Fourth Week in Miri

MOM!

     Don’t worry, Mom, I am feeling a lot better!!  I still felt pretty weak most of this week; but, no joke, Elder Chong--the Chinese missionary who lives with us--gave me some weird Chinese medicine and some cream to rub on my stomach and it totally worked!! By Friday I was back to normal!! On the subject of weird foods, I finally reached my goal...I ate Biawak! Mission complete—I’m coming home! The Biawak was actually pretty good, just kind of tough and it had some bones in it; but, overall it was good!!  I don’t know if I am ready to try the whole fired fish thing again.  Whenever I look at the fish’s eye balls, it brings back memories of being sick! Speaking of food, we found a grocery store that sells American brands!!  The food there is ten times more expensive than other places, but I decided to get some things and make a home cooked meal on Sunday night. You would have been so proud of me mom--I made us a fancy feast! First, I went to the kampungs and bought a chicken that they had just skinned, so it was super fresh.  I also bought some eggs that were just born.  I cooked the chicken breast, whole grain brown noodles, and some fresh vegies.  Then, I made chicken vegie pasta with the American pasta sauce that I bought.  I topped it all off with a fresh glass of goats milk...okay, so the goats milk was one of the top five grossest things that I’ve ever had, but other than that—the meal was amazing! Rick would love the eggs here! When you buy eggs, they put them in a carton for you and when you open the carton, there is still chicken feathers everywhere--haha. I also found Gatorade! It was in a glass bottle from the Philippines, but it was still pretty good. We also made tacos the other night too, so this week’s makan was the best!

     We had to change our area today because the sister missionaries called the mission president and told him that some guy threatened to kill them.  Death threats are the story of our life around here.  Every missionary knows that you don’t take them seriously because 99% of the death threats come from drunk guys that can’t even remember their threat the next morning.   So now the mission president gave the sisters our good area and gave us the crazy death-threat guy to deal with.  But don’t worry mom,  I know how to deal with these death-threat guys.   I am wayyy faster than my companion.  So if someone comes after us with a knife (no one has guns in Malaysia, like NO ONE--totally illegal), I’ll push my companion down and run!  

     We are getting twenty new missionaries next week.  I am really hoping that I’ll get to train my bff, Elder Stahley, from this new group. (He was in my group at the MTC, but he had really bad back problems,so they sent him home to recuperate.)   He was the one who brought us back Firehouse subs when he had to go to doctor appointments while he was in the MTC. That would be so tight if we could be companions!!

     We baptized Fiolyn on Saturday and it went really well. I had to give a talk on the Roh Kudus (Holy Ghost). It went pretty well!! We also taught a big family this week.  My companion is actually a really good teacher. We taught the family about the Plan of Salvation.  My companion told the story of how he and his mom were converted.  He used to be Muslim and the rest of his family was really mad at them for converting, so the Plan of Salvation gives him hope that someday his family will accept the gospel.  The lesson went really well and the family came to church yesterday.  

     I love you mom and hope everything is going great.  Don’t worry about me.   I am still loving life!

Elder Madsen