Saying good-bye will be so hard

Hello all,

First of all, Happy Father's Day to all the fathers!

Last week found us sending home 12 Elders/Sisters - it was really sad. How we love these young missionaries! They are wonderful. To a person, they were all really sad to leave - they loved serving the Lord and loved the people here. We also had two new couples arrive. The Gledhills who had been serving for over a year in Mongolia. Mongolia refused to renew their visas so they will finish their mission serving in East Malaysia. We also had the Howell's arrive. They are our new Humanitarian couple who will be serving in West Malaysia (living in Kuala Lumpur). They will mostly deal with handing out hundreds of wheelchairs and helping with clean water projects. We spent yesterday getting the house ready for this coming week - our Sr. Conference. Five of the couples will be staying with us - the first one arriving tomorrow and the last one leaving on Saturday. We will have 40+ here for dinner Wednesday night and then our meetings all day on Thursday will be at the Stake Center (we are still in charge of the food though). Then next week we get 6 new missionaries in and 3 more leave. Also, President & Sister Clark leave on the 1st of July and the new President and his wife (the Mains) arrive on the 30th of June.

We just received word today that they have finally found a new couple to replace us - it looks like we will be able to leave on the 17th afterall! We don't know for sure when they will arrive. They enter the MTC on the 9th of July. President Clark has asked that the date be moved ahead a few days so they can arrive here on the 12th so we can train them. We have such mixed emotions. We are so anxious to go home and see our family and friends but it will be really hard to leave our friends and grandchildren (missionaries) here. This past 17 months has been an incredible experience. We have made so many new friends and had so many people of different nationalities and customs, come into our lives that had we stayed home, we would have missed getting to know - especially the Sr. couples that have become a part of our lives.

We had an interesting experience going to JB last week. On the way over there the border was packed with cars. It took us 3 hrs. to get there and we were one hour late to Sacrament Meeting. Then on the way home we decided to go home via the other crossing (kind of out in the middle of nowhere). We were so proud of ourselves as we drove right up to the immigration booth on the Malaysia side - then drove across the causeway to the Singapore side without any traffic and right up to the booth there. Unfortunately, I guess the Singapore agent was bored. She looked at all the "chops" on our passport and said wait a minute. When she returned, she had us park the car and go into the immigration office. There we were questioned as to why we didn't have work passes, etc. We tried to explain that we didn't qualify as we didn't get paid and in fact paid our own way. They just didn't seem to understand the concept of "volunteers"! Well after a while (when we convinced them we were leaving Singapore in July) they stamped our passport and let us go. Today, we had no problems at all!

This week we will give talks at our Sr. Conference and then speak in JB next Sunday during Sacrament Meeting. It may be our last Sunday there as we don't know what the new Mission President will want us to do as far as using his car on Sundays. Saying good-bye to the wonderful people there will be so hard.

Our "skype" phone rang at 6 a.m. this morning and it was our grandson, Tanner (Susan & Todd's son). He leaves on his mission for Sao Paulo, Brazil in 10 days. He finally received his visa yesterday as well as his missionary badge. He was excited for us to see it. How we will miss him. We will have 3 grandsons on their missions when we return home - Garrett Kovach in Indiana, and Scott Garrett in Conception, Chile and Tanner in Brazil. We will miss them, but the missionaries learn so much on their missions and are so happy to be serving their Heavenly Father.

Well we need to close. We are leaving for the airport to pick up President & Sister Clark. They only have one one trip next week and that is the end of their traveling before they return home. It will be so hard to say good-bye to them. President Clark has taught us so much.

With our love and prayers,

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

Botanical gardens with E/S Howell.

Crowds at China Town with E/S Howell.

The 12 Elders & Sisters with Pres/Sis. Clark night before departure.

  4:30 a.m. departure to USA from Singapore.

16 1/2 months and counting

Hello from Singapore,

We've had a little bit of a lull this past couple of weeks. We just had one new couple arrive (Elder and Sister Vaughan from Virginia) and one Elder from Malaysia leave on his mission. We had the Vaughans here for 3 days and the Elder for 1 day. The Vaughans will be serving in Bintulu, East Malaysia and the Elder leaving (from Kota Kinabalu, East Malaysia) will be serving in Canada. He is from a very poor family. He quit school when he was 15 to help earn money to support his family. He taught himself English and speaks pretty good English. He doesn't quite understand the difference between "he, him" and "she, her" though. He would be talking about his mother and refer to "him" and speaking of his dad and refer to him as "her". It was a little hard to follow. He is really going to be in cultural shock for awhile though - as well as freeze this winter.

We also had one of our Sister Missionaries here in Singapore have her appendix out this week. She was really in pain overnight but didn't want to wake anyone up. Her biggest worry was appointments that she couldn't keep for a couple of days.

Next week will be the start of an extremely busy time until we go home. We have 15 Elders/Sisters going home on the 12th, a new Sr. Couple arriving on the 12th, the Senior Conference on the 20th and the 21st (most are coming in early and staying a couple of extra days), speaking in Church on the 24th, new missionaries arriving on the 28th, the new Mission President and his wife arriving on the 30th, the Clark's leaving on the 1st of July, and then we leave on the 17th of July (still no replacemet couple though!).

We are starting to go through some of the things we have collected over the last 16 1/2 months and deciding what we should keep, what to throw away, what to mail home, etc. We also have to get the house ready for the new couple (if we get one!!!)

We went to JB for church today. Attendance is really down in the branches over there due to Gawai (a huge holiday in the Iban culture). This is a several week long celebration in which every one goes home to their "long houses" to celebrate with their families with parties, etc. It really plays havoc with church attendance. Also, due to Gawai and school being out, the lines were horrible at immigration. We left home at 7 this morning and didn't get back home until 4 p.m. Elder Garrett (Dave) was exhausted driving in crazy traffic, and waiting in long lines at the borders. It's helping him to develop patience though!

We also finished reading the Book of Mormon. We were asked by President Clark as a mission to read the Book of Mormon in 53 days. It was a great experience to all be reading the same thing at the same time.

Well we need to close and get ready to go the airport to pick President Clark up (our normal Sunday night routine).

We love our mission and serving our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ - even in our small way. We pray for everyone daily and miss you all.

Love,

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

  

 

Elder Oaks and the Singapore Zone - Singapore and JB, (along with some other Sr. Couples that came to see him).

Waiting in line at immigration.

Looking across the causeway over to JB in Malaysia.