Elder Madsen in Singapore: Third Week in Miri

MOM!

My new home in Miri is really nice and I love the Ibans—they are crazy!! Luckily, they no longer chop off heads; they are just super humble people. We have been teaching this little nine-year-old Iban girl and we are baptizing her next month!! Miri is known as being one of the most beautiful places in East Malaysia. Unfortunately, I don’t get out enough to take many cool pictures, but I am sending a letter home with a cool picture!! My companion isn’t able to go out much, so I basically just sit in my room and study Iban and Malay for several hours a day. We live with the Chinese speaking elders and because one of them is a local, he can also speak Malay. He has helped me a lot with my Malay and Chinese. I’ve learned how to say in Chinese, "Can you speak English?"-- ne kuh e shua ing wan ma? Whenever I see a Chinese person I just say, "ne kuh e shua ing wan ma?" and they just start cracking up. They love it!!

I have also managed to lose all the weight that I gained in Melaka! I implemented a two-fold weight loss program. First, I started doing Body Combat. It’s like Insanity except with kick boxing. Second, one of the Ibans fed me fish that he caught in the river and I don’t think that he cooked it all the way. For the last four days, any food or water that I drank came right back up! Yesterday, I had to leave church halfway through because I thought that I was going to die. I’m feeling a lot better today. The locals gave me "medicine"--little tiny pieces of coal--to swallow and no joke it worked! But, I’ve lost a lot of weight between doing Body Combat and being sick; so, I am looking pretty good right now.

I hear Kansas City is getting a bunch of snow!! People here always ask me if I get salji in Kansas and when I tell them that I do, they freak out! They have never ever seen snow, so they have no idea. They always ask me what it’s like and all I say is putih dan sejuk--white and cold.

Elder Madsen with handle bars.

This week has been a lot of fun when we were able to go out. We were at a members’ house the other night and my companion asked for a toilet and the members got really silent. They tried to tell us why he couldn’t use their toilet in Iban, but we couldn’t understand them. The family was getting a little frustrated with us, so this old lady blurted out, "You so fat; toilet so small. You fall and buaya (gators) eat you." The room just burst out laughing!! My poor companion is not one of those fat people that laugh about how fat they are. He’s one of those fat people that are in denial, like me; so, he took it pretty bad, haha! I also got my bike from Melaka this week. They had to take my bike apart to ship it which meant that I had to put it back together. We both know that putting things together is not something that I am very good at, so I was pretty proud of my work when I finally had it all together. I tried it out the other day and as I was flying down a hill, my handle bars came off!!! I started screaming and flew off into a ditch! I was covered in mud and dirty water! The locals laughed so hard that they were crying!