Life is hectic, but we love it here!

Hello all,

We have had a couple of really busy, but wonderful weeks. We just finished our Sr. Conference on Monday & Tuesday. All our Senior Couples were here in Singapore (except for one who went home for their son's wedding). They started coming in last Friday, some on Saturday and Sunday and the majority of them on Monday. We had the Senior dinner on Monday night at our home. There were 34 of us. It was so much work getting ready for it (baking, cooking, cleaning, flights, housing, etc) but it was so fun having everyone together. We played some group games after dinner and then on Tuesday we had meetings all day. That night we all went to an International Seafood Buffet Restaurant for dinner (no cooking!!). We had 5 couples staying with us from Saturday until Thursday with the last couple leaving on Friday. Everyone else stayed with host families. Two of our couples, the Larson's and Cunningham's left for home (North Carolina and Alaska) on a 6 a.m. flight Wednesday morning (up at 3 a.m.). How we will miss them. All of our couples are wonderful and we all have such a strong bond as we are serving our Heavenly Father.

This week will be another busy week as we are having major transfers throughout the mission and also getting 11 new missionaries with 4 returning home. We have an outgoing dinner Tuesday night at the President & Sister Clark's and then we will have them spend the night with us for another 6 a.m. flight. That same day, Wednesday, we pick up the 9 new Elders and 2 Sisters. Their trainers will all be coming in too. That night we will have dinner at President Clarks and then the new Elders and their trainers (18 of them) will spend the night at our home (the 4 Sisters at the Presidents)! The President and AP's take them on an early morning run by our house (up a really steep hill overlooking the ocean). They will then come back to our home for breakfast and to shower. Meetings will be held at the Chapel in front of our house and then we will feed them lunch (sloppy joes, salad, chips and cookies). Dinner will be on their own and then they will once again stay at our house and fly or bus out on Friday. Friday night the Gregory's come to spend the night and fly out on the 6 a.m. flight on Saturday morning to return home. How we hate to see them leave! We have become such good friends seeing each other every Sunday in JB and then when they come to Singapore they stay with us. With their departure, all the couples have been here less time than us except for the Smiths over in Sibu, East Malaysia. They leave at the same time as us. Saturday afternoon we collapse!! We won't have anyone else staying with us until a new couple comes in on the 17th.

While our life sounds hectic (not to count all the office work we have each day), we love it here and love being with the missionaries - they are wonderful! They are so fun and are so appreciative of everything you do for them. I think they think of us as their grandparents!

This evening we took a walk along the ocean on our favorite walk. It was wonderful just to relax for a little while and enjoy such beautiful scenery before our hectic week starts tomorrow.

We didn't go to JB today (didn't have a car that we could drive over there as the President was in town). We went to the ward in front of our house. A funny thing happened. One of the lady's talked about having her maid quit after 10 years. She said she had to learn to clean and cook! Most families here all have Fillipino or Indonesian maids. They think it is awful to have to cook, clean, or take care of their own children! I don't know how we all survived without our personal maid!!

The end of our mission is coming way to fast - only 3 1/2 months left! Where has the time gone? We love the people here and serving a mission. Where else could we have this much fun! Take care and write when you can. We love and miss all of you.

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

President Clark had a heart attack

Hello Everyone!

Wow, we can't believe that it has been so long since we wrote our last "weekly" letter. It has been an extremely busy month - especially our week-ends. We have had people staying with us every week-end this month. Senior couples returning home (Brown's and Johnson's), the Public Affairs couple staying a couple of days while attending meetings in Singapore, a young man leaving on his mission from West Malaysia, a missionary going home this week and a new couple arriving today. Also, the Gregory's have stayed twice - once for a Zone Leader's meeting and once for a Mission Tour with the Area President.

One of the hardest things was our Mission President, President Clark, had a mild heart attack a week and a half ago. He had been out running 10 miles (which he does often) with one of the Assistant's, when he developed chest pains, nausea, cold sweats, etc. He finished his run - mostly a walk by this time, drove the AP to his apartment and then drove himself home, showered, shaved, and dressed and then told Sister Clark that maybe he should go to the hospital to "check it out". After testing, they discovered that he had indeed had a heart attack, but since he is in such good physical condition, it didn't do any damage to his heart. He had one stint put in and 2 arteries "ballooned". The heart attack happened on Saturday and he got out of the hospital on Tuesday. On Wednesday he wanted to go to the "hocker" stand (food courts) for lunch. There are a lot of stairs between our office and the hocker stand. He was taking them two at a time! Nothing has slowed him down. Even in the hospital he was always sitting up in bed reading e-mails, responding, working on presentations, etc. He is remarkable. We picked the young man up at the airport on Saturday afternoon that was leaving on his mission. In Malaysia, President Clark is over all the districts. It is like being a Stake President to 8 stakes! We brought the young man to the hospital and while he was still having his heart attack, he set the young man apart as a missionary (he is going to the MTC in Provo and serving in Philadelphia, PA). Not many young men can say that they were set apart as a missionary in the hospital!

Unfortunately he had his heart attack on Saturday and the General Authority, Elder Perkins - the Asia Area President and his wife, were arriving Sunday afternoon for the week long Mission Tour. There was a release dinner for a Sr. Couple (Brown's), Elder Thurman - an Elder completing his mission, the Gregory's who came over from JB for the Mission Tour meetings, the four Assistants, and Dave and I at the home of President & Sister Clark's Sunday night. Dave and Elder Brown went to the airport to pick them up while Sister Brown and I cooked the dinner at the Mission Home as Sister Clark was at the hospital. We fixed enchaladas for the main course. We were to eat at 6:30 and put the enchaladas in the oven to be done at that time (there was a strict time table for all meetings that week). Unfortunately, the dinner was delayed and the enchaladas burned on top! It was so embarassing to serve burned food to a General Authority, but he was really nice about it. In fact, he sent an e-mail later in the week thanking us for the delicious food. I think he must have meant the Subway sandwiches the next day for lunch! I did make cakes for the dinner and cookies for the luncheon and they turned out ok. As President Clark was unable to accompany Elder Perkins on the tour, the 4 AP's had to take over the President's presentations at the meetings. They were thrilled to get to spend a week with a General Authority. They learned so much from him - an opportunity of a life time. When we took them to the airport Monday evening, the AP's were asking one question after another and Elder Perkins was graciously answering them all.

This last Monday we took the young man from West Malaysia to the airport at 3:30 a.m. and then on Tuesday morning we took Elder & Sister Brown to the airport at 3:30 a.m. We then took President Clark and the 4 AP's to the airport at 5:15 a.m. We got back home at about 6:15 a.m. and were going to lay down and try to sleep for a couple of hours. At 6:30 a.m. the phone rang. It was Sister Clark calling. She was having chest pains and throught she ought to go to the hospital to be checked out! We quickly got dressed and picked her up. After testing, they found that she had Acid Reflux. They released her at about 12:30. We took her home and then went to the office. At about 3:30, we were both so tired we left and went home. Of course we then had laundry to do and bathrooms to clean as we had Elder and Sister Read arriving today! We did go to bed early last night though and slept a full 8 hours - which is a record lately!

We took Sister Clark with us to the airport to pick the Reads up today. A funny thing happened. Sister Clark was explaining that President Clark wasn't there as he was in KL (Kuala Lumpur). The Read's thought she said he was in jail! You should have seen their faces! We all had a good laugh. We took them back to the office and were going to make copies of their passports when Sister Read discovered her passport missing. She decided she must have left it in the bathroom at the airport. So we all went back to the airport (our second home!) and they did have her passport at the information counter.

We brought the Read's back to our house after doing the things that had to be done in the office to get them prepared to leave tomorrow for East Malaysia and put them to bed at about 5:30 - they had been up almost 30 hours and were walking zombies!

Well that brings us about up-to-date. In spite of how busy we are, we love our mission, all the missionaries, and the people we work with in Johar Bahru! This mission has brought many blessings into our lives. We are grateful that the Lord has entrusted us with the work that needs to be done here. Time is passing way too fast. As each of our couples and the young missionaries leave, they are so excited to see their families, but at the same time it is so hard for them to leave the people they have learned to love so much and I'm sure we will feel the same way.

You are all in our prayers. We love hearing from all of you. Even though we don't have time to answer many of your e-mails, know that we love receiving them and appreciate them.

With love,

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

Turkey follow up

A great follow up to last week's e-mail regarding Turkey.

Love,

Mom

Hi,
Follow-up to the last email about opening the work in Turkey. This is from my brother's perspective in Church yesterday.
Love,
Pres. Clark

Dear Family,

I was witness to an amazing display of the gifts of the spirit today at church. First a little background. As I wrote earlier, three weeks ago our little branch of 40 or so active members is now officially recognized by the Turkish government as an association – the first step toward being recognized as a church in this 85% Muslim country. As part of the official recognition, the Church has now assigned 4 young Elders to the branch - having transferred them down from the Romanian mission (3 Americans and 1 British). They have between 6 and 12 months field experience. Before I go on, I have to impress on you the difficulty faced by English speakers trying to learn Turkish – they tell me it is a little like learning Russian; not an easy language. I have been here cumulatively about 6 month and managed to learn a dozen odd words and to count to 10 – pitiful. I did much better in Mexico and China where I picked up quite a bit. Both the sound and the grammatical pronunciation of Turkish is not intuitive and most English speaking people I have talked to agree that it is very challenging and time consuming to master – requiring years to be conversant. As I said, the new missionaries got here 3 weeks ago with no previous Turkish language training – only Bulgarian which is worlds apart.

During testimony meeting, each of the Elders stood and bore their full testimonies in Turkish. Not with a few disjointed words but with flowing sentences. Each spoke for several minutes. The branch president translated and I was amazed at the depth and breadth of the topics each covered and details they shared. Without knowing you would have thought they had been in country 2 years and were getting ready to head home. Following the testimony of the last missionary, Elder Dennis Neuenschwander (1st Quorum of 70 emeritus) stood and spoke. He has a PhD in Russian and served as General Authority all over Eastern Europe and Russia and accompanied many of the 12 on their visits. He spoke of the many times that he had seen first-hand the gift of tongues in his travels with the 12. He concluded by bearing testimony that all present in the meeting today had witnessed the gift of tongues – referring to the young missionaries. The four young Elders then stood and sang a Quartet of “Now Let Us Rejoice” – all 3 verses in perfect unison – all in Turkish. I only recognized it from the music. Their faces shown brightly and radiated light. It was one of the most amazing and special things I have ever been party to. There were not many dry eyes in the room. I know for me I just sat there and tingled all over and felt a warmth and peace that is hard to describe but very wonderful. I spoke with Elder Neuenschwander, and several others after the meeting and each of us knew with saying it that this had been a truly special day and the we had seen a miracle and witnessed what Neal A. Maxwell referred to as a “divine signature” showing God’s love and attesting that he is pleased that His work has begun here in earnest. My only regret was that each of you were not here to partake of it.

Gordon

Miracles in Turkey

A wonderful message from President Clark's brother in Turkey. The gospel is truly being spread throughout the world! Wonderful photos of the first 4 young missionaries in Turkey. Notice they are not allowed to wear name tags!

Love,
Mom & Dad

Dear Brethren,
Here is an email from my Brother Gordon Clark, who is an expat currently working in Istanbul, Turkey. I thought you might enjoy seeing the gospel being opened up for the first time in Turkey since the Apostle Paul. The attachment and photos are from my Brother's personal journal and camera, and are not any official news release, however they give a wonderful perspective of the work going forth to every nation, kindred, tongue and people.
Love,
Pres. Clark

A WEEK OF MIRACLES IN TURKEY
The Organization of The Church of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints in Istanbul, Turkey
There have been decades of many earnest prayers from faithful Turkish members and senior missionaries assigned to Turkey over the years, to see the Church officially accepted by the Turkish government. After many months in 2011 of concentrated and dedicated effort by the legal teams and entities and those assisting them, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints received official legal status from the Turkish government on October 19th, 2011. The organization is registered as an association according to government law. The legal name is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints- Istanbul Association.
On Saturday February 11th, 2012 the First General Assembly of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints- Istanbul Association was held at the new Istanbul meetinghouse which is located in the area called Levent.
Even though it was a cold and snowy day, the overwhelming warmth of the Spirit of the Lord was abundant and apparent to the 22 people present. The purpose of the meeting was to elect the Presidency of the Association, approve honorary members of the Association, submit the financial and administrative activities of the temporary Board of Directors that had been set up to establish the Association, and consider and vote on 2 minor amendments to the Charter.
Elder Steven Canfield, a senior missionary, serving in Istanbul, called the meeting to order, and Murat Cakir, the Istanbul Branch President gave the opening prayer. Elder Canfield acknowledged those present and indicated that Gregory Schwitzer, President of the Europe East Area, was presiding and participating by phone. Brother Robert Lochhead, the Europe East Area General Counsel, then presented the agenda and voting. The following officers were presented and sustained by unanimous vote:
Elder Steven Canfield, Chairman of the Board of Directors
Murat Cakir, Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors
Adam Kocaman, Treasurer
Sister Anita Canfield, Executive Secretary

Also approved by unanimous vote were the following honorary members of the Association:
Gregory Schwitzer, President Europe East Area
Larry Lawrence, Counselor in Presidency Europe East Area
Randall Bennett, Counselor in Presidency Europe East Area
David Stapley, Director of Temporal Affairs, Europe East Area
The following members of the Association attended: Susan Cakir, Matthew and Angie Bond, Ryan and Angi Reynolds, Noah and Kendra Donadieu, Mine Askan, Duard and Sandy Pederson, Dennis and Joni Neuenschwander
Also present were the attorneys from the Turkish legal counsel; Nuri Bodur, Suat Balar and Serhat Aydin
President Schwitzer gave the closing remarks by expressing much gratitude to the Lord for His hand in the coming forth of this great moment and event of establishing the Church in Turkey. He thanked all those who were present for sustaining the efforts to finalize the particular legal requirements. And he spoke about the blessings that await the people of Turkey now that the missionaries will be allowed to proselyte. He bore testimony that the Lord was well pleased with what had just transpired that morning, and all present felt the same remarkable witness.
Elder Canfield gave the closing prayer and the meeting was adjourned.

Arrival of the First Four Elders
Three days later, on Tuesday February 14th, 2012, Elder and Sister Dennis and Joni Neuenschwander and Elder and Sister Steven and Anita Canfield, and President Murat Cakir welcomed the first four missionaries to Turkey, Elders Gerrit Seymour, Trent Christensen and Derek Huish from the United States and Elder David Redpath from England.
What a wonderful moment it was when these four choice young men walked through the doors bringing with them the power to teach the doctrine of Christ and baptize in His name. Transferred from the Bulgaria ,Sofia mission, the mission president, Gerold Roth , had spent many hours seeking the Lord’s will as to who should come as part of the first wave to open this nation to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
When these four young men came through the gates, it was hard to restrain the tears. There are no words to adequately describe the great spirit that rushed along with them. They have come well prepared, armed with power and authority, with honor... as having proven themselves worthy of such a noble calling and responsibility. And they come clothed in righteousness and obedience and great, great humility.
These Elders arrived with so much eagerness and ready to go to work immediately. Which they did! After dropping their luggage they went straight to their language training class that had been prepared under the direction of Elder Dennis Neuenschwander, counselor in the Bulgaria, Sofia Mission. They will study an intense immersion curriculum for 4 weeks. They are dedicated and determined to succeed here, and are so focused on the instruction and yet they remain very humble and willing to depend on the Spirit.
The arrival of these four elders means the country of Turkey will never be the same. The gospel will be preached once again in this land as it was in the days of the apostles of old.



Three hours after landing in Turkey the Elders begin learning Turkish


(L to R) Elder and Sister Steven and Anita Canfield, Elder Trent Christensen, Elder Gerrit Seymour, Branch President Murat Cakir, Elder Derek Huish, Elder David Redpath, Elder and Sister Dennis and Joni Neuenschwander


The First Four
(L to R) Elders Trent Christensen, Derek Huish, Gerrit Seymour, and David Redpath




Elders Canfield and Neuenschwander greeting the newly arrived Elders


February 11, 2012, General Assembly Meeting held in the Levent meetinghouse (L to R) Front Row: Matthew Bond, Amelia and Chase Bond, Angie Bond, Anita Canfield, Joni Neuenschwander, Sandra Pederson, (L to R) Second Row: Dennis Neuenschwander, Duard Pederson, Svet Beller, Steven Canfield (L to R) Third Row: Murat Cakir, Susan Cakir, Ryan Reynolds, Mine Askan, Adem Kocaman, Robert Lochhead (L to R) Standing: David Stapley, Nuri Bodur, Angi Reynolds, Kendra Donadieu, Noah Donadieu


February 14, 2012 (L to R) Elders Trent Christensen, Derek Huish, Gerrit Seymour, and David Redpath arrive in Istanbul,Turkey

Chinese New Year and the Battle Box Museum

Hello all,

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.

I scrambled 85 eggs!

Hello from Singapore,

We survived another busy week! We had mission wide transfers this week, plus we had 15 new Elders/Sisters arrive along with their trainers and we had two Elders along with a Senior couple finish their missions and return home. Wednesday night we had 15 Elders spend the night with us. Of course, that meant 15 set of sheets and 15+ towels to wash and beds to make and bathrooms to clean, etc. The next morning, the President brought the AP's and all the Sisters (they stayed at the President's home) to go running before breakfast. I scrambled 85 eggs, went through 3 boxes of pancake mix and 2 gallons of orange juice! As exhausted as we were, it was a great week. How wonderful it is to meet all the new missionaries and to feel their enthusiasm for missionary work! One of the new Sister missionaries, Sister Pinkston, is the daughter of friends of ours from our ward in California. Her grandparents were in our ward for 30+ years. Dave had her father in Explorer Scouts and her mother and father were good friends with our kids. We watched her dad grow up (along with his twin brother) from the time they were 2 year olds! Boy does that make us feel old! She will be a great missionary!

Singapore is really gearing up for Chinese New Year - which is the 22nd of January although they celebrate it for about two weeks! All the markets are selling oranges and all kinds of snack items (when you visit people for Chinese New Year's you take oranges to them!). Everything is decorated. Christmas decorations came down the week after Christmas and Chinese decorations went up! They say that Chinese New Year is the most celebrated holiday in the world!

Church next Sunday will only be one and a half hours so everyone can go home to be with families. I have had a horrible time booking flights for the next two weeks as everyone is traveling. I can get missionaries to their destinations for Zone Conferences, but can't get them back to their areas!

We reach our one year mark on our mission this week! How time has flown. It has been such a wonderful experience serving the Lord half way around the world. We feel very blessed to serve in such a beautiful place, where you never have to think about putting on a sweater or a coat. Everyday is beautiful (even the rain). We love the people of Singapore and Jahor Bahru!

We have two grandsons currently serving missions - one in Indiana (Garrett Kovach)and one in Chili (Scott Garrett), plus one more who just submitted his papers this week to SLC (Tanner Kahl) - he should receive his call in about 10 days. How exciting to have these grandsons also serving the Lord in different areas of the world!

With our love,

Elder and Sister Garrett, Mom & Dad, Grandma & Grandpa, relatives and friends

Photos attached: Sister Haley Pinkston and arriving missionaries at the airport

We went to "Wicked"!

Hello from beautiful Singapore,

This week has found us running in circles! We had 4 Elders and one Sister return home to the states and one Sister return home to Singapore. All of them had worked in Singapore - 3 of them in the office at one time or another. It was like sending our own kids away. How we will miss them. They were all great missionaries! At least Sister Lim, who lives in Singapore, will visit once in a while! We had their exit dinner on Monday night and took them to the airport at 4 a.m. Then we had all the Senior couples come in starting Wednesday. We had the dinner for all of them (37) here at our home on Thursday night. Five of the couples stayed with us until Saturday and then 2 different couples came and stayed with us Saturday night. They left this afternoon. We will have one more couple coming tomorrow to stay with us for one night and then Wednesday night we will have about 17 Elders staying here and about half that on Thursday night! Needless to say, we are exhausted. But how fun it was to have the Seniors here. We cooked a ham dinner for them Thursday. They loved it as pork is almost impossible to get in Malaysia (mostly muslims - and they don't eat pork). Friday we had a Senior Conference and then Friday night we all rode the MRT to dinner and to see "Wicked". Everyone loved it, although as Seniors we paid our own way so it was a very expensive evening! We haven't had more than 4 or 5 hours sleep each night this week.

We were supposed to pick up the Mission Pres and his wife, along with his Assistants up at 9:50 tonight from the airport, but they called and their flight has been delayed for 2 hrs., so we will have another late night! When they say that Senior Missionaries can take rest periods as needed, they certainly weren't talking about the Singapore Mission! But we love it.

On Wednesday one of the Sister Missionaries arriving is the granddaughter of good friends of ours in California. Dave also had her father in scouting for many years. Our kids were good friends with both her mother and father. We look forward to meeting her. If she is anything like her parents, she will be a wonderful and energetic missionary! We also have the grandson of good friends of ours from Colorado arriving in April. It is truly a small world in the church!

We do love our mission and the opportunity to work with so many wonderful young missionaries and fantastic senior missionaries! How much fun we all have when we are together every 3 months. There is such an instant bond and love between everyone as we all serve the Lord in different ways. Senior couples are so needed in the mission field - especially when the mission is spread out over such a large area. The young missionaries depend on them so much as do the people in the branches they work in. We have Seniors with so many health problems, but they are truly blessed as they serve the Lord. Most health problems don't prevent them from serving - even in the jungles of East Malaysia!

We love all of you! We pray for your welfare and well being.

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

Attached photos of Senior Conference and departing Elders and Sister with President & Sister Clark