Volleyball turf wars

4-13

Hey family,

I listened to conference this week oh and I forgot to tell you about your son playing volleyball! So my first p-day here, we went to the beach and played Frisbee and Volleyball. We were playing around, when some guys came up and wanted to play on the nets... (little did we know that they were professional volleyball players) So, we told them we would play them for the court. We got on one side, and they were on the other. The match ensued. It was me and 2 big elders on the front and we were killing it. We beat them 21 to 14. J They are now new investigators because we said that if we beat them then we get to teach them about the gospel. We had to pass them off to the English speaking elders, but that is ok. It was awesome.

The weather in Utah sounds nice, it has been so hot here and then we have smashing rain. You will have to send me some pictures of your yard work. My companion is eventually going to San Jose California. His brother is going to Hong Kong. I think their mom is really busy right now trying to get their visas ready.

So my investigator is going back to China... it was so sad to see him go. We are still chatting with him online while he is there. And we are still teaching him. Shhhhh!!!! don't tell anyone!!

We finally figured out what was making my kitchen smell funny. It was a rice cooker full of maggots and rice that had been sitting there for 5 weeks... so before I came to Singapore... so gross. I will attach a picture.

 

Mom your birthday present is almost done! Tell Abbi 你好！

How is my Jeep. Hopefully it is ok. I miss driving it around. Does it still smell like me? Abbi said it smelled like me.

(Referring to his new ties that we didn’t recognize that he was wearing in pictures.)

They are just from other missionaries and some members. I compliment their tie and then they usually ask to trade. The members just take it off and give it to you, even if you refuse. It is crazy! My clothes are great and my shoes are great! They only reason that shoes are not good is when you don't take care of them. There was a missionary that I met before my mission that bought shoes from Walmart because he didn't have much money. He put insoles in them that helped his feet feel comfortable. He polished and protected them every week and they looked like they were fresh out of the box. They were 2 years old! So, it doesn't matter what you by as long as you are diligent in taking care of them. I am so happy that I have the shoes you guys sent me, they are so amazing and I love them! You guys are the best! We made all the right choices in clothing. In fact you sent me with all the right stuff! I have my testimony and my scriptures. And that is the most important.

Love you mom you are awesome!:)

get feeling better!:)

我爱你！

Elder Fletcher

 

4/20

Dear Family,

This week has been pretty good, we have a new investigator we are working with. She is great. She has tons of awesome questions and wants to understand everything. She already is starting to develop an awesome relationship with our members. Right after we finish our lesson, Ray and her went on a date. Ray has been the member working with her. Ray is a return missionary. We just have to finish helping her understand the commandments. We are trying to do our best to find new people to teach. We have been working together on Chinese and improving our Chinese. I am doing great and it sounds like you guys are too.

Other then that today, we are going off to the zoo, It sounds like we will have lots of fun today at the zoo.

Hey, I found a present for Abbi, but I haven't bought it yet.

Tell Mike that I hope everything is ok, and that his jeep will get back to normal. Speaking of Jeeps, please take some pictures of mine and send them to me.

Look up “William Kellie Smith” and see if we are related to him, he owned a castle in Malaysia.

Love you guys so much!

Elder Fletcher

 

Out 8 months

Family,

Sorry for not emailing you at the usual time, we went to a trampoline park before emailing.  So how is it going? How are you guys feeling? I am doing better.  I feel tons better!

We haven’t seen conference yet.  It will be so much fun to hear from the prophets.  We found a new investigator and are doing great things.  I set a goal to talk to 200 people this week.  I am already working at achieving it. :)

Regarding you hosting a Chinese Student. You should have them email me. It will help my Chinese.

What did you have for dinner with Ulu? How was it?  Is he excited to go on his mission? What language will he be speaking?  What is he feeling like? I am jealous you get to go talk to Ulu.  I would love to speak Chinese with him again.  What?  He ate my fish?  That is ridiculous!  Hey by the way, I just bought you a gift.  You will like it, but you will have to wait for a while to get it though.

Can you believe that I just hit 8 months on my mission? 1/3 of my mission is over.... ahhhh! crazy time!  It is going by way to fast, I want it to slow down.

I just talked to a guy from China.  He is 19 years old and is making $10,000 a month as a business consultant for a English business here.  It is so cool! He said that he has a couple friends that want to learn about Christianity.  So, we are working on that.  He told me that my Chinese is better then his English and that I could do the job he is doing better then he could.  haha!

That is cool that Abbi is quilting.  Well something just came to me.  I have 1 year and 4 months left and....when I hit my year mark... Aug 7.... I will be one of the oldest Chinese speaking missionaries in the mission.  5 of the 13 Chinese speaking Elders go home in the next 4 months... ahhhh...crazy stuff!

Ya, I am doing great!  My companion Elder Liew is doing great.  I am trying to be Captian Moroni to this kid.  I am trying to inspire him to talk to people.  I have to lead by example.

So a cool story: I saw these 2 Buddhist monks and I went and talk to them.  I was like (this is all in Chinese)
Me “Hey whats up? Do you speak Chinese?”
Them “Yes I do, do you speak Chinese?,
Me “Yes we speak Chinese, where are you from?”
Them “We are from China?
Me “Are you Buddhist?”
Them “Yes”
Me “Cool, I teach people about Jesus, lets meet on Wednesday at 7 and we will talk more about this.”
Them “Ok can”.
Us “This is my number what is yours?”
Them “This is our number.”
Us “Cool, alright bye.”  hahaha it is was cool!!

it is really cool what the Lord can do with you if you will just show that you love him and make that first step of faith!

well i love you guys so much!  and
慢慢走！爱，
邱长老

In Singapore

Dear Family,

Love you guys so much! This week has been crazy trying to get everything going. We came into our new area in Singapore. We basically have the south east of Singapore. Ya it is pretty big area! We have a third of the island, and apparently this is a pretty permanent change from the sounds of it. I will be here for a while. As for the illness, I have no idea why it isn't getting better, maybe because I have been so stressed.

Thank you so much for the blessing Dad. I feel a lot better about the challenge in front of me.

While walking home last night, we started a conversation with a girl who was out walking. We hope she gives us a call today. She was crying when we saw her, it was so sad. We couldn't really talk to her much, because it was getting dark and it would have been really weird. So we just asked if she needed help, and asked if she wanted us to walk with her because it wasn't safe outside. She said no, so we let her be and gave her our card.

Well there is a lot of senior couples here. It would be cool if the guy you met at Lava over the weekend knew one of them.

I have recently learned that my Mandarin is not so good, so lots more practicing for me!!:)

My new companion is a lot of fun. He helps me speak Chinese like a ton. I am getting better. We are going to do great together. He is a native and he is Chinese so he has been showing me some cool things about health that I didn't know before. I am showing him how to build muscle and he is showing me how to be healthy haha. He has me drinking warm water yum :) He is great and I love him already. He is from Ipoh.

Thanks for letting me know about Kyle coming to Singapore. I will have to look him up.

I am looking forward to talking to you on Mother’s day. It is crazy, after this mother's day I will only have 2 more times of skyping you before my mission is over. It is like half of my mission is over..

well I love you guys so much! I am doing great! Just getting settled in!!:)

 

Derek

My new companion is behind the bowl with the camera.

 

Ups and Downs

3/16
Hello Family!
Well this week has been full of ups and downs. We flew so high coming into this week with some of the best and funest times we have had on our missions ever. We are teaching in unity and are doing everything we can to bring about miracles and blessings.

But, I got sick.

Despite that, we went out, and taught some amazing lessons but on Thursday all our plans fell through. Despite our goal being to never knock on doors, the spirit told us to knock on this one. The people in the house came out and were super pumped to learn. Too bad they only spoke Malay. So, we had to pass them off.

We continued to put our faith in the Lord and his plans for us. Friday started the same as Thursday with all our plans falling through. But we decided to re-try meeting up with our favorite investigator. We had an appointment with him earlier, but he didn’t answer his door. This time he opened it, he was about to push us away when the thought came into my head to ask him if we could just sing a song with him. He said “yes” and let us right in. It was insane and then about 10 minutes later we put him on date to be baptized on may 17. Hurrah!
After that we started seeing miracles all over the place it was crazy. 

We are now teaching a less active return missionary's daughter. She is 11, and has the strongest desire that I have ever seen for truth. She is Vietnamese and doesn't understand English very well or Chinese at all. We are teaching her in super simple English and having her read a Vietnamese Book of Mormon with us. We have appointments all this week and are super busy. I love this work! It has been so much fun!!

Love you guys so much!!
Elder Fletcher
 

3/23
So I went to go see the doctor again this week. The infection hasn’t gone away yet. The doctors want me to take this medicine for the next 6 weeks. They said it will take a while to take affect. President Mains didn't tell me that he talked with you guys about it. He really does care about me and wants the best for me. I am open with him. He said to give him a call this coming Sunday if the pain is not gone and he will send me to Singapore to get it looked at during zone conference.

On a happier note:)  This week has been great. One of our investigators stepped on a nail at the start of the week. He didn't tell us till Thursday, when we were on splits with the APs. His foot was huge and swollen. We were very concerned that he had Tetanus and that he didn’t have the money to go to the hospital. The next day we went to their house with a member. We offered a blessing to him after teaching him about the priesthood and he accepted. As we gave the blessing in Chinese the words coming out of my mouth were not mine. I told him that he would be completely healed. Additionally, I don't even remember what I said in the blessing, Elder Wadsworth told me what I said after we left. When we came back the next day to see how he was doing, his foot had almost no swelling and he felt no pain. So cool! We also had them pick the date they would be baptized. They chose April 26.

We also met up with our 11 year old investigator this week. We helped her dad teach her the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was awesome! She reads her scriptures and says her prays!! so cool! We offered a soft baptismal commitment and She said that she wanted to be baptized. Then her and her dad picked a date together to work towards. April 26 is their date. So cool! This week was just awesome.

This week I also got the opportunity to translate for Elder Larry Y. Wilson who is a member of the 70. 

Elder Wilson is the Boss! After the meeting he personally thanked me and then told me that he loves Chinese. I taught him how to say a few simple things in Chinese and then he practiced them with the Branch President. We laughed together about his pronunciation and then he gave me a "back rub" and then told me to never forget Chinese in my life, because I will be able to use it through out my life to build friendships for the church in China.

Despite being sick and having a rough start. We started the week with only 1 person committed to baptism and now we have 8. This work is awesome!

Love your son,
Elder Fletcher

Update: Derek notified us that he will be transferred to Singapore on Tuesday. He assured us that it wasn’t because he was sick. He is going to train a new missionary. The missionary is a native from Ipoh, Malaysia. Derek is very excited! He is also is frustrated for having to leave Miri. He truly has fallen in love of the people in Miri.

Things are busy

3/2/14

Hey Mom and Dad and Family,

This week has been Great Elder Wadsworth made it in safe! The Risers and I went and picked him up from the airport he seems like he is adjusting pretty well. We both have decided that Miri needs to change and so we need to change how we have been working with it for the past 5 months! Because that has not been working! We decide that we want to have a 6 week vision and in that vision we want to find 5 new investigators and have 1 baptism! I have seen so many miracles as Elder Wadsworth and I have put our faith in the Lord to help us with this work!

Something super cool happened…So it was Elder Wadsworth’s first day here. We were going to go have dinner and I saw a car broken down on the bridge that we were going over so I stopped and talked with him for a minute in broken English. He said his friend was on the way and so I gave him our number and told him to call if he needed help. That was the end of that, until we went out on Saturday. Elder Wadsworth bike had broke so we were going to take the bus. We go to the bus stop and sit down. The buses here are a little slow sometimes so Elder Wadsworth asked me to pray. In the middle of my pray literally that same guy pulled up and asked us to where we were going. We invited him to church and English class and he said that he wanted to come!! So cool!! We are going to have to pass him off, because he speaks Malay... and not very good English and no Chinese... but it was still really cool!

Adventures this week!

*we went Shop lot contacting and found a lot of people interested!
*we contacted Two Chilians at a bus stop!
*decide that we are going to make business card they will be ready tomorrow!
*start a basketball class
*get English class going big
*making awesome food this week we are making Calzones and Breakfast Burritos and awesome Spaghetti
*we have also made a deal with the sisters and they are going to make us brownies every week.
*we might be moving houses so the sisters can move into the house we are in...
*Elder Wadsworth bought a crappy bike so we are going to go get his money back!
*On March 20 there is one new Chinese speaker coming to the mission and there is a 25 percent chance I will train him.

Helaman 10:4-7 I want the Lord to trust me this much!! That would be so cool! So I have to prove myself to him!!

Elder Wadsworth is great! We are getting along great we are basically the same person it is crazy!! It sounds like you guys all have been busy!! I am doing great though i love it here. Love you guys so much, thank you for everything you do. I pray for you guys every day. I hope I can make you guys proud of me out here!!

Love your son
Elder Fletcher :)

PS The car/pedestrian accidents aren’t that bad in Miri, for the most part. But I do light myself up like a Christmas tree.

3/10/14

Wow, time has really flown! I can't believe how long I have been out! It has been crazy! This week we have had so many miracles. We started our new companionship with one investigator and now we have ten, it has been crazy. Members are referring people for us to teach. People have been keeping commitments. We have been seeing so many things happen.

We met with a family last night and they didn't even know our names, but they invited us in. They wanted to talk to us and have us teach them. We have been doing great as a companionship and have some great unity. Home teaching is now up and going. We reached and exceeded all of our goals this week. Everything is booked and we have appointments almost every day. People want to hear the gospel!

Saturday we taught kids how to play basketball and this next Saturday we are learning badminton. I suck at basketball but it is so much fun. The kids all are going to bring friends.

I sent you home pictures of our service project. Yes, mom I wore shoes. But that is Ibans for you. They don’t wear shoes.

 

Did you like the greasy hands?  One of the sister missionaries got her skirt caught, so I fixed that but then her gears freaked out, so I adjusted those too.  I have learned a ton about bikes out here.  We have to keep our sister missionaries working.

 

We are doing so much work and we are having fun with it.  We have also come up with a new idea we call it “Sweep the Nation”.  We will let you know how it goes.  We still want to find new investigators.  This week we have the potential to get a lot it is so amazing to feel the love God has for everyone.

Oh by the way, I had some American candy the other day and it is too sweet.  Later today, we might be going to the beach.

Remember, God wants us to learn and grow here and everything will work together for our good.

Love your son,

Elder Fletcher!

 

In Miri with a new companion

Dear Family,

Let me begin with a story:
In our quest for an example, we need not necessarily look to years gone by or to lives lived long ago. Let me illustrate. Today Craig Sudbury presides over a ward here in Salt Lake City, but let me turn back the clock just a few years to the day he and his mother came to my office prior to Craig’s departure for the Australia Melbourne Mission. Fred, Craig’s father, was noticeably absent. Twenty-five years earlier, Craig’s mother had married Fred, who did not share her love for the Church and indeed did not belong to the Church.

Craig confided to me his deep and abiding love for his parents. He shared his innermost hope that somehow, in some way, his father would be touched by the Spirit and open his heart to the gospel of Jesus Christ. He pleaded earnestly with me for a suggestion. I prayed for inspiration concerning how such a desire might be rewarded. Such inspiration came, and I said to Craig, “Serve the Lord with all your heart. Be obedient to your sacred calling. Each week write a letter to your parents and, on occasion, write to Dad personally and let him know that you love him, and tell him why you’re grateful to be his son.”

He thanked me and, with his mother, departed the office. I was not to see Craig’s mother for some 18 months. She came to the office and, in sentences punctuated by tears, said to me, “It has been almost two years since Craig departed for his mission. His faithful service has qualified him for positions of responsibility in the mission field, and he has never failed in writing a letter to us each week. Recently my husband Fred stood for the first time in a testimony meeting and said, ‘All of you know that I am not a member of the Church, but something has happened to me since Craig left for his mission. His letters have touched my soul. May I share one with you?

“‘Dear Dad, Today we taught a choice family about the plan of salvation and the blessings of exaltation in the celestial kingdom. I thought of our family. More than anything in the world, I want to be with you and with Mother in that kingdom. For me it just wouldn’t be a celestial kingdom if you were not there. I’m grateful to be your son, Dad, and want you to know that I love you. Your missionary son, Craig.’

“Fred then announced, ‘My wife doesn’t know what I plan to say. I love her and I love our son, Craig. After 26 years of marriage I have made my decision to become a member of the Church, for I know the gospel message is the word of God. I suppose I have known this truth for a long time, but my son’s mission has moved me to action. I have made arrangements for my wife and me to meet Craig when he completes his mission. I will be his final baptism as a full-time missionary of the Lord.’”

A young missionary with unwavering faith had participated with God in a modern-day miracle. His challenge to communicate with one whom he loved had been made more difficult by the barrier of the thousands of miles which lay between him and his father. But the spirit of love spanned the vast expanse of the blue Pacific, and heart spoke to heart in divine dialogue.

No hero stood so tall as did Craig, when in far-off Australia he stood with his father in water waist deep and, raising his right arm to the square, repeated those sacred words: “Fred Sudbury, having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost”

This is amazing and really stands out to me! The example you give to others is so important! Live your life every day as if the Savior was beside you.

This week has been full of good byes. Every companionship in our zone was affected by this transfer. My new comps name is Elder Wadsworth. He is also the new District Leader. I am still in Miri, East Malaysia. I will hit 6 months in Miri this transfer and that is 1/4 of my mission in one area. Crazy! Elder Wadsworth is from America, I think, he is about 7 weeks older than me and super funny. We are going to have a great time. We knew each other in the MTC. I am so excited.

My favorite investigator is back and he has cut back a lot on drinking and smoking and wants us to come over a lot because he feels so happy when we do. Also Bruce Lee has been less stubborn. Frank the Guy that we always get ice cream from and 100 pluses from now has a Plan of salvation Pamphlet and is willing to hear more. It has over all been a really good week.

Regarding the newspaper article picture: It is about our free English class! it talks about how we are helping people learn English so they can help further their lives. Yes that is a flyswatter that my companion is holding…yep there was a bug on the board. Just kidding, the flyswatter is used as part of a game with English that me and Elder Schuetz made up.

My whole bike tire blew up this week, the tire has a big hole in it... I am not sure how, I just bought that tire 2 weeks ago.

Well I got to go love you!!!

Elder Fletcher

Derek is on the right next to the white board

 

Bike tire blowout in less than 2 weeks

Superbowl and Valentines letters

2/9/2014

It is so great to hear from you!

Thanks for letting me know about the Super bowl. I didn't hear about it! Sounds like a crazy game. It always seems like some of those big games turn out to be flops just like the BYU bowl game did. This is what I heard from everybody about it. Maybe BYU will be better next year!

It sounds like it is still pretty cold over there. We just got out of the cold season! It got pretty cold here J Just kidding, it felt cold but it was only like 70 degrees. Haha.

I am glad you guys are doing great!

I have been doing great this week. Except for ever body seeming to be on edge and there has been a lot of stress for the Chinese New Year. I have been working double time to be the peace maker over here. Despite the stress, something really cool happen yesterday. Everyone got fired up to do member missionary work. Everyone is now helping out. The branch president from a long time ago stopped by to visit. He bore a powerful testimony about member missionary work and how that will help the full time missionaries so much! :) It was great! Everyone is now getting on bored with it! Even our less actives are helping out.

Health wise I am doing ok.. kinda.. I have been sick with a head/throat cold all week as well as my knee has started to act up. I am not sure why, but it hurts to walk around, although, I can ride my bike just fine. If my knee hurts next week, I will go to the doctor. It just takes time away from the missionary work.

Here is the quote of the week:

A member said over the pulpit this week and said "we have a mickey mouse in the white house so the second coming is on its way!" haha it was so funny!

The Elders in Singapore went to go visit Marie Lofthouse’s grandson. They couldn’t find him. The address she gave is missing an apartment number. He also isn’t answering the phone. Please get with her, the missionaries really want to talk to him.

Thank you so much J You guys are the best!! I love you so much!

Love your son,

Elder Fletcher

2/16/2014

Prison warden Kenyon J. Scudder has related this experience: A friend of his happened to be sitting in a railroad coach next to a young man who was obviously depressed. Finally the man revealed that he was a paroled convict returning from a distant prison. His imprisonment had brought shame to his family, and they had neither visited him nor written often. He hoped, however, that this was only because they were too poor to travel and too uneducated to write. He hoped, despite the evidence, that they had forgiven him.

To make it easy for them, however, he had written them to put up a signal for him when the train passed their little farm on the outskirts of town. If his family had forgiven him, they were to put a white ribbon in the big apple tree which stood near the tracks. If they didn’t want him to return, they were to do nothing, and he would remain on the train as it traveled west.

As the train neared his home town, the suspense became so great he couldn’t bear to look out of his window. He exclaimed, “In just five minutes the engineer will sound the whistle, indicating our approach to the long bend which opens into the valley I know as home. Will you watch for the apple tree at the side of the track?” His companion changed places with him and said he would. The minutes seemed like hours, but then there came the shrill sound of the train whistle. The young man asked, “Can you see the tree? Is there a white ribbon?”

Came the reply: “I see the tree. I see not one white ribbon, but many. There must be a white ribbon on every branch. Son, someone surely does love you.”

In that instant he stood cleansed by Christ.

His friend said, “I felt as if I had witnessed a miracle.”

I found this during personal study this week. I love the power of love and forgiveness. It is so amazing to see the love that others show. The love we show to others directly affects their lives. There are many good things we do, that we might not see the fruits of but no act of service of love is in vain it always is carried to human hearts by the Power of the Holy Ghost.

It has been a crazy week. It has been crazy with trying to figure things out, and helping people come unto Christ, the Word of wisdom, church councils, college and just tons of things have been on my mind.

My mission president has been talking to us all about our goals. He is very interested in our futures. I told me that he will write a letter of recommendation to get me into BYU if I really want to. But now, I don’t know if really want to. I know that I have tons of time to make this decision; it is just on my mind today. I am thinking about doing something in business management.

Well despite all these questions, I am doing great. I feel more spiritual then ever this week. I have had so many opportunities to bear my testimony. I am also a lot more confident in my Chinese. I actually like speaking Chinese more then English.

The pictures I included are of a monkey that was so cute! And a member that has about 70+ chickens for cock fighting. Very interesting!

 

 

 

 

Transfers are this week. Here is how you will know if I am getting transferred. On Saturday if I will withdraw $60 from the checking account, I am going to the east, $100, I will be in the west and nothing, I will either stay here or be going to Singapore. The money will be the cost to ship my bike. The mission will reimburse me for it, but I have to pull it out of the account because I will be all out. Oh and if I don’t email you on Monday, I will be training.

Well I love you guys so much!!

Love your son

Elder Fletcher