Can, Baby!

Selamat Hari Ayaaahhh to all the amazing dads out there!

I love my dad. He is incredible. He is the reason I'm trying to selflessly serve the people in Southeast Asia. When I have a hard day on the mission, when appointments fall through, and creepy men are being creepy, and people are trying to tell me my testimony is recycled and indoctrinated, and it's hot, and humid, and I'm sick, and when I even entertain the idea of going home, I imagine my dad saying "Leave it all in the field."

He would never let me go home because he knows my mission will change me forever and ever and ever. My dad is my missionary. He taught me that Jesus Christ is my Savior, that sacrifice is so worth it, to serve others and to be kind, polite, and courteous no matter what, and to always think of others.

Right when I got to KL, we were invited to Sunday dinner by a couple American families. I was telling them about my family, like how Mikel and dad served their missions in Japan and how Cloe wants to go on a mission and how we all go to BYU, etc. etc. and in passing I mentioned my mom's not a member of the church (and is actually Buddhist) because I think that's cool. Everyone was like, "Wow! No way!" and it actually made me feel a little weird, but then Brother Webber said, "That says a lot about your dad, that his kids are return missionaries."

I never thought about that before, how hard or lonely it must have been raising his kids in the church by himself. I'm not saying we're perfect, but I'd say my siblings are pretty good kids because of my parents. I could be worse, haha. When I washed up on my parents doorstep after living in California, kind of like the prodigal son (not that I was ever prodigal, haha) and said, "Uh I think I want to serve a mission..." my dad was the one who said, "Alright! Let's make that happen. I will take care of it."

This week was good. Our numbers weren't so good, but I'll explain why in a second. Last P-Day, we went to the Malaysian History Museum. It was pretty cool, but mostly I just loved the company. I forgot to mention last week, Brother Blissett, one of my MTC teachers, is in Malaysia researching languages (pretty sweet deal, eh?). He was at church because he served in KL. We asked him if he wanted to visit a less active member who he knew, and he ended up being our church-member-present in that lesson, haha. It was fun teaching with him, and because you don't always get the opportunity to teach with your MTC teacher halfway through your mission, I decided to take the opportunity to ask what I could do better. He said I was doing great, which was nice to hear especially because he knew me as a brand new missionary, belum pandai bahasa Melayu and memang belum pandai kerja misi.

We also had little miracles all over the place. We met with a church headquarters referral who is SO prepared. I don't understand why Sister Parcell and I keep having incredibly prepared investigators fall into our laps, except that God loves us and He loves the people we need to meet. We met her at work, she is a floor exec at a department store, previously Hindu but looking into Christianity because she had some amazing experiences with prayer. When we gave her her copy of The Book of Mormon, she teared up and said, "I didn't think that anybody would actually come." There are people out there who are looking for the truth. We also ran into the cutest Canadian girl yesterday over by the Petronas Towers who teaches English literature at a college. She asked what we were doing in KL and after we told her our purpose as missionaries, she gave us her number.

Yesterday, for Father's Day, the Moore family invited us over for dinner. They live right in the center of the city and have the most gorgeous view. They may also be one of the most fascinating families I've ever met. They've lived all over the world. Brother Moore made us ribs, and drumsticks, the perfect American dad man meal haha. He also made his famous watermelon lemonade (which reminded me of my dad's lime drink and made me a little nostalgic for home). Our little missionary message was from Doctrine and Covenants 123, and we mostly wanted to express our love and gratitude to them. I love the saints.

I also gave a talk on obedience, and drew from the story of Abraham and Isaac (how lame of a Father's Day must it have been to have to sacrifice your son?). I tied it into missionary work and told the members how much I, along with all of the other missionaries, loved them. If I could, I would build them a temple. I would build them a stake. I would do anything for them. But we can't do missionary work by ourselves. We NEED them to help us.

Last zone meeting, Elders Beckstrand and Rasmussen talked about The Miracle Model again, and we also talked about putting things in our box (ie distractions). Then they presented an idea, a game plan, that caused a stir. They said they presented this idea to the other mission leaders, and to President Mains, and I'm sure they consulted with the Lord. They got permission to try this in our zone. They asked us to only have lessons where a church member is present, and to cancel appointments if we can't have one. Our numbers are expected to drop initially.

You should have seen the drama. There were missionaries who listed all the cons of it. We won't be able to teach as much, sometimes members confuse the investigators, etc. But despite all that, Sister Parcell and I looked at each other and grinned, then to the zone leaders, and said, "Challenge...accepted."

They explained the purpose was to encourage members do more missionary work, because we love our church members, we want to strengthen the branches here, and strengthen our members, and have them receive blessings from helping other people. I would do anything for my church members, I will build them a stake, I will build them a temple. But the fastest way to that is to make our investigators the branch's investigators.

After the meeting, the zone leaders talked to me and Sister Parcell and said, exasperated, "Thank you for supporting us."

"Of course we support you, you're our elders." We trust our leaders. We trust President Mains, and we trust the Lord. What I love about Sister Parcell is she has incredible, stupid amounts of faith with me. We CAN get members to help us at every lesson, AND we CAN get two new investigators a week. It's not about the numbers, it's about the people behind those numbers and it's about bringing people closer to Christ. You don't have to teach to bring someone closer to Christ.

We've adopted a new saying this week (last week it was "Have miracles ceased? NAY, neither has God ceased to be a God of miracles."):

Can, baby! I love it because it sounds like something my dad would say.

Last night, Sister Parcell and I stayed up and talked about how great our dads are. We have plans to make them best friends because we think they'd get along. "The Adventures of Walt and Todd." I told her about how my dad always picked up random people who had car trouble in Maryland, how he always helped people move houses, and how when he was first counselor in the bishopric when we were little, and had long meetings after church, we'd wait for him if mom couldn't pick us up, and he'd say, "Thanks for waiting for me. I'm sorry you had to wait, but look at all the blessings we're receiving!" That always stuck with me.

Another thing that has always stuck with me was from when I was probably around 10 years old. For some reason, my dad took us kids to piano lessons that day, even though mom usually does. Sticking with tradition, we ate at McDonald's afterwards, except that day we were kind of at a ghetto-er McDonalds over by the metro in Rockville instead of the one in Redland. We were finishing dinner, and there was a younger man in a dirty orange jumpsuit asking the employees if he could borrow a phone to call a cab to take him to the metro, so he could go home. He worked at the recycling plant nearby. The staff was being kind of rude to him, but my dad overheard the conversation and said, "Sir, we're just about done, we could give you a ride to the station if you want."

The man was so grateful. I remember my 10-year-old self thinking, "This man is going to stab one of us. He's so sketchy, and dirty, and way too eccentric." Haha. But I trusted my dad. But we gave him a ride, and he kept saying, "You are angels, sent from the Lord! God sent you to me, thank you, thank you, thank you!" My dad is so Christlike. It doesn't matter what people look like, or where they're from, he will help anyone who needs it.

I send my love from KL, the greatest city ever.

-Sister Wynn