Not for the Squeamish - Part Two

Mom!

Frankenstein Foot

     Yea, I am basically a trooper; my stitches get taken out tomorrow--so, I will be alright.  I was looking at the stitch job the other day and it is mediocre at best.   I knew to be careful about getting my foot infected because a lot of people around here die from infected wounds.  They get blood poisoning, it goes to straight to their head, and BOOM they're dead; so, I have been really careful.  After I got my stitches, the doctor didn't even wrap it!  She just said, "No need!", but I knew better, so I wrapped it in plastic.  I had to sit around the house all day Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.  I was about ready to kill myself from boredom.  The senior couple really expected me to sit on the couch the whole week!  I came to Malaysia to work--not sit on the couch!! So on Wednesday, I took some pain meds, drank some Red Bull, and jumped on my bike. 

    This was week was good though.  We taught our Chinese friend again and he is progressing really well. We watched a movie about Jesus Christ and then asked him if he would be baptized on Febuary 17th--and he said, yes!  I am really nervous because big transfers are coming up on the 14th.  Now I hope that I say in Melaka so I can be here when he is baptized.  If I have to get transferred, I pray that I will either go to Ipoh or somehwere in east Malyasia.

     All of our Tamil families ditched us this week--so, I was kinda depressed about that!!  We did teach a Tamil couple and that went pretty well.  Yesterday (Sunday), one of the members, who always drinks and then thinks he is the smartest man alive, tried to Bible bash with me during church.  I was talking about Elder Bednar's talk on how to gain a testimony and be converted to the Lord.  Out of nowhere the man came up and stood in front of the congregation and started preaching deep, deep doctrine.  He told everyone that to have a testimony you have to know Elohim.  I just let him preach and when he was done, I talked about when Jesus Christ came to the earth, he taught simple truths and then bore testimony of those simple truths.  I said that I have no idea where Kolob is or any of that stuff, but I do know that Jesus Christ came to this earth and was crucified so that we could return to Him again.  I also testified that if we do the simple things in life--like read your scriptures, go to church, and keep the commandments--that we can all return to live with Him again.  After I got done, everyone looked at the man and he was dead silent.  He walked back to the back of the room and sat down.  His wife, who actually is a great strong member, was sooo mad at him--haha!

Batu Caves

    We also went to KL (Kuala Lumpur) this week to the Batu Caves.  We happened to be there during a Hindu festival day called Thaipusam.  It truly was one of the most messed up moments of my life.  The people do some weird chants and then they stick needles through their tongues and mouths as well as put fish hooks on their skin.  Then they take this metal pot with boiling hot water and make "the walk".  They walk with all the hooks and needles in their body and with the pot of hot water sitting on their shaved heads which just burns their heads!  Let's just say that I'm glad to have the priesthood.  It just felt really weird.  I am definitely not going back to the Caves during that holiday again.

    On the brighter side, we moved into out brand new church building this week.  It's in an old mansion and is really, really nice.  The previous owners claimed that there was a ghost in the mansion so they left it vacant for years; so, it was really cheap to buy!  We are pretty pumped about that!

    I am still working hard--already seven months of my mission finished!!  Before you know it mom, I'll be home--don't worry!  I love you so much and thanks for all the prayers!!

Selamat petang,
Elder Madsen

Not for the Squeamish!

MOM, 

Elder Madsen's "Psycho" moment

     IT WAS SO CRAZY!! I was taking a shower yesterday to get ready for church when the glass shelf that holds our shampoo and stuff fell on my foot.  Elder Johnson was down stairs and heard the glass crash.  Johnson yelled up, "Oh crap, is it bad?" I screamed back, "Oh, it’s really, really bad! CALL THE SISTERS!” There was blood gushing out of my foot and it was kind of awkward because I didn’t have any clothes on! I didn’t know if I should get dressed and get blood all over my clothes or what to do. Elder Johnson wasn’t much help because after he ran upstairs and saw all the blood, he started to get light headed and had to sit down. I put on a pair of shorts and basically ended up ruining my clothes from all the blood.  I tied a towel around my foot and hobbled down to the senior sister’s car.  Fortunately, the sister ended up taking me to the ONE good hospital in Melaka. I actually got great service! I think it was because all the nurses were little Malay girls and I was this white guy who could speak Malay. While they were cleaning out the wound, they found more glass in it, so I had to get an X-ray.  They couldn’t see any more glass, so the head doctor came in to stitch my foot up. She was getting ready to stitch me up and I was like "Pain meds?"  She looked at me like I had just asked for a million dollars!! She said, "Well, I guess we can do that." So she stabbed my foot with some shots that numbed it (well kind of numbed it--it still hurt a little) and gave me five stitches.  Of course, all the senior sisters and the senior couple acted like I was about to die and they wouldn’t let me go to church.  They expect me to sit around all week!! I probably can’t ride a bike this week, but I can for sure ride a bus. So, add another scar to my list of battle wounds!

  

     The senior sister missionaries also basically got robbed by the police this week. The police here are idiots!  They will try to give us a ticket for illegally parking our bikes or for other dumb stuff like that.  They’ll tell you that they are going to issue you a 600 RM ticket or you could pay them 300 RM right now and they’ll skip the ticket.  We always just tell the police, "Write me the ticket."  Of course, they can’t write a ticket for that much money, so then they’ll tell us to get lost. The sisters got pulled over by a policeman and he told them that they didn’t have a valid driver’s license--which they did.  The policeman then told them they would get a 600 RM ticket or they could give him 100 RM right now.  Mom, you’re not going to believe this, but the sisters pulled out every dime they had and just handed it over to him. They ended up giving the policeman 300 RM!! They thought they were really smart by getting out of the more expensive ticket, until they told us what happened and saw that we couldn’t stop laughing. 

     This week we taught the Chinese kid that the senior couple had introduced to us. He can barely speak Malay, so he’ll stutter and then spit out the sentence really fast. In English, he calls the senior couple, “Mom and Dad”.  We taught him another lesson and it went really well. He’s being baptized in February! The big Tamil family that we have been working with is still struggling a little bit. The husband took off and left his three daughters to take care of the eight kids.  The wife is pretty depressed and doesn’t really want to meet with us anymore. We brought the family some meals that the senior sisters made and the wife seemed to be pretty grateful for that. We’ll see how it goes.

      Something pretty cool happened on Monday. There is this German lady who lives in Melaka, but her family is back in Germany. She called us late at night and told us that she was having a family emergency and that she was going back to Germany.  She told us that she didn’t know if she would ever come back to Melaka and asked if she could have a blessing.  When we got to her apartment, she wouldn’t tell us what was wrong.  I went ahead and gave her the blessing and blessed her with peace and comfort and that she would be a strong example to her family. I also blessed her that she would return to Melaka safely. That was back in November and she just came back to Melaka this month.  She told us that she had gone back to Germany because her mother had died.  When she gave her talk in church, she talked about how after the blessing, she had a confidence come over her and she knew that she could cope with the loss of her mother. She said before she had the blessing, she had been a wreck and didn’t think that she would be able to make it; but, after the blessing, she felt at peace and knew that she would be okay. It was great because there are always a lot of people who come up and ask us to bless their sick children to be healed. They fully expect their kids to just wake up from the bed and be fine.  Of course, that doesn’t happen most of the time and I feel so bad seeing the parents all sad.  But after the experience with Sister Petra, I felt a reassuring peace.

     What else happened this week...oh a random guy from the street asked us to cast a devil out of him. He said he was having evil thoughts and that he wasn’t having a clear mind.  We gave him a blessing to have a clear mind. I don’t think any devil casting out was necessary. 

     I love you so, so much mom!! Can’t wait to talk to you on Mother’s Day!! 

Elder Madsen      

Another week in Melaka

Mom!

       I get my Christmas package this Friday--it is about time!!  I am so excited!  Everyone keeps telling me how big it is, so I can’t wait!

     This week we had just a normal week.  We went Badminton contacting and met two nice kids.  Hopefully we will be able to play with them again and see if we can come teach them. The senior couple here actually did something productive besides give us rides and cook us dinner!!  (Spoken like a true twenty-year-old! –  Martha)   They met this fun Chinese kid and introduced him to us, so we were able to meet with him last week.    He told us that he hates Buddha and that he wants to masuk Christian!  He even came to church on Sunday!  Unfortunately, we weren’t at church, so we didn’t get to see him.  Elder Johnson was pretty sick on Saturday; but, I made him go out with me even though he wasn’t feeling very well.   He ended up throwing up in the Branch President’s car!   I thought it might be a good idea to give him the day off on Sunday.  Elder Johnson slept all day on Sunday, so I cleaned the house and did all my laundry--it was still a pretty productive day.  We also taught our really big Tamil family this week and they are doing very well!  For some reason, we did not get attacked by the man-eating jungle dogs on the way to the Tamil family’s home.  The dogs weren’t there!  They usually just wait for us to ride by and then they pop out of nowhere and attack.  Maybe they died or something?  I hope so!  We are still trying to get the Tamil family to come to church with us.  If they start progressing and get baptized, it would be so amazing.  We would be baptizing eight people in one family--so we will see how it goes!

     There were some transfers today, and I was praying really, really, REALLY hard that I would get transferred--but it was a no go. Chances are I’ll be with Elder Johnson in Melaka for a couple more months...  Tell everyone hi for me!  

Jumpa Lagi
Elder Madsen