BCF

Heyooo

Whats up yall, this week was an awesome week here in sibu! This wednesday we had zone conference. The zone conferences have changed from what I've emailed you before. So rather then all of east Malaysia or west Malaysia going to Singapore at one time, President Simmons just comes to us. He came to the sibu zone on Wednesday. I liked it a lot better! It was more personalized for our zone and I got a lot more out of it this time. Although, I will miss seeing all my buddy's in Singapore. But its ok we will still go on visa runs to Singapore.

A super funny story I've got for you this week. So on Friday I went on exchanges with my district leader Elder Horsbourgh. He is a Malay Elder so i got to work in a Malay area with Malay people. So the people they work with are called "Ibans" They are natives to the Borneo island. They are so friendly and so nice and absolutely love white people and Jesus. So we went to this one less actives house where there were a bunch of ibans just chillin spittin sunflower seeds on the floor and having a good time. So we got the less active and went with him and his wife and kid into another room. We were in there with the husband his wife and their 3 year old son. We were right in the middle of teaching when all of a sudden the mom lifts up her shirt and starts breast feeding her 3 year old son!!! Haha she had no shame! It caught me by such surprise i had no idea what to do! It was quite the lesson ruiner haha. I guess that's the culture of the Ibans and it means nothing to them.

Anyways that's about all this week! I love you all! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Schwemmer

"The last squadron transfer!"

Selemat hari raya!!!!!!!

What up yall! I hope you all had a great 4th of July week! While yall were celebrating Americas birthday I was in a Muslim country celebrating the Muslims biggest holiday of the year! Its called Hari raya! It's the thing where the Muslims fast from sun up to sundown every day for a month then at the end of the month they have a big party. Well this week was that big party! We went to a bunch of Muslims peoples houses and they fed us a ton! All we had to do was walk down the street and we would have everyone shouting for us white people to come in and eat food. Haha I wish they treated me like this in America. We went into one house and the lady was obsessed with Pink! Everything that could possibly be pink in her house was pink. Her car is even all pink. I have pictures. IT was way fun I love Muslims so much! They are the nicest people in the world! It was weird though because when the girls are in their house they don't wear their hijabs and I've never seen a Muslim woman with out one of those on so that was cool.

The work was slow this week. We taught V*** again. He is progressing nicely and we have a great relationship. Not much else spectacular happened tho.

Sorry this ones so short! Love yall!

Love,

Elder Schwemmer

七月四号快乐！！

Happy fourth of July! There is nothin like celebrating America in Malaysia! Today for the 4th of July we played indoor soccer with the zone! There are 12 Elders in the zone. My team was team Trump and the other team was team Hillary. We won all 6 games ;) Then we celebrated by doing the most american thing you can find in Malaysia which was eat at mcdonalds :) Recently I have been trying to catch a biawalk. A biawalk is a giant lizard that is everywhere in Malaysia. They are basically mini alligators. I have bought a bunch of chicken hearts and a hook and a string. They have eaten the chicken hearts clean off each time but the hook hasn't set. I'll let yall know when I catch one. After we catch it we will eat it!!! 

The work was a bit slow this week. We weren't able to meet with V*** but he has this whole week off so we will meet with him a few times.The less active we have been working with has come to church 2 weeks in a row now. It has been great to see the light that has filled her eyes as she partakes of the sacrament. She is way good at fellow shipping and we are going to try and teach with her! 

Alright that's all I got this week! Have a great birthday America! 4th of July is my 2nd favorite holiday. Don't mess around with fireworks!

Love,

Elder Schwemmer

Saya tidak sukah lelaki

What up yall! Another great week in Sibu! Last pday we played indoor soccer with the zone which was super fun! Last week was also transfers. I'm staying with Elder Pearce. Elder Pearce dies this transfer so I'm working him hard! :) We taught V*** again this week. For this lesson we taught repentance and the word of wisdom. We made a plan with him for him to stop smoking. He accepted it very well! We also got him on date to be baptized on July 30th :) I am so excited for him. He is the best investigator I've ever taught. We are still working hard to find the kingdom builders of Sibu. We are finally getting the branch to open up to us and help us with missionary work. On Saturday we went over to the branch Presidents house and they fed us an AMAZING dinner. I got the opportunity to eat Pig tail! :) It was pretty tasty but not much meat on it haha. I love his family so much. They make me feel right at home and remind me of my family. 

As for miracles this week we had some awesome ones come from English class! English class in sibu is very successful. We had 38 people attend last week. Well earlier this week we received a call from a random number. It was a woman who asked us to give a blessing at the hospital. We had no idea who it was but we went. As we were sitting there waiting at the hospital we hear an "Elders!" we turn around and see one of the mothers of a non member family who comes to English class! She asked us to give a blessing to her friends mother. We gave the mother a blessing which got the whole family in tears. They agreed to meet later. It was so amazing, I don't even know how she knew that we give blessings. But it was great and we will begin teaching them soon! Also this week we were finally able to meet with some less actives! And for the first time on my mission we were able to get one to return to church this Sunday! It felt so good seeing her take the sacrament again and bask in the warmth of the spirit in the church. The branch was happy to see her because they haven't seen her in years!

Today for pday we will be playing pick up basketball :)

Love you all have a great week! 

Love,

Elder Schwemmer

P.s. I'm starting to learn Malay as well, hence the subject ;)

父亲节快乐！

大家好！

Whats up yall! This week was another great week in Sibu! Nothing unique or special happened this week except that I crashed my bike twice in one day haha. The first time it was raining and I was being a dare devil and doing stunts. I went off a jump landed it and then rode in a serpentine maneuver and my tires slipped and I skid and crashed. Right in front of 2 Malay women hahaha. Then the next one I just wasn't paying attention and I rode off the road. 

This week for investigators has been good. We don't have as many people to work with as we'd like but we are trying as hard as we can. Chinese people are SO HARD to work with. They are not open to change. Especially the Methodists! Basically everyone here is Methodist and their preachers talk crap on us and bag on the Mormons. Its just like the great and spacious building :) But we are working with one man who is amazing! His name is V***. I think I have mentioned him before. He is one of the most sincere Chinese people I have ever worked with. This week we met with him and had one of the best lessons I've had on my mission. We are helping him to quit smoking by developing faith in Jesus Christ and his atonement. He is so humble and I am confident that the lord will work in him and change his heart. I have never loved any Malaysian more then I have V***. He is progressing well and our relationship with him is one that I hope will never be lost throughout my life. Also he has the cutest dog I have ever seen in my entire life.

Well that's all for this week. Happy fathers day to all you wonderful fathers out there! I am grateful for my own father and the example he has set for me in working hard and enduring trials. I am also grateful for a Father in heaven who loves me perfectly. I hope you all will appreciate him and your earthly fathers this day as well!

Love,

Elder Schwemmer

"This guy was selling live turtles to eat! I was so close to buying one!"

Elder Schwemmer and Elder Grant!

Indoor soccer!

大家下五好

你们好!

这个理白果的很好！

Oh sorry i forgot you cant read that ;) Haha this week I have officially started to study Chinese characters. My goal is to read the Book of Mormon in Chinese twice before I end my mission. Then for everyday of my life after that :) Anyways, this week has been a great week! We went to Singapore again this week! As always it was awesome! We got there and had a full day to do whatever we wanted. So we went to marina bay sands and walked around the craziest mall I've ever seen. Literally every single store was only things that millionaires could buy. Louis Vuitton, Tom Ford, Gucci, Chanel, anything you name it this mall had it. We went into this one store that was selling 30,000 cell phones that are only for Bentley vehicles. It was insane. But yeah we had a great time.

The work is going great and we have an amazing investigator named V***. Every time I have been with him I have felt the spirit. The other day while I was teaching him I was speaking Chinese words that I didn't even know I knew haha the gift of tongues is real! I am beginning to fall in love with Chinese. I am way excited to start reading it!

Thanks for everything love you all have a great week!

Love,

蘇长老

Maximum

This week was another terrific week in Sibu. I am loving it here! My faith increased this week as I went on exchanges with the zone leaders. I went with Elder Ngatikaura to his area in sibu jaya. It was one of the funnest days of my mission! We taught a lot of great lessons and had a way successful day. It was gawai day when I went on this exchange. Gawai is a huge holiday out here! It is basically the Christmas of Malaysia! Everything shuts down for 2 weeks and everyone returns to their "kompong" or hometown. Sibu Jaya was one of those hometowns. The first thing we did that day was go to a big flat or like a giant apartment complex. So we get there and basically all of the Sibu Jaya branch is from this flat. We show up and everyone starts singing and dancing and yelling for the giant white guys haha. We walk into a room where we taught an investigator. Then we ate. For gawai what they do is everyone has a ton of food and drinks at their house and they keep their doors open and people just walk in and eat food. So we started at this first house and then went to house to house eating boatloads of food! I have never eaten so much in my life! At the end of it we went to a total of 9 houses where at each one they filled our plates with tons of food. I could barely move after haha. That night we went to a Less Actives house. This house was super fun because they had a pet monkey! I was playing with the monkey and I made a very baad mistake by giving it my flash light. Haha the monkey just went to town on this thing. He was biting all the rubber and just destroying it. We tried wrestling him for it but he wouldnt give it up. Then we tried trading him food for it but it still didnt work. He was getting mad and started running at us and swiping at us haha. Then finally they owner brought out this little cookie thing and when the monkey saw it he straight away dropped my light and got the cookie haha. It was super fun but monkeys are evil.

 I learned from Elder Ngatikaura some great planning techniques. Often times in our area we are left with no plans and nothing really to do besides "contacting" As you probably know putting contacting as your plans is not very effective and not a very motivating thing to have in your plans. Elder Ngatikaura invited me to start thinking of new ways to find people rather then just contacting. So what me and Elder Pearce decided to do is when we meet someone we have to make them smile before we just go straight into contacting them. The ways we have done this is things like play basketball for 5 minutes with them, or do a trick on our bikes for them, or we just simply smile really big at them and they smile back. I have noticed that people are much more willing to talk to you if you connect with them through a smile. I have enjoyed doing this much more then just simple "street contacting" and it is much more effective. Another thing we have been doing that has increased my faith is serving our members. We have been going to members houses and almost forcing them to let us clean up a bit haha. I have truly felt my love for these people grow as I have smiled with them and served them. I have began to realize that that is what missions are all about. Is loving the people and helping their lives to improve through service and the gospel. I have also enjoyed doing small acts of service around the house for my companion. I love giving service it just makes everyone feel so good.

This week we saw a miracle in finding a sincere investigator. It is hard to find people that are humble and sincere out here but this week we found one. I contacted him using my "word of wisdom contacting" approach and the contact went wonderfully and i felt the spirit. Since I contacted him I had him keep popping up into my thoughts telling me to call him and meet with him. While we were advertising English class we ran into him again which usually means god is telling us to meet with him. So the next day we set up an appointment with him and he is well prepared. He listens intently and has an actual desire to change. I am excited that god has trusted me to work with this man.

As for members we had a great miracle as well. There is a family from ukraine in our branch who are very strong members. The dad got called to the branch presidency this week and he is just awesome! He is a great leader and he actually gets things done. The branch here struggles with leadership but now this brother is pushing things forward.

Thank you everyone for all the love, prayers, and support! Have a wonderful week!

-蘇长老

Appa Khabar!!

Whats up yall!

This week was yet another great week in Sibu!! I love this place! I have bonded a lot more with the members here and I love them! Missionary work in Sibu has been very slow compared to KL. There is not a fraction as many people here as there were in KL. But we are still working our hardest to get things done! We currently have one investigator on date for baptism. His name is L***. Hes a great guy with a great family.

As you know this week was my birthday. One year older and wiser too! On my birthday, we didn't have any appointments because we had weekly planning and then English blitz and then FHE. For the branch family home evening they brought me a nice cake. That was way nice. I bought myself a nice gift though. Its like this thing you can hook onto your chair or lay on or whatever and gives you nice massages! It also heats up. My back has been hurting from wearing a back pack so this was way nice. I fall asleep to a massage every night :) 

Opening birthday packages!

One fun thing that I have done in Sibu is something you all may not know about me but I play the piano for church hahaha. I know what your thinking.. What?! Elder Schwemmer plays the piano?! haha well yeah I do. I taught myself while being out here on my mission and no one in the branch can play so I play prelude music for them haha. I can only really do the right hand though. The left hand is slow and a bit shaky but hey I've been playing for 7 months!

This week the spare bike that I was using got a flat tire. That bike was terrible but I had to use it because my bike is still being shipped from Ipoh. So I had to use the even worse junkier spare bike. Well I was sitting at a stop light when all of a sudden a gun shot goes off right next to my ear! Lol just kidding.. it was just my back tire exploding haha. The guy filled my tire with way too much air. I couldn't hear for a while after that. So now that that bike was broken I had to move to an even worse bike! This thing is just terrible, the front wheel is barely staying on and wobbles as I ride. Only half of the chain works, and the best part... there is no seat! :) Lol it's so slow and terrible. Hopefully my bike will get here this week.

Thank you all for your support and prayers! Thank you all so much for the birthday wishes and gifts! 我很爱你们！！！

-蘇长老

Best week in Sibu!

你们好!!!

Whats up everyone?! I hope you all have had a good week as I most certainly have. 

This week was one of the best weeks of my mission! I absolutely love Sibu! I have been so happy here. I have felt burdens lifted and weights off my shoulders. If any of you out there are doubting, I promise you the healing power of the atonement is REAL!!! I have tasted it. I have felt it. And I KNOW that Jesus Christ suffered for each and every hard thing we have in our lives. I promise you that my favorite scripture and my mission plaque scripture is true!

 Mathew 11: 28-30

28 ¶Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

If we will just come unto Christ and accept his Atonement and love for us he will lighten our burdens. He will give us rest. I am a living testimony of that. I hope you can all use the Atonement more in your lives and see if your life doesn't get better. I am grateful for the joy I have experienced this week and wish you can all find it in your lives as well. 

We had a wonderful miracle with English class this week! The week I arrived in sibu we started to do English class blitz's. And this last Friday we go 30 NEW PEOPLE!!! That was huge! English class has brought 30 people into the meeting house of the lord where they had the chance of being connected to heaven by feeling the spirit as we sang and as we were inside the walls of the church. I had so much fun teaching! There were lots of families there as well and the class was so fun! Everybody was laughing and having a good time and left with smiles on their faces! We now have all their numbers and we are going to offer the gospel discussions and slowly but surely be acquainted with the church and hopefully one day be baptized!

Last week for pday we watched Ephraims Rescue and ate snacks. Today we are doing an escape room. 

Thank you all for the birthday wishes! I wouldn't want to spend my 19th birthday anywhere else in the world but Sibu Malaysia! I love you ALL! 

Love,

蘇长老