19 October 2015

Hello all, 

This has been a good week. Exhausting but good. To start out, for our morning work out, we started running to this basketball court near our house to play basketball in the morning. It has been way fun. However the other day, we were playing 2v2, and I went in for a layup and at the same time, another missionary was coming down after jumping up to block me, his hand in a fist headed for the ball. However, me putting the game ahead of my body, moved the ball out of the way at the last second and his fist coming down was met halfway by the very middle of my face. I got a nice bloody nose and a week of a head ache and really weird allergies. I made the shot though so of course, that's all the really matters.

A great event this week was the baptism of one of the Chinese Investigators! One of the Chinese Elders who came in with me, baptized an awesome guy.. He is the brother of (our district presidents wife! He is so awesome. He has some physical deformities but it's just way cool to see someone with such hard trials, show just great faith. Way awesome. At the baptismal service, there was an Indian guy that walked in off the street. He was way cool and I talked to him for a little bit just about what baptism is and things like that. It was a way cool experience.

Another thing about Indians, this week, my companion and I went to go to the mall to get some groceries and while we are locking up our bikes, this group of all these Indian dudes saw us from across the street and ran over to us. They knew no English, Malay, or Chinese. Only Hindu. But I guess they did know the word selfie. That was it. So we got put as centerpieces in these selfies of all these dope Indian guys. I had no idea what they were saying and they had no idea what we were saying. I have no idea how they are even surviving here.. they don't know any of the languages haha. It's all good though. I guess Indians seldom see the white man.

Also this week, one of our missionary aged members, started their papers! I'm way pumped for him! He is such a cool dude. Has the nicest flippin hair I have ever seen. See for yourself. He is way excited and it's way cool to see someone go through the same process I had to. It's always way cool to see that the church is true and the same all over the world! Dang. Way cool. I'm sorry I don't have a ton to write this week. At least dropbox is working. There will be some pictures from our 1/2 zone meeting. Also I'm going to Singapore next week for zone conference so I am super pumped for that! Hopefully I'll be able to get back into Malaysia though... Did you know that sometimes missionaries get black chopped? It's not a rare thing. We'll see though! It's so excited! I love you all and I love your support. You're all the best.

Love,
Elder Hanks

Address for mail:

Elder Matthew Hanks

253 Bukit Timah Rd.

Singapore, 259690

Singapore

11 October 2015

Hey there folks,

To start off, I gotta say. I am super pumped because we have two guys that want to serve missions now and we are working with them to get to that point. One has a pretty cool story. He told us before he met the missionaries, he was trying to figure out which church was true. Eventually he just went to God in prayer and asked to know which Church was really true and before he even finished his prayer, the missionaries knocked on his door. He was baptized and was actually deemed less-active because he had work every Sunday. His records were lost I guess but we came across him about two weeks ago and he is a stud. He reads the scriptures and prays as often as he can. He has one of the strongest testimonies of the church that I have seen here. He is awesome. He wants to go on a mission as soon as he can. He has already quit his job because now he knows where the church is. ( the church has to switch locations every once in a  while) The other is solid and has always been. He will probably be the first missionary that is sent out from Bintulu EVER. Which will be huge here. I am so pumped for them both. We have a few younger guys that have said that they want to serve missions too so we will be working with them soon hopefully! They're both the same age as me too so we are like bros now. Way sick.

So a huge part of this week was General Conference. We watched it a week later because they had to translate the whole thing into Malay. This has been the first Conference that I have actually really appreciated. All of the speakers were incredible. Some things I learned was we seem to complicate the Gospel in our lives, it is really quite a basic layout of protections against the wickedness of the world. Also Elder Holland and Nelson's talks about mothers and the appreciation of women were amazing and really made me miss my momma. I love my momma. I guess just I wanna say is there are indeed trials and hard things in life. They are bound to happen. What I have come to realize is that we all say that there is a plan. God has a plan. But it's not just a plan. It's a plan of happiness, salvation, redemption. His plan is for us to become as happy as we can. We many think yeah I am happy right now, but our Heavenly Father, being all-knowing, knows exactly how to make you happier than you have ever been. And who doesn't want to be happy? No one I hope. But realizing that his plan is of HAPPINESS, you have to just know that you WILL be happy. The Gospel is the way that we can understand that happiness more and follow the path that follows that eternal plan. With that, In terms of the Atonement, it is so crazy to just think about. I think about the creation. God created EVERYTHING. Everything includes sin, hardships, and challenges. So being a merciful God, wanting His children to be happy, has given us a way to overcome anything and everything. Seriously everything. All we need to do, if we can't overcome it ourselves, just humble yourself and realize you need help. He will always love you and always listen to you. He will give you what you need in your trials. Seriously. Everything in the Gospel is just so perfect. I don't have a perfect knowledge of it all yet but I just know it is, it's amazing. Gal darn I can even explain myself. I am sorry if you have no idea what I am talking about. I had to rant for a little bit there.

Let me say something way random. They have this stuff that is like almost the same as ramen noodles here. Similar package, similar noodles and everything... but the thing is. IT IS SO GOOD. They have the regular chicken flavor and all, but holy crap. They have, like, CURRY flavor, duck flavor, different seafood flavors, oh man. This stuff is so good. Also something my companion and I have been doing every once in a while, fried eggs. Oh my goodness. I make the best dang fried egg sandwiches. Mom and Dad sent me a package with Desert Heat and Buffalo seasonings from Buffalo Wild Wings a week or so ago and oh. my. gosh. That's the way you make fried eggs. I am a pro now too.... the most perfect runny yokes you'll ever see with the most perfect flavoring. Dang.

That's pretty much it for this week. 

Love you all. You da best,

Love,

Elder Hanks

Hello folks,

So. This week I was fatherless. Twice. So let me explain this to those who don't know what this means. Missionaries have a joke that the mission is a whole other life. When you come out, you are born, your trainer is your father, his trainer is your grandfather, and when you go home is when you die. That's the basics. So I think you all know what fatherless means now. So on Wednesday we had exchanges. Since there's only a pair of Chinese Elders and a pair of Malay, we had a bilingual companionship. So I was with another elder this day. We both speak English because we are both American but the language he came out here to learn is Chinese. So in the sense of going to teach the Malay people, I was their only hope. So we went out. We went around some of the houses trying to find some contacts but had very little luck. Come around 6 o'clock, we went to  one of the most impoverished places in my area to teach some of the less-actives that lived down there. First we met with a Brother. He is a really awesome guy. His family was actually the first family I met on my first day here. So before we went, I was way nervous. This was a huge test of my language skills but the thing is I felt like I had prepared as much as I could for this lesson. I said a prayer before I went in asking for inspiration in my words and clarity of my message. I was teaching about family and how a husband and wife, by showing love towards each other, can teach their children simply through their example and also help bring their family closer together. I went in feeling, like, awesome honestly. Like, people say stuff like they were "filled with the spirit" and things like that and let me tell you. I have never felt more like that is described. I went in and was able to even have small talk with them. The best part was that I UNDERSTOOD THEM. Like, whoa. I had a conversation with the whole family by myself. It was so crazy. Then with the lesson I was teaching, I could just feel more or less a power in what I was saying. Words were just rolling off my tongue like I knew them. I understood my own words even which was even more surprising. I was able to deliver a message to them that I had prepared just for them, that I believed could help their family, and it was incredible. God is there, that's one thing I was reassured of here. Man. This was such a crazy time. I couldn't even believe it. That was definitely a huge boost of confidence for me. For sure. 

I guess a few other things I saw this week was a Takraw tournament. Takraw is a sport here that is a mix of volleyball and soccer. This sport blows my mind. Go look up a video of it. It's like volleyball but people mainly use their feet and they do like back flips to spike this hollow ball over the net. This sport.. I will never be able to play it. Let's see. The culture here is to leave your shoes outside the house so you don't track dirt and stuff into the house, so we used to keep our shoes outside. However. This past week, some jackwagons came by and stole our shoes in the middle of the night. I pity them because those were my old golf course works shoes and their feet my get some weird fungus from the fertilizers that are all over those things. What really was terrible was that they also stole one of the elders bike. Dang fools. 

So if you remember a woman I mentioned from the other week?  She is the sweet lady from the mall that came up to us with tears in her eyes asking if she could have one of our books. So we met with her and a friend two weeks ago and then again this past week. They have been so excited to learn that they talked to one of their friends about what they were doing and he wants to learn now too! So we taught them this week a good lesson about the restoration of Jesus Christs Gospel and they are all so cute with it. This woman has her Kitab Mormon ( Book of Mormon) in this little case that she made for it and then her friendl has his with all of these tabs of places where he has questions. It's so cute. They have been really listening to the things we have been talking about and are really beginning to listen to what we are saying and I can see them really listening to what the spirit is telling them. It's way cool to see the Holy Ghost do work in people. 

This past week we got mail! We get mail every week if we're lucky. Usually every two weeks. But this week got a package from my family and what did they send that was a huge blessing to me? Desert Heat and Buffalo seasoning from Buffalo Wild Wings. Oh my gosh. First thing I did was go make myself some fried egg sandwiches and have mercy on my soul. They were incredible. Game changer for sure.
Last Monday after email, we went to the store to get some supplies and there was a group of Iban women in the back and as we went by just said hey and stuff and then as we were walking away they were like "oh dia sigat" (he's handsome) thinking that we didn't know Malay. But jokes on them because we did so we turned around and said thank you and were on our way. I felt kind of bad because they were super embarrassed. Either way. It was a good week. Exhausting but when is missionary work not?

Love you all! 

Elder Hanks