SENIORS CONFERENCE AND TAWAU

These are a few pictures of our First Seniors Conference in Singapore on the 12th of July. It was really wonderful. The Mission arranged for all of the Seniors to come in for their visa run at the same time!! I'm amazed that they were able to do this. So from now on all seniors will be in Singapore at the same time and we will have our conference every three months. Since there are only six bedrooms at Pasar Panjang house, not everyone was able to stay there. Some couples stayed at the Mission President's home and others were "farmed out" to stay with local Singaporean families. Dad and I were one of the lucky ones that stayed with locals. I feel so badly that I do not have a picture of William and Connie Woo who were our hosts. They were simply delightful; especially Connie. William is a broker in precious metals, especially silver and gold. He works very hard and has done this for about 30 years. They live in a 3 bedroom high rise just like most people in Singapore. They have three sons who are all in the US. One son is married and the other two are students at BYU. All three have served two years in the Singapore military and served missions. They are quite handsome. Connie is a housewife and is the most immaculate housekeeper!! Even everything in her refrigerator is labeled and organized. They were the best hosts.

It was really fun visiting and meeting with all of the senior couples. The Sister standing in the blue blouse is Sis. Howarth. She and her husband were Public Relations specialists in the mission. They were stationed in Singapore, but also spent a lot of time in Indonesia. The church is very strong in Indonesia, even though the country is 85% Muslim. They are very tolerant of us there. The sister in the pink blouse and her husband are from Juneau, Alaska. A really big difference from Mukah, Malaysia where they are serving. They are the Cunninghams and Elder Cunningham says that they are now "Mukahites". They opened up a whole new area of the church there and are establishing a small branch. We have more senior couples than any other mission. We learned a lot from each couple at the conference.

These are two of our little neighbors. Rebecca is on the left off Dad and Sarah is on the right. Their mother is Vietnamese and their Dad is Chinese. Their parents are divorced. The girls and their Mom live in our building. Kate knows who their mother is. They're not friends, she just knows Debbie, the mother. The girls are really delightful and starved for attention and affection.

Rebecca spent the day with me last Saturday. She just knocked on the door and said that her friends were gone and she had no place to go!! Her mom was gone to a meeting so Rebecca and I spent the day together. We baked cookies, worked on a puzzle, drew pictures, and played on the computer. I'm so thankful for the great mothers that you girls are to our grandchildren!!!! Remember that "No success in life can compensate for failure in the home".

These girls go to school 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, and have since they were little!! They have year-round school.

We had to make another trip to Tawau to check on two projects there that had hit a snag. This group here picked us up at the airport and took us directly to this site where we have a water project. In an hour or less, the projects had resolved all of it's issues and is now on "GO". Later in the afternoon, we went to the hospital to see an opthamologist who is doing a vision project with us and resolved our issues with that project. Amazing!!! What had dragged on for months was settled in one day. Nothing like "up close and personal". I wish that I had a picture of the Rotarian who took this picture. His name is Rada, he's Indian and just funny as heck!! He treated all of us to lunch. His wife met us and she was just delightful also. His kids all go to school in the US, too. He has one kid in Wichita, Kansas. He's been to New York, California, Florida, everywhere in the US!!!!!

Since we had taken 3 days for this trip, thinking that it would be timely to solve our project issues, we had nothing to do the next day. We took the Elders and the Gordhamers(missionary couple) out to lunch. The Gordhamers took us to see the chapel in Tawau. It's in the most beautiful location. It's an older home that belongs to a rich Chinese fellow. He rents it to the church. It's situated right on the ocean. This picture is of Dad and E/S Gordhamer standing under the most beautiful tree that is right beside the chapel/house. I only know of one place that has prettier trees--Brunswick County, N. C.!!! That's right--my home!!!!

LOVE MOM AND DAD