Sister Hamner is loving it!

Rachel and her district arrived in Singapore on the evening of Sept. 10. They met their mission president, Pres. Woo, and his wife, then were taken to the mission home and fed dinner. The next day, they had informational training all day and received their assignments. The mission president took them all to eat their first Hawker's meal (a variety of authentic Singapore and Malaysian street food). Rachel loved it! Thursday, they left for their various assignments throughout Singapore and Malaysia. 

      Rachel's first assignment is in a suburb west of the capital city (Kuala Lumpur) of Western Malaysia...a place called Petaling Jaya (PJ for short). Her comp is Sis. Dolenar from Arizona. The people there speak English most of the time, so she only speaks Malay when they ask her to (and they seem impressed with even the small amount she says she knows). They walk or ride the monorail system everywhere, making contacts wherever they go. She said there are lots of malls or shopping centers that they go to find contacts. 

      Sis. Dolenar and her companion before Rachel, found a contact that now Rachel is helping to teach...a single girl in her late 20's named Anh (Ann), from Vietnam. She came to Malaysia for her job and she has come to church with them a couple of times now. She has never heard of Jesus Christ before and is really excited to know all they have to teach her. Rachel's companion helped teach her how to pray for the first time. Anh is like a sponge, soaking up everything they teach her. Rachel is super excited! 

      Rachel and her companion were in a nice, large apartment when she arrived last week, but they had to switch apartments with the Elders this week because there were 4 of them in a little apartment. Luckily, Rachel didn't unpack all the way before finding this out. Lol!

     Rachel is so excited to finally be in the country to serve the people in Singapore and Malaysia! She is grateful to all those who pray for her and send her e-mails and/or letters of encouragement. All of the missionaries serving in Malaysia have to go back into Singapore every 90 days to renew their Visa's, so that is when she can pick up any physical letters or packages sent to the mission home. (The mail is not great in Malaysia.) She has her preparation days (P-day) on Mondays there (Sunday evenings for us...they are 12 hours ahead of Indiana time) and tries hard to email everyone back in a timely fashion. Thank you for all the prayers and support on her behalf!