Elder and Sister Garrett in Singapore!: Bull frog soup vs. chili dogs!

Hello,

This last couple of weeks has been fairly routine -which is great after the couple of prior weeks! There never is a dull day though!

The 9th of August was Singapore's National Day. No one worked that day (except for us). The local branch in front of our home invited us to an early morning sunrise testimony meeting at a park. We really enjoyed it and sharing in the testimonies of some of the local saints. We found out from one of the couples there that their son is serving in the Manila Mission and knows our grandson (JJ who served there also). It is such a small world! They also have a son serving a Chinese mission in Birmingham, England!

This week the first Senior Missionary couple from Malaysia enters the Manila MTC and will be serving in East Malaysia. We are excited to have them. We also have a young Elder from East Malaysia coming in tomorrow to fly to the Provo MTC. He will be serving in South Salt Lake. He will be traveling to Tokyo (with a 7 hr. layover) and then to SLC. Three of our returned missionaries will pick him up and take him to the Temple and then to the MTC. He has never been out of East Malaysia so he is in for quite the adventure! We understand that he is an amazing young man.

Tomorrow also means the arrival of six of our missionaries who have completed their mission and will be returning home on Tuesday morning (a 3 a.m. airport run). It is so hard to see these young men leave. They have served here so valiantly! What marvelous futures they have. We will have a dinner for them tomorrow night at the President's home and they will share their testimonies with us. Three of them have their parents coming so it will be a great evening. The last set of missionaries that went home also had some of their parents pick them up and then visit some of the areas they served in. The parents said nothing in their letters prepared them for the places they visited. Some of the homes without electricity, running water, or any furniture (you sit on the floor to eat). Many are built on stilts with water underneath that contains raw sewage! It was quite the eye opener for them. Their missionaries loved the people
though and the people loved them!

Yesterday after cleaning and shopping, Dave and I rode the MRT to Chinatown. It was a wonderful place to visit. I can't imagine that China would be any different. We enjoyed looking in all the little stores at all the Chinese goods. There were blocks of little restaurants, but we could find nothing familiar. We saw places selling Crockadile soup, live bull frog soup, snail dishes, etc. We rode the MRT back to the Harbor Front and had an American Chili dog! We then visited a Hindu temple that we see on the way to the office each day so we decided to visit it and take photos. It was very ornate and quite beautiful.

The muslims are in the middle of Ramadan. They fast from sunup to sundown. so many of their places are closed during the day. We went to JB this morning to church. There was almost no traffic at Imagration so we arrived early. Yesterday a great Indian family was baptized. The two branches in JB now have people speaking Chinese, Malay, Ibon and Tamal! It's quite the mixture. I taught Relief Society in English but I'm not sure how many could understand me. The people are all so loving and kind though. We really enjoy going there.

Serving the Lord brings so many blessings in to our life. We have two grandsons now serving missions, one in Indiana (Garrett Kovach) and one just entered the MTC and will be going to Conception, Chili (Scott Garrett). Another grandson will be leaving on his mission (Tanner Kahl) before we get home. He turns 19 in March. We also have a granddaughter getting married in the Denver Temple in November (Holly Kovach) and three grandchildren starting college (Kadie Kovach, Tanner Kahl, and Lindsay Guthrie). Debbie and Bret's second son, Travis, and his wife, Laura and their two children are moving to Hawaii this month. We've had two new great-grandchildren born. A second child for Brittany and Jake (David and Debbie's daughter) and a second child for Brandon and Karie (Debbie & Brets son). Lot's of changes in our family.
Well we need to go and the news is fairly sparse this week, which is a good thing. We love all of you and pray for you daily. We welcome your prayers in our behalf.

We love serving the Lord here in Singapore!

Elder and Sister Garrett (mom & dad, grandma & grandpa, relatives and friends)