Who's Got Next?

Sean Foley
Apr 6
3 min read

We are now in that sometimes uncomfortable season of "lasts". We just had our last Mission Health Council with the Bangkok West mission, in which we have truly come to love the leaders and missionaries there. This coming week brings more last MHCs as well as our last Singapore Zone Conference with its chance to see every missionary in our mission. It is really hard to find a good balance between sprinting up to the very end and taking time to be nostalgic and thoughtful!

One thing that is making our transition easier is that we know that there is a good couple coming to take our place in the area, mission, and YSA Ward. However we heard again tis week that in many areas of the world there is a real shortage of incoming Mission Health Advisors (MHA), Area Medical Advisors (AMA), and Area Mental Health Advisors (AMHA). The wonderful chair of Missionary Health Services, Elder WIlliam Jackson, sent out a beautiful plea this week focused on MHA and AMA:

If you are in a position to consider serving, have medical or mental health background, would like to know more about any of these or many other roles we would love to visit with you and/or connect you with people that can answer your questions! Serving this mission has been both so rewarding and so challenging, and we can't quite imagine not having done it!

Last Sunday afternoon I was able to facilitate a Sharing the Gospel members workshop in our Filipino magnet ward. It took me back to my Ward Mission Leader days and was a really great experience with lots of involvement and sharing. We split into two groups (focusing on in-person and online) and then rotated between them. The young missionaries helped out and did a nice job moving things along.

Even though there are roughly 20 young missionaries in Singapore at a given time, there are closer to 50 mattresses spread out among our seven apartments. These are used when the missionaries serving in Malaysia come in for Zone Conference. Some of them have gotten pretty beat up over the years and in my role as apartment inspector, I have been able to arrange for yearly mattress replacements. This week I went with a couple contractors around to five apartments to swap out the old and bring in the new!

As we get close to finishing we are also enjoying some time connecting with individual YSA. This week we have had dinner with six of them grouped into three different outings. We love this chance to get to know them better individually.

On our preparation day we spent all afternoon at the Sungei Buloh Wetlands Reserve. It was a great experience - check out these pics! We also had a nice evening out to see Snow White in theaters, which we both enjoyed.

A winding boardwalk elevated above tranquil mangroves

Finally, we had a wonderful Institute class Wednesday with our biggest group this semester! I am really loving this Eternal Family class and the good discussions that are coming from it. A couple weeks ago I did a survey on their questions on the class "The Commandment to Multiply and Replenish the Earth". I was very touched by their thoughtful responses.