First Week in Batu Kawa

Mom! 

     

     First, even from thousands of miles away, I can still sense your sarcasm when you are calling me skinny! (I think he has lost weight! - Martha)

      This week, I spent time with an Elder whose parents came to pick him up.   They seemed to really like Malaysia. The first day, we stuck around the city of Kuching and the Elder's mom said, "Wow, this is actually really, really nice!" However, she quickly took back what she said when we went out of the city to the kampungs (rural villages)!

     Our first week in Batu Kawa has been pretty good! The branch is really strong here. There is a group of families that were baptized a while ago when the missionaries only spoke English; so, they all can speak English and they are all really, really strong in the gospel. Right now there is a group of about eight returned missionaries in the branch and and they hold basically all the callings. In fact, most of them have two callings!!

      On Monday, we went to give a Baptismal interview and it didn’t quite go like we expected. Before the interview, we asked the guy if he had any questions. He asked us if we were pretty good with Joseph Smith's history.  We were like, "Yea pretty good." So, then he asked, "How many wives did Joseph Smith have?"  Oh man. . .it went all down him from there. The guy said he found on the Internet that Joseph Smith had thirty-two wives and he wanted to know how many wives Joseph Smith had sex with. How am I supposed to know the answer to that! So after a long discussion, we finally said, "Really, all that matters is whether or not Joseph Smith is a true prophet and if the Book of Mormon is the word of God.” But, he was still too concerned with what he had found, so he didn’t want to go through with the baptism. The Elders who had been working with him were pretty sad.

Bako National Park

     I'm going to Singapore tomorrow for our monthly ZL meeting!! Yesterday, I went to Bako National Park—it was. . .AMAZING!  An Iban guy takes you on a 20-minute boat ride and drops you off on this deserted island that you can go and explore. Wayyy cool!

     I can’t believe its time for school to start again.  I love you mom and don’t worry--only 10 3/4 more months to go! 

Elder Madsen