Comings and Goings

Mom!

     Yea, I am still recovering from poisoned Kentucky Fried Chicken.   It’s been a week and I still don’t feel all the way better!!

     I actually do know Alan Keh (my new FB friend - Martha). I met him in my first area in Melaka.  We went with one of the young men to play basketball with Alan's friends and they literally thought I was the most amazing basketball player in the world, but it is pretty easy to be amazing when I am the tallest one there!! Hahah! That was over a year ago, I am surprised that he still remembers me!

    I was in Sibu before and that branch is really growing. (Another one of my FB friends is the Sibu Young Adult Branch).  One of my friends in my group was serving in Sibu Jaya, which is in the middle of nowhere and has a lot of apartment flats.  The place just blew up because there is no other church in the area. The six weeks that I was there, there were close to twenty baptisms. I was always going to Sibu Jaya to give baptismal interviews.  One time when I was there, I went to the Branch’s Gawai (the Iban holiday) party and they made me ngajat (an Iban dance) in front of the whole branch.  My dancing was so bad that I am actually very famous in that Branch.

     Thanks for the money! Don’t tell anyone, but one of the members in Sibu Jaya was going to get evicted from her house.  She makes bead ties so I just gave her 300 RM and told her I would get the ties from her later. That is why I am so broke this month!!

     Things are still pretty hard over here mom, but I am trying to do my best. We have been working with Lezter.  We took him and his girlfriend to get married today, but they are both still registered in other places of Sarawak and therefore they wouldn’t let them get married in Sibu. It is very humbling being with Lezter. He is very "kampung Iban" which means that he has spent most of his life in his village; so, he doesn’t have a lot of money and hasn’t been exposed to a lot of the world. A couple days ago we had an activity at the church and afterwards we took him to McDonalds to eat. He looked at me and said, "Twenty-three years and I have never eaten at McDonalds." He is just a solid guy. He wants so bad to be baptized. I hope he can make it. He does have some bad habits.  He started smoking when he was seven and by the time he was eleven he was drinking!! He hasn’t had a drink in a long time, but we are still working on helping him to stop smoking. I love teaching him; he is a way humble guy.

     Earlier this week we were with the other two missionaries that are assigned to the Batu Kawah Branch.  One of the other Elders and I were riding our bikes really fast while the other two Elders were way behind us. All of the sudden, this car drives by us and points back and yells, “YOUR FRIEND!!”  So we turned around and flew back.  When we got there, there was blood everywhere. Then one of the Elders smiles and with a missing tooth says, "Is it bad?”  He had fallen and cut his chin open and knocked out his tooth! We took him to the hospital to get stitches and the next day he flew to Singapore to go to a good dentist to fix his tooth!

    Elder Petersen is awesome! He went home last week!! He is a great guy and could be Megan’s future husband?? It was sad seeing him go home this week; he is one of those Elders who absolutely fell in love with the people here. He said his first night home he cried himself to sleep. I am just giving you a heads up, the first couple of days I am home I probably won’t be myself. Just thinking of losing these people makes me want to cry. Luckily I still have eight months left!

     How is school, mom? I miss you a lot and you know I love you more than anything! I gotta go help this lady build her house!!! Thanks for everything!!

Elder Madsen

Down and Under

Mom,

     It’s okay if your emails are late. (We need to email Mike by about 11-12 pm on Sunday night, which is Monday morning his time--I happened to be running behind last Sunday--Martha).  We are just hovering around the computer waiting for transfers!

     I really liked you telling me about your testimony of door knocking.  Door knocking is one thing that I definitely have a testimony of. Many Elders say that door knocking is a waste of time (which it is), but then they sit inside all day and do nothing (which is even a bigger waste of time). I remember my last month in Melaka, my companion and I really wanted to find a new investigator. We worked wayyy hard. We set a one day goal to find a new investigator; we told ourselves that we wouldn’t come home until we found one. We knocked alll day and didn’t get into A SINGLE DOOR!! We were eating dinner in our depressed state, when all the sudden the senior couple called and said they found someone!! His name was Steven and we actually ended up baptizing him!! So Heavenly Father does bless hard work!

      This week was kind of rough. I saved up my money to go to KFC and then I got sick! I couldn’t keep anything down, including water. For four straight days, I just slept till 4 o'clock in the afternoon, got up, went out and worked till 10 o’clock and then came back and passed out again! Of course when missionaries get sick, the whole branch acts like they are dying. Yesterday, I walked into church and at least ten people gave me medicine--all of them claiming that their medicine was the best. Well, one of those ten medicines did the trick, because I am feeling a lot better!

      We are teaching this one guy named Lezter and it is going way good.  He is getting baptized next month! Zone Conference is next month again too; it is crazy how fast things have flown already!!  Sometimes life here gets stressful, but it’s okay—don’t worry about me mom! I am loving life here!!

Elder Madsen