hello family!
i ran out of common malaysian greetings. your email is comical. wait a second i want to be involved in the gift exchange! tell me who i have to buy for. ha ha that's comforting that there's still a lot of drama at home. ha ha. it makes me laugh but then again i am not there. oh man i think utah might lose to boise st. dang. where is tcu playing? how are the jazz doing? ah now i understand what you meant about the left shoulder thing. yeah there's usually only like 5 of us max to do anything so the right shoulder is pretty natural. another "myth" i heard in the mtc is that a sister should say the opening prayer and a priesthood holder should say the closing prayer. ha i haven't brought that one up with my opposition here. we've got a "problem" with the white shirt thing. i mean its not a problem but most people don't where white shirts and ties. a lot do but a lot just can't really afford it. the weilands have done a good job of buying some cheap white shirts and they also have a rack of ties. in fact a lot of people wear jeans and a nice shirt to church. it can be the nicest clothes they have. it may not be a skirt and blouse but they make sure to always be very clean. ha yeah i can imagine you being quick to anger only because of me. elder garrett always makes fun of me because i am impatient and get mad quickly in some situations. oh well. i usually have good reason for it. its been my goal lately to not get angry but sometimes i just can't help it. sounds like you still got the best work parties around.
i got transferred!!! oh wait no i didn't. i'm still in sandakan. iha i heard that i won't get transfered until march 2012, when i go home. i'm going to live the one area mission just like in the good ol days. i can't remember if i told you about the pondans or not. i'm not sure if that is how you spell it. pondan means like gay or someone who cross dresses. its terrible. its funny actually but its creepy. sandakan has a lot of pondans. you see a girl walking ahead of you. you think to yourself they look kind of manly. then they turn around and give you a creepy smile and a wave. ahhhhh!!!!!! ha its scary. its so scary when they look pretty girly but then they say hello in a deep voice. ha ha it reminds me of brian regean, excuse me sir? MAM! ha ha anyways its creepy. they are so dumb and they usually travel in packs of three or four. thats enough about this. another thing that i know i've said before is about the garbage. in malaysia there is garbage everywhere. no body thinks twice about throwing a plastic bag or a bottle on the ground. i admit i am also guilty of this. :( don't tell delose or the highlanders. elder tovar told me its ok as long as you say Satu Malaysia! when you throw it. that means one malaysia and its something they always say here!!
yesterday i was watching the saturday morning session of general conference. i don't know if you saw it all because its the first one. the first speaker after president monson is elder holland. you've got to go online and watch his talk. it was so good. i seriously almost cried. it just helped me realize how much i missed you guys and am thankful for all you do for me. so thank you! i love you. one question for you daddio. we have an investigator named freddy. he is the bomb. he really knows the new testiment. he has basically accepted every doctrine and commandment we've taught him. he loves the book of mormon. and even bought the new translation of the triple in indo. he started coming to church regularly. he prays all the time. we don't really know what his deal is. he just said he hasn't recieved an answer to his prayers. anyway thats his background. the other day we were teaching in depth about lesson 2. our doctrine about adam and eve was new to him but he accepted it. but he asked why they had a commandment to have kids before the fall but we teach they couldn't have kids. i told him what i thought and know but i couldn't find a good scripture to back it up. what do you think? if you think of anything profound email the weilands so i can get it earlier.
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| Trevor, Joshua, Kwong, Elder Garret |
saturday we had a baptism!! his name is Kwong and also his son Joshua. this is jessica's husband who was baptized a few weeks ago. he just wasn't baptized yet because he could never meet with us to learn and he hadn't been to church very much, the son followed.
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| Kwong's Family |
its so awesome that we got them all. Jessica, Kwong, Joshua, Mery jean, and Ling Ling.
they have more kids below 8. what a great family. he is chinese and goes by Kong, or King Kong. he was buddhist when we first met. he knew nothing about Jesus Christ really. he came to church once and during someone's talk, i think pres w, he just turned to his wife and said i know this is true. i want to join this church. ever since then he learned fast and accepted everything we taught. now his family is all baptized and very happy. he doesn't understand everything and is still learning but he has a testimony of Christ. Awesome!
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| Joshua, Kwong |
one last highlight. this actually just happend yesterday. we went and had a recent convert lesson with Ning and his family. i love them. they've helped me so much and just been a huge blessing to this area. they've been having a lot of troubles lately with their old church, St. Michel's anglican church. that church owns their house actually. they let them live there for free. we knew this problem would eventually arise. st michels gave them a lot of anti mormon crap and also told them if they kept going to our church they would be kicked out of the house. that's 8 people without a house. so during the last four weeks they haven't really come. they went to Kampung a few times which i guess is better than st michels. yesterday we had a lesson about coming to church. it wasn't anything outstanding but i really felt the spirit. i expected the worst like if they might tell us they're never coming back to our church. quite the opposite actually. they said they might not be able to come this sunday but they understood the importance. i wasn't sure we made a whole lot of progress. we asked Ning, the father, to say the closing prayer. i've only heard him pray one or maybe two other times. last time he prayed wrong but it was good he was still learning. the prayer he said was great. everyone was actually quiet and focused. he did it exactly right. it was heartfelt and honest. i don't want to go into detail but the things he said let me know that he trusted God and just wants to help his family. i honestly started to cry a little. just because i've seen how much this man's faith has grown. it's so cool. i can't describe in words what i felt but the power of prayer is amazing. the closing prayer was the best part of that lesson.
man this letter ended up pretty long. alright i'll talk to you next week. next week i'll probably tell you whats up with me calling you on christmas. i don't really know how it works yet. can you send me a picture of ben lomond or something covered in snow, or snow in the yard. i want to show malaysians what snow looks like. i love you. watch that talk. say hi to everybody. bertahan sampai akhir!
elder petersen
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