Zone Conference, Transfers, and ramping up to Chinese New Year

Mission time is measured differently than other time. One of the basic units of measure is "the transfer". These are usually six weeks long and are used to describe how long a missionary is in a given area, with a given companion, and is the denominator for most mission goals. During each transfer period there is usually a Zone Conference held in which missionaries gather together to be instructed, inspired, and interviewed. Our mission usually holds two sessions of zone conference, one for missionaries serving in West Malaysia & Singpore, and another for those serving in East Malaysia.

Because of our sudden trip to the US, we missed the East Malaysia Zone Conference, but traveled through Kuala Lumpur on the way home and attended the West Malaysia/Singapore Conference. What a highlight! It was very sweet to gather together with great misisonaries from around the world. This one was extra special as we had two visiting General Authorities and their wives with us: Elder and Sister Teixeira and Elder and Sister Teh. Their international perspectives, being respectively from Portugal and the Phillipines, was fascinating and inspiring.

Because Vivian missed a week of counseling, this week was then a very full one with more than twenty missionary visits. One nice part was that she was able to do nine of them in person. Meanwhile I stayed busy helping orgnize all that when not engaging in the conference. Unfortunately we had almost no time to see Kuala Lumpur, but enjoyed more what we did and should have a chance in the future to see more.

Challenge of the week: We returned home after nine days to find our refrigerator/freezer not running and a lot of food ruined. The circuit breaker had tripped and so everything requiring refrigerator died a slow, painful, and smelly death. Vivian counsels with many missionaries about stress management, so we were able to practice that preaching in cleaning up, getting the smell out, and replacing all the food!

Miracle of the week: Vivian has been working with an Elder whose girlfriend recently died in a tragic hiking accident. As you might expect he was overcome with grief at this loss. She worked with teaching about grief and how it is normal to feel sad and confused and angry. She then gave him some church resources, which he used including watching some videos of people sharing their experiences with grief. Even though some of the concepts of emotion were very foreign to him culturally, he was able to connect to what he was feeling. She says "I was so deeply touched by how the Spirit and church resources taught him in language he could understand. Some of the simplest things I could offer him helped him to feel great peace. I’m so grateful that God has allowed me to be part of this work. The peace of the gospel of Jesus Christ is so far reaching in its capacity to comfort!"

1: Picture from West Malaysia/Singapore combined conference on January 22nd.

2: The mighty Singapore Zone during Transfer #2 (27 Jan - 8 March 2024)

3-4: On the church tour. The first is the site where the new Singapore temple will be built. The second is the church in Kuala Lumpur where our zone conference was held.

5: Chinese New Year (CNY) is in the air!

6-7. We attended a Lion Dance competition that was amazing. Check out this video for our favorite, the Malaysia team! It is several minutes long, but worth the watch.

8: We are looking forward to the drone dragon over the bay in February.

9: Vivian brushing up on her Hokkein. Decorations and CNY paraphernalia is everywhere!

10-11: Recent food options. (Note that we steered clear of the pig's feet and intestines...)