This sweet little ten year old girl is our 21st baptism for the year 2014.  Our goal was to baptize 20 people from our two branches and we exceeded the goal by one.  We are thrilled with our wonderful elders that have worked so hard to meet the goal.  Her name is Debra Olivia Bettie anak Dutin Pawan.  The great part of this baptism is the one baptizing her.  He is Mike Alyster, who was baptized at the end of 2013 and is doing so well in the gospel.  He is a priest now and working toward being advanced in the Melchizedek Priesthood.  So proud of him!

 On Christmas afternoon, we were invited over to a birthday party.  This is the one year old birthday girl.  She was so cute and excited for everyone to be at her birthday party.  When Iban's have a birthday, everyone in the branch and every relative and neighbor is invited over.  There was a constant flow of people coming over for food and kek (cake).  The funny thing is there is no gift giving, just food and drink and fellowship. 

 This "barbie" kek brought back some really fond memories for us.  My dad was a baker for all his life and he use to make these same barbie cakes for our little girls when they had birthdays.  The only difference was my dad's icing was so delicious.  The icing, here in Malaysia, takes exactly like eating straight butter, or it is the "whipped cream" icing.  My favorite is the "buttercream" icing from the Macey's Food store in Spanish Fork.  Can't wait to have some again.

 After many, many months of practicing, we finally had our JB Branch Primary program on Sunday, Dec. 28th.  It was as good as any put on in America.  We had 5 little girls, all dressed in their white dresses and 5 boys in their white shirts, singing numerous Primary songs and each saying their parts in English.  It was very touching and very well done.  Sis. Eunice, the Primary President, did a great job.  Sis. Bernice, standing next to her is Sam's wife and a member of the Primary Presidency.  Lastly is Sis. Rachel, our 14 year old Primary teacher holding Hyrum.  She ran the music CD's and everyone did such a great job.  It was a beautiful program.

 Our beautiful Christmas ham.  This is a real Christmas miracle, here in Malaysia, to find anything made from a pig.  It is very forbidden in the Muslim culture, but we finally located one.  You can see the cost on the sticker.  A small ham, like this one, cost us $105.28.  It was so worth it.  We fed all 8 of our elders, we took some to the next dinner appointment and gave some away to one of our members who didn't have any food in his house.  We ate at 3 different homes and enjoyed our 2nd Christmas in Malaysia.

 The amazing Christmas Eve miracle was being able to baptize this young lady, standing next to me, in Mandarin.  I worked for about a month trying to memorize and pronounce the baptism prayer and did just fine.  Her name is Chan Yi Rin, and after stating her name, I began the prayer in Mandarin.  All the members, about 30 or so, just gasped and couldn't believe it.  So now, as our mission comes to a close soon, I have been blessed to baptize 2 Malay sisters and 1 Chinese sister, in their native language.

This is Sis. Rosita's Christmas tree.  She went outside and cut down some tree limbs and stuck them in a vase and then decorated them like a Christmas tree.  Whatever works.  The tree leaves were all dead, but she was so proud of her "make shift" Christmas tree.  There are no Christmas trees here, no Christmas lights, no Christmas music, no gift giving, or TV shows or even Christmas songs and programs at church.  You say Merry Christmas to people that we pass and they don't know what to say back.  We are very grateful to celebrate the birth of our Savior during this time of the year and also, very grateful that we don't need all the things that come with Christmas to still worship Him and remember Him every day of our lives.  We have a wonderful family and dear friends that warm our hearts during this beautiful time of the year.

Here is the newest edition to our Masai Branch.  President John and his wife, Sis. Alan, had their 5th baby girl.  Her name is Joyee Juffi anak John Korea.  They liked the Christmas carol, "Joy to the World", so they wanted the word "joy" in her first name for the month of December and for the Christmas season.  She weighed 3.4 kilos.  Lots of dark, black hair.  Both mom and baby are doing great and we had fun visiting with them and holding Joyee.  They have already nicknamed her, "JJ".

 Our Masai elders wanted another "P-day" outing and invited us to visit this government building down near City Square, which is near the border of Singapore and Malaysia.  It was quite a neat looking, old building, but we could not go inside to see the interior.  The building itself sits up on a hill overlooking the southern part of the city.

 It is almost impossible to get a picture of Linda.  She hates when I take pictures of her.  I always have to sneak one in, when she is not quite looking.  I happened to catch Elder Capener, with one of his "cheesy" smiles.  I took a bunch of pictures of the government emblem right above Linda's head.  It is two tigers, symbolizing royalty.  Right along side of Linda is a smaller cannon and a really big cannon.  The elders had fun riding them and playing around them.

 Here is Elder Capener dumping the rain water out of the smaller cannon.  Elder Egbert (red head) and Elder Spurrier are behind him and Elder Bester is leaning against the larger cannon.
We had fun getting down to the City Square area and then, trying to find our way home using the GPS unit.  After 21 months in Johor Bahru, we are definitely running out of things to see and do.
Everyone mentioned that the trip to the government building was really "lame", but the company was the best.  We still had lots of fun.

 This year, we attended the JB Branch Christmas party.  Here is our recent convert, Sam, playing the part of Santa.  The kids loved him (or maybe loved getting the presents that he handed out).
We had about 84 people attend the social, which is a huge success.  Many of the people who came were non-member investigators.  That was wonderful.  The evening began with our branch president, Hong Min Tan, giving a brief talk on Christmas and then I gave two short video clips.

 Following the video clips, the elders got up and sang a beautiful Christmas carol.  Our two new elders are right in the middle of the group.  Elder Lebanon is from East Malaysia (Kuching) and next to him is Elder Reynolds from Houston, Texas.  Elder Lebanon's dad is in the Singapore Mission Presidency.  The really bizarre thing is he is also our Masai Branch president's nephew.
President Lebanon Ero is President John's uncle.

After the elders sang, we all got up and had a really great feast, put on by the RS.  We had turkey, ham, pork and all kinds of Chinese and Malay dishes.  It was great.  Following the food, we went back into the chapel, moved all the chairs to the sides of the room and played 3 games.  Here is Elder Lebanon and Elder Spurrier right in the middle of the fun.  Lastly, Linda read the poem, "Twas the Night Before Christmas" where the words "left & right" are used a lot.  Everyone then sits in a big circle and moves their presents left and right until the poem is over and then opens that gift.  Our sweet Chinese people had a difficult time moving the presents left and right, but we all ended up with a fun gift. 

 We went with our Masai elders to the Johor Bahru Kite Museum.  The official name for the museum is "Muzium Layang Layang" (Museum of Kites).  The building had a basement and 2 floors of all kinds of beautiful paper kites that are made here in Malaysia.  I took 24 pictures of all types of beautiful colored kites.

 These kites are called "wau bulan" or moon kites.  They are so famous here in Malaysia, that they are put on the $1 bills (ringgit).  We were able to get up close to each of these kites and actually touch them and see the intricate designs that they put on each kite. 

 Some kites were made into familiar animals, birds and insects.  This one was a giant butterfly and again, all put together with twigs of branches and colored paper.  The actual size of these kites is quite large.  This one is about 4 feet across and the largest one in the kite museum went from the basement to the 2nd floor, leaning against a side wall.  It was huge.

 I thought this one was quite unique.  It is the shape of a dragon with the 14 legs connected with tiny twigs and the head of the dragon being 3D.  This one was hanging very high near the roof of the building and was over a meter in length.  I had no idea that there could be so many different kinds of kites.

The kind Muslim gentleman that gave us our tickets at the entrance of the museum took a picture for us.  He was amazed that all of us could speak Malay.  The elders can really talk with him and mother and I just walk by him and say "thank you" in Malay.  From left to right is Elder Egbert (our red head), Elder Bester from Canada, our favorite kid, Elder Spurrier, and the lovable, cute Elder Capener.  Finally, the most gorgeous sister in the entire mission, with me on the end.

 This is a beautiful picture of the delicious food that was served to us for our "Other Thanksgiving" with our Masai Branch members.  The Malay people do not celebrate our American holiday of Thanksgiving and have no idea what it means and what Indians and Pilgrims are.  The elders put on a cute skit, but no one got it.
So, our branch president wanted to get some very expensive meat for our Thanksgiving Feast for the American elders and for us.  It was "octopus"!

When we got home, I couldn't wait to create the new "Other Thanksgiving" symbol for all future Thanksgiving's here in Malaysia.  The "Thanksgiving Octopus".   I took the smallest piece I could swallow down and lots of mi (noodles) and nasi (rice) to fill me up.  I began chewing the octopus and found that it was surprisingly delicious.  Everyone stands around to see if Linda and I will try the food and what we think, and the members were thrilled that we liked their Thanksgiving meal for us.

 Along with the Thanksgiving octopus, we had lots and lots of prawns.  I had about 6 of them and they take some work if you don't like eating the head, eye balls and shell.  Since that doesn't suit me as much, you have to twist off the head and eyes, then pull off the feet and finally get the shell off the back before eating the yummy meat.
Most Malay's just eat the entire thing, shell and all.  No thanks.  I finally got the octopus down and I don't think I want the experience of passing the shells a few days from now.

 A real big hit item out here is this lovely "tofu".  It looks like very nice pieces of chicken, but we have learned to only take one piece first and if you like it, go back for more.  I took my one trial piece and the inside is like white custard; all mushy and gross.  So, I at least tried it and went back for some more octopus.

The final meat item was sesame seed chicken.  That sounds great and really looks great, but you have to have the jaws of a cow for chewing the stuff and then you pick out all the little bones in every piece.  It was really some tough meat.
Pres. John, our branch president ordered enough food for 100 people and only about 20 showed up for our "Other Thanksgiving".  They had people lining up for the "left overs" to take home and Linda and I were not in line.  It truly was a memorable "Other Thanksgiving" feast.

Happy Thanksgiving from Malaysia.  Linda and I went online and found this cute little "vegetable turkey".  So we created it and set some ranch dip next to it.  Our elders would not touch the vegetable turkey because it looked so cute.  That was the only thing they didn't touch though.  This year, we were able to get a nice large turkey from Singapore and we made our traditional "Moroni Turkey" in marinated soy sauce, 7 Up and oil, with some garlic and horseradish added.  So good!  It was a big hit.

 Linda made a cherry pie, an apple pie and two pumpkin pies the night before and my job was to cut off all the turkey to marinate it.  We had mashed potatoes and filling, green beans, candied carrots, cranberry sauce and rolls, lots of veggies and dip and tons of marinated turkey.  Everything turned out just perfect and we only missed having yams this year.  We were greatly blessed to have our 8 elders over for Thanksgiving.  I still can't wait for 1% WalMart milk with my pie.  I can't stand any of the shelf milk here.  It's all powdered tasting to me.

Here's another shot of our little group in the JB District.  Four Chinese speaking elders and 4 bahasa speaking elders.  Right after we were all done cleaning up and doing the dishes, the two AP's (assistants to the president) showed up at our door and hoped that we had some food left over.  We knew they were coming and put away a plate for each of them.  Elder Wadsworth is one of the new AP's.  He was with us here a year ago and we loved serving with him in JB.  The whole group is coming back later tonight to finish up the pie and anything else they can find.

 Linda and I put on a RS "sewing workshop" for the sisters in the JB Branch.  We had tons of fun.  We bought 2 new Brother Sewing Machines and had an older Singer machine and taught the sisters how to make bed pillow cases and throw pillow cases.  Linda taught the bed pillow cases and I did the throw pillows.  One sister wanted to do a bed pillow case and everyone else did the throw pillow cases.  They thought if I could make one, anyone could do it.  We had Sis. Jessie start, then Sis. Meera, then Sis. Ng and Sis. Lily, Sis. Rachel, Sis. Amy and Sis. Ilene.

 Here is Sis. Ng creating her throw pillow.  She didn't want anyone helping her.  She wanted to do it on her own after watching.  We had a youtube video showing how to make each pillow case, but no one wanted to waste their time watching them.  So we just showed them, stitched up all four sides and usually, had to sew up one or two of the sides again, since the sister missed some of the material.  When we were all finished, these ladies had huge smiles of accomplishment.  Now, they can check out the machines to try sewing in their own homes.

This is the sweetest Muslim lady that we met in Johor Bahru.  She has been with us for the past 21 months of our mission.  Her name is Noor Shaidah.  She is the office assistant at the Molek Pine Apartment Offices.  Whenever we got a parcel in the mail, she would ring us and ask for "Mr. Elder".  When we went over to visit her, she would help us practice our "bahasa" and speak to us in Malay.  She would tell us about her little boy, Ash.  The new owners of the apartments have let her, all the old staff, go and hired new people.  We will miss her sweet smile and always being concerned for us.

Today, Monday, Nov. 24th, we got delivered to our door a 24 lb. Butterball turkey for Thanksgiving.  This is Sis. Davies and her husband from Singapore.  They are the mission housing directors.  We begged them to try to get us a turkey for Thanksgiving and they found one for us and made the arrangement to come over to JB and do some elders apartment inspections and drop off our turkey at the same time.  This year, our turkey cost us 220 ringgit or about $65.  Now we are almost ready for feeding 10 of our elders for Thanksgiving.  We are so excited.

 Here is am, as Pharaoh of Egypt, with my two court magicians by my side and Aaron to the far left.  It was our monthly Zone Meeting and the elders wanted to do another "role play".  Usually, our role plays are between each companionship, with one partner being the missionary and the other being the investigator.  Mother and I do as we are asked, but it never applies to us and I hate "role plays".  But this one was a riot.  We re-enacted the story of Moses and the plagues of Egypt.  When the Zone Leaders asked me to play the part of pharaoh, I went right to work.  I got

the computer and looked for patterns of pharaoh's headdress.  I found one and ran it off, got on my blue "sarong" and made a black beard.
I held up my two trusty toilet brushes and was ready for my part.  Elder Moala was Moses, Elder Spurrier played the part of Aaron and Elder Bester and Wright were my court magicians.  The other elders helped with the plagues.  Elder Pun is holding an inflatable dinosaur, representing the plague of frogs.  Then the flies and locust were balloons thrown at us.  Finally, the Zone Leaders related all this to missionary work.  It was a real stretch.

On Sat. and Sun, Nov. 15/16, we held our final District Conference for the JB District.  We had Elder Freddie Chan, and Area Authority 70 preside, along with Pres. & Sis. Mains and Pres. Victor Chen of the mission presidency.  This will be our last District Conference of our mission.  It was very unique, since we had no help and Linda and I put everything together.  My only counselor was diagnosed with a serious disease affecting his eyes and couldn't help.  The District RS President is in the Philippines, so Linda and I arranged all the music, got all the prayers, came up with all the subjects and speakers, and I conducted all three sessions of conference.  I hate conducting.  We also had Elder Chan and his son stay at our apartment for two days.  Beside all that, Linda and I made all the arrangements for a luncheon for all those who attended, (about 80 people), after the last session of the conference.  Linda made a big batch of "sloppy joe", we bought lots of buns and bags of chips and some other members brought food for a pot luck luncheon.   The Lord blessed us greatly and we made it through our 4th and final District Conference.  The talks were wonderful and we all felt the Spirit strongly.  You don't realize how blessed we were, back at BYU, when we had our Stake Conferences and had so much support from your counselors and high council, along with a Stake RS Presidency to arrange for the food and refreshments.  We sure appreciate it now!

 On Friday, Oct. 31st, Linda and I flew to Kuala Lumpur, for our very first CCM (Coordinating Council Meeting with 2 Area Authories and Pres. Mains.  Left to right: Pres. Victor Chen is the 1st Counselor to Pres. Mains, then Elder Freddie Chan and Elder Woo, Area Authorities, then my head, then Pres. Mains in front center.  Behind him is a counselor in the KL District Presidency and the 3 men in white shirts are the District Presidency from Ipoh District.  It was a great meeting and I handled the plane flights very well.

 We purchased 2 new sewing machines to teach the sisters how to sew.  Linda and I made pillow cases to show them.  Linda sewed the big bed pillow, with a cute yellow strip and blue opening.  I sewed, all by myself, the little 14 inch throw pillow.  It was easier than I thought and we just followed two simple YouTube videos that we found online.  Now, the sisters in R.S. will sign up for the pillow they want to try to sew and they bring the material and we provide the training and the machines.  We are trying to eventually have the sisters check out the machines and make clothing projects at home.

 An absolute necessity, here in Malaysia, is to have your air conditioning working correctly.  Each room usually has a wall unit like this one that sends out the cool air.  We have one in each of our two bedrooms and one in our little study.  This one is in our living room, dining room and kitchen areas.  It now only sends out warm air, which we can just go outside to get that.  We called the landlord and he will send someone to fix it, we hope.  Luckily, we have a ceiling fan running.  We are so pampered.  There is no Malay home that has air conditioning. 

Here is the other half to the air con system, the compressor.  This is what apparently malfunctioned.  The air con people have been to our apartment 5 or 6 times now, trying to repair or service our four machines.  The man told us, just last week, that this compressor has seen its last days and will not work for more than a year or so.  It lasted 2 more days!  We are trying to get it fixed before we have the General Authority staying at our apartment for two days and then the senior couple before us, the Beards, coming a week later to stay the weekend.  Hopefully we can get things repaired in time.  If not, we just live in our air conditioned car.

On Saturday evening, Oct. 18th, 2014, we had these two dear Indian sisters baptized into the church.  Sis. Regima is the mother and her daughter, Sis. Patmah only speak Malay and Tamal.  The daughter understands some English and then interprets for her mother.  We also had Sister Jess baptized, one of our Chinese sisters.  Her picture is at the bottom of these 6 pictures.  It's amazing to have all these different languages and cultures in our two little branches here in Johor Bahru, Malaysia.  These 3 sisters give us 17 baptisms this year.  Our district goal is 20.

On our last P-day, we went with our eight elders to a candy factory.  It was awesome.  Each of us got a free sample of "Barbie microphones" with little star shaped candies inside.  They were "sedap". (delicious)  We walked from one area to another, watching the workers make suckers from giant blobs of hot molded candy, then into the room where they stamp out the little stars, then into another room where hard candy circles come out of these loud machines.  After that, we walked into another 3 rooms, where different candies were produced.  As we walked up to the workers and watched them making these candies and filling the machines with sucker sticks or wrappers, etc, we would get a sample of that particular candy being made.  Such fun!

Each of us had to wear a hair net before we could enter the plant and we were not allowed to take any pictures of the inside.  At the end of the tour, we had the owner take one group picture of us with our hair nets on.  The elder to the far right of the picture, Elder Lee, is the son of the candy factory owner.  Elder Lee is a Singaporean and his parents live in Singapore and have two candy factories in Johor Bahru.  The elders are not suppose to visit with their parents while serving a mission, so we kept Elder Lee far from his dad as he gave us the "royal tour".  We are each holding up our Barbie microphone.  The whole tour only took about 30 minutes, but it was a fun P-day activity together.

One of the most prized things you can receive here in Malaysia, from our wonderful Malay and Iban members, is a hand made Iban tie.  It has only taken me 20 months to finally get accepted, and I was so surprised when Sis. Minang gave this to me today at church.  You can see, from the picture below, that it is made of thousands of tiny beads that are strung together on string and made into this intricate design.  The top of the tie, around the neck, has some pearl sized beads and, at the end of the beads, another tiny set of beads that form a button hole.  On the other end of the neck fastener is a small red button, so you place the tie around your neck and button it in place.  Then you pull your collar back over the larger beads and the tie is ready to go.  They made an extra long tie for me that goes down below my belt.  Sis. Minang's sister made the tie for me and had it shipped over from East Malaysia.  The women also wear these beaded necklaces and beaded bracelets.  It must have taken this good sister hours upon hours to make this tie for me.  We offered Sis. Minang money to give to her sister, but she wouldn't take any.  I was greatly honored and grateful for this beautiful gift of love and labor. 

 Here is our cute little Petreus, Brother Jimmy and Sister Minang's 8 year old son.  He was baptized last Saturday and we had a great turn out for his baptism program.  Sister Minang is our Masai Branch Relief Society President and Brother Jimmy is in our Elder's Quorum Presidency.  They are both such great "kingdom builders" here in Malaysia.  No matter what the activity or meeting, this family always attends and brings food.  These are also the parents of our first missionary from the Masai Branch, Elder Leonard Kasi anak Rabing (Jimmy).

 We loved our General Conference this weekend.  We get the conference proceedings one week later on flash drives.  This time, we were instructed to watch conference on the same time frame as they do back home, 10 AM, 2 PM on Sat and Sun and a 6 PM Priesthood Session and General Women's meeting.  It is always fun taking notes on every speaker and then praying about which talks will be used for the next 6 months for the 4th Sunday lessons in Relief Society and Priesthood meetings.  This picture is our JB chapel with the TV up front.

During this conference, we had English playing in the chapel area, with one sweet sister (Sister Patmah) listening to conference in Tamal (from India) on our laptop with earpieces, and other Chinese members listening in the Relief Society room.  We also have two other flash drives in Masai, each listening to conference in Malay.
It is an interesting time speaking English and trying to learn Malay while everyone around you is speaking 2 or 3 other languages.

Here is our super faithful Brother and Sister Ng listening to conference in Mandarin.  One fun story that I should have taken a picture of but forgot.  During one of the breaks in between conference on Saturday, we took the 4 elders out to eat at our local McDonald's.  As we had finished and were heading back to the chapel, one of the elders pointed out this animal walking very calmly across the parking lot.  It looked like a small cat, but upon closer inspection, it was a rat, looking for some food.  Now, you have to hope that the cheeseburger that I just finished was really beef and not some other critter walking around their parking lot.  It makes one think!  Another fun experience we had on Friday evening.  Linda told me to take pictures and again, I just got too busy.  When you look at the picture of our chapel, just behind the TV is the podium and to the left of the picture, on the stand, we have a huge infestation of termites.  One of the elders was leading the music and fell through the carpeting to the cement flooring as the termites ate through the wood in that area.  So, I volunteered to repair the hole.  What a project!  We first had to locate a store that sold lumber.  There is no such thing as a Home Depot or Lowe's around here.  We found a hardware store run by some very kind Chinese people.  It was literally a maze of shelves and all sorts of things stashed everywhere from floor to ceiling.  We bought a hand saw, some nails and had a 4 foot by 8 foot piece of plywood delivered to our chapel later on Friday evening.  Now the fun begins.  I broke away all the rotted wood and large white termites crawled out from everywhere.  We have a pest control company coming next week to put down some bait, but until then, we needed to fix this hole and shore up the rest of the area before someone else falls through.  My hole was about 4 foot long by 2 foot wide and one foot deep.  I was going to build a frame to go inside the hole and then lay a piece of plywood over the frame to stand on. The entire podium is being ripped up in Feb of next year, when the church gives our area its new budget for 2015.  This is just a quick fix job.  I now begin cutting my first piece of plywood.  I didn't get 2 to 3 inches and ran out of steam.  This 3/4 inch plywood is hard to saw through, so we go to the local store to see if they sell electric saws.  We actually found a great circular saw and took it to the clerk to check out.  We just happened to ask if the saw came with a blade and if they would check.  No blade!  Of course, we are in Malaysia.  Why would they sell a saw with a blade.  You had to buy the blade separately.  And, of course, they don't have a blade to sell.  Great!  So we go to another store and purchase a small jig saw.  The jig saw was a total of 13.80 ringgit, which comes to about $4.50.  This should be a real winner!  We begin cutting the pieces and almost got our monies worth from this saw.  We cut 5 of the 6 pieces needed before the saw "gave up the ghost".  I hammered my framed insert together and it fit perfectly in place.  We covered the carpet back over the new frame and felt pretty good about our construction project.  At least we know that the termites will enjoy some new, fresh wood for the next 3 months.

 

Our Senior Conference photo on Sept. 17, 2014.
If you sit on the small sofa with Pres. and Sis. Mains in the middle, that means you're on your way home.  Elder & Sis. Beus are on the right side of Pres. Mains and Elder & Sis. Bashaw are next to Sis. Mains in blue.  Hopefully, Linda and I should be in the next photo in December.  We currently have 14 senior couples in our Singapore Mission.

 Our wonderful elders, sisters and seniors at our Zone Conference.  This time, all elders, sisters and seniors from West Malaysia and Singapore came together for one day and then all of East Malaysia comes on another day.  Mother and I got the end seats for this photo shoot.

 Before our Zone and Senior Conference, we went to the little island of Sentosa, south of Singapore.  This is where Universal Studios is, along with a huge aquarium and amusement park.  We went with the four elders from our Masai Branch to the aquarium.  It was a blast.
Here is Elder Spurrier, walking through the long underwater tube.  Quite amazing!  The elders came into Singapore earlier this day for a dentist appointment and then waited for us to arrive.  We met up around 2 pm and stayed till about 6 pm.

 Our four elders from Masai.  Elder Robins in front with the green sunglasses, then Elder Ferguson and Elder Taikin behind him and Elder Spurrier in the back.  We sure love these four elders and have fun when all eight of our elders come over to our apartment for District and Zone Meetings.  This coming Monday will be another transfer day.  We will see which elders leave JB and how many new kids we get.  It's always fun to get some new elders, but sad to lose the ones who have been with us for many months.

 I asked Linda to stand still, so I could take her picture.  Here is one of her "cute" smiles.  We were still in the underwater tube before you enter the actual aquarium.  This was unusual; to get Linda to pose.  She usually stops me or runs away and hides.  This time, she actually posed and made a great face.  The elders all got in as "students" for 28 Sing dollars.  We went up to get the "senior" discount and really did well.  It also is $28, but the man only charged us $25 each, because he didn't have any change.  The elders were "ticked off".  It pays to be old!

 This giant tube of a fish tank went up a number of stories.  It was amazing and quite beautiful. 
You were able to walk all the way around the tube as hundreds of different kinds of fish swam by.  All around the giant tube, you could see other fish tanks of sharks, jelly fish, manta rays, sea horses and even a petting zoo area.  You could put your hand into the water and pet the fish in the tank or rub your hand over the star fish and other sea creatures.  Pretty neat!  The elders couldn't wait to play with the slimy fish.

Within this ship, you went into a place with wooden benches and a huge movie screen.  A short video would play, telling the story of Chinese trade fisherman years ago.  Suddenly, a storm begins to form and the room turns into a simulated "typhoon".  It was a riot.  The lightning starts to flash and thunder claps.  The wooden benches move and then the wind comes up and a water mist hits you while the storm rages.  Finally, a harder rain begins while you're sitting there.  For a few minutes, you really felt like you were in a typhoon.  It was fun and wet!

When you enter the aquarium, you walk through a long underwater tube of all sorts of fish and sea life.  When you complete the aquarium tour, you again walk through a long underwater tunnel, except this time it is filled with all sorts of sharks.  It was awesome.  We asked a passerby to take our picture in the tube.  The elders are all wearing their "manta ray" hats.  Linda and I tried to be more mature and not wear our hats during the picture taking.  It was a fun day in Singapore with our missionaries before our Zone and Senior Conference.