Hello. First off, I got the package! Might be the best package yet. I love all the granola bars, they're the perfect thing here. That mix that you keep sending me is impossible to make pancakes with haha. We end up just throwing it in the rice cooker and eating whatever comes out! Elder Trotter likes to eat all the food too, and then acts like he doesn't need packages haha.
This week was packed with some deep lessons. Because we wanted to find more people, we had originally blocked out everyday from 5-7 to go finding, but literally everday, something more important came up in the form of lessons! I'll share a couple stories.
Because the klang group is so small, we only have a few members. THe members are super strong, but impossible to meet with (so busy) and because they have been in the church for a while, are impossible to get referrals from. We had pretty much given up hope on getting any. Anyway, the other day, we had an awkward 45 minute window between appointments, so we decided to go to the local pasar malam (night market) and get some food. As we were riding back, we tried to find a short cut. As we were going, we kind of got lost. We went down a street with some pretty nice houses, and there was one where a bunch of kids started yelling at us and asking us if we were australian. Elder Trotter hates stuff like that, so he went and sped off. As I took a closer look, I saw a picture of Jesus above their door. I also saw their mother watering some plants in the front. I slammed on the brakes, and went and asked her for directions. After a few minutes talking, we found out that she worked at an international school in Klang. Not just any international school, but the SAME one that 3 sisters in the Klang group work at (a.k.a, the entire klang group relief society haha). She is very good friends with them, and was interested in what we were doing in Malaysia. She invited us in, and then invited us to come out to dinner on saturday so we could meet her husband. The sisters in the Klang group were ecstatic! We had never gotten any referrals out of them, but then yesterday, they came up to us and starting planning dinners for us to meet their other friends. I'm so glad we finally "passed the test" with them.
We went out to chinese food with this new family, and they are great. THey're indian, and catholic, and a super strong family. We shared with them the proclamation to the world, and they just ate it up, literally every part. The father was very pleased. We didn't go into anything really deep. Just, we got to know their family. It was very nice. They were so.... normal! We want to treat this family very carefully, because they have the potential to go places. Anyway, they're great, and we love meeting with them. They want us to come back. That never happens, so we are pleased.
With our investigator Beh, there has also been huge progress. We weren't sure, for a while, why he wanted to meet with us. At first, we thought it was just for english, but now, we know it is something different. Yesterday, he more or less bore his testimony to us. It was not formal in anyway. It was so simple, in his funny broken hokkien english. He helped us teach another Hokkien investigator after church, and when we asked why he liked to help us, he said (more or less) that he could tell there was something different. He says that there have been changes inside that he wished would have come into his life sooner, and that now he just wants to help other people know how they can avoid feeling the sad ways that he felt. He said that although he is not finished learning, he knows he's on the right way. Elder Trotter and I were speechless. I didn't do it justice, but I don't think words really can.
Update on the SDA's, we had a really strong lesson with them, and instead of trying to argue about little points here and there, we tried to keep it simple, and bring it back to the heart of our message, the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In the past week, we have taught many lessons on this, in many different ways. I love going back to the basics like this, because it just reaffirms to me so much more about how important this all is. Things that I took for granted about the book of mormon, the importance of it, all of it. I wish people would take the time to see why the book of Mormon is so important to us, to take the time to really see why we think everyone should read it. I think it is kind of amazing that a bunch of 19/20 year olds come into houses and teach about this. We are making some very bold claims. And, at the end of the day, it all hinges on the book of mormon. How many people can say that, and have no idea why? NOT THIS GUY. haha. good experiences.
I'll include some funny stuff now.
In Katazan (from Sabah) culture, there is a word "anoh" which literally means nothing. THere is no translation for it. It is kind of what they say when they can't think of somehting else.... the problem is, they don't correct it.
Examples:
"do you know that guy? You know, the one from anoh?" ... oh, the one frmo _____? yes, i do know the guy from ___
"I think she's from anoh, right?" You're probably right, she's from ______.
this is one part of their culture that still blows my mind.
Also, SMSing is a nightmare. No one uses the word texting here.
I'm positive that Malaysians have this idea that they need to send cryptic messages. Sometimes, we will get an SMS that takes 10 minutes to decipher. It's not that we don't understand the Bahasa, it's that the random assortment of letters and symbols on our phone have almost zero connection to what you think they would. It's super funny, but kind of ridiculous. Because our phone is new to the mission, elder trotter likes to send prank SMS to new missionaries and see if they can figure out what it says.
Chinese New Year's is over! Hooray. We did pretty well for Ang Pao this year! We feel kind of bad, because it's a lot, so we may just use it to buy stuff for the church. I personally got over 130 RM haha.
OH, and I do read your guys emails, but I don't know what you want me to say to them! I'm not jealous you're going to Jamaica, I'm done with this whole heat thing. I'm glad eric got into byu. I hope Daniel gets feeling better, and Kaitlin does something for him (maybe cook something that's not shaped like a bird or takes 3495843 hours from a pinterest recipe ^___^) I actually really liked the chick rolls and honey butter....
ok good bye
Elder RObinson
PS, tell GMA happy birthday
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