Heartache and Self-Made Miracles

Passing off as a Filipino???

Indian Sundresses

Hey everyone,

So yesterday, Sunday morning, I woke up before Sister Hansen and saw that we got a text from one of our investigators, and he dropped us. Never have I felt so sad on my mission, I think it was one of the first times I cried real tears of sorrow on my mission. I went over all of our lessons over and over in my head, trying to figure out what I could have done better. We're still going to try to save it. Love means doing what's best for the other person while still respecting their agency. Sometimes, as missionaries, we need to remind ourselves we did everything we could and that we're doing all things better than we think we are. When Sis. Hansen woke up, I said, "Do you want the bad news first or the good news first?"

"Bad news. Always the bad news."

"Well the bad news is Chris dropped us, the good news is we have Christ's true church on the earth once again and we belong to it and we get to share the Gospel with people in a beautiful city." Man, Sister Hansen looked so heartbroken. He's so awesome and just what the church needs, smart, kind, tenacious. But it's okay, we're slowly getting over it. A couple weeks ago, when I was feeling really down and couldn't sleep, I looked at pictures of the Savior in my gospel art book that my dad sent me (it's awesome and every missionary should get one). I really thought about what the Atonement meant to me and how Christ will always know how I feel. He really is the only perfect and pure missionary. He felt heartache too, and I'm sure He thought why don't these people want the gospel?

I also love telling people, people I teach and perfect strangers on the MRT, that it's not about religion. A lot of people speak in terms of "My religion compared to your relgion." It's about what's true and brings you joy. Religion is imperfect and corrupt, but the Gospel is perfect.

Right now, Singapore is decorated in gold and red to bring in Chinese New Year. I love it. It's beautiful. And there's always bumping music playing, it's all Chinese-eastern sounding, but with a beat. I've also really come to appreciate Penjabi music. I think Little India is my favorite place in Singapore (we're going there for lunch today. S$3 Butter chicken, you know you're jealous). The only problem with the holidays is all of our investigators are going back to the Philippines. But we already made our goals for this week, so challenge accepted.

Also, remember Irak and Wynndy, and Cinta, and Brother Chaong's whole family from Miri? They got baptized and confirmed this past weekend! Sister LeBaron texted me Saturday to remind me (Pujilah Tuhan!) and the APs where in Miri for their interview. Elder Toney called me that night and said they were so excited! It's almost not fair they got to see this family that means everything to me. But if I never see any of my investigators to the waters of baptism for the rest of my mission, I'm okay with that. I'm just grateful I got to teach and meet and love all the people I have. I'm just grateful so many of them have the Gospel, have true joy.

Last Monday, we played around Little India and Chinatown, and I got a lot of cool things I don't need, like I Heart SG shirts, these beautiful Indian sundresses, postcards, and so on. I love Singapore, lah! We also found out Elder Robinson is pandai Chinese when he randomly started talking in Chinese to a lady to buy a seal in Chinatown. Uh...where did that even come from? I thought he was a Malay Elder, haha. Some people are just way too smart. As for me, I only speak English and get by on Malay. Fun fact, his cousin, a Sister missionary, is serving in the same mission as Spence-man! We decided only really incredible people get sent to the Scotland-Ireland Mission. I forget her name though.

We also had the most awkward Zone Meeting of my life last Tuesday, we had Elder Harper, who is now a district leader in a different zone, come in and talk to us about locking our hearts. No joke. And it was too obviously directed at the sister missionaries haha. Eh, I wasn't too uncomfortable, I've had my various elder crushes and I learned my lesson. It's not worth the distraction, the more you're distracted by your personal life the more miserable you are as a missionary. Our call letter states that we're supposed to leave behind all other personal affairs. Sister Hansen and I felt sorry for the APs though, apparently there was an issue that went straight to them instead of to the STLs. We try to give Elder Toney and Elder Robinson any candy we get to make them feel better about having to deal with really silly issues sometimes haha. And having to be in the office all the time. We also try to get them dinner appointments when they're actually in Singapore.

On the MRT on Saturday, I saw this Filipino guy who was dozing off, and he had headphones in. I knew I was supposed to talk to him, so I kept praying. I said, "Heavenly Father, just make him open his eyes. If he opens his eyes, I promise I'll talk to him." He kept on sleeping, and I kept on praying, so eventually I took matters into my own hands and kind of threw my pen at his feet..."Oh I'm sorry, I dropped my pen." He picked it up and we had a good conversation going. I invited him to church, he showed up the next day, LOVED it, we had a lesson with him, and now he's investigating the church and wants to learn more. Sometimes you have to make your own miracles.

-Sister Wynn

Decked out for Chinese New Year.

Of swanky rooftop garden lunches, English Businessmen, and The Atonement

Hey everybody,

First, if I could have all of you read one thing from my emails, it would be about the video "The Atonement, How it Applies to Missionary Work." I quoted it at the bottom, everyone should watch it.

Second, in the MTC, Brother Simon always talked about how he had the craziest stories from his mission, and it's because he was a good, diligent missionary, and honestly, I think because he asked for them. I started praying for crazy stories too (my conversations with God go something like, "If I diligently do my studies, have faith, and act on that faith, can something insanely awesome happen to me today?") I live for those days.

So here's how me and my friends ended up on a rooftop garden with these English businessmen: I met a really cool guy on the MRT, gave him a copy of The Book of Mormon, and testified of Christ and asked if he wanted to learn more about the Gospel. He said of course! He spoke like 5 languages perfectly, including Cantonese, so I told him I had a friend (Elder Pun) who speaks Cantonese and they'd have to meet. I made an appointment with him later that week, and told Elders Hunsaker and Pun we were having a pass-off lesson with this guy. This guy texts me back and says, 'Yeah, just meet me at my work during my lunch hour, I'll order food." I told him okay, thank you, that's really nice. He texts back, "Oh, my bosses want to meet you and join our lunch. Hope that's okay. Oh and we'll be having lunch on our rooftop garden."

I thought "What did this just turn into?" and then kind of shrugged because what can you do?

Anyway, Elder Hunsaker called Wednesday morning and said, "Hey Elder Jackson is in Singapore (picking up his trainee) and he's following us today. You two are friends, right?" I kind of freaked out on the phone and told Elder Hunsaker about how great of a missionary Elder Jackson is and how stoked I was to see him, and how I'm pretty sure I overwhelm him with my personality. Sister Hansen and I met up with the three Elders (Elder Jackson had his ghetto Malaysia backpack, it was perfect) and we headed over to Raffles Place, the business center of Singapore to find these business guys and try to teach them the Gospel. We looked like the weirdest group of kids ever. I love it. I caught up with Elder Jackson, even though I just saw him 2 weeks ago. He's really excited to train and gets more talkative every time I see him.

We found the office (we crammed into an old fashioned elevator and weren't sure if it could handle our combined weight) and found the receptionist, and then waited. It was one of those modern offices with warm lighting and I think all of us felt a little out of place, even though I tried to dress nice. My friend from the MRT met us and took us to his office, where we met his bosses, the two coolest, most laidback guys from the UK. And they had fantastic hair. And said "Brilliant."

They showed us to their garden roof-top and we sat and waited for them to bring us drinks and food...and the five of us tried not to sit there with our jaws hanging open. I turned to Elder Jackson and said, "What just happened to our lives?" We sat down and had lunch, one of the Malay girls who worked there ate with us and she was super impressed with my Malay, even though it's not that good, and I was kind of at their table so we just had a conversation about business, missionary work (I showed them my pictures from Malaysia which they got a kick out of) and I tried testifying of Christ in everything I said. And it worked. Elder Jackson helped, and he rocked it. It was cool to be able to teach a sort-of lesson with him because I never got a chance to in the MTC. He said afterwards I'm a good teacher, which meant a lot coming from him. Anyway, one of the English guys was super interested and gave his card to Elder Hunsaker. We high-fived afterwards.

There were so many good things about that appointment. I was glad Elder Jackson got to be there, he's an old friend in the mission now. I also got to meet his trainee the next day, and Elder Jackson was SO excited and telling him all about JB. I told him I still maintain I'll see him in East Malaysia.

Before Zone Conference, we got TONS of church materials sent to the office, including all of The Book of Mormon copies that were on hold somewhere. A lot of materials are still being held up at the Malaysia border, but we got everything in Singapore. You know how they tell the missionaries to flood the earth with The Book of Mormon? This wasn't a flood, this was a tidal wave. And they went fast. It was so cool to see, but for a couple days, the mission office was a mess of BoM copies and pamphlets in just about every language.

I didn't have time to email about Art and Barbie's wedding last week, it was amazing, Sister Hansen and I ate disgusting amounts of food and we had a fun table of people they went to school with, and we have an appointment with a couple of them tomorrow because they wanted to learn more about what Art is learning. And they're engineers.

Like I said last week, we saw so many miracles! Sister Hansen and I created a game plan called "Operation Find More Priesthood" because 3rd ward, and the church in general, needs more faithful men who can hold the priesthood. So we've been focusing on talking to a lot more men on the MRT and everywhere else, and meeting with the men in our ward that work as engineers, accountants, lawyers, etc. who work with other guys. And it's been working! We had one investigator given to us by the Woodlands sisters,  a super cool Filipino guy who builds supercomputers, and it was the day I was on splits with Sister Bishop, so the three of them gave me the lead in the lesson. After I recited the First Vision to him, it was kind of awkward because one missionary is supposed to recite it and the other missionary is supposed to testify. I recited it (it was hard for me to learn in English, by the way) and paused, waiting for any of the three sisters to back me up. After a really long pause, I said, "I know what I just said is true." Haha.

We asked this guy how he felt because he made a weird face, and he said, "I...am SO happy!"

Transfers were last week. Elder Crosland is no longer AP, which he's happy about, but he's sad to leave third ward. He's training in 4th ward now with a kid who's literally twice his size. Our district is exactly the same besides that, except the Chinese Sisters are moving out of the apartment in two weeks, which Sister Hansen and I are so sad about. We had one last hurrah with the APs Monday night, we had a family night with a bunch of families in our ward. Elder Crosland put a fish head on Sister Hansen's plate, and everyone said she had to eat the eye. I kept saying, "Do it if you're real, do it if you're real!" And she was real. She ate it and it was disgusting. Then, she said, "Oh look Sister Wynn, there's another eye, you can eat this one!" and put it on my plate. So I had to eat a fish eye too. We told everyone they have to make all the Sisters who serve in Filipino ward eat a fish eye now. Oh and we're getting Elder Crosland back. He needs to watch out. Like always, we were totally on time getting home from that appointment, because we always get home on time when we have an appointment we go to with the APs...because cab drivers always understand what we're saying and take us to the right street.

It was good to see Elders Jackson and Ferguson and Sister Anderson, they're all training now. Elder Robinson just rolled in from KK and he's the new AP, he's definitely one of those missionaries that looks like he was born to be a missionary. He has the dirtiest West Malaysian accent ever and it's awesome. Sister Hansen and I love him already, in a professional and platonic way. We've been planning a ward activity to help get people excited about missionary work, more on that next week maybe.

I love you all. One of my favorite quotes from The Atonement video is when Elder Holland says, "Now Presidents, if the missionaries can come to love and appreciate it, the Atonement will carry them, perhaps even more important than it will carry their investigators. You let them know when they struggle,
when they are rejected,
when they're spit upon and cast out, and made a hiss and a by-word,

they stand shoulder to shoulder with the best life this world has ever known.

The only pure and perfect missionary that ever lived.

They have every reason to stand tall, and be grateful that the Savior and Redeemer of the world knows all about their sorrows and their afflictions,
and for a moment or two in their lives, they will understand what he went through for them."

I think I'm starting to get it now.

-Sister Wynn

Wedding Crashing, Zone Conferences, and Miracles

Hey all of you (orang yang cantik),  <<beautiful people>>

My Malay is getting rusty. I still manage to find at least one person to talk to in bahasa Melayu (sometimes bahasa Indonesia but it works) every day, but it's not the same as it was back in East Malaysia. And sorry my email last week was such a bummer, I promise I was happy and I'll be sure to keep my emails upbeat from now on. This week was one of my favorite on the mission. Well, not even the whole week, but the last half made up for it. Man do miracles exist.

Last week we played frisbee again for P-Day, it was pouring rain and I fell on my butt in front of everyone. But by the end of it we were all covered in mud. I loved it. Today, Sister Hansen and I just want to check out Little India and Chinatown with our roommates and buy more souvenirs we don't need. On Tuesday, we were at the right place at the right time and ran into a church member from Utah who was having a horrible day because she left her phone in a taxi and couldn't reach her husband and was in the middle of moving back to the States and had two little kids in tow. After making lots of calls for her, it turned out we had her husband's number in our phone so she got a hold of him. She was still crying a little, so I did what I had to do and talked to her about my Elder crushes, and how she dealt with them because she served a mission a few years ago. And lo and behold, talking about boys cheered her up. Works every time. But she also gave me lots of good advice, haha. Still working on the whole locking-my-heart thing.

Zone conference was this week. I really needed it because I was still feeling pretty discouraged at the beginning of the week and seeing old mission friends always gives us missionaries a boost. I think this last week was tough for most of the Singapore missionaries. This zone conference was nice because we had ours combined with the KL zone, so I got to see everyone there and from JB. We had an activity the night before where we cleaned the chapel and learned about how to be cleaner in our homes and apartments. It was pretty fun. I got to see Elders Trudo, Stowell, O'Bryant, and Hobbs from the MTC, plus Elders Jackson and Cook again from JB. I've officially seen all of my homeboys from the MTC, which is incredible because there's a lot of us.

Zone conference was amazing. I sang in the choir and the pieces Sister Mains chose were "Come Thou Fount" and "Savior Redeemer of My Soul" (the version everyone is in love with). President Wilson, from the area seventy, addressed us and he said a lot of things I needed to hear. He said we're all doing better than we think we're doing, and he felt like he was a successful missionary because at the end of the day, he always felt like there was more he could do. My favorite thing Sister Wilson said was "Closed hearts don't let in light, but broken hearts do." I still felt sad at zone conference, I don't know why. I just felt a little heart achy but I'm better now.

I bore my testimony about how as I've been in Singapore, I've become more bold and fearless in talking to people and testifying of Christ, in everything I do and say. The spirit is the perfect teacher, and I love the Lord's promise that as we have the spirit, we will NOT be confounded before men. I've seen that in my work. Missionary work is so easy when we do what our leaders ask us to do and have the spirit.

I saw all of my Elders from East Malaysia that night because they had just flown in for their zone conference. Everyone from the MTC and everyone from Miri. I was so, so happy. The next morning, I texted the APs and asked if they wanted me to take the group picture for East Malaysia because we literally live right behind the chapel. I took it and got to see everyone, like Sisters Caballa and Anderson and everyone else. I stood up on a ladder and yelled "Satu, dua, tiga! Ah, kamu semua cantik dan kacak!"  <<One, Two, Three!  You are all beautiful and handsome!>>  I tried not to fall off as Sister Hansen shook the ladder, haha.  Sister LeBaron stayed in our apartment with Sister Blauer. it was SO good to see her. I miss her tons.

Oh, I also ran into a group of students from Whitworth. We saw a guy with a Seattle Seahawks shirt and said, "America?" and he said "America." I explained what I was doing here and gave them a list of fun things to do while they were here. They were all on some international business trip thing but it felt a little bit like being home because they live so close to Oregon.

Dang, I'm out of time but I had an incredible week. Ask my dad about it. Prayer works. Working smart works. I'll get back to you later.

-Sister Wynn

Sister Wynn's E-mail from January 6

Komo stapo my homeboys (and homegirls),

Just kidding, although I refer to all of my friends here who are Elders as my homeboys. Especially those from my MTC group. Gosh I'm getting weird.

This week was hard. But if you go through your whole mission without hard days and hard weeks, you are doing something terribly, terribly wrong. But yeah, when all of your investigators are in the Philippines for the holidays, and all of your other ones are working all the time because it's the holidays, and you get rejected over and over on the MRT, and you have another cold because you come into contact with so many people every day, and the city is loud and you're constantly bombarded by advertisements and lights and noise, it's a little discouraging at times. It really was one of those weeks where I thought, "I just need to make it to P-Day. If I make it to P-Day, I won't go postal (or go home)." Haha.

I think part of my problem too is I just have more time to think about home, and about if I'm a good enough missionary, and what I'm going to do with my life after the mission. Oh and also why are the Elders in this mission such wonderful men of God, so kind, and so dang cute? This is a problem! Main-main sahaja (just kdding) but I've definitely been working on not distracting myself. Back in East Malaysia, I legitimately did not have enough time to think about petty little things because it was appointment after appointment, and then we'd come home and crash because we were so tired from biking all day in the sun and speaking in Malay all day. I miss those days, and the nature of the work here in Singapore is a little different, but the work is still the same. There's just a lot more white noise here.

Some days we sit at home and call potential and former investigators, which was miraculously promising last night because Sister Hansen and I threw our hands up in the air and decided we were going to call EVERYBODY we could think of when our appointment fell through. But like I said, even though we called probably a hundred people, we got a handful of appointments this week and a couple people said, "Where have you been? I've been waiting for you to call!"

It's also hard to feel motivated when you're tired and sick and nothing is really happening in your area, but I've tried to combat it by first, just acting, for example, calling people, and talking with everyone I see, even when I really, really don't feel like being rejected again. I've also thought back on my purpose as a missionary, which is to bring people closer to Christ, and I've also thought about what His Atonement means personally to me, and why I wanted to share that with people in the first place. I've also thought about how I would want the missionaries serving in the areas where my loved ones are (like so much of my family, and so many friends) to work hard, and how I'm that missionary to someone else. So I should work hard. I've also thought about how much of a better missionary I am when for example, Elder Crosland and Elder Toney are around, like when we have the same dinner appointment at a church member's house, just because they're really good missionaries and I want to emulate that. And I've thought about how if I'm a better missionary when they're around, how much better would I be if I acted like the Savior was around? I've also thought back to Doctrine and Covenants 123 and wrote "Waste and Wear Out My Life" on my window. But really, none of it's helping with not feeling motivated. The only thing that helps is to act. Faith without action is dead.

But no matter what, I wouldn't trade my mission for anything. I still see miracles every day. After a day of nothing happening, I exclaimed, "Sister Hansen, we should say a prayer that we'll find someone to talk to." We walked onto one of those bridges that allows pedestrians to cross the street, stopped in the middle of it, and we prayed right there with cars zipping by under us. As we were walking off the bridge, we saw a compur couple walking, and the husband had an American flag shirt. I caught up with them and said, "Are you American? Because we are!" and he said no, he was from New Zealand, and his wife is from the Philippines, but we had a good conversation with them and I gave them a copy of The Book of Mormon. They were stopping by in Singapore from the Philippines back to New Zealand, so we'll never see them again, but it was cool to see how fast Heavenly Father is willing to answer our prayers.

And here are a couple funny things from a couple weeks ago: Elder Toney accidentally knocked my planner into a fountain on Christmas day, and he felt SO bad and tried to give me his new planner, which you could tell he worked really hard to decorate. Sister Hansen and I decorated new planners last week (I sent a picture because it was just so great) and we laughed way too hard at the picture of the little ginger kid she glued onto hers. I still use my water-logged planner, it's only a couple more weeks till transfers anyway. Also, last week at Keith's baptism, remember how I forgot to fill the font but it was miraculously filled? When we were talking to Elder Berger about who filled it, he described a tall Filipino with curly hair. Since we don't have anyone like that in our ward, Elder Crosland and I said at the same time, "It was one of the 3 Nephites!"

Speaking of Elder Crosland, the four of us had a dinner appointment with a couple from the ward and their friend from Korea. Elder Crosland was asking her how to say "Can" in Korean, and she thought he asked how to spell it, so she said, "C-A-N," and then he repeated "C-A-N?" because he thought she was saying the actual word. Sister Hansen and I lost it and couldn't stop laughing. Also, the Elders were super sweaty because we live on the equator and the food was really spicy. We also got lost in Singapore with the APs after our appointment, and totally got home on time...like we always do when we have appointments with the APs... but we had some good conversations. At the bus stop, Sister Hansen said, "Man, I swear the four most awkward missionaries serve in the 3rd ward." and Elder Crosland said, "Okay, let's have an area discussion on how not to be awkward." As I'm typing all of this, I realize it's not funny in writing, but it's funny to me because I'm a missionary and we're all just so dorky.

On New Years Eve, we went to Barbie's house, and her and Art are super stressed about their wedding but it'll be okay. By the way I'm going to their wedding this Saturday. Sister Hansen and I stayed up til midnight because we can kind of see Marina Bay from our apartment, and we watched the fireworks in the distance. Remember those pictures of me writing on the beach ball? Lots of people in Singapore wrote their New Years wishes on them, and they were put in the bay where the fireworks were. So hopefully mine comes true.

We also had New Missionary Training this week, it was weird being on the other side of it as a trainer. I still learned so much and it was nice seeing so many of the missionaries in Singapore, even though I see them at least once a week. I remember how happy I was at my own in Kuching and seeing all of my homeboys. Also, props to the APs for flying in from East Malaysia that day, doing the training, and flying out to KL that night. Their lives are crazy, Sister Hansen and I love and respect them so much and we're grateful we get to serve with them when they're actually in Singapore. Yesterday, they let us into the office so we could edit some forms, and they gave me great advice on how to feel more motivated. I told them, "This week, it felt like I was swimming in a vat of honey and everything hurts, and I wonder if I'll ever be a Preach My Gospel Missionary." They first said swimming in honey sounds awesome, but then they told me to remember my purpose and they were just so Christ-like and kind. That reminds me, Elder Toney is like a basketball star and Elder Crosland breaks horses (yes he wears a cowboy hat when he does it) and has raccoons named Meeko and Clyde.

And then there's Sister Hansen. I love her, there's never a dull moment with her. She is so funny and every day I almost fall to the ground laughing. We love when other missionaries tell us, "I love your companionship." Your companionship makes or breaks an area, and even though this week was hard, we're feeling pretty good and gung-ho about missionary work. It's a good thing we're best friends, because we're gonna DO WORK this week. Our motto this week is "Do it if you're real."

Love you all,
Sister Wynn