Mom 

      I forgot to tell you more stories from last week.  When I arrived at the Sandakan airport (smaller than our house), I came off the plane with a huge suitcase and with my bike that was all boxed up!!  Of course, there was no one at the airport to pick me up and I knew only the address of where the missionaries lived. So I got on a trolley and just managed to get my bike on there.  I then got off and went to get a taxi. The taxi guy took one look at my stuff and was like, “NO!!”  I begged and begged him to take me, but he was not budging, so I offered him 10 RM.  He took one look at my stuff and then at the taxi and then at my stuff and finally said...”OK!”  There were 12 people trying to smash my huge suitcase, my bike box, and me into that taxi. After like 20 minutes and after putting on a show for everyone in the airport who were watching this white kid with all his stuff get smashed into a taxi; I finally was able to get in.  I had to lay on top of my box in the back seat and ride with my head out the window!! Unfortunately, it cost 400 RM to even fly with my bike, so that is why I didn’t have any money in my account, but the mission has already reimbursed it!

      This week was good; we worked way hard!  However, Wednesday was one of those days where I just thought about home a lot! This area was shut down four months ago and just recently opened back up so there isn’t a lot to do; so, Wednesday was full of knocking on doors and getting rejected. But, it’s okay, I just gotta stay focused. On Thursday, we spent the whole day painting the Branch President’s house...pink!! Three times this week the whole town of Sandakan didn’t have power for several hours and once this week we didn’t have water for the entire day!!! So, it has been kind of sketchy here, but I still love it!

     Yesterday, we went to see a wealthy Chinese widow and we thought we were just going stop by, but nope—she went all out for us. She reminds me a lot of Granny. This is how our phone call went--I called her and she picked up the phone and said, "WHAT!"  I said, “How are you?” and she said, “VERY BUSY!!”  Then there was a pause and she said, "So what time are you coming over...make it 6!” And, she hung up! So, we go over to her house and her backyard is a jungle so she had a bunch of fresh fruit!! Rick would have loved it!! She had fresh pineapple, papaya, banana, and coconut!! Then she cooked us fish soup with Chinese herbs, it was wayyyy good. She is the nicest lady once you start talking to her too!!!

      I sent you all a letter a couple days ago!! It very well could be my last one??  I love you mom and cannot wait to see you!!

Elder Madsen

Mom,

         I got transferred this week to Sandakan in Sabah!! It is a way cool place, but it is just four of us missionaries out here; the closest other missionaries are several hours away from us in KK (Kota Kinabalu), so that part is kind of hard, but so far I love it! The Malay here is quite a bit different than in Sarawak, so I am still trying to get used to it.  The branch is great, they already tricked me hard core.  On my first day in Sandakan, we went to go see an "investigator" (who happened to be the branch mission leader and had served a mission several years ago), but at the time, I thought he was an investigator. We went to see our “investigator” and he told me, "Elder great news, I prayed last night and I got an answer that your church is true!  I want to be baptized!"  I was way pumped and asked him to tell us what happened. Our “investigator” went on to tell us that he had been praying to God and had not been getting an answer, so he thought God was very busy and therefore, he decided to try praying to the Mother Mary and BOOM, he got an answer that this was the true church! (You can only imagine my reaction!) I sat in dead silence for a couple minutes and did my best to explain to him that it was great that he felt the church was true, but that he should probably pray to God not Mary.  He then turned around and bore his testimony to me that he knew his answer from the Mother Mary was true and that if I was telling him that it wasn't true, then he didn't want to get baptized...I went home that night so worried that we had lost him!!  Then I saw him the next day at

Three Elders and "Investigator" Jason

church and he got up and gave a talk about how he had tricked me!! They even had a hidden camera!! So that was my welcome to the branch--haha!

     Sabah is wayy nice.  It is famous for all of its wonderful beaches. We don’t ride bikes here, only ghetto pimped out buses that blast techno music 24/7--so that makes traveling exciting. I was really sad to leave my old area. I was there for seven months and really loved the people there, but it’s okay. On Sunday after church, we went out with Jason--the returned missionary that pretended to be our “investigator”-- and we took a ghetto van several miles away to see some less actives.   The only problem was that it was pouring down rain and the buses stop coming at 7 pm. We lost track of time and ended up being stuck several miles from our house in the pouring down rain at 9 at night. I for sure thought that we were going to have a couple hour walk home in the pouring down rain, but we just sat under a shelter and tried to wait it out.  I am sure we all said a prayer in our hearts so we wouldn't have to walk forever in the jungle rain and after an hour of waiting, the Branch President drove by!!  We ran after him and flagged him down and he gave us a ride home!  The church is true!

     But with five months left, I have been very dedicated to working out hard core every morning and eating healthy (except when members force feed me rice).  So soon I will come home JACKED! But that is all for this month LOVE YOU MOM!

Elder Madsen

Pass the Ball!

Mom

     Our mission conference was wayyy good, Elder Wilson (of the Seventy) is amazing. He loves basketball--just like me! The coolest thing was that he attended our zone leader meeting!! He is a very interesting guy and he shared a lot of leadership skills and techniques with us.  He talked to us in our meeting about the importance of trust. He told the story of how back in the day he was playing in the competitive Church basketball league.  One of the players on his team would always find random amazing players to play on their team so that they could win. One year he got Nate Thurman on their team!! (Thurman is a retired NBA player, and at one point, an All Star—one of the best 10 players in the NBA ((This explanation was of course for Mike's own mother who has the sport IQ of a pea.))  So, Elder Wilson said he instantly thought that with Nate Thurman on their team they would kill everyone. BUT, that season they did terrible because Thurman would never trust anyone with the ball!! He said that all the players on their team had played high school basketball and were pretty good, but Thurman didn’t trust anyone and therefore would never pass the ball--so they LOST!! It was a very cool story. Quite a predicament!

     This week has been very good actually; we’ve been really focusing on getting members out to ALL lessons, whether they are less active members or investigators. We’ve had a lot of success!  We had 74 people at church yesterday, the highest we’ve had in a looooong time! We got a LA family to come to church that hasn't been in several years and another family that hasn't been in a year! The Branch President was so pumped!  He ran up to us and said, "YES, they are finally coming, thanks Elders!!" It was the best feeling ever.

     My companion goes home on Wednesday, so that is pretty insane. We are now the oldest group in the mission; it is wayy weird!  I don’t have any friends anymore. I went to zone conference and saw all these young missionaries and I didn’t know any of them!! But, I still love life. Thanks for all the prayers!! Love you and miss you!

Elder Madsen

The Rain Man

 MOM!

     Thanks for the answers; they helped a lot.  Bruce R. McConkie’s quote about us developing talents in our pre earth life that we later bring to earth with us is pretty crazy!!  I have started reading Jesus The Christ again, but I can only take in a couple pages at a time, if I read any longer my mind wanders and then there is no point of reading!!

     It is crazy to see how fast time is flying. We are going to see Elder Wilson at our mission conference this week!! It will be a long day though; we have a mission conference with Elder Wilson from 10-4 and then a zone leader meeting with him from 6-9.  So, it will be a very long day!!

     It has been raining here sooo much! The other day we rode really far in the pounding rain to try to find these less active members. At 8:30 at night, we rode back into town and stopped to visit a member.  I have never been more hungry or more wet in my entire life, and what do you know...this sister had a huge plate of rice with pig just waiting for us! We ate in dead silence for like 20 minutes because we were sooo tired!!

     Things here are great!  I miss you tonz!!!  Love you!!

Elder Madsen