Absolutely amazing week. Taught so much. Didn't find a ton. We're so back. Got this area back up and running after dengue/Zone Conference week. Met a lot of really new cool people still even with less finding (including a Spaniard from Barcelona, so you know it was an amazing week🇪🇸) Last full week of the transfer ahead. Transfer calls next Tuesday. Memang I'm staying in Singapore. Elder Hull and I both know that; unfortunately he is so gone haha. No work pass, no more than three transfers. Crazy. I got the work pass, so we're gonna be alright🦁
P-day + P-night. P-day was great at Sentosa. It was so unbelievably Hot and everyone was just kinda dying though and sweating so much. I'm not gonna lie, I was going through it and Elder Hull and I didn't stay for long haha. We went to Bugis and got Chick-fil-a and then we said hi to a Johor Bahru recent convert and a Johor Bahru member who met up with Elder Png and I who both served three transfers in Johor Bahru. That was so awesome. Sister Joy, my mom away from home, wanted to give me a gift and so she sent it over the border with her friend for me to get. It was so awesome to see them and laugh and talk with them. Love those members so much. Man, I miss Johor Bahru🥲
P-night was chill. We went to Serangoon. Did a ton of contacts because we were waiting for this one guy to call, but he never did. We ended up finding for a little bit and met this super awesome Filipina lady, and then Elder Hull also met this super cool guy named Nicholas. Got some GYG, Mexican food, and then went home.
Tuesday the 9th- ☝🏻 ONE YEAR AS A MISSIONARY WOW. so crazy. Miracle I've made it this far. What a blessing this last year has been. I'm happy that as I could've done and gone so many different ways after high school having no idea what to do. I really did make the right decision...
To be set apart on Sunday night of June 8th, 2025, EXACTLY three weeks after my graduation.
June 9th-June 17th🏠- From the week of home MTC. Being around my family and sitting at that computer screen just wanting to get out.
June 17th✈️ Then flying to Provo, saying goodbye to the fam. Sleeping at my aunt's house in the basement two hours before needing to check into the MTC. Absolute fever dream of eight hours. It all moved so fast. I'll never forget my dad just saying, "Well, it's time, Bud," and just dapping me up. Most vivid interaction over the last year. That's when it hit.
June 17th-July 22nd🅿️ to getting dropped off by my older brother in Provo for five weeks around amazing people, amazing teachers and a district, tearing it up with Elder Steven's whose MY GUY, miss him
July 22nd-July 25th🌎🛫 🛬🌏 to traveling 50(!!) hours and landing in the promised land of Malaysia in the nation's capital, Kuala Lumpur🇲🇾.
July 26th-October 17th🇲🇾🪁 From my first area of Miri for three months. Learning Bahasa Melayu (Malay) walking those lorongs for hours a day, having great trainers, being humbled a ton. Learning the missionary life.
October 17th-February 20th🇲🇾💎 Then my beloved land of Johor Bahru for four and a half months. My favorite place ever. The best food ever. Where I came to really know and meet the Savior. Where I had my repentance process. Was comps with my guy Elder Page who helped me change my life. Amazing members and seeing so many miracles. I could talk about Johor Bahru for hours. I walked those shoplots all day every day and I wouldn't trade it for literally anything.
🇲🇾🇲🇾🇲🇾🇲🇾🇲🇾🇲🇾🇲🇾 July 25th-February 20th. 7️⃣ months in Malaysia, Negaraku. Learned and grew so much in that wonderful country. Great companions and got to see both very different sides of Malaysia, east and west.
February 20th- 🇸🇬🚌🇲🇾 Bussed over the border from Johor Bahru to Woodlands and have yet to step foot in Malaysia since then. But I have come to another promised land of Singapore and have been here almost four months.
🇸🇬🏙️ February 20th-May 15th. Got three months in Newton (ex-pat ward) and got to fly around with my guy Elder Huntley and business partner. As a person, I probably grew the most during this time. Other than my time in Johor Bahru. Loved Newton. Loved feeling like a stateside missionary for three months and just being around Americans all the time. Loved doing the work in the CBD (Central Business District) (name of Singapore downtown). The fast pace of it.
🇸🇬🧭 May 15th-June 16th. On Friday, walked over to Compassvale with Elder Hull and now here in Compassvale. Going to be here for a while. Through restriction and all, we're making it happen. Singapore (maybe the restrictions--I don't know) is slowly starting to get to me, but I'm really coming around to loving these people. They're tough, though. I don't think they know what they really want. But we're trying to give it to them. Now also with the restrictions somewhat lifted, we're back to working harder and talking to more people.
It's been a wild year for sure. Some days have been harder than others, but every single moment has blessed my life so much. Has changed my perspective and opened my eyes overall to a new reality. A reality that Jesus is the Christ. That our relationship with him is of most importance. This knowledge has changed my life forever. I'm so blessed to have come to know my Savior by following him.
It's safe to say the right decision was made when it needed to be made.
Anyways, Tuesday was awesome. Of course hit the big year. Went on exchanges with Elder Wright. We had Zone Council meeting which is once a transfer. It was great. It's always just the ZLs telling everyone to lock in and work harder😂
Afterwards, we went out but I forgot a Polo shirt and so we had to go all the way back to Buangkok to our house and grab a Polo. We called this one guy Nicholas who Elder Hull met the night before and man he IS AWESOME. We put him on date for July 4th.
Rest of the day was great. Went to Paya Lebar, Makan, studied, taught a lesson, did some finding and then taught another lesson. Did some more finding and then ate again. Both lessons were great and we weren't done. Called our on-date who is getting baptized this Saturday with another member. Did a little bit of finding and then went home and called it a night.
Wednesday- great great day. Wasn't feeling it but said a prayer, went out the door, and we had such a great day, our best day of the entire transfer. It was such an all over the place day, but all six of our lessons went through. Met three new friends and taught them all. Had a pretty cool miracle with a voice message share from our senior missionary, Elder Chen, who shared his testimony with our friend, Steven, who we were meeting with in person. What he shared ended up helping him a ton. We were over in Bendeemer, Punggol Park in the morning before meeting with our recent convert at the church in Buangkok. Went to Paya Lebar again, also. We were walking back home and had another really cool miracle. Met this really cool guy who had a lot of questions. Just a great day. Really felt great at the end of the day and helped a ton of people just build their faith in Jesus Christ.
Thursday- another awesome day. Oh my. The Lord is blessing Elder Hull and I with so many cool people. Safe to say Elder Hull and I are getting this area back up and running from two dead weeks in the middle of the transfer. We had weekly planning and spent the entire day in PAYA LEBARRRR. Love the PL. PLQ demon. If any of y'all come to Singapore this summer, just pull up to PLQ (Paya Lebar sQuare) in Paya Lebar and you'll see a white guy in a Polo, no tag, absolutely RUNNING down Singaporeans.
Anyways we had a great time with weekly planning and studies, then met up with our guy Thisun from Sri Lanka🇱🇰 he was so chill. Had an hour long in person lesson over some drinks. Don't worry I finished off Elder Hull's Coke for him. Taught him all about the gospel of Jesus Christ and why and how we can live the gospel. Focused a lot on Jesus as he genuinely wants to learn more and is exploring religions. It was a great lesson and hopefully he comes to church on Sunday!
We did a little bit more finding and Elder Hull and I ended up in a long conversation with a SPANIARD FROM BARCELONA🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸 VIVA OH MY ESTAVA TAN EMOCIONAT🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸 and his chill buddy from the NEDERLANDS🇳🇱
Before I had come over, Elder Hull taught the entire restoration and shared the first vision with these studs. They were super interested and wanted to know more but weren't willing to give us their numbers to stay in touch, unfortunately. We had a really insightful conversation about how science and Religion go together and I was touching on how all things denote there is a God and nature shows that there is a God. He asked about law of chastity stuff even as well and mentioned how most Spaniards aren't too strict and so they were both wondering kinda how we dealt with maybe a stricter lifestyle and dealt with natural urges and the other guy asked how we deal with kinda of resetting and dealing with stress. I talked about the sacrament and church and the sacrament in this church is an absolutely perfect opportunity to deal with that and to deal with the world and how going to church is one way we can overcome the world and just to recenter and focus. It was just such a good conversation. It felt good to talk to a very clearly highly educated individual during finding. The average Singaporean just runs away from you.
Anyways, great conversation. They said they would try to go to church In Newton because they live far from our church in Buangkok.
We ate, then got ready for all of our video-call lessons that night. All the lessons went great. Called this one super awesome referral and she just really wanted to come to church on Sunday. So we sent her the address and she even was asking about baptism, and yeah of course I was telling her we could baptize her. Super excited to see her at church on Sunday. We taught our friend on-date for baptism as well. Went home and called it a night.
Friday- exchanges with Elder Busby in Compassvale. Started off the day earlier by going to Little India and meeting up with them. Then Elder Busby and I headed off to Woodleigh to do our P-study in a Mcds. After P-study we went to Tampines but first stopped in MacPherson to do a 3rd Ward call. After the call, continued going to Tampines and arrived and then found for an hour. Ate and did studies and then went to Serangoon and did two hours of finding.
Absolutely amazing finding block. I've been in such a slump the last week and have had zero motivation to find. But man I told this one guy that we are all over the world, that this gospel is all over the world, I told him ITS ALL OVER THE WORLD. Man that broke me out of my slump. Man, I was FLYING around after that. When I told this guy that I was smiling, laughing, even just so happy and excited to find. Man. That was so awesome. Met two other really cool people that were super awesome. Met this one lady from Mauritius🇲🇺 this other super chill guy, too. It was awesome. Grabbed some GYG, some Mexican makanan, and headed back to Little India and met back up with the other Elders to exchange back out. Elder Hull and I then went back to Buangkok and to the church, and had a great night. Four lessons. Three of them were amazing. Had members on for all four. We did split calls so Elder Hull and I were both doing calls at the same time like a call center. I called our on-date while Elder Hull called our other on-date. Went great. Ward mission leader came and started filling up the font for tomorrow, as well. Got to say hi to him. Ate, did some more contacts, and went home and called it a night. Unfortunately, my Messenger went down and so did the entire mission's.
Saturday- CHUN'S BAPTISM🌊
GREAT DAY. Baptism was so chill and went so smooth. I'll throw the Pic down below. So awesome. She's super cool. She came out of the water just spitting water. I felt a little bad, but it was great. Elder Chen, our senior missionary, confirmed her and we ate with all the members, Lil munch and mingle action. Went back to the house and changed, dropped off stuff, went to Mcds, I ate and we did comp study. Still don't have the Lamin Yamal cup, unfortunately. Studies and then went to Serangoon after some contacting and found in our beloved Serangoon NEX Mall Plaza. We found until six and then called this one Indian lady we texted, and she actually wanted to call us and learn more and so we taught her more about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and even invited her to be baptized, but she said no. Ate some GYG🇲🇽 and then found for a little more before doing some finding through our phone. WhatsApp kicked us out because we were texting too many people, and so we went home and did some finding around all the apartments and then called it a night.
The Sabbath⛪
- amazing Sabbath. Took the sacrament. Felt some contention in my heart just from the finding this last week, found myself complaining a lot more than usual and the sacrament helped a lot. Then we taught this one 14-year-old kid more about the gospel of Jesus Christ. He is a little slow to understand as he is pretty young, but we were able to teach clear and simple and I think he understood. He won't be taking too many more lessons throughout the week as he's unable to meet with us over video call (which is how we teach 90% of our lessons) and he isn't too interested in being baptized, but he's super chill so we'll just be teaching him every Sunday, I guess. Kind of a similar case with our two other friends who we taught after church. Moorthy and Shi Xiong. Both of them can really only meet in person at the church and so it's hard to teach them throughout the week, but we'll try.
What we did with the lessons was that Brother Alex, our ward mission leader, Shi Xiong and I had one lesson going on in the corner and then at the same time I had Elder Hull go with Sister Janice and teach Moorthy in the other corner. They both had different needs and so I didn't want both learning together at the same time. Had two lessons with different members helping and it worked out great. The AC is down throughout the church building and so we met in this one room with a massive industrial fan😂It was awesome. Went home after that, MAKAN, studies, then went to Paya Lebar. Left Paya Lebar because there were way too many non-Chinese Singaporeans. Went to Serangoon and it was a little bit better. Only found for a tiny bit as we had a pass-off lesson with the Sisters at 7. Called them and their friend and she's super cool. Went back home and called our guy Ivan and taught him the entire Restoration. It went super super good. Then tried to teach someone else but she didn't pick up. Pretty disappointed. She ghosted us two nights In a row. We ended off with some finding through our phone and called it a night. Memang Elder Hull made some crazy good chicken cutlets. Don't know what I'm gonna do when he leaves here in a week.
P-day was awesome. We literally all pulled up to the beach in Sentosa and ate with all the Burmese helpers and they just fed us so much. One of the members bought 20 (!!) Slurpies for everyone😭 it was so chill. Just chucking the Frisbee around in the sun with the waves crashing with the Elders. Drinking Monsters and Slurpies. All the days in Paya Lebar and Serangoon make it worth it when we get these couple hours at the beach.
Memang I have a spiritual thought for the big one year.
Bishop please feel free to read to the priests🫡
To all the new missionaries starting their missions. Whether you're in the MTC or in the field. Whether you're starting here soon or starting on September 16th (SHOUTOUT MAC) (👀🇸🇬🇲🇾) Whether you're leaving next year or still in a couple of years, whatever and whenever your time is to come. I want you to know that every single day is worth it. Every single moment is worth it. It's worth it because when you place Jesus Christ first and live the gospel of Jesus Christ every day, it makes it worth it. Every single setback, struggle, challenge is worth it. It's what allows you to be Triumphant. Only when you place Jesus Christ in position to take your losses and to turn them into triumph.
That's what I want my life to be. I want to be triumphant.
To triumph over sin and death is the goal. It needs to be done with the greatest companion of all time and a real relationship needs to be formed.
It comes slowly but surely when you stay in the path of your duty.
Every day truly does stack up and matter so much. What we say and do every day matters. It's learning the responsibility you have as a baptized member of the Lord's restored church and then really realizing it that really makes your life's purpose mean so much more.
I want to say that hard is good. He trusts us, but do we trust him? That's a line from the talk "Hard is Good." It's my favorite conference talk ever. I remember reading it during a language study during a very hard three weeks, six months ago.
(Do We Trust Him? Hard Is Good)
Just six months ago, I didn't know If I was going to be allowed to stay in the mission and continue to serve. I thought I was going to get sent home. I thought my mission president left me out to dry, which whether he meant it or not I got absolutely left out to dry for three weeks. Longest time of my entire life. I went out the door and got on the bike every single morning in Taman Molek in Molek Pine 2 in Johor Bahru thinking I was getting sent home. None of the other Elders knew what was going on besides my God-sent companion, Elder Page. But I stayed in the path of my duty. As the time approached, I felt like I was getting sent to the chopping block. Worst of all, I felt the Lord had abandoned me. But looking back at it, the Lord was chastening me because he loved me. Because it was a trial that has sanctified and consecrated me beyond belief.
I never gave up. I never threw away the mask and I didn't take off the jersey. I didn't ask for a sub, I didn't sleep in. I felt like MJ flu game after walking out of the room with Elder Buckner. I was so exasperated from the last three weeks and I had literally leaned on the Lord for every single second, fighting for my life.
I NEVER gave up.
You can never give up. It's thee biggest lesson I have learned on my mission.
I know when I step off that escalator in MCI in 326 days, I will be triumphant. When I hug the ones and the things I love the most, I will have triumphed above all my foes. I know it.
Because I will have accomplished something I never thought I could and more importantly I will have realized that I have became a person that even with all my flaws, it will be a person I am happy to be. To be that person with the Lord right alongside me.
What a miracle.
Until then
IT'S ALL OVER THE WORLD🌏
🇲🇾Penginjil Barlow🇸🇬
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