Our backyard was a lake!

Hello all,

This last week has finally enabled us to get somewhat cought up with our office work. We did however, have 3 Senior Missionaries finish their missions and go home. One was the President's 85 yr old mother - an incredible lady. The other two were his sister and her husband. They have been serving in Sandakan - one of the poorest areas in the mission and about a thousand miles from Singapore - almost all are Ibon's (natives of Malaysia -ancesters of the head hunters of Borneo). You would not believe some of their stories! However, they absolutely loved their mission - especially the people.

We also had 3 missionaries leave. These are the first 3 that the President has had to send home during his almost 2 1/2 years. We aren't sure why, but most likely for not obeying mission rules. All 3 are native to Malaysia. Two should be back out in about 6 months, at least we hope they will be. One was serving in Singapore . We really loved him. It was so sad to see him leave. When this happens it really it really hurts the entire mission. The President was very disappointed in them but still said that "it is the greatest mission on earth!". This week one of our Sister Missionaries serving here in Singpore will go home after serving her 18 months. She has been a fantastic missionary and we hate to see her leave. The Sister Missionaries are so great!

We are definitely in the rainy season! It hasn't missed a day in over two weeks. We thought yesterday would be dry, but it started raining around 11 p.m. and rained all night. Our back yard was a lake! Today so far is dry, but it is very cloudy. One day we went to lunch - riding the MRT. When we got off the MRT at our stop after lunch, it was "pouring" down rain! We waited and waited, but it just wasn't stopping. The thunder sounded like cannons! We had umbrellas (always a necessity to carry) so we finally decided to brave the storm and go back to the office. Even though about 3/4 of the way has a covered walk-way, we were soaked when we got to the office (all except our heads).

Our trip to JB has been very uneventful the last couple of weeks, but the branches there are growing and doing well. We now have 8 missionaries in the two branches and they are really helping them to grow - baptizing new members and re-activating less activies. We love the people there and they seem to always be so happy to see us.

We took part of yesterday (Saturday) off to go do something fun - at least that was the plan. However we had to make some emergency transfer arrangements which took part of the day. We have a new MRT stop about a 10 minute walk from our house. We rode it (making one transfer) to a museum that we have been wanting to see - the Battle Box. It is a maze of underground bunkers from WWII. By the time we reached it though it had already closed for the day. We did get a lot of exercise climbing about 10 stories of stairs to reach the top of the hill. There are a lot of bunkers all over this part of the Island. The Japanese invaded the island during WWII and captured it. The invasion was mostly by bicycle! After we left the hill we walked around one of the Malls. We had to laugh at all the winter clothes - coats, sweaters, scarves, etc - on sale. It might be around 5 degrees cooler each day due to the cloud cover, but it definitely isn't cool!

Just a note about the MRT's (Metro Rapid Transit - subway). They are anywhere from 40 to 60 feet underground. At connecting stations they are at different levels. They are fast, clean and efficient (also very crowded). We have never seen any grafitti on any of them (or anywhere else in Singapore). All the stations are tiled, clean and bright. You don't even realize you are underground. Many of the stations have Malls as part of the stations. You can shop or eat in multi story malls and never reach ground level, although most also have several stories above ground. They are cheap to ride and can get you to where you want to go much faster than driving. There isn't anyplace you can't reach in Singapore by MRT and bus. But, of course, there are taxis everywhere. No matter where you go in Singapore, there are people cleaning up! Fast food places, restrooms, malls, the airport, cleaning trash along roadways, etc all have elderly people doing low paying jobs. There is no such thing as social security or welfare here so everyone has to work unless they have family to care for them.

Well that is it for this week. We have to go to the airport to pick the President, his wife, and the AP's (his two assistants) up. Then they leave again at 6:45 a.m. tomorrow - so back to the airport bright and early! We don't know how a Mission President does it - they are traveling all the time. They never have any down time. It is always enjoyable though to visit with them on the trip to and from the airport!

With love,

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