The "Fine" City‏

Well, it's official...i'm here in Singapore writing you all :) as fun as it's been to take a break from Indonesia and experience something different, i'm feeling more and more like it's Heavenly Father's way of saying "Wake up! you're in the best mission in the world!" i mean..as if i didn't already know that, but it's just another wake up call. i'll say more in a bit.

last week was great...we met with Chern, who still is SOOO close to baptism, and had a great lesson with her...the Indo's are altogether this week while sis and i are here in singapore, doing both companionship's appointments, so i'm excited to see how they do with Chern. I told Lie that she was in charge of what to teach and everything (since i always plan everything for our appointments with Chern and Cherie), and so she picked Eternal Families, and i'll find out how that goes. i think it'll be good for Chern to learn from the humble Indonesians who have to work so hard to get to the temple, to maybe appreciate more the opportunity she has to go to the temple with her little family if she'll take the opportunity.

saturday we went to the home of a 10-yr-old girl (Siska) who has been coming to church lately with a member who is her friend, and got permission from her mom to teach her...but her mom wants to learn as well (chee-ya!), because she's already noticed a significant difference in her daughter's attitude just in the last 3 weeks that she's been coming to church. how cool is that? we're pretty excited, and Siska seems pretty excited and loves church. we also met with Celine, who we met last week, and she came to the relief society birthday social thing, and seemed to enjoy that. we taught her the 1st discussion before that started, and everything seemed to make sense to her. i found out that she comes from a Buddhist background, and is basically only Christian cuz her grandma took her to church when she got a little bit older. so she's been looking for a church to join that fits her better, and has been SUPER confused cuz there are so many churches... :) so hopefully she'll keep progressing, and especially reading from the BofM. she's awesome tho. and she went to church on sunday! so we FINALLY have a new progressing investigator! woohoo!!!

Sunday, we packed up all our stuff, and stayed the night at Senopati, then Monday morning we got up early and went to the airport, and here we are in Singapore! here's basically what happened in that short span of our first day here... arrive, wait for and meet sis wing (who was in my MTC group, and had to renew her visa...so it was a fun reunion!), drive to the mission office, meet the elders there...and what do ya know? elder ulrich is serving in Singapore, and will be with elder hall and elder allen from our group this week. it's actually been a lot of fun talking to him about home...yes carter, we've talked LOADS about you, and he says hi. turus, a bunch of the elders left, so we're left up in the air cuz we have no idea what we're doing, one of the elder's invites us to sit in on a Malay discussion he was going to have and MAYBE help teach since his comp doesn't know any Malay yet, and then he leaves 5 minutes into the lesson to give an interview, so Sis and i give the rest of the 1st discussion to this guy. it was AWESOME to be able to give the discussion in a different country with the language we've worked so hard to master, and just feel the testimony that this work really is going forward all across the world, and that i helped it in a small way in another country :) hopefully the guy understood us with our indonesian accents/words.....haha. oh, and i forgot to mention that we got a referral on the plane over! sis and i sat next to a girl from Jakarta who lives in Singapore, but doesn't really go to just one church here cuz she goes by herself, so hopefully the missionaries here will get on top of that one. she was really fun, and i even got to bear a bit of testimony that families can be together eternally.

then we went to the missionary couple's house...which is behind one of the churches here that used to be a mansion, but is now a church....AND the house that we stay in is the "mistresses quarters" from the guy that used to own the mansion. haha. makes me laugh, cuz it's a bit of an oxymoron, but whatevs. it's a SUPER nice house, and the beds are SOOOOOO comfy, and THEY HAVE HOT WATER! i love mandies, but i forgot what it was like to get in the shower and not want to leave cuz it feels so good...

tuesday, we went to the indonesian embassy, and we got to use a bit of our indonesian (I MISS SPEAKING INDONESIAN ALL THE TIME!!!) with the people there. then sis and i went out with the elders contacting...and this is where the fun begins. i HATE contacting here. it is seriously the most ridiculous thing in the world after being in indonesia, where the people LOVE you, and they WANT to talk to you. people here are absolutely cold, and will ignore you as much as possible. it is seriously the saddest thing, and the only people that i talked to were the indonesians! it just happened that the only people that i'd talk to who would talk back were indo...which i think says quite a bit about the people in my mission :) i actually talked to a few other people, but it was mostly just men hitting on me...some things never change, no matter WHAT country you're in. haha, i got invited to go dancing with one guy, and also to spend the week at his house if i ever went to Cambodia. nice guy, eh? lol. but we went back to the house, and met up with the other 2 sisters from our MTC group who are also here for their visa run...so it's been a really fun mtc reunion time. there was also one other elder from our group here, but the rest are coming in next week. there's also a sister that is here from Florida, so she knows emily richardson cuz she did splits with her before she left...so small world.

today was pday for the missionaries here, so we went to the beach out on one of the smaller islands, which was fun, and now i'm SUNBURNED!!!!! i haven't been sunburned in 7 months! because in jakarta, the pollution stops the uv rays from getting to your skin. so...i should've been smarter, but i forget that other places aren't as dirty as jakarta.

anyways, as much as i've enjoyed being here in singapore, I MISS INDONESIA!!!! i miss my people, i miss my language, i miss the food, i miss taking pics with every other person i bump into in the streets, i miss the trash, i miss the smell, i miss my comp. singapore is nice, but i would NEVER want to live here. maybe a few days of vacation time, but seriously...it's such a cold place. whereas, i really think i could live in indonesia at some point in my life. so i told sis last night, i'm here to gain a whole new appreciation for indonesia. and i have it. I'M SERVING IN THE GREATEST MISSION IN THE WORLD! it may not have a whole ton of baptisms, and there might be TONS of Muslims there, but it is such an amazing country, and there ARE people there to be found. we just gotta work hard to find them :)

anywho...i love and miss you all, and hope things are going well at home. i pray for you every night, and know that Heavenly Father is taking care of you guys while carter and i are away serving him. may you all look for opportunities to serve those around you, and PLEASE invite people to come to church with you! i know that you're life, and especially the life of whoever you invite, will be blessed beyond anything you could've imagined. loves!
~Sister Sara