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.

 Presly is so excited to open his mission call from the First Presidency.  He is our 2nd young man to get a mission call in our JB District.  Presly was called to serve in the Toronto, Canada mission.  Everyone in the room yelled and told him that he would probably freeze his butt off, since he has only known 85 degrees or higher, here in Malaysia, his whole life.  We asked him if he has ever seen snow.  He replied "no"!  He is to report to the Provo MTC on December 14th, and then he will probably get a taste of cold weather.

 Presly is one amazing young man in the Masai Branch.  He currently holds 5 different callings in the branch.  When he leaves, there will be a huge hole.  Presly is the branch clerk, the branch Young Men's president, the Institute teacher and the Seminary teacher and, from now until he leaves for his mission, he was just called to team teach Sunday School Gospel Doctrine with me every other week.  He will be a powerful missionary.  He loves the Lord and knows the gospel very well.

 On Saturday, September 13th, I was privileged to perform my 2nd baptism on my mission.  This is Sis. Madline anak Taie from the Kota Masai area of our one branch.  These are the two elders who did all the teaching and preparing, but when she was asked to decide who should baptize her, she said, "Datuk".  That is the Malay word for grandfather.  Everyone here calls me datuk.  Elder Ferguson, standing next to Sis. Madline, was not a happy trooper.  I barely know Sis. Madline, except seeing her in my Gospel Doc. class.  Still, I'm very honored she asked me.

Our four wonderful elders in Masai spent quite a lot of time preparing a special musical number for the baptism.  Left to right is Elder Ferguson, Elder Taikin, Elder Robins and Elder Spurrier.
They are so much fun to be around and they all get along so very well.  They sang, "I Need Thee Every Hour" in Malay and I got to help them change up the song with each verse.  I led the music, in the audience, and had them sing the first verse with just two of them, then come in together, which harmonized so nice, and then give a repeated slower ending.  They were great.

 This is a wonderful picture of our dear friend and brother, Bro. Gema.  It was taken in November of 2013.  Bro. Gema was admitted into the hospital to have a large cancerous tumor removed from his body.  The surgery went well and it took him through December to heal and recover.  We thought everything was just fine and now he could return to work and get back to his normal life of raising his little family and helping his son, Hairy, go to college.  We called Bro. Gema as the Elder's Quorum President in January of 2014 and began a preparation period to eventually call him as the Branch President before the year was over.  Everything was on track and Bro. Gema was his happy, loving self.  The whole branch loves him and supports him.  Then, around May, Bro. Gema changed.  He didn't remember who we were, began having headaches and began sleeping much more during the day.  Things seem to get better for a time, and then go badly again.

Today, Sunday, Sept. 14th, Bro. Gema and his wife and son took a plane flight over to East Malaysia, for our dear Bro. Gema to be with his family before he dies.  He now can't move at all, he is in adult diapers, he can't speak or walk or even smile, when I asked him for this picture.
I leaned forward to Bro. Gema and, in Malay, I told him that I love him with tears rolling down my face.  He looked up into my eyes and gave me a very small nod of his head.  The hospital refused to take him, his family can't take care of him and now, this amazing man will leave us.  It was hard to say goodbye.  Our guess it that the cancer was not completely removed and now has spread through his whole body.  We may never know what it is, but I will miss him so very much.  We will probably never see each other again in this life, but I will remember the great leader and friend that I have in Bro. Gema.  He has affected my life deeply.  There are these more difficult times, when the Lord knows more than we know.   My part is to trust in Him and allow His plans, for Bro. Gema, to play out.  I know that one day, I will stand with Bro. Gema and hug him again. 

 We had a unique experience on Friday, Sept. 5th.  We were invited to a program called, "7 Billion Acts of Goodness".  The host organization was Brahma Kumaris, a group of wonderful people that promotes goodness and doing little acts of kindness throughout the world.  Their philosophy is if the population of the planet, 7 billion people, each do an act of kindness and goodness, it would change the world and make it a better place to live.
The program was suppose to begin at 7 pm, but didn't start until around 8:30 pm, because one of
speakers plane flight was delayed.

 One sister who spoke to us was a sweet Muslim lady, Sis. Fauzia.  She was quite funny.  She spoke of helping others less fortunate than us.  The second lady, next to her, spoke and she had a similar theme.  Then, another older lady got up and we went into 20 minutes of "meditation", to find our inner self.  I think I got lost.  We previously went out to eat with Elder & Sister Hadley, the Public Affairs couple here.  We had a plate of chicken and some unusual potato salad, which wasn't enough to fill a bird.  I was still hungry.

 Many people then ended the program by coming to the podium and making a pledge.  Elder Hadley's pledge was for our church to help the good people of Malaysia and everyone clapped loudly.  They hung their pledges on this tree and then lit up the tree with Christmas lights.  After that, around 10 pm, we validated our parking ticket, got in the car to leave, and found out that the validating machine didn't work.  We had a huge back up of cars trying to get out.  It proved to be an interesting night of meditation and helped me learn more patience.

 On Saturday night, we celebrated our "Moon Cake Festival" with a barbeque at our branch president's home.  We had lots of noodles and chicken wings, spicy curry, prawns on the grill and banana's on the grill.  Linda made her very famous "apple crisp", which is a big hit around the elders.  The barbeque began at 7 pm with us and the 4 elders.  We ate and then went back for more.  When much of the food was gone, the other members of our JB Branch began to drift in (late as usual).  By 9 pm, we had quite a showing of people, but the apple crisp was already gone.

 Here are two more interesting foods in Malaysia.  The black container is "water caltrops" or buffalo nuts.  They look just like the horns on a water buffalo and turned upside down, they are in the shape of a mustache.  The second container is "taro corms" or taro root.  It is like a potato, but sweet.  All the elders (and me, of course) took the water caltrops to hold up under our noses so they looked like mustaches.  You have to use a set of pliers to open them up and then they have a nut that tastes similar to a water chestnut.

 All our barbeques and parties are held outside, in front of peoples homes.  Pres. Tan, Hong Min lives with his mom and dad and they live in a very nice home.  You can see the "winding staircase" in the doorway, right above Linda's head.  Our 4 elders, (front to back) are Elder Smith, Elder Earl, Elder Moore and the red head in the back next to Sis. Schollenberger, Elder Mitchell.  They are such fun to have here.  We ended up with 2 investigators and other non members who came out.  It was a fun evening and good food before fast Sunday.

Just before we left, Sis. Eunice put on a demonstration of how to take "dragon fruit" and make it into a Chinese lantern.  All the kids participated, scooping out the inside and placing a small "tea light" candle at the bottom.  They were quite pretty in the dark.  I must have gone back three times or more, eating a little of this and a little of that, while different groups of our members arrived throughout the evening.  I sure ate quite my share of apple crisp, along with a few extra chicken wings and curry potatoes.
Just the perfect barbeque picnic.