Things here are Pretty Awesome and I Love It.

The Church they attend in Kota Kinabalu

Part of a  Kampong.... Kampong is a Malay Hamlet or Village in a Malay speaking country

The ocean and an island below our House next to a place called Water Front with handy crafts

Hey,

Well this last week was great. After Wednesday the Assistants came in and we had some exchanges, except who would have thought that I had no idea where I was going ha-ha so we stayed near the church and near to our house. But, it went alright we went to visit a member who lives super close to the church and she actually had a referral waiting for us ha-ha. So we picked up new investigator named, Selester from Sarawak. She is Chinese and just had a baby about a month ago. Her husband works out stationed. She is good and is pretty quiet but, she is a Christian. But, she has never been to church before and didn't quite know why Christ came to earth for us. So we read through 3 Nephi 11 and talked about Jesus Christ and his Atonement for us and why he is important. She got a greater understanding so, hopefully we can get to exercise her faith and help her progress towards baptism. We challenged her for baptism but, she didn't say no or yes she just said, she doesn't understand it quite yet so we will have to explain why it is important and what it does for us.

We have also got a guy named Ah Yong which who is pretty cool. He is actually from Tawau where his mom is a member. He was baptized but, was never confirmed because he ran off to KK for work. He was taught by Elder Wright when he served in Tawau and so now we picked him up again. So when Elder Wright found out he was here he tracked him down. So now he is on date again for November 13. He is doing awesome and he is pretty cool. He does smoke but, right now we got him down to the wire. He just needs to stop soon…like today. He only smoked 1 stick yesterday morning so hopefully he won't smoke again. He asked if we had something for him if he could quit smoking and we said, we will get you the new triple combination Book of Mormon in Bahasa. So now he has got some extra incentive on top of baptism.

We also picked up some new investigators recently. I went through the area book and looked through former investigators. We went and knocked on their door and found one of them who willingly let us in to teach her and her son Edward. They have had a lot of hard times and she ended up talking most of the lesson. But, as she was talking her son had read quite a bit and said he'll be at church. We followed up and even a member was there to pick him up for church but, that morning he had gone off to the bus terminal to go off somewhere. So he didn't make it to church but, hopefully next time we can get him.

Also the other day as we are off to go eat some lunch two ladies walked up to us and gave us some fliers for a beauty salon. After they gave us that I gave them our name card and proceeded to talk to them ha-ha. One of them was Filipino and was pretty excited to meet us because since she has been here she has been looking for a church. We took down her number and then we invited her to church. The other one was a Sabahan she is Dusun which is a tribe here. She is SIB (Sidang Injil Borneo) We taught her a little about the church then set up a return appointment which is for tonight. When I called to confirm the appointment I accidentally called the Filipino first in which she answered and it turned about to be really good because then she proceeds to tell us that she'll be at church this Sunday with her two cousins ha-ha so, it was a good thing I called her. Later we'll follow up and checked again. It’s cool how some things turn out to be great and the Lord is always preparing people for you to teach you just have to have your eyes open to recognize them when they come. We'll she Julian, the Sabahan we contacted tonight so it should go good.

But, speaking of Sabahans their Malay is awesome it is truly the best hopefully while I am here I can improve my Malay and work on mastering it. But, the Malay they speak here I don’t know after listening to West Malaysia Malay for so long, it sounds nice to my ears ha-ha and their accent is awesome.

We also got a cool person recently from a member her name is Fiona who was actually taught by Elder Leavitt and Campbell back in July but, went back to Kampong for a while and she comes back occasionally but, she is now back for 5 months or so till she will go back again but, she was taught everything and was ready for baptism then she went back to Kampong for a while. So she came back to church and I went up to her after sacrament and said hello etc... The first thing she said to me was Hey, I need to get baptized when is my date ha-ha so she is going to get baptized On November 13 also. She is pretty cool. She has two young children and is way nice. She is super cool and still remembers a lot of what she was taught and has already read through the Book of Mormon once.  

Things here are pretty awesome and I love it. We also picked up a kind of eternal investigator meaning they are a member but, not baptized.  What happened basically is he didn't know that a Kampong marriage was valid in church and some other things so basically he was living with his wife who is married to him but, it was only a village marriage so they have been working on getting the paper work filled out. Elder Levitt and Elder Wall tried to do everything in their power to get him baptized but, he didn't really want to follow their plan or anything.  So we went back to just teach him something awesome about this church, being the lords kingdom on the earth today then see how he was doing. It was a great lesson and we listened to him and what was up. His wife was at Kampong but, he said he had a plan to get married and then do the other thing with his wife’s identity card. So he was like oh yeah… I’ll be getting baptized on Christmas or before that as long as my marriage papers and the IC switch don't take a long time.  Basically we didn't push him to do anything or ask him about baptism we just listened to him and he solved the problem himself and everything will work out just fine. He will either get baptized on the 25 of December if not sooner, then he'll wait a week and then baptize his wife. She made him promise her that he would be the one to baptize her. So we have some pretty awesome people.

We also got another person named Mixdious who is a younger brother of a member in Singapore. He is pretty cool but, he has been going around to all these different churches and trying to find truth, essentially. He so far has liked the Catholic church because it helped him understand a bit more and he thought the Book of Mormon was only there to help him understand the Bible so, we cleared up that no, it is actually another volume of scripture that helps us to understand for sure but, it is scripture in itself. Then we told him it’s the Gospel Principles manual etc. that is there for understanding. He liked that then his next question was how come if Christ church was truly lost how come there is no history of it. Then he talked some more about it and we just chill-axed and listened to what he was saying. We made sure that he was just asking about history book and kind of repeated back what he was saying to us. Then I thought came to my mind about Amos 8:11-12. We read it and man the spirit was there, he was like this scripture answers the question of my life and answers that it is true that the agma Mormon was before and then got restored it through Joseph Smith. He is super cool though and man the spirit was so strong. His whole idea changed about the church and everything. Next time were going to talk to him about baptism and all that good stuff. He is pretty cool though. He is 18 and his brother who is also from Sabah is encouraging him. But, it really works if you just listen to them then spirit will hook you up with what to say. But, we have some cool people here and some even cooler members here I love it to here so much.

Elder Watkins