Baptisms!

The pictures of you guys in Rexburg were fantstic! i didnt really recognize the place where kellen and kenz were standing.. close to the cafeteria? when i was there they were making some big changes/additions to a couple places on campus, i imagine theyre finished by now and look really nice. Im glad you went to pizza pie cafe, its the best haha. i would kill for unlimited pizza. no matter how poor the quality. i hope you remembered me and ate a few slices in my name :) 

so ya i totally spaced on my package haha, but im sure whatever you put in there will be perfect. i wont worry about asking for anything else haha

So today and tomorrow are E Laycocks last days in Malaysia as an Elder, its been a blast serving with him and this past week we've had a few going away parties for him, where we are heftily fed. love it. it would be awesome for me to finish here cuz i would have already been here six months, and the members would really love me and throw me some big parties as well haha. theres a decent chance it could happen. I think i'll definitely stay here for at lest one more transfer cycle though.

So the baptisms that happened went really well. The lady, Puyang, that we were planning on baptizing was not because the elder who interviewed her did not feel she was ready, but its ok cuz i kind of felt the same way and she is just as willing to learn as she was before. one of the little girls we were teaching, Sylvia,  actually turned out to be 8 haha, so she was baptized but not as a convert. the other little girl, Angela, was baptized along with our champ, Justin. He's 19 and is a pretty solid kid. I did two of the confirmations, and thats always cool. If i end up staying in Bintulu here, the end of my mission will be like the start of my mission. filled with great members and baptisms. so the middle of my mission was filled with trials and tribulations hahaha. it really is different when you plan your days around teaching appointments instead of where you will tract and how you will fill your time. I guess i learned my lesson or the Lord gave up on trying to teaching me how to do that haha. either way, im very happy to be where i am now.

So according to that picture of kellen and kenz, kellen is taller!! true or not true?? dang, im coming home to a family of giants and monsters. whenever i tell people that im the shortest boy in the family, they never believe me haha. monsters... also my pictures of george are always a big hit among the people here haha, they always say hes really big haha, and they love his fur (hair?) the cats here are generally scrawny and boring as far as colors. also almost all of them have stubs for tails.. im told its cuz kids grab their them and twirl them around haha. 

We started teaching one of our members cousins, named Andam. He hasnt been baptized into christianity yet, and he expressed really great desires to do so. saying that he wants to fill his soul, cuz it feels empty. wants to receive the blessings that he has seen others receive. all in all a really solid guy who i am excited to teach! 

today for the last p-day for Laycock and the last p-day before transfers, we're gonna have a bbq with all the missionaries here and then go play badminton. we get transfer news at 12, so i will find out who my new comp is. should be a fun day considering we are going to FHE/party tonight :) 

Love you all!

Elder Giblette

Nuttin special

So this week was pretty good with teaching people. We were able to pick a baptismal date for the two boys that wanted to learn for the end of september, so that will be fun to work with them in the coming weeks and months. Unfortunately though only one of our investigators was able to come to church this week, so that was tough. One of our members brought theyre non-member cousin who is married to a member to church this week, and he seems pretty interested. So this week we have an appointment with him. I feel like our work is really premium right now, because we have people being baptized this week, but we also have a good number of people who are jsut starting to meet with us. They call it "escalator work" where you constantly keep going up; as opposed to elevator work where you bring people to the top but then have to go all the way back down with brand new people. The coolest part is that i dont really feel that we are particularly doing anything to make that happen, but the Lord is really in control instead. Its a great feeling to know that i am trying my best the let the Lord direct the work, as it is His work, not mine.

So Puyang, Justin, Sylvia and Angela are all set to be baptized this week. We changed it to sunday morning before church, so itll be a busy and exciting sunday! We have a couple going away parties for E Laycock, so we will definitely have some fun! This is certainly the best way to end your mission: four-person baptism on your last weekend! 

sorry i dont have much to say this week..

It sounds like you guys are havin fun traveling about. on moms questions: it is incredibly humid here;  we have several air cons in our house; i did not get a camelback; my bike is doing really well, i dont wanna bring it home haha, too small and not that great at all :) 

E Laycock is from Lehi Utah, he went to a couple semesters at UVU before he came out. he reminds me a lot of Carson actually, and we get a long really well. 

i am doing fine on all those things :)

Although i dont always comment on what you guys are doing or the news you share, please know that i appreciate it ALOT ha. Pres Mains comes to Bintulu in two weeks for district conf and i will have a chance to interview with him. thatll be cool. 

What did you get at the Malaysian place?? Satay is a fairly popular food here, i really like it. did you get any? (small amounts of chicken or pork or meat on skewers, BBQ'd, but served with an awesome peanut sauce) did you have that? haha if its not similar to that description its not authentic :D

Love you all!

Elder Giblette

No Subject

So we have had another busy week teaching our investigators. They are all progressing well who have a baptismal date. we decided to take the family who didnt come to church off date because we werent able to see them this week. We will try again this week, but I have a feeling that they just arent really that interested. But ive been wrong before so we keep trying. This week we will be focusing on preparing our people for baptism on the 27th, and i feel pretty confident they will all be baptized. Its the best way to send E Laycock off, he goes to singapore to fly home on the 31st. Hes still workin hard and we are still havin a great time. 

We enjoyed playing badminton this past saturday with some young men, even though only two came... classic kids not wanting to tell us they were busy.. instead of letting us know beforehand that they had school on saturday, they decided to let us come to their houses and then they told us they couldnt come... school on saturday, something ive never had to deal with until Bintulu, but they say it has someting to do with Ramadhan, the month of fasting. 

Also we had a bit of a miracle. Theresa girl named Flora who was recently baptized, who is 11, who we usually visit once a week. long story short, her parents were opposed to her learning, but eventually allowed her to be baptized. The parents have since expressed that they are "unable" to learn cuz they are devoted Catholic. Anyways, theyre two sons, 13 and 16 years old, told us this week that they wanted to learn. theyre parents werent there when they said that, but they may have already talked to them. Either way, we are going to start teaching them this week, and we hope that their parents will allow it. 

Today, we are having a big district vs district basketball game, and my district is at the disadvantage in skill haha. weve been looking forward to it since we decided to play last week, but it should be fun. So my zone is actually split into two different cities: Miri and Bintulu, they are about a 3 hour bus ride apart. There are 8 elders in Bintulu, split into 4 areas, so there is 1 set in each area. Miri has some sisters and also a set of chinese speaking elders. the zone leaders are in Miri, but are usually come down once a month. They are coming this week actually. 

For studies i usually read a chapter from the Book of Mormon, and then read D&C. also usually a little bit from Preach My Gospel. I read today Mosiah 11, where Noah begins to reign, and Abinadi come to preach.

What are the scripture mastery changes?

I think the membership here is 99.5% Iban, so everyone speaks it here. Some more clearly than others, and some having good Malay, some not good at all haha. It is certainly often the case where my grammatical and vocabular Malay is better than the natives. Crazy huh! i am slowly picking up on Iban, I can speak somewhat conversationally, and I dont really study it or have serious desires to learn it, so i'll just casually see how much i can pick up. Its very similar to Malay, so the tough part is finding out which words are the same and which arent. Ya Google wont have Iban haha, but that sentence you translated was a pretty accurate translation. 

Its cool that there are sister missionaries in our ward. Bro Ostler would be the BEST ward mission leader! i cant wiat to come home and work with the missionaries!

We will have zone conf in singapore Aug 22. I cant think of anything i need right now, but i know i want some food stuff. like golden griddle syrup or something haha. i'll make a more official list next week. we have an oven at our house, so food possibilities have opened up haha.

Bintulu is a pretty small place. well, spread out but no "big city" like kuching. there area a few concentrated places known as downtown. But there arent really any prominent features or cool things here.. its pretty ghetto in most areas, and there is a large gap between the rich and the poor. kuching is much more even, or the poverty gap is smaller i guess. most of the members live in small, really small wooden houses. but the people here are really awesome and a lot of fun to work with for the most part. 

Well, i love you all! have as great week!

Elder Giblette

Lots o' pics

Laycock and I

Rose (investigator) and her family. Rose is the girl sitting to the left of the guy in the blue shirt.

from left: Sis. Tiffany, E Laycock, Vivianna (Rose' daughter), Rose, Bro Musa, Carolina (Bro Musa's daughter), Bro Gelbert, Me, Sis Ensuna

Sungai Plan chapel, which is the other chapel in Bintulu, we use a different one. nice column right in the middle haha. the chairs are facing backwards in this picture for the party, but the stand is in the background.  

packed 11 youth girls into the senior couples van haha!

me killing laycock ("do not enter" sign)

Sis Eda and Bro Martins sweet family

Deceived

So we have had a pretty great week actually! Almost all our investigators came to church, all that came are progressing really well. We have a baptism planned for the 27th of this month for four people, and so far it looks like they will all make it, perhaps even bumping one person up to make it a five person baptismal service! but we'll see haha. 

The one tough thing was that we have a new family investigating and the whole week we have been committing them to come to church, and they said they could come. The plan was to have the senior couple bring them, just this once so they could see where the church is, and yesterday morning they were waiting outside their house when we came to get them. So we were super excited cuz we of course thought they were waiting for us... But it turns out they were waiting outside cuz some guy was coming to lend them money or something stupid like that... so when the Vaughans (senior couple) came, they were like, "uh no, we arent coming to church.." soo ya haha we were pretty frustrated, confused, and angry haha. To add on to that, the less-actives that live right next to them were also up and about, and we told them they could come to church, like the had said they would, but they pulled out the classic bag of lamest excuses ever. I dont want to rant too much cuz it makes it hard to love the people haha. So suffice it to say that yesterday night as we were discussing them and what we can do to help them, we were pretty disappointed.. but such is missionary work. 

 

One of the people we are teaching is named Justin. Hes 19 and a pretty solid kid. speaks a very little bit of english, but likes to mix in the english he knows when we are teaching haha. Hes learned just about everything, and hes one the people getting ready to be baptized on the 27th. He moved here from a city called Sibu, which is a different area in the mission. but he moved here with his aunt. A pretty solid kid, and i think hes understands what we are teaching pretty well.

 

Sounds like you guys had a great time with your pals from California. Awesome that you gave them BofMs! about referring the missionaries to them, I would suggest calling them first and seeing if they would be interested, rather than just having two missionaries randomly show up. maybe give them a little time to read or something. I loved hearing about how Catherine let you know mom how she had felt a difference between our home and her friends. It is so great to hear about your own missionary experiences! But definitely pray to know what the best way of going about it is. 

 

For 4th of July, we did nothing.. well i guess thats not true. two of our members had birthdays so we went and enjoyed nice food and good times with them. We have really great relationships with our members here, and it is not too difficult to find people willing to follow us to lessons. It is also helpful that the area is relatively small, and there area two major centers of member population. A very welcome change from Samarahan. 

 

So i have some news.. My release date has been moved up to Jan 16th! its really weird to like be informing you, but its only 6 months away, and i know how you like to plan for things far in advance mom! haha. so ya jan 16 will be my release date. Its because Pres Mains made it so that we go home in line with the 6 week transfer cycle, in order to avoid a transfer right in the middle of a cycle. So thats as of now the date. i dont imagine itll change, but I will be having an interview with Pres Mains in August, so i guess i might be able to confirm it 100% then. 

I guess its weird for me to talk about it cuz the release date seems like the part of the mission that never happens haha. But its coming..FAST 

 

Love you all

Elder Giblette

Pics

E Laycock and I, sitting in epic furniture at our members house. zoom in on that and see the hand-carvedness!!!

E Vaughan (senior) and I; he's from Virginia and has a pretty thick accent. hes absolutely hilarious. 

E Laycock and the daughter of our investigators

Super Saturday

yo!

 

pretty good week this week! at first we were kind of struggling to get things going as far as bringing members to teaching appointments, but in the end we did ok. highlight was Super Saturday. A District Youth activity where all the youth form the Bintulu District (4 branches) come together and just like play games and do activities together. its great! we played a big game of capture the flag and then lunch and some other little fun things. We would play a little game and the the losing team would have to do some kind of thing as punishment for losing haha. example: one losing team had whipped eggs rubbed in their face haha. another example: walk around the circle of teams while imitating a handicapped person.. hahaha a great example of Malaysian political correctness...

 

We started teaching a girl named Rose the week i came here, and she is doing pretty well so far. She read through the intro to the BofM and almost all the testimonies, and we didnt really commit her to read much at all haha. She isnt too educated so she had a hard time understanding some of the words and stuff, but mostly the names of people and places. Shes the only member of her family who isnt baptized, so it not too difficult a situation as far as her fellowhipping goes. we are hoping that as she prepares for baptism we can help her less-active family members come back to church as well. Shes 19 and a baby girl who is 1 already and is the cutest little girl ever! 

 

We have a few other people on date to be baptized, and they are all also doing pretty well. id like to tell you all about them, but that would take too long haha. so i'll just pick one to talk about each week

 

I always love hearing about what you guys are doing at home. it sounds like you had a great trip mom, i also often ponder on what adam-ondi-aman will be like during the Millenium. sorry to hear about the boat motor dad! :/ but i couldnt tell you what id give to go on a fishing trip to Kab. those pictures were like pictures of heaven haha

 

So this area continues to be awesome! Elder laycock and i get along really well, we are both veryr experienced, we both speak the language really well, and we are just helping our investigators. I  imagine this is a rare period of time, where both missionaries know what they are doing, and the both get along as well. I am  certainly cherishing these 6 weeks until transfers! (E Laycock is finished after this transfer cycle) which finishes the last week of July/ first week of August. I could see myself finishing my mission here, but its hard to say. So far it sounds pretty good to me!

 

Love you all!

Elder Giblette

More Pictures

me again.. 

giant frog, and you can kind of tell, i got super burned

basketball satellite. classic

Pictures

Me and the naughtiest little kid ive ever met.. Marvin. but hes hilarious.

Elder Laycock

me..

Thrown into the bin

So I have arrived safely in Bintulu! Luckily, I talked to two of my buddies who have served here already, and they put my mind at ease about coming here. Saying that i was gonna love it and a bunch of stuff I needed to hear. And since Ive been here Ive just been having a BLAST! Even though my bike hasnt come yet (classic Malaysian Courier service) we live close enough to a large group of members that have been walking to the area where they live. Although we mostly go and visit Less Active members, there are also a lot of not less-active members who are super fun to hang out with and teach. I think its largely due to my companion, Elder Laycock, but since ive gotten here i think maybe ive taken a big chill pill haha. casually walking to appointments, just takin it easy with members as we talk to their non-member friends..It great. So far this is the PERFECT transfer after 3 months of feeling the stresses of training in a tough area. So as usual the Lord knew what I needed, and I feel at home already in this area. We live in a big house with just two of us. My comp isnt too dead, and shows no signs of becoming a burden i have to carry around. 

right now we have 6 people on date to be baptized, even though two are 9 & 10 year old girls, its great to have a decent pool of investigators to work with. Even though the "quality" and intelligence of the people here is significantly lower than Kuching, I guess it'll be good for me to humble myself and simplify my teaching even more. Bintulu is much smaller than Kuching, but I live in whats called Bandar Jaya area, and that kind of means the "new" downtown.. so its "new" and there are more i guess suburban type living arrangements. But most of the members live in like "rented rooms." basically a lot of places all connected, but they call each seperate place a "room." theres a living space, probly about 10' by 10',  a small kitchen, and then usually one other room in each place. so probly in total about 50 feet square.  they certainly make the most of what the have, and the living conditions in general are much more like what i saw in Tawau. But the people are no less happy than anywhere else. This past week there were about 80 people at sacrament, which apparently is really high compared to what atttendance has been lately. The big problem though is people leaving after sacrament only. Also finding members who will fulfill their callings. there were about 15+ people in sunday school, yet nobody is the designated teacher. I did pretty well at not giving in to the members in Samarahan when they just asked me to teach, so maybe while im here i can help them take initiative and responsibility. We cant wonder why growth and retention is so poor when we just teach and do things for them. So we'll see how that goes. 

E Laycock is pretty fun to be around, its hard to tell when hes being serious and when hes not haha. we like to mess with the members, we both speak the language very well. thats the nicest things, not being the only one who can speak with people. he also speaks Iban, the native tongue of the the Iban tribe. I can speak a very little bit, and im excited to get better at it. like 99% of the members are iban, so its good to know how to speak. Even though we do not teach with it during the lessons, its fun to speak it conversationally. its very close to Malay, but its kind of "twangy". like you put weird accents on words. fun to speak haha. I want to send some pictures, but this computer wont let me plug my camera in... oh well, next week. So Laycock goes home the first week of august, so I will have 6 weeks to master the area. Im not too worried about it, cuz its pretty small. but there are A LOT more members here than my last branch, so i'll have to work on my name remembering skills. 

So obvisouly theres been a big turn around from last weeks attitude haha, so hopefully you guys didnt get too down on me getting down. 

Kimble and Nathy's mission calls!!!!

WHOA! there coming to my part of the world haha. are they both English speaking? So exciting! I'll have to send an email to aunt mel and have them email me. SO cool how they are going at the same time, and opened thier calls at the same time! nice. more Giblettes going foreign. nice.

Crazy about the storms in MN. now that i think about it, it doesnt really strom here, mostly just rain. Ther avent really been any exceptionally windy or stormy days. Malaysia almost literally never has natural disasters. i think one time Penang, where E Tyler used to be, got affected by a hurricane once. but thats the only thing ive ever heard of.

All of our investigators who are on date came to church, except one who is in the hospital in Kuching. But she was visited this past week, and we heard that she has her BofM at her bedside, so thats pretty great! 

Nothin much else, still waitin for my bike to arrive, E Hirschi called me last night to tell me they put Kelvin on date to be baptized, so thats exciting. We didnt get to see the missionary training thing, but i agree with what you said mom, the grace period for the members is over, and its time to step up. it will be exciting to come back and be on the SECOND line of the battle haha. (dont worry im not done yet over here. 

Love,

Elder Giblette

Transfas

So this week is transfers. and as of right now i cant say Im happy about where im headed off to... Im going to Bintulu, which is also in Sarawak, but is a smaller city, and is poorer, and the branches are weaker there. My companion has six weeks left, hes cool, so thats good, but i dont know/like anyone else in the zone... I'll admit i'm somewhat down, but not terribel. Im sure its not as bad as what ive heard or what i think. prayers not a few will be asked from me, for me haha. I actually anticipated such a transfer, and told myself that if it happened I would just do my best and try to be a good missionary, and the rest will be in Heavenly Father's hands. I guess the hardest part is leaving Kuching, where I have many elders who are my good buddies, and going to a zone where i dont really have any.. 

 

In other news, we had a GREAT week with Kelvin and his wife! We taught a great lesson Sat night, in which we started teaching the Restoration, and I feel like we established a good foundation of prophets and priesthood and those kinds of things. The best part was that Kelvin came to church and brought his 7 year old daughter! He seemed to enjoy church, but its always a bit unsettling when the branch you try so hard to bring investigators to isnt functioning exactly the way it should.. But he brought home a Gospel Principles book. He and his wife are strong readers, so hats really good. They are now in E Hirschi's hands and his new comps. 

 

One amazing thing that happened with them: Karen, Kelvins wife, skimmed through the BofM, and happened to come across Moroni 8, which mentions the doctrine of "infant baptism is a wicked abomination." so i was a bit worried, but it lead to a good conversation about the age of true accountability, and it then led to Karen saying, "Then in he next verses it says that infants who die go to heaven. is this true elders?" (something to that effect in Malay) We said yes and she went on to explain that they had a child a while back who only lived two days.. I know that these words fro the BofM brought great comfort and hope to them. 

 

I have gained a great testimony of the power of speaking the truth, and letting people read truths from the BofM o gain a testimony of it.

 

I love you all, next week will be contain a lot of new stuff haha!

 

Elder Giblette