Monday, July 9, 2012

Great advice for everyone

Yes i did go to Singapore. schedule this week (as it is happening) Monday was a normal day of proselyting; Tuesday I left for Singapore in the morning and made three connections to get there; Wed (today) I left Singapore at 1PM and arrived in Sibu Sarawak, where i am now. Thurs-Sat in Sibu for District Leader Conference and return to Tawau Sat evening. So this week has/will be a week of very little missionary work.

I have not yet met President Mains as he was not in Singapore, but I will meet him here in Sibu. In Singapore I arrived alone and met Elder Trotter in the airport. I then went to the mission office to pick up my big package, which i will give proper praise to later. So that night we planned on walking around, seeing singapore, and going to my camera place, and eating. So we went to the camera place and they referred me to the Singapore Canon Customer Care Center, which was already closed and far away. so that was kind of stinky, but then we got some tasty food and went to go look at this really sweet hotel (i think its a hotel...) you'll easily be able to see it on google, but its like three separate buildings with what is supposed to look like a ship sitting on top. Really cool and since it was night it was all lit up. Singapore in general is simply and definitely the cleanest, most advanced, most beautiful city in the world. We will have to spend a good amount of time there when we return. Simply amazing. It's just like everything about it is perfect. every building is huge and way nice, and the people are in general beautiful also hahah. So basically the purpose of visa runs is to simply go there and get a new stamp that means your visa is renewed.

This week I also go to Sibu because there is a dicstrict leadership training and since half of the sabah zone goes and almost all the rest have vise runs they just decided to pull everyone to the training. its a hassle because even if only the district leaders go then the other elder can either bus far to the other areas in the zone or hang out with the senior couples and not really do anything. so kind of a zone activity. bad timing cuz this is kinda the week we were gonna try to make some new stuff happen in Tawau... oh well. not much we can do.

But i think things are going to slowly start getting better for us in Tawau. because this past sunday the district presidency came to Tawau and gave some great lessons. our branch called a new branch missionary (branch mission leader?) and we are going to start having branch council. E Trotter and i had very much success by only using a small pool of people/referrals and now thats kind of used up as far as new investigators is concerned. so my eyes are kind of being opened up to the fact that it is the responsibility of members as well as the elders. a memeber made a comment also on sunday that made me think a lot about our job as members, yet this was not the intent of her comment; she was saying that we as elders need to make sure that those who we baptize indeed have a strong testimony. Basically saying that it is the missionaries job to find new members and then keep them. while of course we as elders continue to teach and strengthen recent converts, it is indeed the MEMBERS job to bring theses people into the family of the church. So it made me reflect on how effort i had put in in the past. while we dont have many recent converts, there are always inactive members and things we can do to strengthen the family. I am in no means wanting to call anyone out, and if anyone, i call myself out, that there is an infinite pile of excuses to not do something, and there is one choice that we need to make. Being on the other side of missionary work is the only way i have been able to gain this perspective. that it is absolutely heartbreaking for (missionaries especially) when a person is baptized, when someone has taken the most crucial step towards salvation, has begun a new life of truth and happiness, has decided to change their life completely, and then only to fall away again due to any amount of possible neglect on the church family's part. we as members of this family are essential and truly the only way to bring others unto His flock. let us be always and forever ready to help those in need, and to help the missionaries. so this goes without saying, and i am not worried about it, but martez and that other sister are literally the ward's greatest priority. do they go to singe's ward?

So i finally got the big package! IT IS AMAZING! as of now i still havent really gone through it all, but everything i asked for and much much more is inside hahah! so many thanks from Malaysia :D from what i saw it looks like all the best stuff. for real. thank you :) I'm glad i brought my big luggage with me cuz i would not be able to fit all that stuff in a carry on. Also i presume that the two ties were from carson. amazing. these two ties are indeed a neat addition to my collection. also i had received the other package last week.

So if Pres Clark is coming close to town and he might meet gordhammer, you should make efforts to try to meet him as well! he is so cool and i think he would be happy to meet you! of course i dont want you to disturb him but if gordhammers might meet him maybe you can as well. anyways you should try at least haha, you wont regret it.

welp i hope next week i can email back with some good news about investigators in Tawau!

love you all!
Elder Giblette

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