Eighth Week in Melaka

      Mom!

     Oh, so you want to hear how I crashed into a coconut on my bike.  It is possible, no matter what you think!  We were riding when it was really dark outside.   I was flying down a hill and hit the coconut and almost died; so, I needed to get new pedals on my bike.   We also were really pumped about catching the biawak. All the locals laughed at us and said it couldn’t be done...but, who’s laughing now!

Fish Pedicure

    This week was pretty good.  On Wednesday, we went to go to Kuala Lumpur for training.  All we had to do is a bunch of role plays and then President Mains and the APs gave us feedback.  No big deal--they told me I was the best trainee there; so, basically I am going from greenie to AP soon—haha!  While we were in Kuala Lumpur, we put our feet in the fish tank with Garra rufa.  They are bottom feeder fish—they look like a cross between a goldfish and minnow.  They eat the dead skin and the salt off your feet.  It tickles really, really bad! They all just swarm to your feet and latch on to your toes and feet. (If anyone wants to try this is America, there is a Salon in Alexandria, VA that offers fish pedicures for $45.)

     We have been tracting pretty hardcore all this week in the rain.  One day we rode ten miles in the pouring down rain--I couldn’t even see on my bike.  We wanted to get to an Indian village that no missionaries had ever been to before.  When we finally got there we were soaking wet!  But, we knocked on five houses and got three families to teach! Usually, we knock for four or five hours and not get one person to teach; but, here we got three families in less than ten minutes of tracting!  We are going there again on Saturday.  It’s great having new people to teach; hopefully, they will start progressing.  Everyone tells me that Melaka is known as one of the—if not the worst area—in the mission.  But, I think it’s a good place to start out!  Everyone tells me if I can succeed in Melaka, I can succeed anywhere in the mission. It does get frustrating sometimes though!  

     We find a lot of people to teach through playing badminton.   We play two or three times a week and always find at least one person to contact. Badminton is my new love—it is the funniest game ever!  Everyone here is amazing at badminton; it’s like their national sport!  We play at a club by our house that trains kids from the age of five. They are amazing!  These two little girls played us at doubles and beat us and all the old guys made fun of us!  But we showed them, we got our first victory the other day; we beat a 6 year old kid and his 10 year old sister in a comeback!  Then we lost a heart breaker to these two 13 year old girls and got destroyed by two 60 year old men; but, I love it!  

     Gotta go!  Have a nice thanksgiving.  The older sister missionaries went all the way to Kuala Lumpur to buy us American food for thanksgiving.  So we should have a feast.  Love You!

Jumps,

Elder Madsen