Eternity is for Families

dearest family,

     this week was great!  sounds like your week was good too.  i remember when dad and mollie flipped over on the alpine slide.  that is rough.  i would be scarred too.  jaynanne you have a mission.  take a picture of that plaque and send it to me so i can just see it for myself.  i can't believe anybody reads the blog.  that is awesome but i just don't want people to see anything embarassing or offensive on there.  you never said how oskar did on the soccer games.  i take it he lost then?  ha ha oh yeah i was reading back through my journal and i can't believe carter. looking back he was dang obedient.  i would hate to be companions right now with my old self.  i would drive me nuts.  ha ha let's just say i'm more relaxed now.  so are all of those greenies from last week.  they are all pretty cool.  i testify dad you are an aggresive tourist when it comes to guided tours.  ha ha you are the big group commentor.  ha ha somebody has to be.  i bet your reunion was fun.  i don't think i told you but elder parrish is the ap right now.  you know his dad right?  he is way cool.  best ap in a long time.  ah yeah i remember kez.  she is pretty cute.  is she single?  ha ha remember i'm going to need referrals when i get home.  i've heard about some of this crazy world news.  it's a mess.  oh well i don't have to worry about it right now.

     alright so right now is ramadan.  it is not as cool as last year in sandakan.  the muslim percentage here isn't as high.  but there are still a ton of them.  they fast every day from 5:30 am to 7:30 pm for 1 month.  dang that would be hard.  so throughout the afternoon they sell food really cheap so that they can buy it to eat as soon as they break the fast.  i've reaped the benifits of this.  the food is good.  mcdonalds also has a buka puasa special.  so we're eating well right now.  i wanted to tell you a funny story.  we went tracting with a member.  he's a young man about 18.  he's kind of inactive but lately he's given us a lot of referrals.  he is really cool.  so maughan and reeves split from me and him for about 45 min.  we were at opposite ends of the same neighborhood.  well i wasn't planning on him really saying anything but he said to me "ok you talk first a few times so that i can see how it's done."  ok.  so i did the first few.  we were knocking on gates about 20 feet away from the front doors.  i said the next one's yours.  he was ready.  so the lady came to the door and i said hello and then turned to him.  she was indian and he didn't know if he should try english or malay.  so he was stuttering.  ha ha then he said in malay "...we....book of mormon!.."  ha ha that's all.  so then i took back over.  it was so funny but i didn't laugh in front of him.  it was later when i told the other elders that we had a good chuckle. 

     mollie i got a letter from you!!  it was big.  it was also old.  there was like 3 letters and 2 awesome pictures.  actually your pictures made me miss you guys pretty bad.  they brought back such good memories.  the first was us playing cards at mt rushmore.  ha ha i was pulling a funny face.  that was so fun there.  that was a cool trip.  the 2nd picture was all of us at paradise bakery before going to the Utah football game.  we were all decked out in red and everyone was making a funny face.  ha ha that was also so fun!  i got that on saturday.  so saturday and sunday i kept thinking about that.  president clark has asked us to bear our testimonies on every fast and testimony meeting.  i decided to talk about you guys.  so i just said how i got these awesome pictures.  i said how much i missed you guys.  but i don't miss you that bad because i'll see you again soon.  throughout this last week we've taught the plan of salvation many times.  i said that i've only been gone from you guys for a few months and i miss you, i can't imagine being alone for eternity.  that would be so sad.  i'm grateful for the plan of salvation because i know that i can be with you again.  i almost got teary eyed.  i controlled myself.  but i do miss you guys.  i'm glad we've had so many fun times together.  i can't wait to see you guys again.

     sunday was also a big day for another reason.  one year ago on sunday was my first baptism.  it was Ning's family.  oh man the memories came flooding back.  i miss those guys so much.  they are awesome.  i called them up on sunday night.  the fruit remains!  they are still going to church.  ronny, rayne, rainah, and rinijah all bore their testimonies at church.  that is so awesome.  the youngest guy jasli turns 12 soon and will become a deacon.  they've brought so many relatives to church.  they've found a lot of friends there too.  it is pretty sad though that the father doesn't go to church. i don't think he's been there since i've been there.  that disappoints me.  i hope he goes back soon.  i think he will.  he's a great dad though and a good leader to his children.  they also all miss me.  whenever i talk to them they tell me to come back.  ha ha i wish i had a say in where i was going,  i'd go back in a heart beat.  i miss sandakan so bad.  it's been such a big year.  also this past saturday a guy named benjamin in singapore was baptized.  he is someone me and thomas started teaching back in april.  he came to church every week.  he's from main land china.  that is sweet that he got baptized.  i'm proud.  i hope he can help the church grow in china. 

     it was a fun week.  we worked hard.  our numbers and results were lower than the week before but i feel like we had a way better week.  we saw a lot of people and helped people get closer to baptism.  i hope this next week ends well too.  elder reeves says some funny things.  i noted a few.  he says 'hey' a lot.  almost at the end of every sentence.  like "he is cool hey"  ha ha.  he said "play sport"  like they played sport.  he said i was "very crack up" to mean very funny.  and he says "guttered" if something went bad like "oh that guttered."  ha ha these are a few.  he's cool.

     well i hope you all have a good week.  let me know how the registration goes and how loll is.  ask spencer if he got my letter.  go to church. pray.  you know the drill.  i love you all.  don't forget it.  did you send a package?  if you did not yet, send some printed pictures so that i can show people here pictures of you.  get a good one of ben lomond.  alright talk to you next week.

elder petersen

15 Minutes of Fame!

hi fam

 

     your emails were great.  ha ha you crack me up dad.  that is so cool that oskar is going to sing at general conf.  in the mtc choir we were hoping so bad that we'd get that chance.  don't forget about it.  and don't fall asleep.  ha ha this is your last general conf as a primary kid.  next one we'll all go to priesthood session together.  whoa weird.  i heard about usa losing.  oh well.  it's just women's soccer.  mom it sounds like you'll do good at that calling.  it is actually quite a lot of people.  that is a big responsibility.  good luck.  yeah i hope grandma reads my letter.  you better make sure tomorrow.  tell her hi again.  i am so jealous you are going to boston.  that sounds fun.  don't go to loll on the last week.  spencer will be busy.  go like the start of august.  ha ha when i left, no offense, jaynanne just wasn't that great of a driver yet.  i can just imagine the scene of her turning around that big car in front of everyone.  ha ha so funny.  she'll have to take me for a car ride when i get home. 

     so first of all we made it big!!  ha ha we ended up going to that soccer game.  it was really sweet.  i could tell you so much about it.  you'll just have to wait until i get home.  but it was me hawkins maughan stratton hunt and lang.  the fearless six.  we went to a street market called pasar seni and bought knock of malaysia jerseys for 20 ringget.  we were all wearing yellow ones but hawkins wore a blue one.  we went early to the game and there was a lot to do out in front of the stadium.  pretty much everyone was in arsenal jerseys.  nobody had malaysia pride except the six big white guys.  ha ha instantly people started wanting pictures with us.  it was really fun at first but after a while it got old.  i'm not joking we took at least 100.  i know i'm all over malaysia's facebook.  i wish i could search it somehow.  there were these one guys with really big cameras that wanted our picture.  so we took a bunch with them.  they said they were from the bernama news agency.  ha ha we were hoping to make it in the print.  so i bought a bunch of stuff like a malaysia scarf and headband.  the game was pretty boring.  soccer is just not appealing.  there is no action and no funny time out or half time entertainment.  just ninety min of kicking a ball.  malaysia got beat 4-0.  ha ha predictable.  but it was a blast.  also it was elder lang's birthday.  he is the zl.  we've become pretty good friends.  he is really cool.  it was an epic p-day.  the next day me and maughan were the first ones to find it.  we went to the news stand to see if our picture made the papers.  as we walked up i looked over one guy's shoulder who was open to the sports page.  there it was.  there was a big picture of us right there.  atleast 1/4 of the news page.  it said "imported fans"  later it talked about how nobody wore the national colors or cheered for the national team.  ha ha so funny.  i bought a copy to save. we got a bunch of texts during the day from people in maughan's last branch.  they said that our picture was on the internet and there was tons of comments about it.  i got my 15 min of fame.  it was so cool.

     on thursday we got stopped by some cops.  we were walking to our last appoinment of the day.  it was dark already and we were just walking through a neighborhood.  a cop car drove past us slowly and then stopped ahead of us.  on the passenger side the window rolled down and he signaled for us to walk up.  there are always two cops in the car.  they just fed us some crap.  they wanted trouble i think.  they asked us why we were here and we said we were from an international christian church like we've been told to say.  they asked for our passports and we gave them the photocopies we carry around.  we don't carry around the real deal so that they don't get ruined in the rain and so that some power hungry cop can't just hold on to it to make us comply to something.  he said where's the real one and we said it was back in our apartment.  he said where is your visa and we said the same thing.  i handed him the small certificate president told us to carry around that says we don't get paid and we'll leave after two years.  they looked at it for a while, told us to carry the real passport around, and then just drove off.  ha ha they had nothing.

     the work is going really well here.  we have a lot of investigators.  we hit a record attendance at church this week.  there was 87 people.  that is the most i've hit in malaysia.  sweet.  we put the father of a family on baptismal date and hopefully his family will soon follow.  today we were deciding whether or not to wear our shirts and ties because we were going to do something for p-day.  we chose to wear them.  it was a good thing.  we were walking back to our house earlier and this guy came power walking up to us from behind.  he stopped us and talked to us.  he said he was christian.  he is from nepal.  he told us he knew we were mormon.  he said he would like to meet us at his house and introduce us to his 15 nepal christian friends and that we could share about our church.  we were like ha ha great!  he said how about i give you my number and address and you can call me to set up an appoinment.  ha ha wow he just said everything we wanted to say.  then we set up an appointment for tomorrow.  he seems really nice but maybe too talkative.  oh well you can't beat that.  i wish more people ran up to us and set up appointments.  the zone is really awesome here.  we're still doing monday makan.  makan means eat.  that is a blast.  i will miss this district.  atleast half of us will leave from transfers this weekend.  it was really fun while it lasted.  oh yeah there was a wedding reception here.  a girl from this branch has been going to byu hawaii.  she met and married a guy from harrisville utah.  he went to freemont.  the two of them came here to visit the family.  the branch had a big party.  it is the first wedding here ever i think.  it was a big deal.  it was fun.  a lot of people sand and preformed.  the primary kids did this little breakdance number.  ha ha it was so comical.  primary must have changed a lot since i was in it.  the white guy was pretty nice too.

     alright well that's all this week.  it was a good week.  this area is really cool.  hey i want to know your thoughts on this.  here in malaysia they sell a lot of pirated dvds.  i mean everywhere.  i don't even know anybody that buys regular ones.  most missionaries buy a bunch to watch back when they get home.  they are way cheap.  is that bad to buy?  just out of curiosity. 

    ok all y'all.  have a good week.  don't forget about me.  i'll let you know if anything happens with transfers.  let me know how the last harry potter movie is.  let me know if you hear from spencer.  go to church read your scriptures say family prayers.  seeyaloveyabye

 

elder petersen

Politics & Stomach Growls

hey guys!

     great emails.  mom i loved the pictures.  the chickens look good.  there's a lot of chickens running around here but they're all undernourished ha ha.  the picture of dad and brett cracked me up.  those two old men think they're so hip.  ha ha.  jaynanne looked too excited for her vacation.  and you guys all looked pretty dead after the run.  but i do have to say mom and abbie looked good.  keep it up.  thanks for the advice with the "drama".  here they write the date different so it was 11/7.  ha ha besides that i don't think malaysia would ever give anything out for free.  but that's sweet that oskar worked the system and got three free slurpees.  ah i do remember that scene from the great escape.  a lot of elders have never seen that classic movie.  what an awesome movie.

     alright i've got a few things to report about.  first is that rally you heard about.  it was pretty big.  i'm actually not in KL.  i'm in a suburb about 30 min away called Puchong.  the rally was in KL.  it was for electoral reform.  apparently the same party has been in power for 50+ years and it is because they are unfair.  they throw in a ton of marked ballots and they don't give the minority parties any tv time and they don't announce when the election is until last minute.  ha ha that sucks.  so this group called bersih 2.0 (bersih means clean and 2.0 because this is the second rally) planned to have a huge peaceful march to the government buildings or something.  well the gov told them to not do it in the streets but to do it in the national stadium.  then last minute they said they were illegal so they couldn't have the stadium.  this made everyone mad.  we met with one of our investigators, who is a huge advocate of this, a few days before the rally.  he said it was going to be huge.  he predicted atleast 100,000 people.  d-day was on saturday.  so thursday friday and saturday they didn't let any commercial busses into KL from other parts of malaysia.  on saturday they had huge road blocks everywhere.  nobody was let into the city.  there was barbed wire and police lines across the roads.  there were protesters that got in a few days in advance.  there was estimated to be about 50,000.  they marched around i guess.  they got hit with tear gas and water cannons.  ha ha but they made a point.  the last rally was in 2007 and it made a big difference in the 2008 election so we'll see what happens.  a funny thing is that on sunday during priesthood a member came into the church late.  ha his eye was all swollen and he told us that they hit him and he got tear gassed.  ha ha you should have seen him.  he was like a wounded soldier wandering into church.  but pretty much everyone we talked to is in support of the rally.  every race is kind of stepped on except for the malays (muslim).  the government preaches 1 malaysia but they have completely unfair treatment.  crazy.  but i'm safe.  the worst that happened to us is that we got caught in a huge traffic jam.

     every friday we go and visit our recent convert amy.  she teaches a bunch of kids "tuition" which is extra classes.  it is the same kids every friday evening so we know a bunch of them pretty well.  they beg me for magic tricks now everytime we go there.  last friday there were two girls one 8 and one 10 waiting for their ride.  i thought i would be good and teach them how to play go fish.  it turns out they already knew how to play.  so we played a little but then amy fed us.  the little girls borrowed the cards and then started playing with another kid.  i looked over from the dinner table and the little girls were playing a game called tee.  it is like scum but you lay down poker hands.  ha ha so i was trying to be nice and teach these kids go fish and it turns out the little girls could whip me in poker.  the chinese are so smart.

     on sunday we had quite a few investigators at church.  but we were expecting more.  some had to go to work because they couldn't work on saturday because of the rally.  so that's a legit excuse i guess.  we have a couple investigators that are really nice and really enjoy church but are just kind of "off".  the branch is really nice to them though and listens to their crazy comments in class.  sunday after church we had branch council meeting.  the first and most heated point they talked about was food.  after church it seems like everyone is eating.  since church is so far away a lot of times members bring food to eat after church.  i don't really know the procedures.  apparently our investigators don't either.  the members were complaining that our 'gators' were eating all of their food.  ha ha i know exactly who it was.  they said that they actually took food out of the members' bags.  ha ha again i can imagine exactly who it was.  anyways the members were ticked.  i thought, freak, maybe the members can be nice and share their food.  they said that is not how it works.  ha ha i had to defend our investigators.  i mean after church everyone is just eating.  of course they'll think the food is free for all.  i did.  someone just has to explain it to them.  food is a touchy subject here. 

     alright that is all for now.  the work is going good here.  we have a lot of investigators but none are really progressing so well.  but there a few.  transfers are coming up and i'll definitely be affected.  there are so many.  it seems like president is talking a lot about obedience lately.  i think he wants to root out all apostasy when this new group comes in.  he will maybe do away with the approved movie list.  oh well.  it was nice while it lasted.  sorry this letter wasn't all too spiritual this week.  maybe next week it will be....maybe.  ha ha i love you guys.  if you ever hear from spencer let me know.  i think i'll send him a letter.  hey if you are thinking about ever sending me a package i need a new journal soon.  i would like one like the last one but i don't think i'll fill it all.  maybe you can send me the next size smaller.  i'll send you a picture next week so you can see what it looks like.  alright sweet have a good week. 

oh yeah later today we're going to an arsenal vs malaysia soccer game.  i'll report next week

elder petersen