Beaded Tie
(and impressive laundry skills
 in the background)

MOM!!

      Do you like the tie that I bought for Chris?  This super old tribal Iban man makes them.  It literally takes him a couple of months to make a tie out of beads.  I love this guy; he is the coolest old man that I have ever met.  His name is Apai Sigat which means "Handsome Father" in Iban. Apai Sigat can catch and kill a biawak with weapons he has made with his bare hands....I so want to be like him when I get old!  So, now I have somewhere to get biawak meat, beaded ties, and these cool backpacks he makes! 

     We have been outside a lot this week, so all the members keep saying that I look like an Iban now because my skin is getting so dark.  My companion has been suffering a little because he was pretty white when he got out here.  His first week in this sun just killed his skin, but the members rubbed some weird leaves on him and his sunburn actually got a lot better!   The medicine here is amazing!  Last week I had a sore throat and they give me some crazy honey stuff to drink and within a day--BOOM--I was better. 

     The members don't quite know what to make of my new companion. He won't try any new foods. He will only eat a little bit of rice and thats it! The members love watching the missionaries eat their food.  The other night I had straight village food--it was just picked rice (it looked red), freshly picked vegies that they threw in with the rice, and then some fish freshly picked out of the not so clean river! It was interesting...everything tastes really, really fresh--almost too fresh. 

     All of our knocking on doors has paid off this week.  We have found some new people to teach!! We have been teaching these three 20 year old Iban kids who came to church yesterday!!  I was pumped that they came, but I thought that they would be kind of bored because for the next three weeks all we do is watch General Conference sessions during church.  But, the all stayed for the entire Saturday session and still want us to come back and teach them more! 

     Mom,  you would not believe all the useful skills I have learned since coming to Miri. For example, the other day we came home just dead tired and found out that we were locked out of our house! I looked around and saw a butter knife on the ground, used it to pick the lock, and was actually able to break into our own house! How cool is that!!??  I can also catch, kill, gut, and cook a biawak! Also, very useful!!!  (Maybe if you live in Florida!--Martha)  I now can iron my own shirts...cool right?? And this week, we took an hour bus ride to go to knock on doors in a village where we had not been before.  When we got off the bus, we wandered around in the jungle, actually found the village, then actually found two people to teach, then wandered around some more,  popped out of the jungle, and then found the right bus to get us home!!  I am honestly thinking of just living here with the Iban people after my mission.  Then I could just wake up every morning, hunt for food, and wear a sarong.  I love Miri so much!!  The members are amazing!  They are just the most fun loving people in the world.  They don't care about all the worldly stuff that we care about. They live in their shacks on the rivers, but they still have parties and feed us from their own food supply!!  I hope I get to stay here for a while!!! That would be amazing!! 

    I love you mom and miss you tons!! Only a couple more weeks till we Skype!!

Elder Madsen