HELLO
where to begin. well first of all happy birthday mollie!!!!! and merry christmas all. my letters might be shorter because i won't be typing as long. oh well.
i'm loving Singapore. its really sweet. i'm kind of scatter brained right now and don't know what to type. i'll just give you my first impressions. first of all it is a big city. there is one stake here and like nine wards. it's weird to be serving in wards. me and elder dass cover 3 wards. 2 local wards called the clementi ward and the woodlands ward. and then the 1st ward also known as the expatriate ward. this is for all expats so everybody that is not from sinapore. it is mostly full of white people. i was having like reverse culture shock on sunday. i was in a big chapel packed with white people. so weird! on sunday 2 of our wards meet at the same time in different buildings so we go on splits with local YSA's to cover both. then we meet up at 1:00 for the last ward. its interesting. its cool to be out of a city and district of 2 elders. here there are like 10 elders and then sometimes the assistants also. there is Teng and Law(chinese), Ulrich and Kelly(office), lam and Nightingale(ZL), me and Dass, Whittaker and Rathnayaka, and the ap's Rajah and Hormon. its cool. we actually do stuff on p-days and throughout the week.
we had a baptism on saturday. thats what i like to see. it was this lady named Christine. she is mostly deaf and mostly blind and cannot talk. ha i don't know how they taught her. Dass learned a little bit of sign language. ha the baptism went pretty well. this week i've eaten dinner at about 5 member's houses, and gone to 2 parties. we went caroling with a few white families and i've recieved numerous christmas presents. ha oh man you've gotta love christmas in singapore.
during the week before i moved here, Kelly, Ulrich, Dass, and Martin worked on translating like 30 hymns into malay and singing and recording them onto a cd and typing up the words in a booklet to give a cd and booklet to every member family in malaysia. this last week we assembled everything and got it ready to ship. it took a while. next month president clark wants us to translate selected primary songs as well. so that takes up some time.
there's not a whole lot of investigators here but we do have a few. there are so many different people and backgrounds here. everyone is pretty set in their ways that i try to contact. ha but the work rolls forward. the city is awesome. there is all of the american commodities and more. lots of good food. from american fast food to asian cuisine. its pretty cool. there's a lot of electronic stuff. all the top name brand kinds of stores. its sweet. the main shopping district is centered on Orchard Road. it is comparable to times square in New York i hear. so that's pretty cool.
Dass is pretty cool. so far so good. he was born in the UK near to scotland. his mom is half indian half english. his dad is full indian. he moved to malaysia like six years ago. now his family lives in KL. his parents were converted when he was young or maybe before he was born. he's great and english and malay. he has a funny accent because it's indian and british. i have to ask him to repeat a lot of stuff because i just don't understand. ha ha buts it's nice that he speaks malay a lot.
the other day we were at a member's house for dinner. their kids are mostly grown up like upper teens low 20's. there were a bunch of elders. after dinner the mom told everyone to pull out their scriptures. 5 iPhones came out! everyone used the scripture app. ha ha only in Singapore.
well that's all for today. i'll let you know about skype. but i think it'll be easier to call. i'll call you first around 7PM there sunday night. then you can call me back. i can't wait to talk to you. i don't know if i'll have anything to say though ha ha. Merry Christmas. hope its a good one even with a married daughter and a son in a far off land. the church is still true. i'm so glad you guys are active members. you don't realize it but you change so many lives. so keep it up. jump lagi!
elder petersen
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