$56.00 per person for lunch!

Hello,

Greetings from the other side of the world! This has been another busy week (are there any other kind on a mission). Monday we went to lunch with President and Sister Clark, the Stake President, and Norman ( the Service Center Director). They are moving the Service Center for Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia to KL and Hong Kong. Norman will be leaving soon for Hong Kong. They have occupied the 5th floor of our building. We will be moving up there this week and the Stake President (who is also the Institute Director) and his secretary will be moving into the 4th floor along with an office for a Bishop and Clerk, plus classrooms for the Ward that meets on the 2nd and 3rd floor of our building. We went to a buffet that was wonderful. Singapore does have good food! You just have to be willing to pay for it ($56.00 per person for lunch!).

President Sister Clark spent from Tuesday morning to Friday night in Hong Kong for a Mission President's Seminar. On Tuesday at noon we picked up a new Senior Couple, the Hodder's, from the airport. They are from Canada. We took them to the office and then back home for dinner and then they collapsed into bed. Two days without sleep will do that to you! The next morning they had to decide what luggage to leave here (they can only take 44 lbs of luggage each into Malaysia at a time). We then took them to the airport for their trip to East Malaysia. They will have real cultural shock for a while! It again amazes me that complete strangers can become such good friends immediately. We really enjoyed their SHORT visit.

Several weeks ago the person who cleans the buildings, does maintenance and washes our cars, was backing our van up to wash it and backed into a pillar. It really dented the back of the van. It was already starting to rust. Friday he took it in to have it repaired at about 11 a.m. and had it back to us by about 6:30 p.m.. It smelled of paint but it looked brand new! If you have ever taken a car in to have bodywork done in the US you can plan on being without your car for at least a week! We were amazed.

Brother & Sister Ho, who we take an Institute class from, invited us to go with them to a play on Saturday night. We had no idea what to expect but thought it would be fun. It was put on by a group of Indian actors and actresses with a social message about how people don't want to get involved in other peoples lives. It was different, but we enjoyed it. Another couple went with us, Sesh & Teresa (Indian). He has worked for Phillips Lighting for about 30 years and she is a school counselor. What a delightful couple. After the play they had a huge buffet of food set up (Indian Food, which we like) but the Ho's insisted that we have a traditional Chinese dinner. It was certainly different. They thought it was wonderful but we have certainly had better food. Dave in particular wasn't too fond of the slimey fungus that he had in one of the dishes. It was fun going with them though and it was great spending the evening with them.

Friday night we went to the airport to pick up the President and Sister Clark, thank goodness, as the ward here in front of our house had a movie and dinner night (chicken rice - what else!). The movie was "The Three Idiots", a Bollywood Indian movie. We were so thankful to be picking them up!

We had two recruiters from BYU Hawaii come into the office Saturday. They were giving a fireside that night for the youth and our missionaries trying to convince them to attend school in Hawaii (which a lot do from here). In talking with one of them we found out he is the brother of Elaine Purdum who lives in our Ward in Fort Collins! Also, the brother of Brother Lesser in Ft. Collins is also in the Stake here in Singapore. It really is a small world. One of the concerns of many of the members in Singapore is that their kids want to go to BYU in the states or they serve a mission there and they want to live there permanently - usually getting married to an American. It really affects the future leadership of the Church here in Singapore.

We are constantly amazed at what kind of troubles our Elders encounter - from stolen bicycles, lost or stolen support cards, lost phones, etc. Yesterday 4 of our East Malaysian missionaries bused with their branches several hours to a District Conference. They were scheduled to fly back to their areas tomorrow night after a Zone Conference, however Dave received a call from President Clark while we were in JB today saying that 3 of the 4 forgot to bring their passports with them! Now they will have to bus back instead of flying back and I'm sure we will be out the money for their plane tickets. We just have to remember that these are 19-21 year olds! But we love them!

We were asked today to speak in JB next week. I'll speak on "Enduring to the End" and Dave on "Tithing", we just have to remember to keep the talks pretty basic.

We love serving the Lord here and in JB and only wish we could do more. The gospel makes such a difference in the lives of the people here. They are wonderful!

We love all of you and remember you in our prayers.

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

October 1, 2011

Just a quick note to remind each of you of General Conference starting in less than two hours in your area.  We don't get it until next week.  It is such a privilege to be able to hear what a prophet and apostles have to say to us in these trying times.  You don't realize how much you miss hearing from them until you can't listen to them live (I guess we could stay up all night and watch it on BYU TV). 

We were cleaning, shopping and cooking all day today and are exhausted tonight.  We have all the Senior Couples coming in this week for Sr. Conference.  It is always so much fun - but so much work getting ready for them all.  We are leaving early in the morning for JB to church.  We are taking 2 women and 3 kids with us.  Also, the President and his family (a daughter, her husband, and two kids are visiting) will be following us over there.

 

Again, we encourage you to watch conference - it will bless all your lives.

 

We love all of you!

 

Mom & Dad

The Singapore Zoo

Hello from Singapore,

We can't believe another week has gone by! The time is going so fast. We decided we would take part of our p-day this week (preparation day). For the young Elders and Sisters this is on Wednesday each week. We went to the Singapore zoo, which is one of the best in the world. It is a beautiful zoo in a jungle setting. They don't have cages - just moats around each enclosure. It was hot, but all the shade makes it tolerable! The most entertaining thing of all were the orangutans. They were mostly sleeping when we first walked up. One woke up and started posing for everyone. We'll attach a photo of him. He was quite the ham! Another one had a piece of metal stripping and was digging a hole with it. I guess he wasn't making enough headway as he got a big mouth full of water and spit it in the hole to make digging easier. They are smart animals and the highlight of the day for us. We really enjoyed the morning. That afternoon, we returned to the office to catch up on our responsibilities (they don't take a p-day).

On Thursday the Office Elders plus one of the Chinese speaking Elders wanted to take us to lunch in Little India (of course we paid!). Little India is an interesting place. It is blocks of small stores and restaurants - mostly family run. It is full of shoppers and a lot of fun to visit. We ate at a vegetarian restaurant. Most of the people there were eating with their hands, however we all ate with forks and spoons.! We have discovered that we really like Indian food as long as it isn't too spicy.

On Thursday we picked the Mission President and his wife up at the airport at noon. That afternoon he had to take a class that is required to keep his Dental license current (he is a dentist). We dropped him off and returned to the office only to find our computers were dead along with our phones. They are putting a new MRT (subway) line in across the street from the Mission Office and they cut the lines. We were without internet or phones for two days while they spliced everything back together! How we depend on computers!

Saturday we went to a baptism in the Chinese ward. The entire baptism was conducted in Chinese - even the hymns. The ones that didn't speak Chinese (many of the Elder and Sisters, President and Sister Clark, and us) sang in English. It was beautiful hearing the two languages combined in one hymn! Today, we went to JB. I taught Relief Society. It is so different teaching here. While most of the Sister's speak English a couple only speak Chinese and one only Tamil. They are all pretty shy about participating in the lesson. The lesson was on the post-mortal world. For some it was the first lesson they had on this. It is very humbling to teach these sweet sisters. They are all so appreciative. We are learing to love them more and more each week! In Priesthood, the father of the Indian family that was recently baptized was ordained a Priest in the Aaronic Priesthood today. What a great addition this family is becoming to the branch! Andy, the father, is eagerly learning the gospel teachings. As soon as there is enough active Priesthood holders in the two JB branches, it will be put under the Mission instead of the Singapore Stake. We are all looking forward to that day. Two of the missionaries in JB had their bicycles stolen this week. There have been several stolen in Malaysia recently. At least these missionaries weren't beaten up and robbed when theirs were stolen like the one in East Malaysia last week!

We have a new Senior Couple coming in this week. They are the Hodder's and are from Canada. The Mission President and his wife will be in Hong Kong for the annual Mission President's Seminar, so we will pick the Hodder's up and keep them overnight and then send them off to East Malaysia the next day! We are looking forward to meeting them.

We are thinking a lot about America this week with 9/11 in all the news - even the headlines of the papers here are talking about it. Evidently terrorism is even a threat here! They found information that the Orchard MRT stop was a target last year (the stop we go to several times a week for lunch), but the ones involved were arrested. I guess that is why we sometimes see armed solders walking around. The Orchard MRT is a mass of people all the time! We do feel very safe here though! We can't let threats stop our daily activity. We are praying, though, that the threats received in the US are only threats and that nothing happens.

As we work so closely with our young Elders and Sisters here, it makes us even more appreciative of our two grandsons now serving missions - Garrett (Kovach) in Indiana and Scott (Garrett) in the MTC preparing to go to Conception, Chili. We see on a daily basis the dedication these young men and women have to teaching others the gospel and how much they love serving their Heavenly Father. We see their testimonies and their love of the people they serve here in Singapore and Malaysia grow on a daily basis. We see the ones here in Singapore daily, the ones in JB weekly, and the rest of them at least once every 3 months (but we talk to them often on the phone). What great young people they are and what great examples they are to us!!!! I'm sure none of them would consider these two years as a sacrifice but only as a blessing in their lives.

How grateful we are for family and friends. We love and pray for all of you.

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

(Note: Picture to come as my computer doesn't download the pic that was attached. When David gets home from his trip I will pull and post it off from his computer! Thanks for your patience. deb)

The 3 D's of success

Hello All,

This has been a great week. We had our missionary, Elder Schone, come back that was injured so severely about 10 months ago. The area Presidency said the chances of his returning to this mission were about a million to one! But he really wanted to return to this mission and the doctor's decided it was ok to come to Singapore - especially since the medical care here is so good. Although he probably won't be able to serve in Malaysia. He is a remarkable young man. He is working in the office with us as an Office Elder. He had only been out a couple of months when his accident happened and he feels he still has things to accomplish here. The entire zone went to the airport to meet him and then we had a dinner in his honor. It was a good day!

On Wednesday we had our Zone Conference for the missionaries serving in Singapore. President Clark spoke on the importance of overcoming temptations. Some of teachings were:

We either change the outside world of we change the inside world so nothing is tempting.
We have free agency to make a choice to resist temption - the choice is ours.
When temptation presents itself you must immediately and completely modify the situation.
If you can't change the situation, get out.

He talked for about an hour on this subject. He is a great teacher and everyone learned from him - it was especially applicable to todays world where so many things seem to be acceptable.

President Perkins (our Area Seventy from Hong Kong) and Elder Osguthorpe (the General Sunday School President from SLC) were both here. They met with just the missionaries from 2-4. What a great meeting. Elder Osguthorpe is a professor at BYU and then 2 days a week he meets with all the auxiliary leaders in SLC. He is on a tour of Asia for 10 days. He arrived in Singapore around noon and then left at 9 p.m. for India. He is in charge of teaching in all organizations of the Church. One of the things he said was - (a quote from Pres. Bednar):

"Teaching is not talking and telling, teaching is observing and listening so that we can discern and then know what to say."

He said that President Monson always tries to be an answer to some else's prayers. We need to try to do the same. Elder Osguthorpe used to sing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. He and his wife wrote a Primary song about Ammon (Book of Mormon hero) called the 3 D's of success -

"Desire, decision, determinination, yes! These are the 3 D's, the 3 D's of success. So when you are discouraged and you don't know what to do, remember Ammon's 3 D's and the Lord will help you too." (we didn't get the 2nd verse down). It was really fun. He had everyone singing it.

He also said we are engaged in an amazing work in every corner of the world! He talked a lot about teaching in the home and the qualities we learned from our parents. He had a lot more to say, but we didn't get much of it down.

That evening from 6-8 they held a Stake Fireside for all members of the Stake. We feel very privileged to get to spend time with them with just the missionaries and to learn from them. What remarkable, wise and loving men they are.

The elders have been teaching a young woman for about a year. She said she knew the church was true, but didn't want to go against her parents in the Philippines and join the church. She decided on Thursday that she wanted to get baptized on Friday! She was returning to the Philippines on Saturday and she felt like she couldn't leave without joining the church as she knew it was true. The Elders were scrambling, but got things arranged and the Filippino ward came out in force to support her. Plus they all brought food to share afterwards (they love food for any activity). She is truly a great young woman.

Today, Sunday, was spent in JB as usual. We go to both branches. The JB branch had 10 Indian investigators there today. The people are great about sharing the gospel with others. We made it there and back without any problems - which makes it a great day!

We hope you all have a great Labor Day. For us it will be a day in the office as usual - doing the Lord's work and making another run to the airport. We love and miss all of you.

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



Reeka, the Filippino girl baptized Friday night by Elder Nowland (office Elder). Elder Schone is the Elder on the far right.

Missionary bicycle accident/miracle

Hello from Singapore,

This has been a fairly uneventful week, at least until yesterday. President Clark was in town for the first Saturday in months. He had a kidney stone attack last night and was in so much pain. Dave and the office elders went to the hospital to give him a blessing. The pain medication he was given worked wonders and he was able to go home. He will see a urologist tomorrow for tests. Hopefully he will recover quickly.

This is going to be a busy week. Last November one of our Elders in East Malaysia was hit head-on on his bicycle as he went around a corner by a driver going the wrong way on a one way street. He was severly inured, with multiple broken bones, a head injury, his aorta was spurting blood, and other internal injuries. There were so many miracles involved after that. There was a doctor who lived across the street from where the accident happened, and police and an ambulance were within a couple of blocks of the accident. He was in the emergency room being treated within 15 minutes. His companion was amazing. He immediately contacted the President and the closest senior couple. The president and Sister Clark checked his record and found that he had o positive blood (rare). They went through all the records and found that only 3 people in the entire mission had that type blood and two of them were in the emergency ward at the time (his companion and one other Elder). The third one was one of the Senior Elders about 2 hours away (and this is in a mission where Elders are spread over a huge area). This young man was not expected to live. He was given a blessing immediately and his care was amazing - especially for Malaysia (this happened in West Malaysia). The Clarks got on the next plane and were able to get there relatively fast. There were many other miracles over the next couple of weeks in the hospital. There was always a Priesthood holder with him 24 hrs a day watching out for him. He was able to fly home after about a month. He has been recouperating ever since. He wanted to come back to finish his mission, but no one thought there was even a small chance that he would be sent back to the Singapore Mission. They said that if he were to go back out it would have to be in the US where he could receive all the care he needed. Well, we were notified last week that he is now well enough to be sent back out and he is coming back to this mission. He will be kept in Singapore - not Malaysia, but what a miracle that he is able to return (he had only been here about a month when the accident happened). All the Singapore zone will meet him at the airport on Tuesday with banners, etc. to welcome him back! Since this happened before we arrived, we are anxious to meet him. He is going to be serving as one of the office elders so we will be working closely with him. (The sad part is that Elder Brodie is being transferred out to make room for him!).

On Wednesday, we have a zone conference and will have Elder Perkins, the Area President and Elder Osgutherope, the General Sunday School President, visiting with all of us in a meeting from two to four and then holding a fireside for the entire stake at 6 p.m. Everyone is excited as it is always such a blessing to hear from visitors from Salt Lake and Hong Kong.

Two of our local Sisters had a convert baptism today at 4:30 and we told them we would be there. After church in JB today the Gregory's had us and Brother Allen (the High Councilman who often goes with us to JB) over for lunch. We left in what we thought was plenty of time to get back, but it took us 3 hours to get back to Singapore (only 1 hr to get there). The traffic at immigration was a nightmare! This week is also a holiday. The Muslims end Ramadan on Tuesday, which is another holiday here (they celebrate everyones holiday) - it is Hari Raya Pussa. It ends their month of fasting from sunup to sundown. In Malaysia the Muslims are fined $2000 if they are caught eating during the day. The times of the fast is calculated down to the minute! Also, the Chinese have been celebrating all month something regarding ghosts. They have little alters along the streets where they light fires and burn pictures of food, paper money, etc for the ghosts! Everyone here is very entrenched in traditions!

We have been having some interesting food at the Ho's (our institute teacher) for the past several weeks. We always have a dessert (Chinese). They are very interesting to say the least. Nothing even remotely resembling American desserts. We have had a sweet black bean soup, a sweet potato soup, yam cake (compressed and steamed rice), and then this last week we had a bean curd and ginko nut soup! All the soups are made with a sugar water broth. We can hardly wait to see what we will have this week! The Chinese in the class all love them! We'll take our American desserts any day! We think they are doing this in our honor so we can experience their culture - it is very sweet of them. All the people we have met here have been so kind to us and we love them.

The Lord is blessing us to have the energy and abilities to keep up with all we have to do each week. We are all promised that when we are called to serve, we will be blessed to be able to do the work. The Lord is certainly blessing and qualifying us to be able to complete the responsibilities we have been given. Plus working with all the young Elders and Sisters is keeping us young! As a plaque in our office states "It is better to serve a senior mission than to stay home and watch your birth certificate expire".

That is it for this week from beautiful Singapore. Remember, we love each of you and always keep you in our prayers. We love hearing from you. We apologize that we are not always able to answer your e-mails, but we appreciate them so much.

With love,

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

We don't mind sleeping with the geckos

Hello from Singapore,


This once again has been a sad week as we said good-by to six missionaries returning to their homes. As we listened to their parting testimonies and experiences we never cease to be amazed at how missions have changed their lives for the better - how unselfish and caring they all are. They also shared some of the funny things that happened to them on their missions and funny they were! In spite of their hard work they also manage to have a lot of fun. One of the stories involved two of them when they were companions. The bus they were riding in ran over a big python snake. The bus driver stopped and everyone got off to see the snake. It was still alive but with a big flattened area in the middle where the bus tires had run over it. They decided that it would be good to take to one of their Ibon families (they eat snake meat). They were trying to smash it's head with a big rock to kill it. After many tries they succeeded and put it in a big bag and took it home (it was about 9 feet long). They decided it would make a good prop to scare the other set of Elders that lived with them. They rigged up wire on the body and laid the snake out in the entry way to their apartment. When the other Elders returned home, they hid and pulled the wires - it worked! The other Elders were scared to death! After many good laughs with it, they took it to an Ibon family who skinned it and gave the skin to the Elders. They also enjoyed a great snake meal!

All the Elders love to take souvenirs home with them - the favorite being large swords, knives and blow guns. It's always fun watching them get these thru security when they leave!

We also had a young man come in from East Malaysia who is going to the US to serve his mission in the South Salt Lake City Mission. He arrived Monday afternoon, was set apart by the Mission President, had his Patriarchal Blessing from the Stake Patriarch and then we took him to the airport. He was scared to death. He didn't want to leave us to go through the gate to go to the airplane - he kept hugging Dave good-bye! He comes from a small Kampung (village) in E. Malaysia. The English he knows he learned from the American missionaries serving in his area (and it is pretty good). He flew to Tokoyo for a 7 hr layover and then from there to SLC. Three of our returned Elders who live in the SL area (and know him) will pick him up at the airport, take him to the Temple and then to the MTC. What an experience he is going to have! He was an absolute delight to get to know - even if for such a short time - a remarkable young man.

The rest of the week was office work as normal (BUSY). Today was again spent in Jahor Bahru in church. One sacrament service in English and one in English with one of the missionaries translating it into Malay. Both branches are growing each week since they were split into two branches. The people in these branches are wonderful and always make us feel so welcome.

The other night Dave went up to our room and found a gecko on one of our walls. He tried to catch it and after chasing it around he lost it under our bed. I decided that we have really become "Singaporeans" as it was not a big deal and we just went to bed as normal without giving it another thought! That wouldn't have been the case a couple of months ago! We take an institute class from one of the local members in the ward in front of our home. His wife recently had both feet operated on so for the past 3 weeks we have been meeting in their home. They decided that it would be fun to give the "American's" a taste of good Chinese treats! The first week it was a black bean soup (dessert). The next week it was a sweet potato soup (also a dessert) and this last Thursday it was a Yam cake. Northing ever turns out to be what you think it will be. The soups were ok, but not something we would ever want to fix ourselves. The yam cake sounded like it would be better, but it is not at all what it sounds like. They cook rice until it is a paste and then mix in pieces of sausage, yams, cucumbers and who knows what else. They then squash it all into a solid mass, put it in a loaf pan and steam it. They slice it and have it with hot sauce! She said she is famous for her yam cake! The others there loved it, but Dave and I had a hard time choking it down! Hopefully this next week will be without treats! Even though the class is in English and the teacher speaks good English, some of the other members' English leaves a lot to be desired. One of the members was telling about one of his experiences for probably a couple of minutes and we only understood maybe 3 or 4 words out of all he said! They speak so fast and with such an accent that it is as hard to understand as it would be if they were speaking Chinese - I guess he was speaking what they call "Singlish".

The work of the Lord is really going forth here and in Malaysia. There have been many baptisms and our Elders and Sister work so hard at spreading the gospel. The people here have no preconceived ideas and are willing to listen in increasing numbers to the missionaries. We are not allowed to teach muslims or even talk at all to them about the gospel, however they are very friendly and kind (unless they are in immigration!). We couldn't even get them to smile today. It is probably because Ramadan is going on for the entire month. During this time the muslims fast from sunup to sundown. In Malaysia if the muslims are caught eating during the day time they can be arrested! This does tend to make them less cordial.

As we continue to serve here in Singapore we feel very blessed to be able to serve our Heavenly Father, even in this small way. Being able to be around our young Elders and Sisters so much keeps us feeling young. Their testimonies are so strong and it is a privilege to watch how they love serving their Heavenly Father and how hard they work to bring the gospel into peoples lives. How they all love the ones they serve! We are so grateful for the two grandsons we now have serving the Lord in Indiana and one in the MTC going to Chili. We know they love (or will love) the ones they serve too!

Until next week, remember that we love all of you and pray for you daily.

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

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)

Scene from Chinatown.

Early morning on National Day with Clementi Ward.

Hindu Temple (at least we think it is Hindu).

Another view of Hindu Temple. 

Ornate figures on Hindu Temple.

Dave at park by Temple.

Glonda at park by Temple.

Spider in a tree by Temple, it was HUGE! (gross!!!)

An extremely busy week and Dad was in the hospital.

Greetings from Singapore!

This has been an EXTREMELY busy week. We sent 16 Elders and one Sister home on Wednesday morning at 5:50 a.m. and then at 12:50 p.m. we greeted 18 new Elders and one Sister. Many of the 19 trainers also came in at about the same time, so we had quite the group at the airport. One man came over and said he was impressed at how many different nationalities there were and yet everyone was hugging each other, etc. He couldn't believe that they all got along so well.
We PACKED all their luggage into our mission van, the service center station wagon and the President's car. Dave drove the van, I drove the station wagon (with a bike strapped on the top, and the office elders drove the Presidents car. All the missionaries rode the MRT to Little India for lunch (the President loves to have them experience eating with their hands on their first day in
Singapore - if only their mothers could see them!) All the new Elders and
their trainers stayed in a hotel that night and the one Sister stayed with our local Sisters. Our Office Elders and the Sisters cooked all the food here at our house for the Welcome Dinner on Wednesday night and for lunch on Thursday and then transported it to the Stake Center. They were great, but
our kitchen needed some major cleaning afterwards!
While at the airport at 4 a.m. to send the old Missionaries off, one of the security people at the Delta check-in came over to Dave and me and opened her wallet to show us a picture of Christ with the name of our Church on it. She wanted to know if we were all members of this Church. A missionary in the past had given it to her. She has been so impressed with our young missionaries. While we were talking to her another worker came over and he started talking to us about the Church and our great young men! What an impression they make on others! We were so sad to see the Missionaries leave, but we have great new ones too. The new ones have no idea what great adventures they will have! Most went to their new areas on Thursday night and the rest left by noon on Friday. We can't even remember how many trips we made to the airport and back! By Friday night we were exhausted, but it was a great week. Saturday morning we cleaned house all morning then went back to the office to get some work completed and Saturday night we went to a Baptism for a Chinese lady and her mother. We are having so many Chinese join the Church.
The young lady has such great English with a definite British accent. She sounds like Julie Andrews. We don't know where she got that accent. She went to New York to major in Asian Studies, but I'mwe're sure she didn't pick it up there.
When we had the open house for the beautiful new chapel here in Singapore we received over 300 referrals from people who visited and now want to talk to the missionaries. The missionaries are meeting with a lot of them - most are Chinese. The Chinese people are so interested in the Gospel!
We transported a bike to JB this morning for one of our Elders who was transferred. We were nervous about it, but had no trouble at all except in getting the immigration officer to understand the word bicycle (it was tied to the top of the car in a box). We have been attending both branches in JB. The new "Masai" branch is really small and it is almost all in Malay and Ibon, but the people are great. Sometimes though we have more trouble understanding people who speak English (Singlish).
　
One of our American Sisters serving in East Malaysia has been really sick (she was diagnosed with TyphoidI) but we are really not sure what it is. It is a month now and she is still not feeling good at all. We are flying her in tomorrow to see a specialist here in Singapore. She will be staying here with us until we find out what is going on with her. The medical care in Malaysia leaves a lot to be desired. We have been really blessed that so few of our missionaries get sick - injuries are more common (luckily non have been serious).
We're sure that there were other things that we wanted to share, but are too tired to think! It is a wonderful kind of tired though. Anytime you are serving the Lord you are blessed. We are so fortunate that our health allows us to serve our Heavenly Father here in Singapore and to share in the experiences of our Young Missionaries. How we love all of them!
　
Well that is it for this week. We pray for all of you daily and miss you.
Elder and Sister Garrett (mom and dad, grandma & grandpa, friends and relatives)

Some of the outgoing missionaries in the van.

Outgoing missionaries with some of their parents.

Us with outgoing sister (one of the hardest working ones in the mission).

Singapore sister with outgoing sister.

New missionaries retrieving luggage.

New missionaries upon arrival at the Singapore Airport (one came in the next day from the Manila MTC).

August 3, 2011

Hello,
I just wanted to let you know that Dad is in the hospital overnight.  He had a major dizzy spell this morning after he got out of the shower.  He started seeing double, got dizzy, nauseated, and broke out in a cold sweat.  He came in and layed on the bed and then got up to go the bathroom to throw up and fell.
It took a while before he was able to get up (he threw up several times while on the floor).  He then was able to get on the bed and after about a half hour was feeling better.  He then got up and insisted on going to the office.  I worried about him all the way there, but he insisted he was ok.  As soon as we got to the office I called a cardioligist that others have used.  He said to meet him at the hospital (his office is in the same building).  President and Sister Clark were on their way in to the office to take Sister Jensen (one of our young sisters from East Malaysia who was here for tests).  He insisted that we go by MRT as he didn't want the President to know he didn't feel good!  We have to walk a couple of blocks to the MRT ride it one stop and then walk a couple of more blocks or so to the hospital.  I could just see him having another dizzy spell on the MRT, but we made it there without any problems.  The doctor came right in and checked him, and while Dad was feeling good and wanted to leave the doctor said that there was a possibility that it could be a precurser to a stroke so he wanted him to stay overnight.  He called in a  Neurologist and they did a MRI on his head.  It turned out just fine - no clogged arteries, but they still wanted to observe him overnight.  The last time I talked to Dad (about
9:00) the cardiologist still hadn't been in.  Hopefully he will be released in the morning - you know how much he likes hospitals!!

President Clark and the AP's came in and gave him a blessing.  They (President & Sister Clark and the AP's) left for Miri in E. Malaysia this evening.  I feel very isolated here.  I am the only Senior missionary here and know very few people here in Singapore!  The office Elders have checked on me a couple of times though (they are wonderful).  The Gregory's came over for a P day today and went to Sentosa Island (a resort area) and left their car here.  They came by this evening to pick it up.

Hopefully everything is fine with Dad.  I just wanted to let you know so you can keep him in your prayers.  I'll let you know how he is doing.

I guess you all heard that Scott got his mission call to Concepcion, Chili.  He reports to the MTC on the 10th of August - one week!!

Well I need to try to get some sleep.  I love all of you so much!!

Debbie, did Laura leave?  I can't believe they are actually leaving.  I hope it works out for them.  It will be hard for them with no family around.

Love,

Mom