I Want to be Bishop Right Now!

Mom!

     This week was been sooooo stressful!  I am ready to never hold a leadership calling in the mission or in the church ever again!  Do you know what I had to deal with this week?   A sister missionary punched an elder in the face and gave him a black eye—in front of the members!!! Both the sister and elder are notorious for being hard to get along with and they both are very, very stubborn.  So the President decided to put them in the same branch....and this was the result. We had to talk to each one of them separately and get their stories.  Apparently, they got in a fight over who was going to teach an investigator.   The elder ended up calling the sister a cow.  She in turn called him a few names and then decided to spit in his face and punch him in the eye. The elder showed up to church the next day with a black eye!   That incident caused me to have a very interesting conversation with the President; so, we’ll have to see how it goes.  Then our branch got two new elders this week, so we had to split the boundary and that is always a real headache.  

     I do have a new companion, since Elder Crosland is now an AP in Singapore.  My companion is a local Indian from Penang.  He was in the zone before he became the zone leader, so I already knew him.  He helps me with my bahasa (language), so that’s good.  Plus, GUESS WHAT???? The sisters brought Cheez-Its from America!  We ate half the bag in under three minutes--I forgot how good those where!!

     I do have a funny story that happened this week.   This super old lady, who is an investigator, said that she needed help at her house at 8 am.   We got up super early and biked with the sisters to her house.   It took forever to get there because she lives an hour away. When we got there, the lady took us to her backyard, handed me a hoe and a butcher’s knife, and told me to cut down these two small trees!!  It took a while, but we finally did it.  They were tapioca trees, so we had to dig deep in the ground to get out the roots.  Then she told us that we could have the trees! So basically, we biked an hour to cut down her tapioca trees so she could give them to us.  We don't even know what to do with them!

   This week we also taught the one family whose dad just passed away in the fire. It was wayy sad, but it was a cool experience when we read Alma 7:11-13 with them and talked about the Atonement! The Spirit was so strong.

     I now have all the family’s pictures on my wall and as I was writing you guys a letter today, I looked at the pictures and it hit me really hard how much I miss you guys!  I realized it has been almost 15 months since I have seen the family—that is so crazy! But, this year has really flown by.  It seems like it was only three months ago that I was talking to you at Christmas, but it was actually almost a year ago!!

     I love you mom so so so much!!!  Don’t worry--just about nine more months and we are there!!!

Love you, 

Elder Madsen