Monkeys, White People, & Contacting Adventures!

I love all the pictures! Haha, The matching sweaters are... there are no words. Haha, It's so Kristen and KC, I love it.

Oh shoot. My dropbox is full and I have a really funny video of my giving a monkey a pass along card! Ummm.... I don't know what to do now. I'll leave that to you.

Yes! We  had Thanksgiving with all the Americans in our Branch. Maksudnya, we have a real mixture of cultures in our branch; expats/white people, Brazils, Philipenos, Indians, Chinese, Korean, Indonesian, Iranian, Pakistanian, German, etcedera, etcedra. ...I don't know how to spell that word. There are probably about 40-50 people in our branch and yes, the friend of.... oh Sister Worthen! Anyway, you mentioned her last week, and yes, she's in my branch. :)
The roughest part of my week was probably when I tried to contact white people. Three different times. And utterly failed. In case you were wondering, yes, contacting white people is very different from contacting an Asian! Very, very different... Goodness, 6 months in and I'm already awkward around white people! I'm a goner.
We do a LOT of conatcting here in KL. A lot. People are very busy and have really unreliable work schedules here and so appointments often get canceled which leaves huge chunks of time in our day. Which means, you got it, contacting. We usually ride the MRT or go to malls or big public places to find people who want to learn but this week I convinced sister Lee to go door to door. Haha, It was rediculous!  We contacted for two hours and found TWO Christians! In other words, it was about 90% Muslim. We'd walk past homes and see prayers written above their door, or Christmas lights on their house (I still don't get it but it's a clear indicator of a Muslim house. WHo knows) and say, "muslim, muslim, muslim, Hindu, Bhudist, Muslim, muslim, muslim...." Haha, and we found a Bhudist man who was completely insistent that mormons have many wives! Many! When I told him that I definitely only have ONE mom he said that I probably wouldn't know because I'm a girl. Hahaha. 

We have a few investigators here but we're not really sure where any of them are going, haha, because they're all kind of one leg in, one leg out. So we're really praying to find people who God has prepared to hear His gospel. But our Investigators Yoong Hong and Stephanie are getting baptized on December 19! Yay! They're both awesome. Yoong Hong's girlfriend gave as cookies this week too! Yesss.

Last P-Day we went to Batu caves, which were awesome! There are many Hindu statues there. And Monkeys. I bought bananas to feed the monkeys but before I could blissfully hand out my bananas one by one to the friendly little fellas, this stupid monkey ran up and stole ALL OF MY BANANAS! There were hundreds of police officers there and they all saw it happen and they litterally pointed their fingers and laughed at me! Thankfully I wrestled a single banana from the little thief to hand out later, only to have another monkey jump onto my arm five minutes later and wrestle me for THAT banana! The jerk! He leaped onto my arm and was fighting me for the banana! And surprise, surprise, the monkey won. Bodoh. Next time 'I'll be the one eating the bananas laughing at them! But hey, at least I didn't get monkey poop thrown at my like sister Drew. Haha. Ha. haha.

For Christmas I'd love to go to the Pines! I'll be happy anywhere, but that's my first choice. :)

I'm working on getting a Uke approved! I asked president today.
Oh, we have a Christmas party this week!. 

No one's heard anything about calling for Christmas yet but President  is coming this week so I'm going to ask him then.

I'm going to dye my hair brown again today! Hopefully. 

Sister Lee and I live with Sister Anderson and ....Tueh? I really need to learn her name. They're so much fun! This is by far the most comfortable I've been in the mission yet. I've learned how to work hard, I know how to pray hard, and now I'm learning to have fun while doing it all. Yay! The fun part really balances things out. 

I'm so excited to talk to you all! Do you think I'll be able to talk to everyone....? Or does it depend when I call?

Do you think you could send me the Allens cookie and Toll house cookie recipes some time?

I love you so much! It sounds like the cabin was/is a blast! I love all the pictures. Kristen looks gorgeous in her prego pics, and I love Maddie's bump! (I sent her a photograph of JUST her sister-in-law's baby bump! lol)

Talk to you next week!

Oh, and the pictures of the Asians and missionaries in the MRT is when this Asian church youth group came up and asked us to do a push up challenge with them. I guess it was like a weird scavenger hunt? But it was really funny. There is a video, but there wasn't enough space on Dropbox for it. :-/ Love you!

Batu Caves

So I moved to KL this week! We had an exciting Taxi ride over where one of the other sisters ended up sitting on my lap because the driver wanted to pick up another person and we made a friendly stop at the taxi drivers house for a few minutes. Haha, Malaysia. 
So my new companion is Sister Lee. She's from California and has been out about a year. She also speaks Malay! 

KL is pretty different from East Malaysia. Very different. It's like halfway between someplace in America and someplace in East Malaysia. There are also a tooooon of Muslims! Everywhere. We actually just accidentally tried to contact one when we stopped to test out a foot massager thing and he got really upset when we told him we couldn't talk to him about Jesus Christ because it's against the law. It was really sad!

I don't bike anymore, which I'm sad about. I really like biking. BUT I also really like buses and MRTs and LRTs and all these different trains and subway like things. It means a LOT of contacting though. You get on a train, spot someone who think might not be Muslim, sit down by them, and talk to them. Or that's the plan. It still kind of scares me. When I was Malay speaking I thought it would be so much easier to contact people in English! Then I started to get contacting down in Malay and got switched to English! Now I know that it is definitely NOT easier in English. Haha, People here, or anywhere, aren't used to random white girls coming up and talking to them, so they feel a little awkward. We just want to give you salvation! Come back!
Have you ever seen the Church's 12 step videos? They're absolutely amazing. Look them up.

So as I've implied I'm now in an English area. Whaaaat?? Supossedly I'm still a Malay sister but really I'm just an English sister right now. Not a lot of people here speak Malay because KL is a city full of people from everywhere! So the language only comes in handy every now and again. Sister Lee and I are helping each other keep the language up by talking to eachother all the time in Malay. It's really fun. :) Anyway, so we teach a lot of Chinese people, some people from places like Ghana or Africa, and... actually that's about where the racial diversity ends. It's really fun to teach in English, even if it's just broken English. My Chinglish is really progressing. ;) There's a huge difference between teaching in Malay in East Malaysia and teaching in English in West. Because of things like religious background and such it was all very simple and surface, but now, while there's still a lot of that we're now teaching people like Jerry from somewhere in Africa who has read the bible his whole life and asks questions that are really pretty deep. I love it! I love both, actually, it's it's fun to experience both. I think I got a little cocky about it though. Yesterday I was eating my lunch and thinking about how strangley easy it's been to teach in English, and I was really impressed with myself for being able to answer a lot of peoples questions as well as I had and so they understand things. I stuck a bite of carrot in my mouth and stopped mid-chew when the thought came into my head "it's not you." I kind of sat there for a second as I realized that it really wasn't me that was so great at teaching, but Heavenly Father has been blessing me and literally giving me the things that I needed to say and giving me understand and knowledge, so that I can explain things and answer questions of the people we're teaching. Suddenly, everything made so much sense. Now I realize that Heavenly Father is letting me be a tool in His hands and that's a really, really neat opportunity. I still believe I'm being blessed with the gift of tongues, too, because I can understand all these different accents most of the time!

I love you so much!

Saying goodbye in Miri

Sister MacKay must love being so tall!

Sister MacKay and Elder Alex lol

Transfers!

Farewell, Miri!

Off on a new adventure! Maybe a little nervous? lol

Dinner with a family in Kuala Lumpur! 

It looks like the weather is the same in KL as in Miri! haha

Sister MacKay in KL!

Famous towers in KL

She loves their little housemate 

House Gekko 

Ewwww... Rats!

BIG rats!

Companions!

Sister MacKay and gekko!

Transferred to Kuala Lampur!

Q: When are transfers?

A: transfers are today! We find out soon!

Q: Do you really think you'll be leaving?

A: Maybe! President came to Miri this week for interviews and mentioned in mine that I might go to Singapore.... Not sure how I feel about this! haha

Q: Really? Wow! After just one transfer??

A: Maybe! It's a new mission president so we all have no idea how he works! It would be weird though, since there are only so many places Malay sisters can go. But I guess they had a miscommunication with the MTC and they won't be getting any English missionaries in for a while, so maybe that's why! Either way, I actually loved Singapore a lot when we went in for Zone conference last time and decided that I wouldn't mind going there. Plus, I didn't get MRT sick last time! Which was big. I've nearly thrown up every time before on the MRT. :$

Q: What's the MRT? And how's your Malay?

A: Oh, my Malay is doing great. Haha, I asked a member yesterday how my Malay was and she blurted out "You don't understand anything!" Haha, Which can be true, but she said she understands me just fine when I speak! There was also a time last night when another member was talking to us about things in the Branch when he looked at me, walked into his house and came back with a book of pictures of him and said "you don't understand anything so you can look at this." Haha, it was actually really funny. AND slightly offensive. Haha, Anyway, I feel like it's doing really well! I went on exchanges with Sister Lim, a native, this week and she said my Malay was really good! I felt that, too, as I was able to carry on a really good conversaton with our member. :) So overall, great. 

An MRT is like a Subway, like the underground things we rode in Hungary with Kris. :) It's a waaaay different culture there, that's for sure! We ride the MRT whenever we're in SIngapore, allll the time. That and buses are the main means of transport. Or Taxis. The missionaries ride the MRT for, literally, hours every day to get places and just contact on the way for the whole time.

Q: What fun beach pictures! Was it a P-Day thing or on the way to an appointment?  What about the pictures of the family?

A: It's part of our area. We tried to visit an old investigator whose house is right next to the beach but she was yelling at her kids to tell us she wasn't home, haha, so we decided to take a few pictures on the beach while we were there!

So that's from one of our members FHE. We're trying to put together a big party for the 100th birthday of FHE and as part of that the senior couple is putting together a video of people in Miri doing FHEs. So we went and helped take pictures and videos with our cameras. :) It's the family of Stimba and Katrina.

Q: How fun! Sorry about the yelling beach lady...

A: Haha, It was actually funnier than anything else. People do it all the time, they hide in there house and you can hear them yelling to their kids to tell the white people that they aren't home and then the kids come running out and say that and you're like, your mom isn't home? Are you sure? Who was talking? The TV? Okay, okay, see you later. Hahaha, You can't help but wonder about the logic in that! It's like Tyler used to tell us how Asians just look straight past you and ignore you if you knock on their door. Haha, It's really just funny!

Q: Is the weather about the same in Singapore as in Miri? I've noticed the sun shining in your pics these last too weeks! Lol Idaho winters are going to be such a shock to your system! 😂😬

A: I'm.... not sure. Lots more AC though! OH my goodness, it's been so crazy hot here though! You know how it's supposed to get cooler in the winter? Maybe just by 5 degrees? Nope. I'm pretty sure it's gotten 10 degrees hotter this week! It's like LV X10! I've gotten a reeeeal nice farmer's tan though! Yeah, right now it's rainy season now which I thought would mean cooler, rainy days, but I guess what it actually means is blisteringly hot days and torrential rain storms during the night!

Q: Do you play the piano in Church in Miri?

A: No, they have someone with the calling to press the buttons for the piano to play the hymns itself. I figure it's so that the youth can have callings. :)

Q: Let me know when you find out about transfers!

A: Well, I'm not going to Singapore! Looks like I'm going to Kuala Lampur! Still Malay Speaking! My new Comp is sister Lee.

Mini Letter: This week has been a weird but good week. Kind of like all weeks. We've had a miracle of five new investigators this week, one woman and then a huge family! We got to meet the whole family of 12 and are hoping to get more of them to learn soon. We also had three less active families all come to church together this Sunday, for all of them it was the first time in many, many months.

As we've taught these people about the restoration it's been really neat to feel the spirit that comes from talking about the restoration. It was also neat to see our less active take the restoration pamphlet out of my hand and start teaching it herself! When she got a little stuck we stepped in, but she has such a love for sharing the gospel. It's great. :)

I'm getting booted off the Island to West Malaysia! I'm excited! More on that later. :) I love you! 

Filming FHE!

FHE in Miri!

Our cute missionary!

a sunny smile!

These missionaries love Miri! And sunshine!

Awesome Family!