District Conference in Miri, Sarawak

ON THE ROAD TO MIRI

THESE LADIES ARE WEAVING BEAUTIFUL 
BASKETS TO SELL.



FRESH CHICKEN AT THE MARKET

This weekend we attended our first district conference in Miri which is a larger town about 200+ km north of Bintulu. There are 6 units in our district---3 branches in Bintulu, 1 branch in Miri, a small Chinese unit in Miri, and a small group in Brunei. Each of our branches from Btu rented a bus for the trip on Saturday (and a few drove) when they attended a priesthood meeting, an adult meeting and then spent the night at an 'inn'. Sunday they were all there for the 10 AM session. The Miri members had prepared box lunches for them to eat on their bus ride home.

DINNER WITH PRES AND SISTER SKELTON
ELDER AND SISTER MCKELLAR TO THE LEFT

President and Sister Skelton spoke and it was their last conference as they leave for their home in Manchester, England, on 2 July, the day after our new mission president from Lake Oswego, Oregon arrives. There were strong testimonies born and even though we couldn't understand all the words we felt their spirit. One of our young men, Junis, was ordained an Elder. We are pretty excited by that as we have so few Melchizedek priesthood holders in our branch. We have only one couple who have been to the temple. That is something we are going to start very soon to have people ready to go to the temple in Manila next December when they have their next holiday.
JUNIS AND HIS FAMILY...JUNIS IS IN THE BACK CENTER
WITH THE BIG SMILE.  JUST ORDAINED AN ELDER

We have had our first project approved! This is the English books for the primary school library. Part of that project is doing 'roadshows' at several of the long houses that the school serves to promote the idea with the parents so they will support their children in reading English. Our champions are Mdms. Lillian and Roseline who are English teachers at the school and our partner (NGO) is the PTA. They are pretty excited to get the books---so excited that they have been to a book dealer and chosen books already. We are going to check them out this afternoon and so now things will move pretty fast. We will have a presentation on this coming Saturday to all the teachers.
HEAD, SHOULDERS, KNEES AND TOES IN THE LONGHOUSE KINDERGARTEN 
WHERE WE READ STORIES IN ENGLISH 
 EACH MONDAY MORNING

This week our children have gathered for the Davis family reunion in Utah. I am so proud of them because I know that it isn't easy to travel or even be away from home with babies. Matt and Heidi were the only ones not able to attend this year. I am excited to see the DVD they made of their talent show where all of Jason and Christine's family stood on their hands and Anna, Cami, and Lauralee danced to Abba's 'Dancing Queen'. What fun! They are glad to have Lynn and Sabrina with them and show them some of the LDS sights in Utah. They spent some time on Temple Square etc. and plan to attend the Oquirrh Mt. Temple open house later this week.

We are planning a piano recital for our 20+ piano students in the branches here. It will be in August and will include all the students even the ones who have only had a lesson or two. They range from beginning to accomplished.

We are staying busy. Each week we have triumphs and challenges. I am learning that is what a mission is all about---using our life experiences the best we are able to meet those challenges. We love the people here. They are so strong, so sweet, so humble and wanting to learn. The children melt our hearts. You should have seen Elder Davis with 2 little boys on his lap and 2 more on the chair between us at district conference. He had the biggest smile on his face. We want to do all we can to help them grow in the gospel and have all the benefits it can give them.

Bill Here;
Yep that was pretty neat holding those kids, almost felt like holding my grandkids, maybe that's part of the reason it felt so neat. :) Oh yes the challenges we face on a regular basis. When the buses got the branches to the Inn they supposedly didn't know they had to get them over to the church. Well, they also forgot where the Inn was. So we worked that out then they wanted more money after they were hostages of the bus drivers. SO it goes. Then the buses were always late picking them up and delivering them both days. Oh not just a few minutes, like 1 to 2 hours late, so here we have all these little kids and mom's and dad's dead tired and no way to go back to the Inn. Well it all got worked out the Malay way. Patience.

ROTARY LEADERS IN MIRI

We introduced the Miri club to LDS Charities. A very nice meeting. All were professionals in the community. The lady is the President Jenny. The man to Ellen's right is a surgeon born in Egypt. He is interested in our church after listening to what we do. He wants to know more.

Busy, oh so busy. We have handover ceremonies in four different cities we will have to fly to. Then more travels into the jungle; one about 5 hours into the interior to a village without clean water. Most have not seen modern society and run around with few clothes if any. A trip to Bum Bum, about 3/4 day travel by air and then out to an island with 20,000 inhabitants and a school without clean water. Then over to Singapore and back and in the middle of that trip a stop in Kuching to see the Rotary and make some plans. Plus get the school started on the library program and visit the long house promoting English. Plus the branch now has computers and all the clerk stuff is now done only on them. Only problem is our clerk has never used a computer!! You should see him handle a mouse. It is fun to watch. Yep, we start with the very very basics. And he is suppose to do all the financial and membership stuff on it?
We love being busy and involved. We sure sleep well at night.
It continues to be very gratifying to see our branch bloom. They are all so excited about their branch. And, of course, so are we for them. Thanks for your prayers on their behalf.

We just love it that our family got together without us being there. We know they know how important that is. It is about families this life is and if you are not about families then what? You will notice the LDS Charities logo is all about families for obvious reasons. Well no more preaching.