres Mains will actually do my temple recommend interview when he interviews me, so i'll be ready to go to the temple right away!! thatll be the BEST

i love you all so much. thank you for all the letters and messages YOU sent to me. I have never felt distracted or discouraged by anything you have sent me, and couldt think of better things to receive as a missionary. 

Love for the last time from

ELDER Giblette

 

me gettin off the plane in bintulu

me eatin a final meal with E Loke. yup i got to see him again! 

me and a youth that says he wants me to print this picture and show all my friends haha

 

Happy New Year

This week has been one full of big ups and big downs. 

i'll start with the downs first. mostly just one down actually. E Jensen has been feeling quite ill again for the past week and a half, and it was finally too much this week so we went to a private hospital in town. After the meds they gave him seem to worsen his condition, we went back on Friday, and now luckily the meds seem to be having some positive effects. but in the wake of this illness, we were not able to do much proselyting, as E Jensen needed to rest all day, having not the energy to go out. we were however able to visit a few members. 

the ups.

So New Year's was awesome! one of our member's took us to her longhouse, about 20 mins outside of town, and there we had a nice meal of BAT. yup. the flying animal that navigates by sonar. bat. it was bascially fried, with some kind of vegetables. (they looked and tasted like sticks haha) anyways, the bat itself was cooked whole with the head and all. it was a bit gnarly at first, difficult to fin the meat/ then the members said the skin was the good part, and i honestly enjoyed it. the skin had almost a bacony texture. nice. so i went back for seconds haha. much better the second time. so i can check that one off the list now haha. after that we went to another member's house and shared a nice big meal with them. after that we went back and had some fun with fireworks :) unfortunately the fireworks from other people werent impressive. everyone is just saving up for chinese new year. 

then, at the end of the week is when the real miracle occured: earlier in the week, the zls told us about a member who had recently moved to bintulu from  miri, into our area. so we had planned on calling him saturday, to help him find where the church is, but he was more proactive and called us thursday. he then called for directions to the church sunday morning and we then met him there. at this point i was already impressed cuz most members move and then fall off the radar. so after he and his sweet wife and small child stayed for all three hours, he pulled me aside and asked, "elder, how long do i have to wait before i can be baptized?" haha i nearly fainted... After recovering from the shock, i explained hoe we normally teach people for about 2 months before they are ready. we then scheduled an appt for this tuesday. It turns out he investigated the church a couple years ago in bintulu, and then moved to miri for work, where he only went to church one time. i dont really know how the missionaries found out about him moving to bintulu, but they did, and he himself, Gandi, did the rest. It really will go down as one of the most miraculous moments of my mission. so i hope i can get the teaching started before i leave, and then E jensen and whoever his comp is will be able to teach this wonderfully prepared family.

my time is running short as i have had an unusually large load of emails this week. (not complaining) so i would be happy mom to write a few of the many things i have learned :)

I cant wait to come home, and i never want to leave this place! 

We got to singapore on wednesday and come back friday evening. so thatll be cool. its a misison tour combined with zone conference, so Elder Larry Y Wilson will be there. nice. he's tha same Elder Wilson i translated for here in bintulu at district conference. 

alright,

see ya soon!!!

Love

Elder Giblette

Pictures

bat. straight up. i ate two... nice

me n my future wife. Titun :D

The Flood Pics!

The flood

the kitchen (after the water drained)

the clean up

Flood!

Well, this mission keeps life interesting right up to the finish.. On Sunday afternoon, Bintulu had mild-severe flooding!!

The neighborhood where we live was hit pretty hard, as we are the on the street connected to the huge storm drain. (its like 7 ft deep and about 10 ft across) We assume thats what couldnt handle the onslaught of rain. So it had been steadily raining shortly after we arriced home from church at 12:30, and there was a solid hour of very heavy rain. The four of us were studying on the second floor (luckily we have one) and were kind of waiting out the outrageous rain with studies and some cat naps. But somehow none of went downstairs or looked out a window to see just how much rain was coming down...

around 6pm (raining nonstop since 12pm) our member called and asked if our area was flooded.. haha i thought she was joking but obliged her by looking out the window, to my obvious shock the street was indeed flooded with about 2 feet of water! i ran downstairs to find our ground floor filled with about 8 inches of the dirtiest water ive ever seen. hahaha so the first thing we did was locate our electronics, namely our hard drives, which were luckily kept on a table about a foot tall, so all was good on that front. after securing all possible valuables, we went about collecting all the floating items around the house. it was quite the experience indeed; mostly funny because we were caught sleeping and studying while the house was slowly filling with water... luckily the water level did not continue to rise. about 20 mins after it happened, the water rather quickly drained out of the house and out of the neighborhood. The next 5 hours were spent cleaning the house... we finished up about midnight, and the house was cleaner than it has ever been. I'll be able more clearly explain this in person, but the houses here are more or less designed to get wet everywhere, and cleaning up after the flood was kind of a piece of cake, just time consuming. we simply had to move out the furniture onto the patio, and then spray out the ground floor. which includes the living room, kitchen and a spare room. the entire floor is tiled, so we just sprayed everything down with a hose. pretty fun actually. Had we been watching, we could have saved a lot of books, supplies, and wet shoes. but other than those things, nothing is damaged. it turned out to be a great opportunity to clean the house and get rid of extra garbage.  so in recap, we got sneak-flooded. and it was a fun time. 

The real tragedies were in the homes of the area where we have many members living. they live in small, wooden houses, and the entire is lower than where we live. Some members were at home and only got about 3 inches inside, and some were not home and got about a foot plus inside. The area in general was pretty intensely flooded according to the members. some homes getting waist high water inside. the elementary school close by seems to have been hit the worst. at one point the current was strong enough to push a car "downstream" and also a very large water tank. the only death we have heard about is a family who was drinking when the flood came lost track of their small child and it has been presumed dead :/ pretty tough. The members in general have high spirits, and dont seem to be too affected. all are surprised though as this area has never had flooding before. at the community center the city setup places to sleep and eat for those in need. pretty traumatic for some people, while at the same time many people, members included, were unaffected. One sweet family of members, who are some of my favorites, were out of town yesterday when the flood hit, and they lost a lot of valuable stuff in their absence. while she did not have much to offer, this wonderful sister, sister Lily, insisted on feeding us a humble meal of rice and canned chicken curry (which was actually quite tasty) she insisted on repaying us for helping her in the aftermath.

Other than THAT....

we had a pretty awesome Christmas week. i guess you kind of know about it because we talked already, but we were brought to another dinner/open house at a member's place thursday night. 

not a whole lot of festivity, and New Year's gets pretty muffled by Christmas and Chinese New Year, which is at the end of January. I dont know much about chinese new year except that a lot of fireworks will be lit off, and chinese people give other chinese people money as a traditional gift. i will actually be pretty sorry to miss it, cuz the fireworks can be quite the spectacle. 

Im not sure i'll be sending a more interesting email home than this, so soak it up.  hahaaa

Love

Elder Giblette

Christmas Week Eve

We had an awesome time caroling this week, and an awesome time going to Kuching for the missionary conference, and an awesome time at our branch christmas party. party party party for us this past week. fantastic time. on wednesday night we had a group of anywhere from 30-40 people go and carol at 18 houses! then thurs we went to the farther out houses and visited 6 families. so much fun.

Friday we went to Kuching for the missionary Christmas conf. it was pretty lengthy, but we heard some good talks about the many different names that our Lord has been given. we helped with a service project, putting together hygiene bags for local children, and then watched the Christmas devotional. the best part of course was getting to see my missionary pals, and also a man, Kelvin,  whom i contacted before i was transferred to bintulu, who has since been baptized with his wife. They are super strong, and have plans to go to the salt lake city temple in 2015! (see picture)  also got to see some other members i knew from before. 

Then on saturday we flew back early in the morning, then went over to the church to help set up for the party. we may or may not have been there from 1 until 10pm.... but it was a blast and pretty much everything came together, even though there was very little planning done haha. 

Not a lot of "missionary work" in the usual sense was done. and this upcoming week may also be a bit tough, but we certainly look forward to how much food and fun there will be!

Dad thats really cool about referring her to the missionaries! certainly a unique way to strat the lessons, but it sounds like an opportune time to bring the Gospel into her life. 

the youth conference was in kuching, and i believe it was 4 days long. i got the card that kevin scanned for me. excellent. not a whole lot of christmas spirit here unfortunately... 

ya takraw was a blast, annd we're gonna play again today. you usually go with your head and legs, but if you have to you can bounce it off your chest. just no arms/hands. pretty fun. since im tall i have a significant advantage on the short net they paly it on. th net is probly only about 4.5 feet tall. 

as for e tyler. thats a tough call. i know he would love just kind of seeing minneapolis. but probly a nice burger place for food. or pizza. or maybe you could just throw him in the snow haha. but speaking of that youll definitely want to bring him my nice big coat and probly a hat haha. he will REALLY freeze. he said, "im really looking forward to seeing your family. it'll turnh 7 hours of hell into 7 hours of fun." haha so needless to say he's highly looking forward to it. i take it you'll be bringing the boys along? or will they be back in school already? i know thatd make it more fun for all if they came. 

Merry Christmas everyone!

Elder Giblette

PS mom i just now had a chance to watch that "what shall we give" video. really nice.

Pictures!

me n Kelvin, a man i tracted out and began teaching in Kuching, who was later baptized. coolest guy.

me n tyler n smith. 3 dead men walking haha.   #old farts

the nativity choir

my lil girlfriend (she told me she liked me :D)