The Mission Call

On the following Sunday (24 Feb 1980), I took my mother to Church. I had arranged for a priesthood blessing for her and she received it with tears flowing as the blessing was pronounced. (My mother later asked that I return the “Goddess of Mercy” idol to the Chinese temple and requested for missionary discussions. She got baptized on 22 March 1980 by Elder Floyd Stoker then serving as a couple missionary with his wife Edna.)

Visiting the branch on that Sunday of 24 Feb was the Mission President Talmage Jones based in Singapore with his 1st counselor President Ho Ah Chuan. At the priesthood meeting, President Jones stood up and explained that he had a letter from a Malaysian member named David Soon who studied in England and had expressed a desire to serve a mission. President Jones asked the quorum if they knew of anyone in the branch that could go on a mission as he was working on the inspiration to have a first pair of local missionaries to serve in Malaysia. When I heard this, I quickly raised my hand and explained that I had already submitted some preliminary mission application papers before coming home from Australia. What eventually happened was that President Jones coordinated with the Church headquarters for my mission call to start the same time with David, and when my call finally came, it was dated to begin on 6 Aug 1980.

Up to this point in my spiritual experience from the day I got baptized, I have learned of some very important things. Firstly I have learned that truth does exist in this world and that there is a loving God or Heavenly Father who is there to answer our prayers.

I learned the importance of faith and the power of the Holy Spirit, being able to trust the promptings that one receives and to have the courage to follow those promptings. Slowly but surely, I began to see that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is an inspired Church in that it is led by revelation for I had personally experienced it. It was my lot in life to become an instrument of the Lord, called by revelation for his purpose at an appointed time and place.

Malaysia is a Muslim country without visas for foreign Elders and the Lord in his own way overcame that problem. I never planned all that had occurred so far and more that is to come, nor did I have in the beginning the motivation to lead into it. I had merely sought for truth and answers to my own life’s questions and by being sincere to the answers that I found, I began to realize that there was much in return that I was to give back to life upon the earth.

My story will now continue to cover the details of my missionary service. The miracles of faith will become even more evident in my experience of being a missionary for the Lord Jesus Christ and his Church.