Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Rice, Rice, and more Rice


hey guys
     wow i don't even know where to begin.  you guys delivered great emails this week.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAYNANNE!!!!!  you thought i forgot didn't you. how could i forget.  my little girl is all grown up.  don't do anything stupid now that you are an "adult".  that is so cool that spencer blessed the sacament.  i remember the first time i did it was on shut-ins with spencer shupe.  i read it out of the book of mormon and i said wine without noticing.  he corrected me and i did it again.  i was pretty nervous the first time i did it in sacrament meeting.  sounds like you did fine.  dad i don't think you could make me any more trunkier than i am.  ha ha i want to go backpacking when i get back but april is probably too early in the season.  arches would be fun.  i want to do something with my friends but they won't be back until a little bit later.  are you guys still planning on going to europe?  that would be a blast.  but anywhere can.  i'm wide open.  i spelled my companion's name wrong.  it is maughan not maughn.  he's from sacramento area.  yeah he loves yosemite.  he's told me a bunch of stories.  he's done this one big climb called el capitan a bunch of times.  and also the face of half dome.  he like to do multi day climbs.  crazy.  i'm so glad that dallas won.  that is sweet.  about the santasquoys i just talked about how we had them over for a lesson and they didn't really accept it but that we didn't lose our friendship.  i'd say most members are scared of losing friends and that is why they don't share the gospel.  it is false.  since being on my mission i've been asked to invite investigators to be bapitized on the first lesson and it makes me think back to that.  i have mixed feelings but in the end i think it is a good idea.  they have to know why we are even meeting with them.  but you don't nail them.  you say something to the effect of "if you were to find out for yourself that this was the true church, would you want to be bapitized and join it?"  if they say no you don't drop them.  it can't be an attacking invitation.  most people would say yes to that broad of a question.  i remember dad was pretty nervous because the missionaries wanted to ask them about baptism.  haha.  it also helps us to see how determined of an investigator they really are. 
     well yep the new area is pretty sweet.  it is way different from singapore or sandakan.  i swear our mission is so diverse.  east malaysia is a lot poorer all around.  KL has its slums but it has some really nice facilities.  east is almost all small cities.  in west there are a lot more chinese and indian people and everybody tries to find middle ground with english.  east is pretty much all good malay.  we have a senior couple but they are over all 8 missionaries here and we don't really ever see them.  they go to a different branch.  they're cool.  they are the browns.  they are from harrisville.  they'll go home around the same time as me.  they are mostly over family history for west malaysia.  we're on public transportation.  KL is so weird.  there's so many different types of transport.  taxis, big buses, small buses, LRT train, big KTM train, and a mono rail thing.  they are not nearly as organized as singapore.  we've already waited for a bus more than once for almost an hour.  none of the systems really connect up that well.  ha ha it's a mess.  it is mostly muslim here.  there's mosques everywhere playing that call to prayer.  there's also a lot of hindu and buddhist people.  christians are pretty rare.  our apartment is awesome!  it is brand new.  it's a condo.  it is reported to be the nicest in the mission but i think singapore had better.  it is pretty small, just the two of us.  there's three rooms and three bathrooms.  we have a flat screen tv that we can use on p-day.  ha ha awesome.  they just moved the pj2 chapel and so we live about a 15 min walk from it.  and it is in a great place by a busy road so it's easy to find.  the food is the same.  a lot of rice.  a lot of rice.  i mean a lot of rice.  there's fast food but it is expensive.  we do live right next to a big mall.  i hope i'm not here for 7-8 more months because i want more that 2 months in my last area.  hopefully i'm here for 5 there for 4 or something.  i don't know though because between the end of july and the start of september there are like 35 missionaries out of 80 going home.  ha ha so it's anyone's guess.
     last sunday was district conference.  so the four branches in KL and the branch from malacca got together.  basically i didn't know anyone but the missionaries and a few members haha and i couldn't tell who was in my branch.  so i still don't really know anybody.  the talks were all awesome.  the theme was about strengthening the church by strengthening families.  it made me trunky.  i was in the back and couldn't hear that well so i kept zoning out and reminiscing about home.  haha.  elder dass's dad is in the district presidency.  he gave a talk and he is just like elder dass.  all of his mannerisms were the exact same.  ha ha it is comical.  i saw president clark.  we had a good chat.  he's doing a run here on july 30 and if i can find a willing investigator then i can run.  it was good to see all of the elders there.  we have a sweet zone.  we're planning on going paintballing soon.  that would be so fun.
     bad news.  there's this one elder named elder ulrich who i became pretty good friends with.  he came out the group right before me.  he was in singapore the whole time i was.  he is from kaysville and went to davis high.  he was big into debate and drama.  we knew some of the same people.  anyways like yesterday he went home.  oh man.  he had 6 more months left.  he was having some medical problems and he reacted bad to a drug he got here.  he was so awesome and i didn't even get to say bye to him.  it's a bummer.  i think he knew it was coming though because a few weeks ago we talked about what it would be like to go home early.  i hope i didn't offend him by saying how much it would suck to go home early.  ha ha i can't wait to meet up again.  he was cool.
     hey dad did you ever get a message on facebook from someone named john lee?  he sent you one.  and jaynanne too i think. 
     sorry i emailed so late this time.  we were out a batu caves this morning.  it is this big cavern thing here with a lot of indian shrines all about.  you have to walk up like 200 steps into it.  there are tons of monkeys and if you hold out food they will climb up you and take it.  it was fun to mess with them.  sorry that i don't have any good stories from KL yet.  nothing too exciting has happened yet.  we might have a baptism this weekend.  that will be sweet.  i'll let you know.  i hope i can meet more members.  i'm going to send you guys a cd with a bunch of pictures from singapore.  it doesn't have them all though because i switched cameras.  and you've already seen a lot of them.  i might send you a postcard too.  i don't know my address or where the post office is either so i don't know how i'll send it.  well have a great week.  i look forward to your awesome emails next week.  if you get bored this summer then write me a letter! i love you all!
elder petersen

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