Letter #5 Week of 12 March 2008 - No Lawnmowers in Sandakan

Selamat hari,

This week was so awesome. I'm starting to really to love it here.

So, Saturday, they had some big elections. Elections here aren't like they are in America, where like 20 percent of the people vote and it maybe takes you an hour. It's an all day event where 80 percent of the people vote. Of course, all of our investigators were going to support their candidate that day, so we didn't have any appointments. And since nearly everyone votes, we were thinking it was going to be a very unproductive day tracting. We said several prayers during the morning so we could find some people to teach that day. After a couple of hours of knocking doors, we met a Filipino couple who invited us in. I don't know why, but I happened to bring a Tagalog Book of Mormon that day, so that worked well. It was a three language lesson. The couple understood some words we spoke in malay, and others we spoke in english, and they read any scriptures we had for them in tagalog. They seemed really interested in what we had to offer, and invited us to come back. We should have an appointment with them Friday or Saturday.After that, we ate dinner, and had an appointment lined up that night.

However, the appointment fell through, and we had to start knocking around again. I couldn't believe it, but we found another two people to teach. They were just wrapping up what's called a tuition class (they're evening classes put on by private tutors for supplemental education). There was an older Filipino woman and her nephew. They spoke perfect, very proper english, so that was the first lesson I really got to teach. I could tell that the nephew could really feel the Spirit. There was a light in his eyes.

We have 8 or 9 baptismal dates, but they just keep getting moved back. There is this one that really presents a problem. He's about 25. He says he's always been a Christian, but his identification card says he's muslim. In order to change the status on his card, he needs to present the government with a baptismal certificate (or a similar document from another church).

However, our church policy says that we cannot baptize those who are legally Muslims in this mission. To further complicate things, he is living with his girlfriend. He needs to marry her (or move out) in order to be baptized. However, her family will not allow their daughter to marry a Muslim, and in the Chinese culture, you are expected to live with the person you are engaged with.

I haven't been eating anything too interesting this week. I'm not sure I ever told you about the dessert I had in Singapore, though. It's called an ABC. Before we got it, the assistants told us that they were ice shavings with "stuff" in it. By "stuff", I thought he meant fruit. It was a smoothie shop that we got them from. ABC's have no fruit in them, though. They have corn, and beans, and wheatgrass stalks that are the same consistancy as worms. That was the worst tasting dessert I have ever had in my life. I think I'll have another when I go back. A couple times a week, we go to a recent convert's house for dinner. His family is the greatest missionary family. They always have two or three of their relatives for us to teach.
Actually, on Friday, we're going to drive an hour away and teach 15 of them at one time. Anyway, I ate a couple of things that are kind of different. I love how they cook the fish whole here, so that you can see the eyes looking at you as you are eating it. On monday, I ate some cucumbers that were fried in egg. That was ... different. That's just a really fun family, though. They think I'm the funniest thing, because I'll just smile and nod, and say a word in malay about every 5 minutes.

You know, I haven't yet seen a lawn mower here. Conversely, I have seen several goats.

My favorite thing to eat here is at Taiwan Tasty Food House. I get a huge bowl of beef and cabbage and noodles and broth and some vegetable I don't recognize. It's somewhere between a potato and an onion, but I really like it. I get some strange cravings sometimes. Ask Ben "Where is my applesauce?"

Next monday, I will be going to a zone conference in Kota Kinabolu. It sounds like that will be a lot of fun.

I did the math, and I figure I will hop on an airplane at least fifty times during the course of my mission: 6 at the beginning, 6 at the end, 8 per year for zone conferences, 8 per year for visa runs, 2 per year for mission conferences, and then whenever I will get transferred.

Well, that stinks. I guess I really didn't tell you which cord was the right one for my camera. Oh well. I'm already having pictures printed right now from the MTC and the last couple of weeks. It will just take a couple of weeks to make it home.
The language is starting to come for me. I can usually at least understand the subject of what people are talking about, but that's probably just due to their gestures and tone of voice. I understand some words every now and then, though. It seems like malay is a fairly easy language to learn. There's not a whole lot of grammer. There's no conjugation, or conjunctions, or tenses, or anything.

The poverty and humility of the people here is something that really makes me appreciate what I have. We have a family of investigators who are getting baptized in a couple of weeks who live in a wooden stilt house, with no furniture, but they always give us a little something to eat and drink. They're amazing.

Well, everything is starting to go really well. I hope things are going well back home.

Sincerely,
Elder Muffler