Well after weeks of Holidays, Sr. Conference, missionaries coming and going, transfers, etc., things were fairly calm this week (compared to the previous few weeks)! After a week of 3 missionaries missing flights, emergency tickets, etc with no flights available due to Chinese New Year, I know I never want to be a travel agent! And Dave is up to his neck in tenancy renewal agreements for the Missionary housing in Malaysia as well as all expenses for this mission.
Chinese New Years was a fun holiday (however, it is still going on). We were invited to lunch with the Ho family along with another family. When you visit someone's home for the New Year, you must give them oranges (mandarin oranges) - usually 4 (never an uneven number as this brings bad luck). Then when you leave their home, they give you 4 back, but not the same 4. The oranges signify good luck and riches. Then yesterday we were invited to the Ward here for a "salad toss". They all get together and have a huge salad with lettuce, vegetables, raw fish (ugh), etc and then everyone tosses it as high in the air as they can with chop sticks. The higher you toss it, the more good luck and prosperity you will have in the year to come. Unfortunately, we had to go to the office at the last minute so some of our Elders could teach a lesson to some young women (they have to have others in the office when they teach females).
Tomorrow the Oriens and Sister Lowe come into Singapore to be released before they return home to the states on Wednesday morning. How we will miss them! The Oriens return to Alaska - after 19 months of hot weather, they will absolutely freeze!
Our grandson, Tanner (Susan & Todd's oldest) just received his Mission call. Unfortunately he was visiting his cousins in Utah when the call came, so he will open it Sunday night when he gets home (our Monday morning). We will Skype with them when he opens it. It is exciting to have another grandson going out to the mission field. That will make 3 grandsons out - Garrett Kovach in Indiana, & Scott Garrett in Chile - plus Tanner in ??? We know that wherever his call is to, it is where the Lord wants him to serve. As we work with the missionaries here, we know what a wonderful experience this is for them, how absolutely capable they are, how they love serving our Heavenly Father, and how much they love the people they serve. Even though they miss two years of school they are greatly blessed and make much better students when they do return. For those of you who aren't members, these young men (and women) serve at their own expense for two years (18 months for the young women).
Last night we took the time to walk along a beach close to our home that we discovered. There is a new walkway that just opened - about 2 or more miles - along the one of the harbors. Much of the walkway is over the water. It was so pleasant walking along listening to the gentle waves with a slight breeze. It was absolutely perfect weather. There were families all along the park area having picnics, fishing, skating, and just enjoying the outdoors. It made us feel so blessed to be in beautiful Singapore.
We wish all of you a happy new year or "gong xi fa cai" from Singapore
With Love,
Elder and Sister Garrett, mom & dad, grandma & grandpa, relatives and friends
February 18, 2012
Hello all,
We haven't had a chance to write for a couple of weeks. We usually write a letter on Sunday after we return from JB, however the last 2 Sundays we have been getting back too late to have time to write. Sunday evenings we almost always go to the airport to pick up the Mission President, his wife, and AP's (assistants). It has taken us over 3 hrs. both Sundays to get back into Singapore. After church last Sunday, we went to visit a less active family in JB. We had a great visit, but it put us back at a heavy traffic time (although most times are heavy). Dave spoke in Church and I taught Relief Society in the JB Branch so we didn't make it to the Masai Branch that Sunday.
Two weeks ago we took a partial P'day and went to the "Battle Box" museum. This is an underground bomb-proof bunker of Britain's headquarters during WWII. It is 9 meters beneath Fort Canning Hill, and is the site where General Percival reached the decision to surrender Singapore to the invading Japanese on the 15th of February of 1942. It has been restored into a War Museum with full size wax figures of those who made the fateful decisions to surrender. It was interesting to learn more of Singapore's history and the struggles that went on after the surrender. There are gun bunkers all along the coast line from WWII. Singapore even had pirates at one time!
We have decided that as our time left on our mission is growing shorter and shorter, we still have so many things to see and places to visit, that we will have to take a little more time on P-days to visit the sites. Singapore is a place of incredible history and beauty.
In our last letter, for those of you who didn't hear, we talked of our Grandson, Tanner, receiving his mission call. We were able to "Skype" with him when he opened his call (along with 48 other people at their home). He will be going to the Brazil Sao Paulo Interlagos Mission. He reports to the Missionary Training Center in Brazil on June 27th (I guess it takes quite a while to get a visa into Brazil). We are very excited for him. We will get home about 3 weeks after he leaves!
We just found out today who our new Mission President will be as President and Sister Clark finish their 3 years of service on July 1st. It is President and Sister Mains from Nazareth, PA. We will serve with them for only about 3 weeks. It's amazing how the work goes on so smoothly with each transition. We have been truly blessed to have served with the Clark's. They are an amazing couple and we have learned so much from President Clark. We had a Zone Conference this week with the Singapore and Jahor Bahru zones. The Gregory's came over from JB and stayed with us for 3 days for the conference. How we enjoy having them here. We went out with the Clark's and Gregory's for a Valentine day dinner. It was a dinner buffet at the Marriott and while it was "very" expensive, it was wonderful! I think Pres. Clark had about 8 lobster halves, plus lots of crab - he always gets his money's worth!
We now have 4 AP's, two for West Malaysia and two for East Malaysia. What wonderful young men they are. As a result we almost always have at least two AP's in the office at all times along with the two office Elders. And, of course the other Singapore Missionaries are in the office at least once a day - usually to teach investigators! We have one of our Elders going home this week. His parents are coming to pick him up and will be at his farewell dinner Tuesday night. It will be wonderful to meet them. It is always great to meet the parents that come to pick up their sons or daughters. Elder Vance (who is the Elder going home) is Korean. He was adopted when he was just a baby by American parents. We will miss seeing him every day.
This afternoon we went to a Baptism of an Indian man who actually searched out our missionaries. He will be attending one of the expat wards. He was raised as a Hindu, but was thrilled to learn of Jesus Christ. He will make a great member.
We have our Public Affairs missionary couple from Kuala Lumpur coming this week and will be staying with us one or two nights. We really enjoy our visits with these wonderful couples! In the next two months we will have 5 couples returning home and so far only three couples coming to replace them. Do you know of anyone who would love to serve in the Singapore Mission??? We could use an office couple in July when we go home. Anyone????
We need to close and get dinner fixed. We love all of you and remember you in our prayers. We love hearing from you when you have a chance to write.
With love,
Elder and Sister Garrett, mom and dad, grandma and grandpa, relatives and friends.
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