During a nine-day ministry in Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia and Vietnam, Sister Amy A. Wright, first counselor in the Primary general presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, met with religious and government leaders, visited with the Church’s humanitarian partners and also ministered to families, Primary children, youth and young single adults.
To the children she met throughout her ministry, Sister Wright shared Church President Russell M. Nelson’s love, trust and need for them and invited them to fully participate and embrace their covenants as the youngest members in the Church, reported the Church’s Singapore Newsroom.
About her time in Southeast Asia in May and June, Sister Wright said: “My greatest hope, especially for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is that vision will be expanded regarding our Heavenly Father’s youngest disciples, His children. … That these little ones, we’ll start to see them through the lens of their capacity to do great things.”
She was accompanied by her husband, Brother James Wright — who served in Washington, D.C., as a young missionary and ministered to Southeast Asian communities there — and members of the Church’s Asia Area presidency and their wives.
To the missionaries she met with, Sister Wright taught: “Your mission is tailor-made by divine design to be uniquely hard for you. … You are meant to go home a higher and holier way.”
Singapore
Sister Wright’s ministry in Singapore was her first time to the region. At a devotional with youth in the area, Sister Wright said: “You are not the future, you are the now. … The very virtue of your lives are influencing countless generations.”
Sister and Brother Wright and Elder Michael John U. Teh, General Authority Seventy and second counselor in the Church’s Asia Area, visited the Ba’alwie Mosque on May 25 and met with Imam Syed Hassan Mohamed Al-Attas, a religious leader at the mosque and a champion of interfaith values. His father helped build the mosque.
Elder Teh presented Iman Hassan with a personalized copy of the Book of Mormon in Arabic.
Imam Hassan attested that “this is a big treasure for us” and took it to display in his mosque’s museum of ancient and rare scriptures.
Malaysia
In Kuching, Malaysia, Sister Wright met with humanitarian organizations the Church has supported with school and hygiene supplies to school-age children in need in conjunction with the local harvest festival Gawai, including the local Malaysian Red Crescent Society.
Sister Wright spoke at the donation ceremony at Sekolah Kebangsaan Semenggok elementary school on May 29, and helped missionaries distribute 80 packs of schoolbags and hygiene kits that were put together by the Church’s youth.
Singapore Mission President Tai Tolman, who is Maori, and missionaries there performed an impromptu haka and a Maori welcoming dance. The missionaries and youth also joined the school staff, including teachers and the headmaster, when they performed a popular Gawai line dance.
Also, while in Malaysia, she visited Sarawak Cheshire Home, which provides residential care and other services for people with disabilities and chronic illnesses and where the Church is assisting with building improvements, and the Wishesland Kuching, which serves children and adults with cerebral palsy through multiple services.
Wishesland Kuching manager Agnes Sibat said she initially thought the Church’s contact was a scam “because before this, we never had any organization from outside of Malaysia that wants to help Wishesland.”
Sibat added, “I’m very grateful to the team from the Church for their willingness to help and contribute to our organization.”
Cambodia
In Siem Reap, Cambodia, Sister Wright met with the newly appointed deputy governor, Ngov Sengkak on May 31, as they discussed humanitarian collaborations.
“You have contributed a lot to Siem Reap,” he said. “We look forward to sharing a more friendly relationship in the future.”
Sister Wright spoke about the various initiatives the Church is engaged in that benefit children, affirming that “the greatest resource in any country is its children.”
Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles ministered in Cambodia earlier this year and announced a nearly U.S. $2.2 million donation to add a cardiac center to a hospital in Siem Reap.
This year is the 30th anniversary of the Church receiving legal recognition by the Cambodian government on March 4, 1994.
Sister Wright also visited the Run Ta Ek community on May 30 where the Church has helped members — who were required to move from areas around the Angkor Wat Hindu-Buddhist temple complex — with materials to build permanent homes in the community. A Church branch has been recently organized in the area.
While there, she met with members. Oem Seang, 68, who was baptized in February, and her two daughters, son-in-law and six grandchildren squeezed with Sister Wright on their narrow porch, and many more from the neighborhood also gathered there.
They sang “I Am a Child of God,” and Sister Wright told the children: “You are precious to Him. I hope you always know and feel that.”
She shared with each child a card that shows a little girl leading others to Jesus Christ.
Sister Wright also visited with the branch president and his family in the home he built. The family was recently sealed in the Bangkok Thailand Temple.
Vietnam
To young single adults in Vietnam, Sister Wright reminded them that they could feel their Father in Heaven and His Son, Jesus Christ, no matter where they are.
During the ministry, Sister Wright said: “I remember one night praying specifically for the beautiful people of this area. … And it was just this beautiful impression: Just tell them how much I [their Heavenly Father] love them, that they are precious to Me, and thank them for all that they’re doing. They’re doing a wonderful job, and that I’m aware of them. I know them by name.”
She added, “And I thought, well that made my job really easy, because the people here are just so easy to love.”
