Sixth Week in Melaka

Momma!

     Melaka is doing pretty good!  We still check on the puppies whenever we can and they seem to be doing okay. No one has responded to the puppy giveaway?  They have a few more weeks, haha!  But, our poor investigator Max is doing pretty bad! He made a bunch of money playing his guitar, but then on the way home he got beat up by three Muslims.  They stole everything!   He was beaten up pretty bad; he ended up with a couple of broken ribs and a black eye.

     The Zone conference that we had last week was fun.  We each prepared a talk on gratitude and then randomly four of us were selected to get up and give our talks; so, of course, I was one of those four. Then we got a talk about safety and had some other little trainings by the APs and the President. We get to Singapore by bus because Melaka is only about four hours away. The hard part is going through the border. I told you about that last week—fortunately, I finally I made it through. 

Petrona Twin Towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

     This week we went to Kuala Lumpur--it’s like the New York City of Malaysia.  We went zip lining in the jungle for a zone activity. It was soo sweet, I sent you some pictures!  I also sent you a picture me in front of the Petrona Twin Towers. They are very cool looking.  This week we also tried to catch a biawak (a big lizard) again.  Elder Sroufe has never got one and he really wants to.  This time, we got very close to killing one.  In fact, we had one cornered and Elder Sroufe gave me a rock to kill it; but, I didn’t have the heart, so I purposely missed.  (Don’t tell him that, though haha.) 

     

     We have another baptism scheduled for next week.  I’m excited!  That makes two people so far!

     I love you so much mom and miss you!!   Tell everyone hi for me!

Jumps,
Elder Madsen

Fifth Week in Melaka - Plus free puppy give away!

Hey Pops,

     Things have been going good! We just got back from our zone conference in Singapore. It was nice to see all my old friends from the MTC and we had a night to just mess around together. It was good to see President Mains again--I really like him. On the way back to Malaysia, I had some trouble getting across the border.  The Malaysian border control started questioning me and yelling at me.  I was really nervous because I thought that they were not going to let me back in.  But, thankfully they did!  The last missionaries that got arrested had to strip down to their underwear and then they were thrown in jail; so, of course people asked them questions and the missionaries taught the people in the jail--haha!  Speaking of which, the office missionaries never gave me money for the subway; so, I had to drain the last of my money on my card for the tickets and stuff.

     You asked me if we do much tracting.  We usually don’t door knock too much because everyone works during the day and everyone has gates around their house to keep out robbers. We also don’t knock on doors because we aren’t allowed to talk to Muslims about the church—it’s against the law. Some missionaries recently knocked on a Muslim’s door and he called the police.  The missionaries were stripped down and thrown in jail for a night. When we want to do some contacting, we find people walking around or go to the super, super poor sections where people aren’t at work.  The majority of the poor people are Tammils. (Cousin Steve Hilton would probably know about them.) They are a tribe from India and they speak Tammil; it’s the weirdest language ever. Most of the actual Malaysians (the people who grew up in Malaysia their whole life) are Muslim. People don’t call themselves Muslims, they call themselves Malayues which means they are Muslim.  The Malayues will never be poor because the government just gives them money.  Sometimes we will tract at 7 p.m. when the Muslims have their call to prayer.  The horn starts playing and it is so loud that everyone hears it.  When all the Muslims go to pray, we go out and knock on doors because everyone at home is not Muslim. We also thought of a new tracting strategy today.  We are only going to knock on doors of houses that have dogs.  Muslims can't even touch dogs--so we know that a house with dogs is okay to go to.  The branch in Melaka has about 30 active members and the branch president is a new convert; so, basically my companion, Elder Sroufe, kinda of runs the branch. But, the members are all really nice, I love the members here. I just wish they would feed us some more—haha!  They are really good at getting us referrals though. We led the zone this week in number of referrals and Melaka is known for having some really poor numbers. We have about five more people that we are teaching; so, hopefully things will work out.

     Do you want any puppies?  We found a homeless dog that just had puppies that one of the locals delivered.  So now everyday we check up on the puppies to make sure they are doing alright and everything. Now we are looking for people who would want them in the next couple weeks when they are old enough to leave their mother.  Maybe we could airmail one home!  Or, not.

Okay, I gotta go.  Love ya, Pops!
Elder Madsen

Fourth Week in Melaka

Mom and Dad!

     Mom, I just cracked up at your stories about your middle schoolers. Ready for the Malay phrase that means "kids these days" - "Budak Budak ni". At least kids there can go to school.  The kids here have basically nothing; literally, they do not even have a bed to sleep on.  The amazing thing is that the kids don't care--that are all still so happy.  The parents here are unbelievable.  They let their kids just run wild in the street.   There are parents who just feed their kids cake and the kids teeth are rotting out.  Every Sunday, the branch all eats together in the church building.  My companion and I take all the kids and make sure that they eat their rice before their cake.  It makes me grateful that I grew up in a great home with great parents.  

     Today we are going to Singapore for a zone conference so I can’t send pictures this week.  Next week I will send some!

     This week has been pretty good though!   The Tammil (an Indian tribe—there are a lot of them living in Melaka) family with the auntie who had a dream is doing pretty well; except, they don’t have any money and they always ask us for money. They don’t understand that we only get 600RM a month which is like 200 bucks. We have tried to catch crabs and sell them to a market to help get money, but we weren’t too good at that, so it didn’t work out too well. I got to confirm Ganneson this week--it was pretty cool!  Also during the week, we had a crazy Chinese guy invite us to his house.  After we talked to him for a while, he figured out that we had different religious views; so, he basically said he was going to lock us up inside his house!  My companion and I decided that we would just end our discussion right there and we walked or rather we kinda ran out of his house.  We also got to watch Saturday’s sessions of Conference for our church this week. There were some really good talks! A lot of the morning session was about the Plan of Salvation and how we will be reunited with out loved ones after our earth life. The one Elder who told the story about the baby choking on the chalk gave a really good devotional at the MTC when I was there.  We had to watch the second session of Conference in Malay, so I only understood about fifty percent of it.

Durian Fruit - It smells like dirty feet!

     Let me see, what else happened this week...  Oh, I ate a century old egg.  It’s not really a century old, but they call it that. It’s just an egg that has sat in a jar for like 3 months that rots and pickles. It basically was terrible! I also had my first durian (a native fruit) this week.  It was pretty bad at first but then I got used to it and now I like it! I already have had two more durian this week.  They are amazing!

     Okay, you asked me for my Christmas list.  So far for Christmas can I have some CDs that are not the Tabernacle Choir?  I have a lot of them, but I would like some other good church music. I also want a CD player.  I can buy some cheap speakers here. They don’t have regular electricity, but I have a lot of converters, so electronics are cool.  Then maybe some different candy or something, idk, surprise me!! Maybe you could send me some more ties? Not red though, the locals always make fun of me because I have all red ties.  I would also like to buy a backpack here.  It has rained and poured all this week and my backpack is not doing very well.  They have backpacks here that are nice and water proof for 200RM which is about 65 bucks.  The rain is killing me.  It’s like someone is dumping water on my head over and over again—it rains non stop.  Oh and send some deodorant; they have weird kinds here.  Also, remember all those baseball hats that I have in my closet.  Can you send me those so that I can give them out to the kids?

      I gotta go.  Love you so so so much mom and dad.   Miss you!

Jumps
Elder Madsen

Third Week in Melaka

Momma!

     I didn’t hear anything about the change in the missionary age, but I do have a funny story about it.   We don’t get conference live. We get to watch it like next week; so, I didn’t know about the new lower age for new missionaries.  In church on Sunday, I had a new convert sitting by me.  I told him that if I bear my testimony in Malay that he had to go up and bear his testimony in English.   He said fine and so after I was done he went up. He said, “I am thankful that girls can serve missions at the age of 19 and guys at 18.”  I just buried my head in my lap and started laughing because I thought he just had it wrong--and so did my companion.  But, then the guy showed us on his phone about the age change and he was right!! Ha, Ha! 

     This week we have been working again with our homeless friend.  He is a heavy drinker and he came to us crying and told us that he wanted to change. So I kinda got in his face a little and told him if he truly wanted to change it would not be easy; but, if he would pray to God and ask for help and really try to change, God would help him. We told him that anytime he needed a drink he should call us and we would come and help him.  He promised us that he would. The next morning I found him passed out by the sea side and had to help him get to his shed.  It is so sad to know that if he doesn’t change; his life is going to be terrible.  I just started crying and told him that he is better than this; that he knows that he is miserable; but if he will let us, we can help him be happy!  Unfortunately, he is drunk literally 24 hours a day. Like I am not kidding--he wakes up and starts drinking immediately; so, I have never seen him sober. As long as he is always drunk, he won’t change. It is so frustrating!

     But, the good news we baptized Ganneson this week (his original date was last week) and we are also teaching another family.  The first night we taught the family about the restoration. That night the grandma had a dream that a young man in all white came and got her out of bed and took her to a beautiful place with little kids running around. So she is getting baptized in 3 or 4 weeks.

     Yea the animal situation is sad.  There are so many homeless cats running around and the little kids always mess with them. Whenever I see the kids messing with them I chase them away and save the cats, so don’t worry.  But, everything else here is really good!!

Jumps

Elder Madsen

Second Week in Melaka

Hi Mom,

Bijiwak Hunting

    It took me awhile to recover from the squid spaghetti.  Monday night I woke up drenched in cold sweat.  I threw up twice and told my companion that I thought I was dying. But, the next day I still went out and did missionary work because I am so dedicated—but,  it was pretty miserable.   It took me a couple days to get over it, but I am pretty much over it now!  That same sweet sister brought me so more new food.  This time, I ate pig organ and pig legs soaked in vinegar and ginger--it was on the same scale as the the squid! But, I didn’t get sick from it, so I am still alive!  I still haven’t tried durian! I think Sister Molly (this really old lady who we see everyday) is having us over for durian on Wednesday. I’ll video tape me eating it for you.  Today (Monday) I went Bijiwak hunting. We hunted these huge Monterrey lizards that are the size of crocodiles with bamboo spears and these heavy sword things.  The idea is to knock the lizards out. We didn’t have any luck, but next week we will catch one!   The meat is supposedly really good!

     The weather is really humid and I sweat a lot. Haha, but we don’t have to wear a suit!!  I did give three of the ties dad bought me to Ganneson and his family so they could wear them to church.  I’ll have to buy more, but don’t worry ties are really cheap here. My companion, Elder Sroufe, is really cool.  He’s been on a mission for 15 or 16 months and has been Melaka for half of his mission.  Our living conditions are normal living conditions in Melaka. We don’t have beds, clean water to drink, or hot water. But, at least we have air conditioning, so it’s not like terrible.

     One thing that is really sad is that in Melaka there are millions of cats and dogs that are homeless.  They sit at restaurants and beg for food.  The crazy little kids always mess with the cats. In one of the pictures I sent you the kids just picked up the cat and carried it over their head.  I chased down the kids and told them to stop being mean and I took the cat from them. For the rest of the day I walked around with the cat on my shoulders. Now every time I go to that kampung that boy sees me and comes by and says Hi.

      Anyone here can find a job, but there still are so many homeless people  There is this one homeless guy we have been trying to teach.  He used to be a big time singer in Malaysia, but then he cheated on his wife and had drug problems, so he lost his music career and money and everything.  One time he saw us tracting and wanted to come talk to us, but he was too drunk and scared.  He let us go by, but then he prayed to God to see us again. That night a German lady in the church had a birthday party by his "shack".  She invited him to come so he saw us again.  He now always calls me at night and just cries and cries.  He says he is so lost and he needs our help, but he can not stop drinking.   It is so frustrating; he drinks three bottles of Tequila a day.  And like no joke, 98% of Malaysia smokes--6 year olds even smoke!!

     Tell the neighbors I miss them and thanks for all the support.  Love you so much Mom!!

Jumpa Lagi
Elder Madsen