Language Challenges

Dear Mom, Last week we didn't meet up with the district, but instead got a bunch of stuff done. I finally submitted my preliminary application to USAFA, so now I'm just waiting to be approved to reapply. This Monday we're in Singapore for Zone Conference, so we went to the Marina Bay hotel and went up to the overlook. It was super fun to take Elder Tarwasokono around Singapore, he's absolutely in love with this country. Elder Robertson is absolutely hilarious and is always recording everything. He was with Elder Barfuss in Cheras before I moved to Cheras and he's now with Elder Zaleski in KL. He also goes home this transfer. Sinram, Jasmine, and Beljednar Kaur all work at a hair salon and we have only taught them a couple times. Jasmine had been taught before, but the other two were friends that started joining the lessons. The struggle is that they all work Sundays, so we're not going to be able to keep working with them if they'll never be able to make it to church. Jasmine is honestly the only one who is super interested, she loves the Book of Mormon and has found a lot of strength through it with her mental health struggles. Hopefully she'll experience a miracle with work and be able to make it occasionally. Sister Shirley isn't necessarily a "recent" convert, but she is a convert and isn't super solid on her knowledge of the Gospel. Luckily, we were able to teach her again this week with her friend Lily, it was super nice. Josiah is someone we've taught 3 or 4 times and he's honestly a king. His biggest setbacks are my Chinese ability, and the fact that he lives 2.5 hours away from the closest church building. He's been attending zoom church, but he hasn't been able to come in-person. We're planning on inviting him to come tonight. Cathryn and Celeste are sisters. They orignally came to church because Cathryn saw a 6'3" half-white half-korean Elder Barfuss, and looked up the church and called a phone number who gave her the address. We haven't taught them, we really only invite them to activities, and the Sisters teach them because it's harder for us to meet with them since we have to bring another male member with us. They love coming to social events and are willing to learn, so that's sweet. Rachel is a less active YSA member and her mother, Joey, is Catholic. We had a pass off lesson with the Sisters this week and so they'll be taking over with them from now on. But, even though Rachel rejected the invitation to come to church during our lesson Saturday, they actually came! Miracle: Our branch president came with us to visit members this week, and we visited a family with an active wife and kids, but a less active father who didn't want their 9-year old daughter to be baptized. However, we went over with the branch president who is good friends with the father and shared some of the Restoration and talked about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. At the end, the father said she could be baptized. Also, our branch president asked if they had any friends who wanted to join and the dad went and brought one of the neighbors to sit in on the lesson and we'll be meeting with them all again this next week. (Side note: all of that was in Malay, so I was just a spectator of a fantastic miracle occurring in another language 😆) Challenge: Honestly, I finally have some Chinese people we're teaching, and while I can typically get my message across, it's not as good as I'd like it, and gauging their understanding is hard for me because my listening ability is not great. Good News: We're starting Ping Pong and Come Follow Me on Monday nights. Currently just with the YSA, but we might try to invite the whole branch soon and start assigning others to be in charge each week, but we've gotta get it runnning first.