this was a good week.
By the way, I got the package! The nature valley bars are SO GOOD. That's exactly the kind of stuff I wanted. The little pepperonis were odd..... haha, haven't opened those yet. And we'll probably just turn all the mixes you sent into pancakes.. thank you. I also see that you bought a new calendar! I miss those.
I guess I'll just start off with the stories!
So, on Tuesday, Elder Trotter woke up really itchy. He is kind of a hypochondriac, so this one was REALLY bad haha. Anyways, I didn't believe him until he took off his shirt and his entire back was scabbing from him clawing at it all night. So he called Sister Mains, and she told him he should go to a doctor. Well, lucky for us, we remembered that our District President (President Dass) is a dermatologist. So, he told Sis. Mains we would just go see President Dass, since we had to go into Petaling Jaya for a district missionary meeting anyways. We called President Dass, and he told us the directions to his place, and said it would "take a while" to get there.
It took a LONG WHILE.
It quite literally took us 3 hours to get there. We thought he lived/worked in PJ, but he actually lives in a tiny town up in the mountains called Kuala Kubu Bharu. The funny thing is that the KTM (the commuter train) has a stop in that town, and a stop in ours, so we didn't think it would be that long. It literally took ALL day. It was so pretty up there though. Completely out of the city, up high in the mountains. Cool temperatures, no garbage, no smells (other than trees). It was so nice. Well, we were in Dass' office for about 10 minutes. Turns out Dass just gave Elder TRotter some benadryl and itch creme (I could have diagnosed that!) We already had to cancel our appoitnments because ther ewas NO way we were getting back. So President Dass son took us on a little tour of the town, which has a huge lake up in it. (I uploaded some pictures of us there) Up beyond the lake, there is an Orang Asli Kampong, which is like the aboriginal race of Malaysia. They live in this little village up a canyon, and we went to the river and accidentally saw them all bathing O.o oops. Sister Dass made us some Cumin Capati and Pumpkin soup (yes, it was cold enough for soup) and then we took the 3 hour journey home. Although we didn't get anything done that day, it was really cool.
Gong xi, gong xi, gong xi ni! Yes, Chinese New Years was yesterday! It was kind of anti-climatic. We have heard SO much new year music, all the sales, all the red and gold, everything. All Saturday-SUnday night there were red and gold fireworks all over the valley. From our 9th floor window, you could literally see fireworks everywhere. I think Malaysian fireworks are louder than normal.... or maybe it just seems that way. Sleeping? cannot. Sister Sophie took us out for some Chinese food, and dropped a ton of money on these fancy Prawns that everyone tries to get during the new year. They were really good. I also had some of the best squid and tofu ever. It was really funny, because we aren't allowed to ride in a car without other adult males, and sister sophie wanted to drive us to this restaurant, so she picked up some random guy and I think she paid him to sit in the car and go to dinner with us... just to obey the rule. haha. He felt really awkward, especially because we were eating pork and speaking english... She also gave us ang pao!!! I uploaded the picture of that too.
Because it was chinese new years, EVERYBODY goes back to their hometown. Church was scheduled to be only one hour, and we were wondering if any one would be there. It turns out, that we had five investigators come to church yesterday! Brother Wong and his family was there, and Dennis/Joanna, and the rest was people we were working with. This week was kind of funny. Let me tell you how church went. I also want to preface this with, "I used to think I had a lot of responsibilities in the Ensign Peak Ward....". We opened the church, turned on the air cons/lights, prepared the sacrament, got everybody to church, played the piano for the hymns, blessed the sacrament, gave talks, translated, and locked up. We literally did everything. haha. Yet, yesterday, I didn't feel like I was running around with my head chopped off. It was a really meeting. I gave my talk in Bahasa, and it was about the reasons why we are given commandments. Elder Trotter then followed up with a talk on obedience. We were really surprised to see some of our investigators there. A very pleasant surprise.
Over the past 10 days, we have given an intense lesson to almost everyone we meet with. We didn't even realize until last night, when we were counting up totals from the week, that every person we met with had a 'turning point' lesson. I don't think me writing about it could accurately describe what it was like. It was definitely interesting, and I got a lot out of it. I hope they did too. Kind of at the base of it all was that if we want to see the results the gospel can bring, we have to kick start the cycle. faith, actions, the spirit, blessings. The cycle continues, continues upward.
I think this week we're going to be spending a lot of time finding new people. That's the hardest thing to do, especially because the results are very slim. We don't have any other choice.... which makes it kind of difficult. I would like to see the number of how many doors we pass until we find a non muslim one, and then the number of doors that aren't muslim that answer, and the number of doors that actually let us in. It would be a really slim number, let me tell ya. Yet, as we were counting up totals last night, we always seem to find new people. Somewhere... behind some door....
Oh, and this is kind of a cool story. So I always tell Elder Trotter that we should buy food so that on Sunday we don't starve. He always replies, "God will prepare a way".... usually sarcastically because we never end up buying groceries . Well, on Saturday, we were jam packed with long appointments, so we literally had no chance to eat a legitimate meal. I'm at the point where if I don't eat rice, I'm starving. I have to have rice atleast before 2:00PM to make it through the day. (today, I've already had rice). well, saturday night, after our appoitnments, EVERYTHING was closed for the new years eve. So, we went to bed with no rice in the tummy. Sunday, with regards to hunger, was bad. We were so hungry, and didn't have time in the apartment to eat. Nor any real food to eat. We taught Beh in Bandar (downtown Klang) at a KFC, and were SO tempted to buy some.
We thought that last night would be a good night to go contacting, because everyone is off from work. So we went contacting, and it turned out that no one had work, so no one was wasting their off day at home :( We were walking when we noticed a Malay (muslim) wedding. We walked over to the wedding, and saw all the food and literlaly started drooling. We went a spoke Malay with them, and then they told us to come eat. AHHHHH. Very good food... or I was just starving. Either way, I guess God did prepare a way.
No other big news. Everything good here
I hope grandma gets feeling better, and that nothing severe happened.
Elder Robinson
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