Well, this week, I am still alive, so that is good. It was my first week with Elder Rowley. He is a pretty funny guy, so we get along fine. He likes to play practical jokes. So we are always joking. Well, this week there was some pretty cool stuff that happened. Kristy, a recent convert, brought three of her friends from school and we taught them. We watched the Restoration, and one of them, Tani, started crying because she felt the spirit. So that was cool. They all came to church. On Sunday, it was really wild, more irreverent than usual, so Elder Rowley was losing his mind. It was pretty funny. Not much new this week. I bought a guitar. It is really cool. I will take a picture of it. I’d like to thank my family for that, it was my Birthday Present, hehe. I am slowly learning. My fingers hurt a lot, haha. I got a package from Edlina, from Singapore. Thanks Edlina! And I also got one from my mom and family, thanks! And I got a card from Vinuri, from Sri Lanka, and a letter from Sharon, from Hawaii, so I was rally grateful fro all that mail. It really makes a missionary’s day. I will write all of you back, I promise. Just give me a little time, hehe. Oh yeah, my brother, Tyler, is now officially in France on a mission. I forget the town, but it is in Northern France I think. So cool. He is going to have a blast. No videos today, I have to upload the ones from Sri Lanka.
Oh yeah, I am going on a Visa run next week to Singapore, so I plan to see all the cool people in Singapore, like Edlina, Nancy, Yee Hung, and Romesh. And also all the cool families in the Woodlands ward. So if I drop by your house on The 3rd or 4th, don’t be too surprised, ok? Hehe
Til next week^^
My Pics for this week:

Bintulu – With Rowley

Well, this week I lost my companion, Elder Mortensen. It was hard to see him go, cause we have been together since the MTC, and this was probably the last time I would see him on a mission, cause he has to go home a week earlier than me so that he can go to school. So that is sad. He had been here for 6 months plus, so he had done his time here. I went with Elders Godfrey and Fry that day to their Kampung. It was a good day. The next day I got Elder Rowley, also a very cool elder, that I’ve known for quite a while. I actually went on exchanges with him in KL and in Singapore. So I am excited to have him. He goes home in 2 months, so this is his last stop. Hmmm.. the internet is going really slow now, so I will just have to type more while I wait. Today we went to the beach to play some beach volleyball. The sand was really hot. We didn’t have a net, so we dug some holes in the sand, stuck in some large branches, and tied a ribbon to it. Quite good actually. It was a lot of fun. We won! Yay!
My brother now is in France. He is just starting out, probably in Paris right now. He is going to have the adventure of a lifetime. I hope he can get permission to read this, but if not, maybe I can just email him this each week.
Well, I am going to upload a lot of videos from Sri Lanka in an effort to put all my Sri Lanka stuff on my blog. It is a new thing I am doing to have each of my old areas. I already uploaded all the pics, but the videos are slower. I will post it probably next week, then KL maybe a couple weeks later, then Singapore. That is my plan.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I am learning Jawi… It is really cool. I can read and write it now. It used to be Malaysia’s main written language before they used the Roman Alphabet. It looks like this:

Here are some pics from this week:

Beach Volleyball and Elder Moto Leaving

And here is a video of me going through the Kampung with Elder Godfrey and Elder Goreng:

And here is another video of us at the Beach:

Well, this week was pretty good. It is my birthday tomorrow, so that is also cool. We went on a hike today just now to try to find a waterfall. It was deep in the jungle. It is the dry season now, so it wasn’t really going. But we had a nice hike in the jungle. It was fun at least. My companion might be getting transferred this week, we aren’t really sure. We will find out friday. If you notice, I shamelessly updated my blog description to include my current address, so anyone who wants to can write me haha. I promise to reply to each letter I get (fishing for letters I guess) haha. We had some cool stories this week. We were feeling kind of down because some of our members were going less active and not attending church as much as they should, and it was frustrating also cause none of the people we asked really wanted to help us. And we also needed some new investigators. So we decided one day just to bite the bullet and to go contacting and finding. We were following the spirit and we were led to Block M. Elder Mortensen said “Nothing good ever comes out of Block M” but I wanted to try so we did. We went up and when we got to floor 4, we saw a door that had our church’s picture of Jesus taped to the door. It was obviously old and faded, but it was there. There was also a sign that read “No Salesman Allowed! Only Saleswoman! (then in pen) Beautiful Women Only!” Haha. So well we decided what the heck, we would knock and see. So we knocked. no one came, and we knocked again. Then they opened the door. It was a man named Jinga and his newly wed wife. We introduced ourselfs and it was kind of awkward. We didn’t know what to do. We looked at eachother and then just asked “Boleh Masuk?” which means can we come in? They said “Boleh!” so we went inside and we taught them a lesson. They used to be taught a long time ago by some chinese ladies. So we set up a return appointment. They are really good, and truly an answer to our prayers.
Okay, that is the miracle for this week ( I have decided to start putting a miracle and a quote from the day for each day of my journal). Anyways, I better be going soon.
It feels wierd to be 21 already. I feel old. But I still feel young too. I know that no matter the age, we can be who we want to be. I am still me, the same old Elder Whiting, sedikit nakal, dan selalu seronok. Well, I love all and I am happy to be here still. Take care, everyone!

The hike, I have more but this is all I have time to upload

Fire in Bintulu!

Hiking more

Pictures from this week:

Bintulu on my Birthday

Hello everyone! Well, not much has happened this week. We did have a really cool Elders Quorum Activity. We went to the beach at the Similajau National Park and had lunch and fished a little. I got really sunburnt, I guess I wasn’t used to it. Well, not REALLy suburnt, just a little. It wasn’t red, just hurt. It was cool.
News from home: My Great Grandma Whiting has passed away. I am sad to hear it, because we will miss her wonderful spirit, but I am also very happy for her, because I know that she is in a much better place. She has run her race and she was a good lady, so I know I will be able to see her again, someday.
My brother Tyler is still in the MTC, he leaves in a week or two.

That’s about it… The video site is down today, but I have a lot of videos I want to upload. I am going to upload some from Sri Lanka, Kuala Lumpur, and Singapore. It will probably take me a couple months, cause I have so many. I’ll try to go in order. Oh yeah, and in case anyone wants to write me, my address here is:

Leighton Whiting
Lot 737 Sungai Plan lots
Jalan Tanjung Kidurong
97000 Bintulu
Sarawak

See you next week!

Pics this week:

To the Beach…