Saturday, July 19, 2014

New take on Sibu




14 July 2014
Dear Family,

So much has happened this week!  Actually, I'm glad that stuff happened.  That's what I'm excited about.  Where to begin...?

Although I miss Elder Broadhead, being with Elder Durrant is great! He's excited to get to work in Sibu and his Chinese is .  He sings well, so we've spent a lot of time singing together recently.  He's from Idaho, and he came out just before I did, so I met him once or twice in the MTC.

We've been moving into our new house all week.  We finally moved the wardrobes in this Thursday, so now we're living at our new location.  The chairs, couches and beds are all new, as well as most of the kitchen utensils but the thing I'm most excited about is my desk.  We have big, luxurious office desks that afford plenty of room for studying.  Yaay!  I've moved a lot of dusty, gross-filled boxes this week because the previous occupants left us years and years of old files and receipts.

I don't know that there's actually a lot more to tell, but I feel like so much is happening and changing, because we haven't had much open time at all.  Even if going to get a new microwave or vacuuming a chair is all that I'm doing, I'm glad to have work to do!  I'm learning a lot more about the area, too.  We now live a lot closer to Bandar (downtown area) than before, so we go exploring to find new side street cafes and knick-knack shops at lunchtime.  I've already been lost many more times in the past week than ever before, but it's been fun finding our way home and realizing shortcuts in hidden places.

We've been filling our evening time with meetings with Wendy, known in previous emails as "girl" or "____."  She really wants to know more about our Church, and especially about her relationship with God and Jesus Christ. We've met several times in the last week, but things are moving along slowly. Personally, I've found it refreshing to plan a lesson around a single principle like "God is our loving Heavenly Father," and then have Wendy ask questions about what that means for her.  I've never seen a stronger desire - a hungering and thirsting for truth - in anyone else in Sibu.  It's great to feel like I'm fulfilling my purpose in part, and to know that someone else is finding answers to her soul's questions!  I love doing missionary work!

I don't know what else to include, but here are a few moments that made this week great:
1. I dropped a can of tomatoes, carried in a bag on my handlebars, into the middle of an intersection.  I turned around just in time to see a nice, shiny clean white car run it over, splattering the juice everywhere.
2. Learning how to play touch-rugby last P-Day.  (I keep cheating because I'm in ultimate frisbee mode, where you can run forward so they can pass to you.  oops.)
3.  Sleeping in a bed for the first time in my mission, other than the time I got put up in Kuching's Four Points.
4.  Giving my favorite old sofa away to Iban members of another branch.

I hope you've all been enjoying the moments that make up your days and weeks.  (Moments are the molecules that make up eternity. - Elder Uchtdorf?)  I know that what we do with the time God has given us here on the earth is important, and will have eternal consequences for better or worse, depending on how we use our agency.  I'm so grateful that I have this time of learning and this calling to be a missionary in Malaysia!

I love you all so much!!
Love,
Brennan

 

No comments:

Post a Comment