Well, Colombo Sri Lanka was my first area.. here are some pics for now… will update next week..

Colombo, Sri Lanka

After reaching Singapore, we found out where we would be going. Sister Pike was going to Bintulu, East Malaysia. Elder Mortensen would be going to Kandy, Sri Lanka. And I was going to Colombo, Sri Lanka. We went to the house to get some sleep on Wednesday. We were supposed to go on exchanges with the elders there, but we fell asleep, and they felt sorry for us so they didn’t wake us up. We went out on splits on thursday with some of the elders there. It was kinda scary. It was my first time doing any kind of missionary work. We did some ’street contacting’ and rode the MRT and a bus. We went to China Town and wandered around. Then we came back home to the Pasir Panjang house. I was with Elder Munden. The next day, we went to the airport and Elder Allen wished us luck and dropped us off. Elder Mortensen and I would be on the same flight. We found it ok, and waited. While I was waiting, I bought a small electric shaver, as mine had broken when I plugged it in to the new power source voltage. We boarded the plane and were on our way. We were pretty excited to be going to our first areas.

Well, we recently had an Open House for the new Stake Center here in Singapore. It is really nice. When I got here at the start of my mission, it was just dirt. Now it is complete, and I got to help out with the Open House. It was a lot of work, but everyone helped and so it went very well. I had to guide tours and also I had to man the missionary room and give a 3 minute presentation to anyone who came in, about what missionaries are and what we do, and answer any questions they had. It was a blast! One of my friends, Kev Koh, who is a professional photographer, took a lot of pics and he let me link to them. So, here they are:

http://kevspore.multiply.com/photos/album/10
http://kevspore.multiply.com/photos/album/11
http://kevspore.multiply.com/photos/album/12
http://kevspore.multiply.com/photos/album/13

The Dedication was on Sunday, and it was also really good, with Elder Donald Hallstrom from the Area Presidency giving the dedication. He spoke on how we needed to rededicate ourselves to more fully serve the Lord. It was just what we all needed to hear. Awesome spirit. Two of our investigators were baptized the following weekend in the new font. Strong Spirit.

Open House

MTC
Well, my memories of the MTC are getting dimmer, but I can still remember some. I came into the MTC on Wednesday, with my family. We had driven up that morning in the van, and I remember feeling very odd the whole way, like I was never going to see Utah or my family again (two years seemed like such a long time to me then). I remember we stopped for lunch at Taco Bell, which was the last time I’ve had taco bell since. When we got to the MTC, we put down our bags, and we went to a big room for the farewell speech or something. President Boon (former president of the Singapore mission, before the Larkins) was there, and he invited me to offer the opening prayer. I was pretty nervous, but accepted. I got to speak with him and his wife, and when they learned that I was going to Singapore, they were delighted and told me that I would have a wonderful time. The devotional was good and short, then came the time for hugging and saying goodbye. I remember that my dad had tears in his eyes as well as my mom, and it was a touching moment. After saying my goodbyes (see you in two years!) and hugs all around, I went down the other hall and into the endless lines for getting papers and shots and other things. I remember while standing in line for the Japanese Encephalitis shot, I met Sister Pike, who was in back of me. She was going to Singapore too, so that was cool. I got a couple shots that day, with instructions to come back in a week for more. At some point, I brought my bags to the dorm room, and met Elders Carruth and Mortensen, my room mates. Elder Mortensen was going to Singapore also, but Elder Carruth was going to Zimbabwe. My companion, Elder Pierson, hadn’t arrived yet. I went with Elder mortensen and Elder Carruth to the meeting we had that night with the District Presidency, after unpacking my stuff. Elder Pierson came during the meeting, so I finally got to meet him. After the meeting, I think we returned home for the night. That was my first day at the MTC.
On the whole, the MTC was a lot of fun, even though there were a lot of strict rules, and a lot of new experiences.
Many of the Elders had to grow up fast, and some were homesick. I didn’t have any problems really, I had already been living away from my family for about a year, so I was kinda used to it. Food at the MTC was amazing. It was always ‘all you can eat’ and they had 3 or 4 dishes to choose from each meal. And best of all, they always had cereal! So at least I never went hungry if the had something I didn’t like. I must admit that I was a little picky on what I wanted to eat. That would change fast once I got to Sri Lanka later haha. The rooms were small, but we didn’t spend much time in them. There was always a line for the showers. Which was kind of annoying. There was one shower which was open, with no covering, and the rest had stalls. They had built stalls around the ‘tree of life’ showers (as we called them) so that instead of accommodating 6 people, they could only accommodate 2, but there was privacy. I didn’t mind personally, I thought it would be awkward to shower with everyone else. One Elder in our district, Elder Manookin, always took the naked shower as we called it. Haha.
We had gym every other day, where we would usually run a little and then we’d play ‘hard-core four-square’. haha, those were the days. We played four square pretty competitively. it was a lot of fun always. Elder Kohler and Elder Wallace and Elder Hicken where also in our district. We also had Sister Cambell, Sister Manwaring, and Sister……our district was district 16-D I think, but we called it 16-ADD, because we were all really wild and short attention span. Our teachers were Brother Dustin? and Sister Rusch. They were good teachers.
We spent our time in class studying the lessons in preach my gospel and memorizing scriptures and the first vision (I saw a light…).
We would usually get pretty bored, so we had to come up with new ways of entertainment, like feeding our bagels to the birds for breakfast, and watching them try to fly with a huge chunk of bagel. Even though it was starting to get chilly, especially in the morning, we opted to take a sack lunch and eat outside on the tables, rather than inside, so we could feed the birds, haha.
my companion had to go home (he came back out later) so I had to be in a threesome with Elder Carruth and Elder Mortensen for the rest of the time there. we had a lot of fun times. We wrote a lot of letters and we studied a lot.
I especially remember how much I hated the RC, or Referral Center. It is a place where we talk on the phones. anybody who wants free supplies or to see the Missionaries or anything in response to our ads, will call this number. So we have to ask them for their address and name and such things, and try to teach them over the phone. Those weren’t so bad. But when there weren’t calls coming in, we had to make calls to follow up on people who had already requested things. That was the worst. I hated it so bad. I felt like a telemarketer! I did have some awesome calls though, and I got to teach some people on the phone. So it wasn’t so bad.
I was in the MTC for approximately 2 and a half weeks, but it seemed like much longer. I was so relieved when we finally got to leave that place. We went in a van to the airport, then we were on our own. we checked our bags and got everything in order, and got to the plane ok. We had some extra time, so we called our parents and families. It was me, Elder mortensen and Sister pike. It was Sister pike’s first time on an airplane, so she was kinda nervous. We flew to LA, then we changed planes. We caught a flight bound for Taipei. That was the longest plane ride I’d ever had. It was about 18 hours. We flew over Japan. I can’t sleep in moving vehicles, so I just wrote in my journal and read the scriptures. When we got to Taipei, we had to switch flights again. We went through customs and on to Singapore. President Larkins and Sister Larkins were there with the APs to pick me up. I also got to meet Elder Buddhi, who was just finishing his missions and going home to Sri Lanka. Elder Valenzuela and Elder Walker took us to the house. That was the end of my MTC days.

Here are some pics: (just click the link)

MTC

Well, here is a test post featuring me and Elder Einfeldt. I took it with Kandace’s handphone, and then she sent it to me. The funny thing is, she put it on the cover of the ward bulleting the next day at church, so everyone in our ward saw it. It featured a quote by me about enduring to the end, she called for it and so I just made up one. haha