Where Sister Wynn gets humbled (what's new?)

Anei abar mu, my friends?

That's "Apa khabar" in Bidayuh, a really sweet sister was teaching me some phrases after church.

Well, little Tracy, the sweetest girl ever got baptized, and her family is reactivated. Like all baptisms, it was VERY humbling for me because like all the baptisms I've ever been in charge of, I forgot a lot of things. I didn't forget to fill up the font (like I did with Keith's baptism) but I did forget about baptismal clothes until 10 minutes before the baptism started. By some miracle, it all worked out. I forgot to take one of the extra jumpsuits home so I got a call from a church member the next day asking about it, to which I apologized profusely (I gave our baptizer, Brother Christopher an extra one because the first one didn't fit him and I only took one home to wash). I also knocked a huge stack of towels over in the clerk's office and forgot to pick them back up, so I called Batu Kawa's clerk and apologized to him. And our speaker who was supposed to give a talk on the gift of the Holy Ghost couldn't make it to the baptism so I just kind of wing-ed a talk on it.

I was more nervous because I didn't want the other missionaries to think I'm bad at Malay, and not so much the locals. But everyone said I did a good job and know more Malay than I think I do. I wasn't really that nervous, I just said a quick prayer and talked about the Holy Ghost like I do in all my lessons.

Thank goodness this work is not my work, it's God's work. I would fail if I had to do this on my own, but because He loves all of His kids over here in Kuching (and loves me even though I'm a dork), He makes it so I can speak, so people can get baptized, and so on. In theory, it should make the work easier (and it does), but I'm still exhausted all the time and always pretty humbled. I need those humbling experiences, haha.

Bowling

Last week we went bowling, and even though I rolled my eyes at the idea, I loved spending time with the people I love. It doesn't matter what we do, we still have lots of laughs. Today we're playing frisbee because Sister Parcell and I got addicted in Singapore and memaksa-ed the whole zone to play today. So even though I'm still really bad at bowling, I got lots of spares and a strike. I'm really proud of myself, if you can't tell. Elder Jensen commented that I must have gone on a lot of bowling dates when I was at BYU...which isn't untrue...haha. Afterwards, we biked to the airport because there's a McDonald's there, and Elder Gualtier talked me into eating a Megamac, and Sister Bourgeois and Sister Parcell and I had a kind of "Do it if you're real" conversation. So I ate the entire Megamac, a large fry, and two cokes just because Elder Gualtier thought I couldn't do it.

Megamac & Fries

Fun fact about him: whenever I call the Stampin Elders and he answers the phone, I think I called the wrong number because he sounds like a native speaker. He has the most BEAUTIFUL Malay because he spent some time in KK. I met him my first night in Kuching on the road. He's Elder Strathearn's comp, and Elder Strathearn had this huge grass stain on his shirt because he's not pandai bicycle and always falls off. I've missed him. He asked about everyone from our MTC group and said "I just hope they're happy and that they're being good missionaries."

Elder Strathearn also shared an experience during zone meeting, where he had a pass off lesson with the Chinese Elders. The lesson was being taught in Chinese, so he didn't understand what was going on, so he just sat there. Then he decided to pray for Elder Sutherland anytime he was teaching, and after the lesson, Elder Sutherland said, "Wow, that was the best Chinese I've ever had in a lesson." I hope that conveys what kind of a person Elder Strathearn is, he's forever my little brother in the mission. I wonder if he ever prayed for me in the MTC as I taught with him, because I always had words come to mind that I hadn't studied in a while.

Sister Bourgeois and I found out we had a chunk of a neighborhood over by the airport. It hadn't been visited in so long that no one was sure whose area it actually was, so we were like, "What's the catch?" The catch was that it was all terrace houses with gates, and as we were trekking through the jungle to go towards the airport, we got attacked by these super mosquitos! There were literally 20 on each of my legs, sucking my blood. We screamed and biked away, and it felt like my legs were on fire! We went to the airport to get McDonald's ice cream cones, cried about our problems for a little bit, regrouped, and went back to our familiar kampungs.

We saw a lot of miracles though, we followed a prompting to visit one of our members because we felt like she needed support (and this was over visiting a less active). I explained to Sister Bourgeois that sometimes it's better to just do good even if it doesn't count as a key indicator. On the way, we ran into our former investigator who was at kampung all month, who invited us over the next day. Then we ended up teaching her friend who was really interested.

What else...oh that day we taught Regimah, Sister Bourgeois was internally freaking out the whole time haha. I asked, "What, you've never just waltzed into someone's house, sat down, and proclaimed the restored Gospel before?"

To which she said, "No, that was awesome!"

If I had to describe missionary work in one word, I'd say it's fun. I'm still loving every day.

Sayang kau,
Sister Wynn