Monday, July 15, 2013



Dear Family,

This was a fantastic week.  As stated in the title of this email, this past week was the start of Ramadan!  Everyone is fasting now, which means around 7:30 they all iftar (break the fast) = fantastic food EVERYWHERE.  Bro. Moore did the math, and he figures any LDS person who fasts once a month, and more throughout the year actually fasts more than the number of hours during the month of  Ramadan.  Interesting.  I tried explaining our interpretation of fasting, and that we do it as well, to a man from Libya on the train the other day.  He didn't seem to agree.  Oh well.

Because it is Ramadan, restaurants are a ghost town during the day, so there are lots of sales for food.  :D

Speaking of food (before I talk about real things).  Last monday, our old branch president gave us a call.  He works in the U.S. Embassy, and is getting transferred to Buenos Aires this week, so he invited us over to his condo and told us to take all of his food (which was all imported from America).  It was fantastic.  We ended up boxing a lot of it to give to investigators, and also to some of the other missionaries.  We kept the good stuff (i.e. Lucky Charms, Kashi, marshmallows, cliff bars, pasta).  There was also 6 bags of seaweed....?  I'll have to include pictures.

We had some really cool experiences this past week.  We are working with a tamil woman named Alice.  She has made it known to us that she has been looking for something like this for such a long time, and then, as if an answer to her prayers, we called her on the phone one day.  It is so nice to be working with a local.  We deal a lot with people who are not malaysian citizens (I'll elaborate on that later...).  She was so happy at church yesterday, and told me she just loves the spirit that she feels, and the bonds with the other women in relief society!  
One of the issues we have been facing with her is finding a male member present.  We can't enter into a home or car with a female investigator unless there is a male present.  We have been teaching her at a cafe near her flower stand, but it's hard because we're not supposed to pray out loud (lots of muslims around) in public, and it's a bit noisy.  Well, as an answer to our prayers, we were teaching her when, all of a sudden, the phone rang.  I checked my phone, and saw that it was an 801 number!  I thought it was someone pulling a prank on me!  Turns out it is a man from Herriman, utah, who is working with Franklin Covey, and he was calling not only to ask where the church was, but also that he wanted to help the missionaries after work whenever her could!  He will be here for a few weeks, and we fully intend on using him!  The best part about it is that he is willing to help.  he's already been assigned to give a talk next week >.<  We ate dinner with him at the Moore's home yesterday to fill him in.  Very good day.  
Other strange call.
We have 2 cell phones, one that we carry around everyday, and one that we keep at the house for reporting.  We returned home one day to see several missed calls from a Hong Kong number, and he left a message saying "this is Dr. Bertin, I'm looking for Elder Robinson and Scott." and then hung up.  It was quite strange, and we couldn't call him back.  So yesterday while I was studying before church, we got a call from the same number.  It turns out he is the Asia Area Medical Adviser for the church, on a mission but didn't use his title Elder on the voicemail!  He was on an assignment last week in Kuching, and while in his hotel room, he found an iPod touch in his couch.  He said it was a really fancy one, with lots of stuff on it.  Anyway, it had information about the owner, which said he lived in Kuala Lumpur.  So, this Elder Dr. Bertin is shipping us this iPod from Hong Kong, and gave us the address with the express order to "take this box with a book of mormon to his house and find him!"  haha.  What are the odds of that?  I just got an email of the shipping information, so it should be here soon.  That is the strangest referral I've ever received!  

We had another success the other day.  We have been using an awesome recent convert of 8 months to help us teach Sis. Alice.  It has been so awesome to see Amika fellowship Alice, but I have never taken much time to think of the effects it has on the other side.  We received an SMS from her thanking us for including her in the helping Alice learn about the church.  She informed us that she has been having a hard time recently, and that being a part of helping another learn about the gospel has had a healing effect on her own life.  It's amazing how sharing the gospel not only helps those who are learning about the gospel, but those who are remembering what they had once learned, and experiencing the spirit of the work again.   

I found an Arab restaurant that was probably in the top five most delicious things ever this past week.  

This Friday we'll be traveling down to Melaka.  It should be an interesting experience.  We get to go on exchanges with all of these Elders, so I'm excited.  I love the elders here in KL.  

Ok, I can't think of anything else!  Bai!
Elder Robinson

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