Airport Wrap Up...Love

Just waiting to leave in the Singapore Airport...

   this last week was awesome.  it was so fun.  the biggest thing was our baptism on saturday.  i'll have to tell you about it all some other time but the lady's name was josephine.  she chose me to baptize her. i was actually nervous for some reason.  but i got in there and got it done.  it went well.  after they closed the doors on the font and she went up in to the women's side i was just all alone in the font.  i was so just happy.  i just said a prayer right there of thanks.  i couldn't stop smiling.  it was a great feeling.  

   we had 5 investigators come to the baptism so it was great.  and right after that we had a branch social. our investigators loved it.  i can't wait to show you all my pictures.  sunday was also a big day.  i had to bear my testimony in two sacrament meetings.  in the first one i was just really emotional.  oh man i was pretty teary.  i joked it off pretty well.  nobody kacau'd me about it.  really nice.  i love those branches.  i just can't believe that soon i will wake up and not be in malaysia, i won't be in asia, i won't be elder petersen.  that's too weird.  it makes me sad.  

on monday a few people came to the airport with us.  laura and elsie harun, cicie, and flora.  flora was really sad.  she gave me a gift.  she is incredible.  she is one person i for sure have to look up when i ever come back to malaysia.  it was a teary goodbye.  last in the airport i gave my favorite family in sandakan a call.  oh wow they were just all sad.  they are my favorite people i've met here.  they were the hardest to say goodbye to.  i just really hope they can stay strong in the church.  they are in a small struggling branch.  i always pray for them.  

     i can't believe it.  this is it.  i'm in the airport about to begin my long trip home.  wow what an adventure it's been.  i'm just speechless.  all i can say is it was worth it.  i had an incredible time.  i knew the mission would be awesome but i didn't really know what to expect.  i have seriously made life long friends.  i've never had so many people in tears to see me go.  most of my relationships were pretty short but it was real you know.  i have a deep love for the people i've taught and baptized.  i can only imagine the day we meet again.  i won't be able to stop crying ha ha.  i can't wait to see you guys again.  it will be glorious.  i've been telling everyone for two years how awesome you are so i hope you are still awesome.   I love you a ton.  see you later today!

 

elder petersen

The Seeds Are Being Planted

i'm 21 baby!  sudah tua ku

     well thanks for your awesome emails.  dad you really crack me up.  it was nice to see that happy birthday sign again.  ya know i felt it, when i was here i could just sense that the sign was hung up.  ha ha thanks.  that is funny about brian.  tell him happy birthday for me.  oh sms is just text message.  technically i think they are called sms's even in usa but for some reason they don't say text message here they just say sms.  ha ha weirdos.  yeah everyone calls them flats here.  must be from the british.  usually if i translate i just sit right next to them in sacrament meeting and kind of talk softly.  there is enough crazy kids running around so my voice isn't noticeble but we do have a translation system that we just fixed.  so next week i will just talk into a microphone that she can hear on a headset.  i can't believe you guys got a car.  ha ha i can't wait to actually get behind a wheel again.  it's been a while.  and i've been on the left side of the road.  actually it might not be a good idea ha ha. let's see my plans when i get home?  i kind of want to go to the single's ward.  at least see first.  we'll see if i can get thomas to go with me.  i think it has potential to be fun.  ha ha yeah i hope i can run 13 miles by may.  we'll see. thanks for the email mom.  yup your grammar was terrible.  ha ha sweet though.

My BD cake made by Sis Josie, it was huge & so good!

this week was awesome.  we are still on fire and not really slowing down.  let me think here.  first is my birthday.  pretty non eventful. we visited a few members.  actually we had to wait forever for a bus in the rain so yeah happy birthday.  but we got some awesome food and a huge cake by a professional cake cook member.  sweet.  

Elder Brodie, Flora, Peter Wong, Me

there are two main highlights this week.  first is flora's baptism!!!!  it was great.  she is so good.  right before she went down into the font she just couldn't stop crying.  ha ha makes me want to cry.  the service was good.  
our bml is a little bit irreverent which kind of ticks me off.  but better than most malaysians.  actually i got to tell you, dad would be pacing around the room scratching his head every day here in malaysia.  let's just say i've learned a ton of patience.  at the start of my mission i got angry so much at the ignorance and irreverence of the members.  but now i'm just like whatev.  ha ha i just sit back and watch the show.  really i've chilled a lot but i'm still like dad in some ways.  two of our investigators were able to come and they really really enjoyed it.  they are a couple  that, so we found, was never married but they have two kids.  they are filipino and they are going to go back to the philipines next month to get married then after that get baptized.  but during the service the dad said to his wife this is what our kids need.  we've got to raise our kids in this church.  boom.  awesome.  even though they are not going to get baptized immediately because of the marriage, they are solid.  they get it.  nice.  also there were a lot of members at the baptism.  flora is very friendly and well liked.  she'll be a good strength to the branch, expecially if she can marry one of the members ha ha.  some how the branch afforded to buy kfc for the branch social right after the baptism.  ha ha so afterwards we had fried chicken.  it was great.

     the other highlights of the week center on one member family, johnny and his wife rivina.  they are just incredible.  they are pretty young and have one boy named vincent who is like 4.  they were baptized about 4 years ago.  well we just dropped by their house when brodie first got here and we asked them if they had any friends.  they said kind of but not really.  they didn't get very specific.  so we told them we'd be back the next week.  the next sunday we went by but they weren't home.  their house is on the bottom floor of a flat.  there was a bunch of kids playing around and they were like elder elder hi.  what ha ha they were all non members but knew who we were.  so they told us that johnny and rivina were at the next block over at the mom's house.  so they took us over.  it was kind of awkward but we just talked at the door.  we apologized because we were going to be out of town the next day to sandakan when we were planning on meeting them.  they were like oh darn ok.. ha ha but then the miracle occured.  the previous week i noticed a really cool basket that they always carry to church.  it is made of those plastic strips like the newspapers are wrapped in.  i asked how i could get one.  well while we were standing at that door rivina pointed across the way and said that a lady over there makes the baskets.  she said do you want to go see now?  of course.  so the three of us headed over there and met jalina.  we introduced ourselves but mostly just focused on the baskets.  she was really nice and really talented.  so i commissioned her to make me a big one.  she said it would only take a few hours to make but we said we'd be back in the neighborhood next sunday so we'd come by then.  after we found out they were christian we asked her if we could also meet the husband and share a short message about Jesus Christ.  she agreed.  so fast forward to this past sunday.  we first swung by johnny's and grabbed the fam.  then the five of us headed over to jalina's. 

Jalina makes these baskets

we didn't really know what to expect because we hadn't seen them in a week.  and we were mostly coming on the basis of the basket.  so we showed up.  it was kind of awkward at the door.  but we got in.  we just tried to get some small talk going.  we told them about us, about our families, and why we were in malaysia.  also they told us about their family.  the next miracle was that the dad was really nice.  this can be a dealbreaker.  so whew he was cool.  then after we didn't have much more small talk to say we asked if we could share a short message.  they are pretty religious and they said can no problem.  so one of us said an opening prayer.  after that things went great.  we just just talked about the apostacy and joseph smith.  we didn't teach a full on lesson.  but we really bore our testimonies and promised them that this can help their families.  i told the dad maklis that it has helped my family.  that my dad is a good dad because of this gospel and that's he's nice to us and to my mom.  he seemed to like that.  he told us that this seems good and that this could be very good for his family.  he and his wife committed to read the pamphlet and to pray about it.  they actually seemed really committed.  so wow just because i wanted a cool plastic basket we found a cool family of five.  huge blessing.

     it doesn't stop there.  sister rivina is still wonder woman.  she told us to come to her house the next day for family home evening because there were a bunch of neighborhood kids that wanted to learn with us.  also can!  so monday we went to the house.  we had a good group of 8 kids that were all like 11.  they were all cool but surprisingly well behaved.  we didn't know what to teach a bunch of kids.  we first played a fun game and got on their good side.  then we taught the gospel of Jesus Christ which is faith, repentance, baptism, holy ghost and endure to the end.  we drew it out as a stair case to heaven and had them each draw it out on their own paper.  they were good and smart at answering our questions.  we committed them all to show the drawing to their moms and we also gave them a pass along card with a picture of Christ on it to show to their moms.  i think they really will.  we told them same time next week and to bring their parents to watch a dvd.  also we got all of their names and ages and addresses and number of siblings written down so if nothing else we will go knock their house in a few weeks.  sister rivina is just the bomb.  she told us about a bunch of other gospel conversations she had with some neighbors.  her answers are great.  she is always looking for oppurtunities to share the gospel.  i'm glad we went over and visited them that first week.  i was talking with elder brodie about those kids.  there's not a high chance that they'll all be baptized right now because who's to say their parents will listen to them.  but they'll always remember the time when they were little  and they met with the two white guys and how they felt.  maybe in 20 years+ they will meet the missionaries and big things will happen.  you just don't know.  a good seed has definitely been planted.

     you'd think that was all but it's not.  for the third day in a row we met rivina again.  she told us that her non member aunty needed a blessing.  so us and her husband gave her a blessing and shared a lesson.  she's pretty old and going back to the village so it won't really go anywhere but it shows that sister rivina and bro johnny really do like us and trust us.  that is huge. 

A Rotan bag I bought in Kuching, Sarawak

     alright that is all.  that is just one storyline of one of the good referrals we've recieved but that's not all.  i could go on all day.  we are doing awesome right now.  our area is on fire and we are having great lessons.  we've been pretty busy outside our area but we've been blessed on the hard work days we have had.  i don't want this to end!  ha ha on some of our long bus rides it hits me that i'll be home soon.  oh no i'm scared. ha ha i try not to think about it.  i really love you guys and love to hear from you.  don't forget about me out here in borneo!

elder petersen

KK Shake up

hey fam bamily

     it's good to hear from you.  that is awesome that kolton is set apart.  i won't see that kid for a really long time...oh well ha ha.  wow.  i wasn't nearly as sick as you but i've been really down lately.  like i'm fine but my bowels aren't.  nothing is staying in me if you know what i'm saying.  ha ha.  sheesh.  it's not fair that i get to sleep downstairs?  ha ha.  why would you want to sleep down there.  i'll trade any of them for an actual room to my self upstairs.  ha ha well maybe.  actually probably not.  nice already planning a trip for when i get home.  that's what i'm talking about.  i think i would rather do southern utah.  anything can though.  wow steffanie april 10 eh? that's close to me.  like dad says hopefully we don't speak on the same sunday.  i want to hear what she has to say.  that's sweet.  you wouldn't believe it but i do hear a little bit about the election over here.  from what i can see there is a lot of low shots.  it seems like it would happen everytime but it seems like until there is one canidate that the party is all divided.  seems counter productive.  it seems like romney is in the lead.  true or not?  oh well i don't really care right now.  seriously sister song replaced sister wong ha ha.  dad your band foto is a crack up.  you just do not get embarrassed do you?  haha i can just hear spence asking nathaniel who he likes. that is funny.  hey don't let me coming home stop you from going out camping.  i'll just meet you guys at the house.  in fact, my friend can just pick me up.  i'll hold down the fort until you get done with the vacation.  seriously don't let me stop you.  i know what you're saying about the ward boundaries thing.  it is a big problem here and especially in singapore.  but it is different.  here the concern is where does a recent convert attend church.  with the friend that referred them or in their boundry?  president clark says every time it is better that they go with their friend for at least a year plus.  then eventually of course they must go to their geographical assignment.  the singapore stake pres kind of disaggrees.  here in malaysia though pres clark is the law so that's what we do.  my question is this.  should a ysa be required to go to the single's ward.  i just told thomas my post mission plans and he said he didn't know yet if he was going to the home or the single's ward.  well i feel like we should go to which ever one we can actually help.  after serving with a bunch of flaky members i just really wish that they would go where they were supposed to and i've always been extremely thankful for the members that were strong and added to the branch.  i think the single's ward would definitely welcome us.  but is it required? nope don't really want anything for my birthday. 

     well this last week was crazy.  like you knew hawkins went home.  so me bradley and laycock pal'd around for the week.  at the start of the week, we went to singapore like i told you.  then at the end of the week we tried to see all of the recent converts and investigators between the two areas.  on saturday morning disaster struck.  we were waiting and waiting for the assistants to call.  they were supposed to tell us transfer news.  i'm zone leader so i find out early right.  we expected somebody to come be with bradley and then a zone leader to replace laycock.  nope.  elder bradley got transferred to JB and elder laycock got transferred to Sibu Jaya.  Elder Brodie was coming up here.  so yeah that's the scoop.  only two elders up here.  sucks.  oh well.  should be good.  laycock and bradley are going to two awesome areas.  the rest of the empty zone leader positions in east malaysia got filled up with some really awesome elders.  so that is sweet. the real disaster is that me and brodie are going to cover kk2 not kk1. so i have to give the sisters everything i had going including the amazing flora.  nooooo.  and now we have no investigators and we are in the smaller branch and the non christian part of the city.  oh man!!  it's alright though.  from what i heard elder brodie is really sweet and a hard worker so i see big things soon.

Elder Brodie

     after transfer news we were pretty unmotivated to work because i didn't want to work in the sisters' area and the other two were leaving.  but you know me, we went out and worked anyways.  luckily that night we had a baptism.  it was a cool guy named Jerni.  he is indonesian.  he is really short.  maybe 23.  he is actually a gardener for the church and the sisters contacted him one rainy day when they ran to the church for cover.  so cool story.  also to top that off our recent convert elly baptized him.  me and laycock were so proud.  he had to do it a few times but he eventually got it.  awesome! elly's family came to watch so we had a lot of investigators there as well.   really cool.

     so this morning really early both the kids left and i went on splits with our bml.  elder brodie just got here.  he's cool.  i don't know the other branch at all though.  i don't know the area or the members.  there are no investigators.  so i don't know what we will do the next few days.  ha ha.  pray for me. oh and brodie has to go on a visa run friday.   ha ha oh man.  so yeah that's all i got today.  the last week was really fun.  i really like my son.  elder Laycock is so cool.  i got so lucky to get a good greenie.  and i got to be companions with elder bradley.  he is also awesome.  last night before we fell asleep we were just talking about all the funny random things that have happened in the past 3 months.  i've loved my time here. i hope the next three months is good too. 

     for my birthday...i don't really need anything.  i'm sick of junk food.  i don't really want money either.  if you give me money tell me something specific that i must buy with it.  even if it is as small as one ringgit or as big as 200 ringgit.  if you don't i won't get anything. i love you guys.  have fun back home.  i'll come crash the party soon!

elder petersen

Still & Strong

selamat hari natal!

     well well thanks for the awesome TRUNKY email dad.  it's nice to see that you guys are having a good time.  what the freak spencer ha ha pretty much all of the clothes you were wearing were mine before ha ha.  oh well.  how tall are you now kid?  i'm glad you liked my last email.  i feel like i didn't really do the story justice.  it was cool though.  just an update.  that referral that came is so awesome!! her name is flora and she is just perfect.  it's true that there's no perfect investigator but she is just eating up our lessons.  she is taking tons of notes and she said that that night she read and reread the restoration pamphlet until 2 am.  ha ha wow.  and the other elders' investigator jerney is doing awesome.  just yesterday he told them that they need to meet more often and he is looking to be a miraculous end of the year baptism.  sweet.  yeah dad i totally remember that night caroling ha ha ha so funny.  don't worry about me giving a long talk later dad.  i've got nothing to say.  :)

     let's see.  awesome awesome week.  last Wednesday and thursday we went on splits to tawau.  it was really really fun.  Elder Brooks and i had some miraculous experiences finding.  i don't really have time to tell you them all.  but they've been struggling to find new investigators and we went out and found a bunch of good ones.  saturday was a great day.  

Trevor, Peter, Elder Laycock

Peter's family

elly and peter were both baptized!!!!  quick background on them.  elly is iban and was a referral from tawau.  a lot of his family was baptized in tawau.  some of them moved over here for a few months and so they introduced him to us.  he is about 30.  peter is the son of a long time member who has like 11 kids.  he is also like 30.  his brother right now is on a mission to washington dc.


he met the missionaries before but just wasn't ready to go all the way.  about 2 months ago he came to church on his own and asked if we could teach him again.   it was so sweet.  they are really awesome guys.  they both have pretty big families that came.  also the other elders had a baptism at the same time so they drew a crowd.  all in all between the three guys our little baptism room was packed.  but it was sweet.  flora was there again along with a few other investigators.  

Trevor, Theddie, Elly, Elder Laycock

we had theddie and peter, who are both about to go on missions, baptize them.  they did it perfectly first try.  like usual the baptism was a little bit stressful.  we were just running around trying to get everything in order and everything right.  

we just want everyone else to have a really good experience ya know?  that seems like missionary work in a nutshell.  well the biggest payoff of the night was when the two of our guys bore their testimonies.  this same thing has happened to me before.  sometimes when you are teaching an investigator you don't really know what they're thinking or how much they are absorbing.  

Theddie & Peter's family

both peter and elly are quiet guys.  they never exactly opened up to us but they clearly enjoyed having us teach them and we could see small changes in their lives. 


well they both gave extremely powerful testimonies.  they both talked about how before they weren't the best and they didn't really have anything to do with religion.  they both got really teary eyed when they said thank you and they expressed their beliefs in the gospel and the spirit they've felt.  it was really awesome.  i feel like i can't really understand how much this means to the people i teach.  i always seem to learn far after the baptism about how grateful my investigators were to meet us and how different they were before.  it is awesome.  that's got to be like the coolest part of missionary work.  sweet!

  
 on monday morning we took a bus to sandakan to do splits.  it was a blast.  i absolutely love sandakan!! i really really wish i could introduce you guys to the members there.  that would be so cool.  jaynanne if we have enough money i really want to go back there with you and tour the jungle of sabah.  we were able to see a bunch of members and also go caroling.  while caroling, one of the members brought us over to their cousin's house.  i actually remember knocking on the door and contacting the lady that lived there.  i don't know how i remembered.  she remembered me too.  that was atleast in august of 2010.  ha ha it was great.  so actually i might have planted a seed and harvested a seed.  one of my recent converts there is named jasli.  he has got to be my favorite.  he is 12 and a freaking stud.  last year he did not know how to read.  he has never been in school but he's really smart.  now a year later he can read malay and english.  he is going to be an awesome missionary.  there's another 12 year old named joshua.  we baptized him there along with his whole family.  he is the oldest.  when we were teaching him we basically had to drag him in to hear the lessons.  he really just wanted to join islam, but in the end reluctantly decided to follow the family.  now he is doing awesome.  he is totally different.  he has the priesthood, he is 100 percent active, he carries around the book of mormon everywhere, and he also will make a great missionary.  it's so cool to see.  i absolutely love sandakan. 

A house on a swamp in our area

    

lately we've been kind of low on our finding new investigators.  this past week was finally good.  we found a part of town that is almost 100 percent christian.  when elder laycock was on splits here with elder bradley they found a cool family.  they only talked to the wife though.  she is 21 and indonesian.  she's got 1 kid.  me and laycock went back and she was so cool.  she has read both of the pamphlets that they left with her and she asked us if she could buy a book of mormon from us.  we didn't have any with us but we said she could have one for free tomorrow.  the next day we went back and gave her one.  her husband was finally there so we had a good talk with him too.  he said "hey i've met your friend before" in my experience that is rare so i doubted whether or not it was really from our church.  he said "yeah elder, elder, elder oren"  i've never heard of him so we were just like uh yeah maybe.  he ran into the house and then came out with a name card just like ours and a plan of salvation pamphlet.  on the name card was elder oren and elder osborne.  i recognized elder osborn.  my group replaced his group.  so that means that this guy, yanto, has hung on to that pamphlet and name card for about 2 years.  wow.  that is impressive.  clearly this guy had been prepared to meet us.  exactly what we pray for each day.

     well merry christmas.  happy birthday mollie!!!  i'm planning to do skype here at 9 am monday morning, there 7 pm sunday night.  you better be there or else.  i'm so excited.  i don't really have anything to say to you guys though.  i just basically said it all in this email ha ha.  jaynanne i loved all the pictures you sent me.  you crack me up.  ok talk to you monday.  i love you

elder petersen

Brown & Murky Miracles

astaga lah bah

     wow i love you guys.  your letters really crack me up.  i've been keeping the elders here up to date on my school options and concerns so i read them dad's email.  ha ha they got a crack out of it.  thanks for all the advice.  mollie!! that's my girl getting the Hobbit question right.  it's a bummer you lost.  oh well.  are you in 7th grade?  there's always next year. _she's in 8th :)_    HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!! 24 years eh? that's a long time.  congratulations. basically the missionaries run the show here in east malaysia.  kk isn't so much like that but in most other branches the leadership is so new and they totally lean on the elders for help which is understandable.  

Anime Convention at the mall :)

despite your law of sibling game contention, i still miss playing games with you guys.  sometimes at the end of the day if we have extra time we squeeze in a quick game.  especially if the next day is pday.  last night we got a good quick game of Ucher in.  it is a card game played with five cards each.  you sit across from your teammate and you have to take tricks together but you don't know their cards.  well we were two points from winning and it was almost time for bed.  it was a great finish.  those guys took two tricks and we took two tricks.  if we won the last trick then we got two points and won the game.  after elder bradley led out i knew i had the winning card.  laycock and i both threw our cards down at the same time.  he also had a potential winning card.  we won the game.  we started to cheer and rub it in and give two handed high fives.  ha ha ha it was fun.  no contention really. 

     

welllll well well this week was awesome!  seriously good week.  actually there's basically just one main highlight that i want to report on.  Lawrence was baptized!!!  it was sweet.  it wasn't pretty but it happened.  alright here's the story.  basically lawrence is unpredictably predictable.  he doesn't have a good handphone so it is hard to stay in touch with him.  on saturday the baptism was scheduled to start at 5:00 sharp.  he told us he would be early to get ready and everything.  we were like ok perfect.  we got there around 3:20 to fill the font which takes about 1 hour++.  so we got it started.  at 3:30ish lawrence walked in.  haha plenty early.  well at least we knew for sure he would be there.  i was chosen to baptize him so we knew the two important players were there, it would for sure happen.  well then tragedy struck.  at about  4:00 some kids at the church ran up to us and told us that the water was dirty.  we were a little surprised so we checked it out and sure enough it was kind of yellow.  i thought well that's not too abnormal for malaysia so we let it keep going to see if it would get better.  it only got worse.  the water just started to get brown and really murky.  the thing is that they used the font just last week and it was fine.  so we stopped the water.  we weren't sure if the water was dirty or if the font was dirty.  the next problem was that we didn't have the key to drain the font.  so we couldn't even drain it to clean it and put in clean water.  we were in a predicament.  the members told us to either do it at the Larson's condo pool or at the ocean.  we thought the pool would be a better option and not require permission from president clark.  we called the larson's and they said the pool was not at all private so they recommended the ocean.  we told lawrence this and he was like kind of scared at the thought of going to the ocean.  ha ha.  well, in the end miraculously we found the keys to drain the font in the clerk's office.  we realized that it was in fact the water that was dirty not the font.  so we would still have a problem of filling it back up with dirty water.  the district president was there and he went out to the big filter outside the building and was checking it out.  he switched it to backwash and let the water run backwards through the filter for a while.  he said that it was long overdue to do that.  we let it run until it finally ran clean.  by now it was about 5:05 or so.  everyone that was coming was there.  we ran inside and rinsed the residue dirty water out of the font and started filling it again.  but it would take at least an hour to get to a reasonable height.  i switched to my white clothes and we took pictures and then sang a lot of songs to wait the font out.  the district president was kind of impatient and so we just got started anyways.  by now it was about 5:30 or so.  well it all went pretty well.  

Lawrence

when it came time for the baptism the two of us went down into the water and it only came to right below his knee and to my shin.  hmmm.  pretty low.  so i had him sit down and i kneeled down to do it.  well it went fine and was still a good experience.  we changed clothes and finished the program.  no harm no foul i guess.  in the end we actually realized how all of these things worked out for the better.  a young man in the branch that is about to go on his mission to texas really wanted to bring his friend to the baptism.  he knew he would be late.  because we started so late it turned out that he came just on time.  she was able to see the whole service and sing hymns with us.  we met her afterwards and she is really really nice.  the other elders were planning on meeting an investigator at the baptism but he was late.  because we started so late he was able to catch some of the service.  he was able to meet with the elders after and they had a great lesson where they talked about baptism and put him on date.  now he has already come to church two times.  so what started out as a bad thing that delayed our baptism actually turned out to be really really good.  who would have known that.  truly miraculous.  we just have to remember 2 nefi 2:24.

     that was a long story i know but it was cool.  this week we are planning on two more baptisms.  i'll report next week.  elder laycock and I are working really hard.  we've had some rough couple of days but yesterday we finally got some payoff.  it started with awesome taco salads from the larson's after district meeting.  then we went contacting and found a really really nice family.  i was about to share about the restoration but laycock said no share about the plan of salvation. so we did.  and they really liked it.  they have like 13 people that live in the one house but it is mostly kids.  awesome.  also we were able to visit elly and co. he is the one on date for saturday.  also on the buses we talked to more christians than usual and had a lot of good discussions.  we ended off the night at the church talking with our branch presidency about a mission plan and about how we can help them out and then i did a baptism interview for the other elder's investigator.  he was awesome.  it is a privilege to meet with people that are about to get baptized.  they seem to open up the the interviewer.  it's cool.  so yesterday was awesome.  i wish we had a lot more days like that.

Here's the actual Location of Zion.  Who knew?  It's in KK

   

 well the church is true.  i love you guys so much.  i'm definitely going to skype you guys. ok? i'm planning on monday the 26th around 9 am.  it will be christmas night at 7 pm there.  is that ok?  i'll probably just have to make a new acount and add you again.  alright you guys are awesome. 

Stanley, 14 Way funny, cool kid, Branch Pres - son

 i talked with president about my release date.  the we were talking to the aps last night and they said pres might send me an email today talking about it but he didn't.  so i still don't know.  frankly i don't care.  i would prefer not february.  anyways don't worry about it.  i get there when i get there.  say hi to grandma and grandpa.  i'm glad you got that email from our bml.  i hope i get the package soon.  ha ha thanks so much.  i love you.

elder petersen

Round-a-bout's and crazy traffic...

greetings from butterworth!

     well this week was packed with stuff.  your emails were great.  i'll give you the b-town rundown in a minute.  it's a bummer i'm missing out on all the back to school excitement.  it sounds like the world is still in chaos.  cool.  you never told me about adam but steffanie did in a letter.  that is a strange situation.  tell him good luck.  i hope it is all good in the end.  yeah find me a car that'd be awesome.  i'll take the cheapest oldest thing you can find.  preferrably stick shift.  whatever happened to my motorcycle.  OF COURSE I WANT TO RUN THE HALF MARATHON WITH YOU!! i didn't know it was so hard to get into.  get me there.  that race sounded way fun.  say hi to the stowers for me.  i don't know how you can share the gospel with that lady.  you can just ask her what the best part about temple square was.  tell her you thought she might like a certain article and then email her a link to some talk or mormon.org story.  or mention that you just finished emailing me and then say what i'm doing and where i'm at.  anything can.  i think it would be perfect for jaynanne to be a dental assistant. 

     alright first of all happy birthday to mom in advance in case i forget next week.  you're awesome.  my new companion is elder kelley.  he went to freemont.  actually he was in mine and thomas's racketball class at wsu.  cool huh?  we didn't really talk back then but i did find out he was going to this mission and then when he was in the mtc i emailed his mom and she told me a lot of info that i never recieved in the mail.  he was also my district leader in singapore.  he is in the group right ahead of me so he goes home in january.  we are the only two missionaries here.  there are two on penang island that are included in our district. 

ruby and sivam right after ruby's baptism

also the johnson's live over here really close to us.  they are an awesome senior couple.  they are so nice and she is a great cook.  they are perfect for this branch.  they're the perfect mom and dad type for the branch.  after every meal they have root beer floats.  she was a principle in a park city elementary school and he was in real estate.  we don't have so many investigators but we did have a baptism on sunday before church.  it was a one legged lady named ruby.  we had three people in the font to help baptize her.  pretty epic.   

this area is pretty similiar to sandakan but on the other hand it is way different.  the people here are equally as poor.  but it is a different people.  most people know english here.  everyone here is indian or chinese.  our branch is mostly indian.  they all speak tamil and i don't know what's going on.  or the chinese speak their dialects and i don't know what's going on.  ha ha so still a huge language barrier like in KL.  but with the different races there comes a lot of good food.  wow i've eaten so much this past week.  ha ha i'm definitely going to put on weight.  every elder that comes here does.  oh well i need it i guess.  also every elder that i know that has served here has absolutely loved it.  to some it was their favorite area.  the elders you might know from the list include elder thomas, hawkins, hunt, and christensen about a year ago there was a cool elder here named elder peterson.  ha ha so everybody tells me about him after i tell them my name is petersen.  i might have to think of a nick name for me.  this is a biking area so now for the first time i am on a bike.  ha ha no good.  i was so sore last week.  it's getting better but we go pretty far and i'm not in biking shape.  also i have a terrible bike.  i'm thinking about buying one but right now i'm using an old elder's for free.  it is really tall.  but the brakes stick and the chain skips a lot.  oh well.  you get a lot more rest on the bus.  i was wiped out the first few days.  also the traffic is crazy!  i won't tell you everything mom but i almost got taken out by a big truck on the freeway yesterday ha ha.  the round-a-bouts are pretty fun.  we made our way through a big three laned one yesterday.  it's a mad dash. 

for as much as people really like this area it is struggling.  the average attendence on sunday is around 40 and the baptisms are few and far inbetween.  we hope to change that.  i think that's about it.  do you have any specific questions?  it looks like i'll probably die here.  i think it will be good. 

     i just wanted to mention a cool kid we met last week.  his name was darren.  he is pretty funny.  last wednesday we walked out of the internet kedai and were unlocking our bikes when these two kids came up to us.  they just asked us where we were from.  both were indian, about 12, and didn't know that much english.  but they knew enough.  darren said that he has seen us before.  we weren't sure but we humored him.  we gave them our card and stuff.  they both got on their bikes and followed us a little bit.  we seperated and went and ate and got a hair cut.  then he called us and told us to meet him at our church.  so we biked down there and met him.  ha ha he didn't really have anything to say, he just wanted to follow us.  so they went shopping with us.  darren kept saying that he wanted us to go to a studio and get a picture with him.  that's what a lot of people do here.  we told him we'd go with him but he had to come to church first.  he said he was busy and wouldn't be able to come for a few weeks.  so anyways he called us like every 20 min that day.  we weren't expecting it but on sunday he showed up to sacrament meeting.  ha ha wow.  he came in late and sat by elder kelley.  the first thing he said to me is when are we going to the studio?  ha ha.  he was really nice and talked to all of the members even though he is so young.  hopefully good things will come.  we took a picture on my camera so i think that will suffice for the studio thing.  i think he just wants a white friend.  also can.

Elder Christensen's Brother, Me, Darren, Elder Kelley

      elder thomas finished his mission here with elder christensen.  i replaced elder christensen.  from friday night to monday morning christensen was here with his mom and younger brother and sister.  they went around visiting a lot of members and what not.  we went with them to a few houses.  his family was really nice.  they brought american candy and stuff for all of the kids.  on sunday elder christensen got to help with the baptism.  as he was here i thought of how fun it would be to bring you guys around here and to my old areas.  man that would be so fun.  think about it.  it might be better than a big vacation that summer.  i know it is way expensive.  even if dad came alone or with just jaynanne or spencer it would be fun.  keep that in mind next spring.  if not then we'll have to come back in a few years.

     i think it is really exciting that abbie got that job.  but it sounds difficult.  i can't believe you're teaching ap us gov.  i think that is pretty hard class.  good luck.  take it seriously.  a lot of kids really want to pass that test to get college credit so make sure you teach them everything.  ha ha no pressure though.  as a senior i had a pretty easy schedule.  i took just regular basic us gov.  ha ha easiest class ever.  the teacher was not that good.  and i already knew everything he taught us.  we just read from the constitution and filled out worksheets and just learned the duties of the branches of government.  we looked at some supreme court cases and made our own constitutional rulings.  anyways so easy.  good luck.

     well that's about it today.  we saw a mcdonalds a few days ago so we're going to go try and find it.  hopefully we don't get lost again.  i've been here a week and kelley's been here three weeks.  it's the blind leading the blind.  i missed out on the annual start of school blessings.  that's sad.  your letters were great.  i'm glad they brought mom the sacrament.  i remember doing that each week.  it was pretty fun.  everyone we went to was really grateful but it's good to hear it first hand from mom.  i love you.  have a good week.

here's my address.  send me some small mail here as a test run. 

     26-08 Jalan Harbour Place

     Pangsapuri Parkview

     Bagam Dalam

     Butterworth Penang 12100

     West Malaysia

     elder petersen

ps do you have any pictures from camp loll?  send me some!

The Testimonies of Three

hello family,

     thank you for your email.  spencer is..the man!! ha ha it sounds like he had some good times up at loll.  just you talking about it made me want to be there.  delose is so awesome.  i remember him using that line about deferring the decisions but i don't remember what he says.  i just remember jody talks about being bald and they all comment.  ha ha they're quick.  tell spencer to write down a few cool things that happened so that he can remember to tell me next year.  the story about mom trying to sleep was so funny.  ha ha i can totally imagine her being so jumpy.  thanks for sending the talk.  it was really good.  seriously it almost brought me to tears.  as you talked about your experience on the plane i thought of all the times i really felt the spirit while bearing my testimony.  it just feels so good.  it's hard to describe but it's the kind of feeling you want over and over. 

     well this week was so awesome!  i can't even tell you everything that happened.  there was so much.  we had a baptism!!  we baptized a man named Raju and two of his children named Christina 13 and Ruben 11.  they are a referral family from an awesome member.  that alone is a good story.  basically she knocked on their door, not knowing them, and asked them if they wanted to learn about the church.  anyways at the beginning of the week we weren't exactly sure if the baptism would go through or not.  they have a lot of challenges including money, work and transportation.  we were really praying for them.  we met them more than usual so that we could keep them on track.  well saturday they had their interviews and were all set for baptism on sunday.  the mom and the oldest son weren't ready to get baptized yet.  they haven't learned enough and they are not quite as eager.  well the mom and son both made arrangements so that they could make it to the baptism before church and stay for one hour of church.  we were pumped.  

saturday night we put a little bit of water in the font and were planning to put more in on sunday morning.  the font is really small.  the engineers of the building say that the font will be too heavy and will break through the floor of the 2nd story that we're on.  they tell us not to have it filled for very long.  so sunday morning we woke up extra early and went down to the church by 7:30.  we filled the rest of our tiny font up.  members started to trickle in and then the family came.  the mom and son actually came!  it was so cool.  surprisingly too a lot of members came.  i was so proud of our branch and of how many people turned out to support this struggling family.  at the same time that elder maughan was reaching over to turn off the font that was filling up, the bottom ring of the portable font broke.  the pressure was too great.  it was bad.  it put a lot of pressure on the remaining top ring.  if that broke too then the water would flood the church and the floors below.  we'd be done.  so the branch president and maughan and i used some ribbon from a flower arrangement and tied together as best we could.  it was sketchy but it would have to do. 

we had a good baptism program.  the talks were good and short and everyone was quiet.  the baptisms didn't go as well.  ha ha oh boy.  the dad was first.  he is a big indian man.  elder reeves was the guy for the job.  like i said the font was pretty small so the water only came up to about my mid thigh, and this man was scared of water.  every time he went down his feet would come up or he would fight it and keep his head up.  by the fifth time reeves kept him down.  we're pretty sure this is the first time in this man's life that he has been fully submerged in water.  ha ha later the dad said, "the water..is..suffocating!"  ha ha yeah that's why we told you to plug your nose.  the kids went fine.  so since the baptism was before church we were able to do the confirmations in sacrament meeting.  it went great.  the mom had to leave early but she told us that she really enjoyed it and liked church, it was the first time she came.  so that is really good.  church was great.  we had so much food after.  there was a feast because of the baptism and because i'm getting transferred.  oh yeah i got transferred.  i had to bear my testimony in church.  i'm really going to miss this branch.  they are so diligent in their callings and in missionary work.

     sunday afternoon we went to say goodbye to one of our favorite families, sister amy and brother lim.  amy and her son were baptized in may and brother lim and the two daughters have not yet been baptized but they really enjoy the church.  we go to their house every friday for good food and a lesson.  bro lim has been going to church as long as amy has but he's had some big challenges to overcome.  first he was the top dog in a big tea company so that conflicted with the word of wisdom.  miraculously about a month ago he quit that job so that he could keep that commandment even though he's not a member.  wow amazing!  the second challenge is his mom and his buddhist traditions.  he has a lot of duties as oldest son and he doesn't want to offend his mother in the sunset of her life.  after eating, we had a great lesson with them.  last time we talked all about the atonement and so we were planning on finishing the 2nd half of the plan of salvation.  it went really well as we went through and explained everything.  we helped him resolve some concerns.  right at the end elder maughan just started to bear his testimony about the importance of getting baptized and going to the temple.  he said "brother lim we love you and your family so much and we want to see you at the temple."  he couldn't say that without choking up and crying.  in turn brother lim got teary.  i also got teary.  i bore my testimony in the importance of doing what we need to here on earth so that in the next life we can have eternal happiness.  even the greeney gave an awesome testimony about the book of mormon.  everyone was really quiet and just really listening.  it was an awesome moment.  i could feel the spirit so strong.  we didn't harp on him and ask for the umpteenth time for him to get baptized.  we just asked him to read a chapter the book of mormon and pray about it.  i gave them a picture that we took a few weeks earlier of their whole family and i gave bro lim a tie.  he was pretty thankful.  well we took another picture and said bye.  i will really miss them.  

after that we walked over to raju's house to say bye to him and his children.  the mom was at work but they were all very happy to see us.  they miss me already.  i gave ruben and raju a tie and we took a picture.  they just seemed so happy.  they have changed in the short time that i've known them.  they were so quiet and sad the first time we met them but now they were all smiles and telling us how good they feel.  i hope they stay strong in the church.  it'll be the only thing that will keep them happy.

 monday morning i transferred up north to a small town called Butterworth.  google map it.  it was a long lonely bus ride.  there is a famous island off the west coast of malaysia called penang island.  butterworth is right across from it on the main land.  so far so good.  everybody that has served here has loved it.  thomas and hawkins both served here for long amounts of time and loved it so i think it'll be ok.  well tuesday morning i got a call from elder maughan back in KL.  he had some good news for me.  he said that a few minutes earlier that sister amy called him.  he asked if he could call her back because he was in a meeting but she insisted.  she told him that brother lim really thought about the things we shared and he wants to get baptized and his daughters too!  i am so excited to hear that!  maughan is going to meet them tonight to talk about it. he told me that they want it as early as this sunday.  it will probably have to wait until next sunday because they have to be taught a few more things.  that is so awesome.  like i said i'll really miss that area. 

     well there's tons more that i could write but my letter is already too huge.  i'll have to report on butterworth next week.  supposedly there is a lot of good food here so i might put on some weight.  thanks for elder kersey's letter.  dang he has a way with words.  i'm not as good of a writer as him but i promise you i have had unforgettable experiences on my mission.  i love being out here.  i love sharing about the gospel with families who need and are seeking this knowledge.  nothing is better than to see a family learn about the gospel and then to see changes in their lives as they follow it.  it makes it all worth it.  i hope you have a good week.  i look forward to hearing from you again next week.  tell mom i love her too even if she is on drugs.  ha ha say hi to everyone.

elder petersen