Going Forward in Kuching

Life is again interfering with email transmission.  We get Michael’s emails on Sunday evening (Monday afternoon for him) and unfortunately, on Sunday, my work email server was down.  So, I couldn’t get an email through.  Hence the following:

MOM

     Wow, I send like a million pics and get nothing in return!! I sent dad a long email, so you can get some updates from him. I bought an Iban shield this week! I don’t know how I am going ­­to get it home, but it still the coolest thing I’ve ever seen! Umm…this week a sister missionary passed out at McDonalds and was out for about an hour before she woke up in the hospital! She had mono and was really dehydrated! So that was pretty cool!

   

      Kuching is pretty good.  No one is progressing super fast, but we are working with a return missionary’s boy friend and he his doing okay! So, we will see how it goes from there! But I love ya mom, tonz, and miss you!  Sorry it’s not very long! 

Elder Madsen

  

Pops

     It truly is an amazing blessing to get to serve close with President Mains, he really is an amazing man.  We had a really touching experience last Sunday. Kuching, like most other areas in East Malaysia, has a really hard time with less active members and also with the Priesthood. Our branch has six or seven Elders in the Elders Quorum, which is ALOT for East Malaysia; but, they do not understand how important they are to the Branch nor do they understand the responsibilities that they have as Priesthood holders.  In Elders Quorum, we were trying to motivate them to do their home teaching (I think they have set a record for longest number of months under 50%!)  We were just not getting through to them until we felt inspired to ask Elder Boyter (the senior couple) to share an experience that he has had with home teaching.  Wow, what a turn around that was. Elder Boyter told the story of how his father was inactive all his life and that his mother struggled to raise him and his three other brothers in the church.   He said that his home teacher visited his mom several times a month and did everything he could for his family. After thirty years of having this same home teacher visit his family, Elder Boyter’s dad came back to church and a couple years later the family was sealed in the temple!  Elder Boyter bore a powerful testimony of the love that this home teacher had for his family and the difference it made in his life. While he was sharing that experience, I thought of how every month you magnified your calling as a home teacher and specifically I thought of the Toner family and the impact I think you had on Sister Toner. Thanks for your amazing example popz!

     We still get a chance to work with investigators.  We found a couple of new families to teach, but we are still trying to get them to come to church. Elder Crosland and I also did zone training on Tuesday. Zone training is a three hour-long meeting/training on what President Mains wants us to bring back to the zone. I did my training on how to pass out a Book of Mormon, so that was pretty good and it was a lot of fun!

      I think about Meg and Chris all the time.  I hope they are doing okay. I love ya pops!

Elder Madsen