Monday, October 26, 2015

This week felt like another week of good old missionary work. I still desire to teach more people, and by teach I mean actually teach the lessons, which I feel like we haven't done as much as I would like to, but I do love teaching people on the train, and on the bus, and on the street. I think I have become pretty good at sharing brief statements of testimony and truth with people. I have faith that someday, those will be remembered by people, and they will be grateful that I was willing to share the gospel with them.

The potential investigator stat is really fun, and I think it makes me think a lot more about my contacting. Although I am pretty bold in talking to everyone and sharing the gospel with them, I could work on being better at inviting people to learn and asking for their phone numbers. I have faith that everything is going to work out this week with contacting. We are going to find people to teach! I'm ready. I'm slightly frustrated that we haven't been able to find people, but this week I studied PMG Ch 9 about service, have a couple goals and a plan to improve my contacting, and I know that as I do that and pray in faith, that no matter what happens, everything will be alright. It's interesting, I had a couple moments this week where I felt really strongly that we needed to do something to try and find new investigators that didn't turn into anything. However, I felt peaceful after because I knew that I had followed the spirit and done exactly what I needed to in that moment. God is in control of this work, and sometimes when things get hard, it's difficult to remember that. You want to fight and pull yourself down, but yet, you just need to work on one step at a time, and realize that as you ask God, "what lack I yet" and then keep going, everything will work out. I prayed actually for a really difficult last transfer, and one where I would really be able to stretch and grow and see weaknesses. I don't want to leave my mission not being able to know where I really need to change so I can become more like the Savior, and I've definitely felt that the last little bit! I've gotten better though at seeing all the small miracles, and am grateful for the small ways that I am able to see God's perspective on things, and see the good work that I am doing.  And, I have found some really awesome weaknesses that I can improve on ;) The trick is actually applying the gospel, which I think takes a lot more work and effort than just talking about and testifying of the gospel.

This week, I increased my faith by trying to kick out all the negative thoughts that Satan puts into my head! I looked at it in Adjusting to Missionary Life, and I realized that Satan really does try and control our thoughts by putting things into our minds that we don't really like, etc. So, I increased my faith by "talking back to negative thinking" and having more positive thoughts! We had a great District Meeting on Faith this last week, and I studied it for Zone Conference, and I think I like how much of a mindset faith is - how it takes work and effort, and needs to be used every single day! And, when we do it every day, we are able to strengthen ourselves as we improve through repentance, solemnly commit to be better during the sacrament, and then ultimately have the spirit as more of a constant companion. It's a beautiful process.

The biggest miracle we saw this week was with our investigators lining up perfectly with our members who we brought to lessons. Sister Fuglistaler taught K W on exchanges and the member we brought was absolutely perfect. But besides that, we had a lesson on Sunday with P Q, and the member we brought, Sister G, had actually been a convert herself and everything she talked about was exactly what P Q needed to hear. She had been trying to get an answer if the Book of Mormon was true, while still holding onto a few doubts, and it didn't work. It was only when she let go of everything, that she got her answers. Hopefully P Q can put all his little doubts and uncertainties on the shelf, at least for a few moments, so he can get a more spiritual confirmation that the Book of Mormon is true!! We will be praying for that this week.

Another really cool experience we had this week was with our members. One of our members, Sister J, has a sister-in-law who wants to hear the discussions, however, because of her husband, the situation is a little bit difficult. Sister J asked us if we would be willing to help her by teaching her some of the discussions so she knew better what would be taught to her sister-in-law, so she could help with the situation. So, we ended up this week teaching  Sister J and her husband about a 20 min. Restoration lesson, and it was SO POWERFUL.  Before the lesson, Sister J didn't understand why the Book of Mormon needed to be such an important part of her testimony. Then, when we started reading the Book of Mormon introduction page, she couldn't even read because she started crying. It was such a wonderful lesson to be in. And, to top it off, at the end of the lesson, the husband said the spirit was so strong, and that he would invite his co-worker to hear the Restoration from us! A co-worker who he was only planning on giving a Book of Mormon to before the lesson. The spirit really is powerful, and I love seeing it operate in lessons.

Besides that, we are working with N M to help her desire to have the sacrament taken to her at work every week, helping the B teens have faith enough to read the Book of Mormon spiritually and prayerfully, and helping L stay strong! She is doing so well, and this week when things were rough for her, she prayed, and felt a clear prompting from the Holy Ghost that she needed to get a blessing from her home teachers. She did so, and felt great after. I'm so grateful that she is so connected to the gospel, and not the missionaries. A true golden convert! She hasn't missed a Sunday since we met, and she told us that after she heard the Restoration lesson, she wanted to learn more so badly, and was afraid that we wouldn't invite her to do so.

We worked with members this week by making a list of ways that our ward mission leader could better support us, and he wrote them all down, and is willing to do them! He literally fulfilled his calling to perfection on Sunday.

A cool opportunity I had this week was to accompany a song called "Gethsemane". It's really simple, but I thought I would put a couple lines into my letter because it's simply been stuck in my head all week -
"Gethsemane...Jesus Loves me...So He went willingly....to Gethsemane. He felt all that was bad, wicked or sad all the pain we ever would know. While His friends were asleep, He vowed to keep, His promise made long ago...." "The hardest thing that ever was done, the greatest gift that ever was known, this was done by Jesus...this fight was won by Jesus..."
I'm grateful for the power of music, and how wonderful it is to have a Savior who loves us.

Have a great week!
Love,
Sister Crabb

Also! We had a great service project this week where someone we awkwardly handed a card to as the doors were closing (one that didn't have our number on it!) came! He hunted down the church at Newton for a long time because he had nothing to do and wanted to come. SO COOL! God can totally do his own work. Even when the missionaries happen to not have a card with their number on it!

She didn't give a description or explanation of these pictures.....not sure who the person is getting baptized....maybe someone she knew from another area who is now getting baptized.

Monday, October 19, 2015

This week was also a little bit rough, but it was definitely scattered with small miracles all over the place! It's funny, that when we seem to not be able to contact expats that want to learn about the gospel, for some reason, other missionaries in Singapore just start sending us people!

The biggest miracle we saw was definitely on Sunday. So, before Sunday, we had not taught a single investigator lesson. People are out of town, or too busy, etc. It's interesting too, because I feel like these people have great spiritual experiences, and then they choose not to meet with us. Near the beginning of my mission, we didn't create spiritual experiences that were nearly as powerful or at all, so I understand why people would not want to continue to meet us. It's just different I guess being on the opposite side of everything and seeing people really feel the spirit and then reject it. It can just be heartbreaking because you know exactly what this gospel can do for people. ANYWAYS, on Saturday night, Sister Fuglistaler and I just prayed and prayed for a miracle. We needed anything or anyone to come to church, or be willing to meet us Sunday evening.  So, because we needed to help with the 1st ward RS lesson, we walked into 4th ward sacrament meeting pretty late. We hurried in though, and Sister Fuglistaler was like, "let's go and sit by Y, she's sitting alone." So, we slipped in next to her (I totally smashed her foot on my way across the row and felt so bad), and as soon as we did, a cute girl in front of us turned around and said, "How are you sisters! This is my friend Brother K! He's visiting church with me today!"  So, we were really excited about the referral to begin with, but to make the little miracle even better, as we were talking to the nice girl, her name is Sister A, we found out that her entire family have been members for years, but she just never got baptized. She bore her testimony to us about the Book of Mormon, and the church, and basically, she is a dry member! She literally could be baptized this weekend into 4th ward with her family if she wanted to. However, there's something that must be holding her back, because she wants to be baptized, but doesn't want to put a date on it. Hopefully we can crack her concern with the spirit this week.

Besides that, our only other lesson was with our investigator Brother P Q from China (yes, this is the one that is extremely logical, but wants to be baptized.). Anyhow, as we met with him, we just felt the spirit really strongly as he talked about conference. As we asked him about his questions he had prepared for conference, and if he felt like he had received any answers, he said (and this was one of my favorite comments of the lesson!)  "Every single speaker spoke about my questions. Every single speaker." So, not sure what exactly his questions were, but he said he will feel like he can make a good decision about his baptism after he finished reading conference this next week or two.
So, in a nutshell, our miracles are that we are able to have two people that may potentially be able to get baptized in the next month or so! That is a really big deal.

Our less actives and recent convert L are doing really well as well.  We met with a few this week, and are slowly trying to help them strengthen their testimonies! KW is holding together pretty well, although she did not come to church this week :(.

This week, we worked with members by helping teach the "Feed my Sheep" lesson from Ezra Taft Benson. We worked with the teacher to help her understand what she can do to help the RS sisters understand their role in being a shepherd, and then we got to speak at the end about how love goes a really long way. We then passed around a calendar to have members sign up to come to our appointments. Anyhow, we are also in the works of figuring out how to utilize our ward mission leader better in coordinating our efforts with members. This way, we will be able to focus more on other things besides trying to schedule members to come to our lessons.

I think one thing I really like about Heavenly Father, is He always pushes us to be better in a loving, caring way! If there are any voices we hear that are not nice, not kind, etc, they are not from God. And, we can talk back to them by replacing them with good, wholesome, thoughts - thoughts of things we know God feels about us. Just a random thought, but I think if we could all more deeply understand how much God really loves us, and how He truly cares about us, our actions towards ourselves and the others around us would be different.

Finally, at our Zone Meeting this week, I was dubbed as "her majesty Sister Crabb, Queen of Singapore" since I have been here for so long. Basically I got to knight the new missionaries in Singapore since I have served here for so long, and that was thoroughly exciting. Besides that, I made Chicken Rice for the first time, and will probably pick up a packet to bring home so I can make it for you all! It was really, really good! And, probably not the most healthy ;). Overall, I love the gospel, and I love the members! We also got to teach a 7 year old to prepare her for her baptism, and we got to continue to meet with so many wonderful members, and encourage them to do missionary work.
I dressed up this week in a Sari, and I got my hair cut by Sister Fuglistaer - her first haircut! And that was an experience. Don't worry, I taught her what an inch is, and she cut off the dead ends only.

Love you all!! Have a great week!
Love,
Sister Crabb

Knights of SG cups that we got at Zone Meeting...everyone got a medieval name. I was "Her Majesty Lady Crabb, Queen of Singapore".  

I think one of the most tender mercies I've seen near the end of my mission, is my seed planting actually doing something! These are people that remember me for one contact or one phone call, who are now, about 6 months to a year later, learning about the church/baptized! yay!!

Marina Bay

Marina Bay

Sometimes, I feel really Asian over here! This is at Marina Bay...where we went last P-Day. 

Monday, October 12, 2015

It was a harder week - harder to meet people, and people just are busy and don't like to keep commitments, so that is a little frustrating. I increased my faith this week by working on the whole "seeking revelation thing" that I wrote about last week. IT WORKS!! That's all I have to say. Revelation and the spirit are some of the most amazing blessings of being members of this church. I just don't understand why anyone would choose to not be a part of all this...but, I think that we are going to try and work on utilizing our dinner appointments more for referrals. I spent some good time in Chapter 9 one morning this week, and I feel like I learned some cool things to do that I hadn't even thought about before. Preach My Gospel really is like scripture! It's amazing. It's amazing too, how when we ask, seek, and knock, our prayers are answered.

I absolutely loved conference! It made me so happy to be able to listen to all the apostles. I think my favorite talk by far was President Monson’s. I just want to influence people for good, but need to work on some things to get there. And, I also really liked Elder Nelson's talk! We all laughed at the ponderizing talk - and I totally knew he was a BYU b-ball player!  I liked Elder Bednar and President Uchtdorf’s too, and Elder Hales! Awh man. I just liked them all! I can't wait to study them all again!  I was really spiritually fed, and it's amazing that all the questions I had were answered. I'm so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who answers our prayers, who wants us to succeed. I'm planning on working on being a better light (from President Monson’s talk) and think I may take the 6 attributes he discussed and make some plans to apply them into my life each month for the next 6 months. Also, President Nelson's talk was so empowering!! I'm so excited to change the world!!

The miracle I want to relay to you this week is with our less active N M. So, a couple weeks ago on exchanges Sister Fuglistaler and Sister Huff taught her the Plan of Salvation. Although it was a simple lesson, and Sister Fuglistaler told me it felt slightly rushed, it really touched our less active. As we sat there and listened to her this week, she told us that she decided to quit coffee and tea because of the lesson. We had no idea that she even had a problem with coffee and tea!! It's amazing how when we really bring the spirit to lessons, it touches people’s hearts, and if they're willing to let it in, they can repent and make the changes necessary in their lives that will allow them to be like God and live with Him someday.

As far as Investigators go - J is progressing in her slow and simple way. She understands the church, but she doesn't have a solid foundation of the basics. We also think she holds herself back a little bit. So, we hope that President Eyring’s talk from conference will help her. Our less active K W listened to conference with her non- member husband, and following up with her about her church experience was great. She told us that her husband stayed all 3 hours on his own free will. She also loved when we told her the phrase "enjoy to the end" and so she pasted it on her fridge. She is so cute, and I love working with her! L loved conference, and is going strong still!

Really quick, I would like to add a little challenge to you all! I LOVED reading this week about a mighty change of heart in Alma, and how letting the gospel into our hearts is what really allows them to change. If you have time, I would totally recommend studying this. It was such a fun study, and I learned a lot about how the gospel is connected to helping me become converted.

I'm not a perfect missionary, and sometimes weeks are hard, and frustrating, but I know that this is God's work, and that God has a plan for everyone. I love fresh starts, and new beginnings. I'm grateful for a Savior that makes them possible.

Love,
Sister Crabb

This is the P family (Bishop)

These are the daughters of one of our cute English students!!!

Monday, October 5, 2015

I'm SUPER excited to stay here in 1st and 4th ward. I can't imagine ending my mission anywhere else, and  I have a fire and desire to give it 110 percent until the last day of my mission. I want to be the best Sister Crabb I can be!

Let me give you some highlights of things that I learned this week, and things that happened. First of all, I increased my faith in prophets and apostles being called of God this week. I spent a small portion of my Sunday morning reading conference talks before church to prepare myself to take the sacrament (something I've been doing recently is trying to be better at preparing for the sacrament) and as I was reading and praying, I came across a talk in 2000 by Ronald A. Rasband. As I looked at his name, I felt the spirit so strongly confirm to me that he had been called to be in the Quorum of the 12 Apostles. I had no idea at this point who had actually been called. However, the spirit was so strong in that moment for me, that I cannot deny that apostles and our dear prophet are called of God.

Besides that, I've been working on feeling God's love more, delegating (I asked the sisters what they wanted to have shared at MLC...I didn't want it to just be my thoughts and opinions, because I'm really only there because I represent them), and I've also been really SEEKING revelation. I sit in MLC sometimes and think, wow! How do all these awesome missionaries come up with these ideas. Then I realized, why not me? If I really want to seek out ways to improve as a missionary, I've got Preach my Gospel, I've got the scriptures, and I've got the spirit. There is NOTHING stopping me except myself. So, I decided that in the next little bit, I am going to actively SEEK revelation.  It helped this last weekend, as I felt so guided to passages of the Book of Mormon for our investigator J, as well as in our lesson with the B teenagers. I've never felt more guided during a lesson than during that lesson! We came in, all planned and ready to put them on date. Then, they hadn't really had a great experience with the Book of Mormon, so we just read Lehi's dream together, and it was SO powerful. We had a couple prospective missionaries there with us, and they got to bare their testimonies, and it was just a fantastic lesson. One of the 'prospective missionaries' mothers actually told us on Saturday that she is super, super grateful that her son came with us, and that he had a great experience.

Besides that...L got her patriarchal blessing, and we worked with members to be able to hopefully set up a great service project that will help 4th ward fulfill their mission plan!
The biggest miracle of the week? A lady named T came to church last week with one of our members, and she is open to hearing a little bit more with her. So, we came from the pouring rain of our P-day activity to our member’s house and were able to teach her the Restoration. I'm so grateful that we are able to have miracles in this work, because if I was supposed to do this by myself, nothing would really get done!

I love this work, I love our investigators.
As far as less actives go, we have a few that we are actively working with, and Sister K W was able to come to church on Sunday! She said that it felt great, and that she hadn't been in a long long time. She is super sweet, and is such a special part of my mission. I hope we can work with her husband, and help him get baptized :).

Love, (from my little section of the vineyard...)
Sister Crabb

So, this is just a classic missionary photo I HAD to take :)

I got to hold a bald vulture this week! It was really scary actually, it weighed 5 pounds, and is from Africa. Her name was Hazel, and they put a nice piece of steak in my hand and then she flew and landed on my hand with the giant glove. Basically, being blonde haired and blue eyed has it's perks here in Singapore :)

"It is better to Look UP"

We got to have Sister Simmons come out with us for a night since we are the STL's, and it was WAY fun :)

We did a really awesome talent show to celebrate Sister Carson's last Sunday night! I got volunteered to do the hokey pokey, and then we did Harry Potter puppet pals as the final act. Super fun! I was Dumbledore in that if you care:)

Monday, September 28, 2015

Ummm..I can't copy and paste!!!
SO, in a couple sentences,

K W is AWESOME!! She bore her soul to us about why she wants to come back to church. She has a son with some big challenges, and she KNOWS this is where happiness is.

We had someone bring a friend to church who we are meeting tonight, and a LA (less active) just walked into church.

We have a large pool for our English class of Japanese students.

I LOVE YOU!!

I'm learning so much, but I don't have time to write it. Just remember, covenants are powerful, and so is preparation. Please prepare for conference!!! It will make it so much more meaningful because I know Heavenly Father will trust you with answers because you are searching for them. Prophets and apostles are called of God, and they CANNOT lead us astray. Their words are Christ's, so be prepared. Think about what you would do if the Savior was personally coming to speak to you. Would you have some things ready to talk about? Probably.

Love,
Sister Crabb

Here's her explanation of the dinner with kids from last week:

The dinner was just a typical meal that was supposed to have the parents there, but last minute the parents couldn't be there, so the kids were just there by themselves. The kids were all primary aged! Like, 11 down to 3. And yes, it was very fun. The purpose was just a normal member dinner. And the helper is a Phillipina maid. A lot of expats and Chinese people have them here. They just help with cleaning and cooking, etc. so the moms can do other things they need to get done, and can spend more time with their kids.

This fruit is EVERYWHERE for the Chinese lantern festival/mooncake festival. It's called pomelo fruit. 

We always eat at Subway as a district after district meeting.

I found a coconut this week that a really nice Chinese man gave to me. He was right outside of our apartment and had knocked them down out of the tree in our condos area. I was fascinated, and so he told me to take one, so I did, and took the honor of taking a selfie at the church with it while we waited for our super awesome less active. 

The haze is SUPER bad here right now. Like, it got to "hazardous" on the PSI scale. Don't worry though, because L brought us masks. We are all smiling in this picture, but you just can't tell. 

I just love L!!