6th week in MTC

Mom!

     It's going pretty well in the MTC, just counting down the days till we leave--23 days left.  I've been getting a lot of mail.  Megan posted on my Facebook that I needed mail, so random people have been sending me emails.  I've moved from being 7th place (out of 11 Elders) to 5th place in getting mail.

    I see everyone from home all the time.  I see Elder Cybulski, Sister Stahley and Elder Olson at least every day.  Sister Stahley is in the same building as me.  Hey!  I found out something cool!  We have long layovers in LA and in Hong Kong and we can call our families at the airports!  When we get our travel plans, I can tell you what time we will land at LAX.

     I am like 165 pounds, so I've lost a little weight.  I started working out again every day.  My Tongan friend and I eat healthy for 2 meals a day, but for dinner we eat a bunch of food.  Every Friday we have Papa John's pizza!

     Time here is almost over though.  Our teacher said we have learned all the material.  On August 27th, we took the Malay test.  All of us except two Elders are considered fluent in Bahasa Melayu.  So we are just reviewing for two weeks and studying culture for the last week.

     Ok mom, I'll show you some stuff you can say to people.  (When you see a "k" don't pronounce it at the end of the word.  When you see a "c" it makes a "ch" sound.  For example, "membaca" is pronounced "membacha". )
     
      -   Nama Saya Martha - My name is Martha
      -   Saya suka membaca dan mengajar kanak-kanak - I like to read and teach children
      -   Saya beresal di Kansas - I am from Kansas
      -   Saya ada impat anak-anak - I have four kids
      -   Tetapi saya sukarno Mike lebi poda mereka - But, I like Mike more than them!

 I love you mom!  Jumpa Lagi.

Elder Madsen

MTC 5th week

The first month of the MTC is gone! We bought $50.00 worth of chips and soda and partied pretty hard.

We had some funny things happen this week. First, we were teaching one of the locals that come in to the MTC and help us out with Malay. My companion was teaching her about Jesus Christ and the plan of salvation. In Malay a verb that starts with "di" means you have to put the subject last. Like "dipulihan" mean "restored by." So "Gereja ini dipulihan Joseph Smith" means the "Church was restored by Joseph Smith." If you say, "Joseph Smith dipulihan gereja ini" then it means "Joseph Smith was restored by the Church." So you can't mess that up--right?  So my companion said, "Orang suci disalibkan Yesus Kristos."  What he said  was, "Evil people were crucified by Jesus Christ."  The girl helping us started crying she was laughing so hard.

    The other funny story was one our teacher told us. He said that on his first day in Malaysia, he and his companion met this guy working on his lawn and they asked if they would meet with him. The guy said yes, but for them to wait five minutes so that he could shower. Our teacher tried to say "Kami boleh tunngu" which means "We can wait" but instead of "tunngu" he said "tolong" which means help. So what he actually said  was "we can help you shower."  The guy just looked at the two of them and told them to get out and never come back!
    The MTC is still fun, but it is getting a little old now.  My buddy with the hurt back had to go home, so it was kind of sad.  Our best friends left for Madagascar, so we are the ones who have been here the longest.  We should get our travel plans next week and I am so pumped!   Three and a half more weeks!

Kasih,

Elder Madsen

MTC- 4th week

    Wow my first month at the training center flew by! We now have about 4 weeks to go and I am ready to leave to Singapore. The MTC is great but it is getting old and repetitive. The language is coming along really well. We have native speakers of Malay come in every Saturday for 2 hours and we just try to hold a normal conversation with them, it's pretty tough. Since we know all the church phrases and vocab, we have been learning new phrases to buy things like:
Saya mencari kasut dan stocking (I am looking for shoes/socks)
Bolekah saya ambil setengah kilogram lumba? (Can I get 1/2 a kilogram of ham?)
Apakah harga? (What's the price?)
     We have been learning about a lot of different foods people in Malaysia eat. The national fruit is Durian. Durian is a spikey fruit that I guess smells like gym socks, oil, garbage and a hint of sugar, but people in Malaysia absolutely love it. Apparently, every missionary has to video tape his first time eating it because they usually gag and throw up. So you all know the first thing I am eating in Malaysia. None of the missionaries ever make food at home, they all just buy food off the streets. You can buy a whole meal with a suarto t (a special drink) for about 5 ringit or $1.75. Monterey lizards are also a popular food. They cook these lizards that are 4 feet long and it is amazing I guess.
     We were also taught that we can never be caught with the Book of Mormon by police officers in Malaysia because they consider it a banned book even though technically it's not. There have been a lot of stories about missionaries getting arrested. So we're taught to just speak English to all the police officers and if they ask us where we are going we just say we are visiting a friend.
     Other than culture class nothing is really new at the MTC. Wake up at 6:30, eat, study, eat, study, eat and then study. This experience has been really good for me but I am ready to go and serve in Singapore and Malaysia. Four weeks left to go!
Jumpa Lagi,
ElDer Madsen

MTC 3rd week

Dear Family/Friends,

     My first 3 weeks at the MTC have been tough but also very rewarding.  There are four guys including myself in a room.  There are two districts of Elders going to Singapore, so all together there is about 23 of us leaving for Singapore on September 17. Our scheduale is the same everyday.   We wake up at 6:30 and shower and then eat breakfast at 7:15.  After breakfast we have a teacher from Malaysia come teach us the culture for about three hours. We then have 2 hours to study the scriptures by ourselves. After lunch we have one hour of individual language study and then an hour of  TALL, a computer program that teaches you Malay. We then get an hour of gym time, I usually either play basketball or sometimes we all play soccer. After gym, we shower and go to dinner at 5:00.  After dinner, another teacher from Malaysia teaches us for about 3 hours--an hour of vocab, 1 hour of grammer, and then 1 hour of reading the Book of Mormon in Malay outloud. The language is pretty tough, but we all work really hard at it and all of us can carry on a small conversation and teach the basic lessons in Malay. We have 2 locals from Malay that live in Utah,  They act like "investigators" so we teach them every day in Malay and they critique us on our language skills. It's actually really helpful even though they can be brutally honest sometimes--haha.

     I've already got a battle wound.  We were putting up chairs and I smashed my fingers;  so all of my fingers are blue.  It's pretty cool.  In culture class this week, we learned that missionaries buy knives off the street because the cobras get into their house and the missionaries have to cut off their heads!  Hopefully, I'll get to fight snakes!

     Today is our preparation day, so we went to the temple and we also ate there--they have the most amazing food ever!  Then I went to the BYU Bookstore and bought a family size bag of Doritos and three cans of Mountain Dew (caffeine free, of course).  I sat on my bed and ate all of it--over 2000 calories.  I am 166 pounds now!  I met this Elder and his dad literally owns Slim Jim--he has got 800+ Slim Jims in his room.

     Today we had a really good devotional about how we are all part of God's army.  The devotional speaker was brutally honest.  He talked about how our missions will be the hardest 2 years of our lives, but that we are all serving God and that we should just give everything we have.  I have 5 1/2 weeks left until we leave for Singapore.  I can't wait!

Jumpa Lagi

Elder Madsen