Letter #7 Week of 26 March 2008 - Passports and Dinner with the Hiews

Keluarga saya,

Things are going quite well here in Sandakan this week.

First, about your questions. My letter-writing address, or the address you should send letters to, is the same as my mission home:
Adam Muffler
253 Bukit Timah Road, Floor 4
Singapore 259690
SINGAPORE
Remember, do not address me as "Elder" on the envelope.

For your second question, I do not have a bicycle. We ride the bus here in Sandakan. It would be really dangerous to ride bicycles here because the roads aren't that wide and cars wouldn't appreciate us taking up the road.

My condolences go out to the loss our family experienced versus Texas A&M last week.

Tell Michael congratulations from me on his mission call. Southern Argentina. That's pretty wild. Last week, when I was in Kota Kinabulu, I saw a map of our district boundaries. At the bottom of the map, there was a message from the Church that said something like "Don't be surprised if there is a vast plot of land within your district boundaries that is uninhabited. Every piece of land in the world must be assigned to a Church unit." I asked my companion, "So what about Antartica?" Michael's mission call settled that question. I think you'd be happy to know that the island where the first filming of Survivor took place is part of my district.

I had my first baptism last Saturday. It was a Filipino lady named Rosalina, who has a really strong testimony. I felt so bad for her, because as we were getting her information for her baptismal record, we found out that she is here on a visa that implies she is a muslim, so we told her that she might have to stop coming to church altogether, but we didn't know until we talked to the mission president. The next day, our zone leaders flew in from KK and after 2 and a half hours of interviews and phone calls we got everything sorted out, and she was good to go.

We will have another baptismal service this week. This one will be a lot more personally meaningful to me, because I have been with the family since their second visit. It's a family of 5: the parents and three sons. Actually, the parents won't be getting baptized for another couple of weeks, and one of the sons is only 6, but we will be baptizing the older two sons. One of them is 14, and the other is 10. The 10 year old asked me to baptize him, so that will be a good experience. I really like that family a lot. The branch has really done some good things for them. I knew they (the branch) was fulfilling their responsibility when the Tiga Dawi family came to church for the first time. After sacrament meeting, my companion and I went up to them and said hi. They told us hello back, then looked around for their sons, who had all disappeared already to primary and young mens.

It has been really interesting as we have visited the Tiga Dawi family over and over again to see the light of the Gospel come into their life as a family. When we first went, they didn't seem too happy, and didn't talk to each other except for arguing about something. Last night, I saw something completely different. They were smiling and laughing and playing with each other. The Gospel has done a lot for them in the last month.

I'm glad you told me last Sunday was Easter. They don't really celebrate it here. If it wasn't for a Catholic investigator, I'm not sure I would have known that it was Easter last sunday.

I had my first run-in with immigration this week. When the zone leaders came on Friday for Rosalina's baptism interview, we went on companionship exchanges. I'm still quite new here, so I was a little flustered trying to get on the right buses and find my way around. Well, on the way to dinner downtown, we pulled over at one of the bus stops, and I saw 3 or 4 people in dark blue uniforms and a big black truck. One of the police officers came onto the bus and yelled "Passports please!" Funny thing. I don't bring my passport with me. I don't want to lose it. However, one of the senior couples in Singapore made me a laminated copy of my ID page from my passport, and I showed that to the officer. That was good enough for him. I don't know why, but he checked for a visa on the zone leader's passport. It was kind of sad to see 3 or 4 people get taken from the bus and thrown into the truck. They were going home to the Phillipines. When I met back up with my companion, he told me that he was surprised that we even got checked. The police know who the missionaries are, and so we shouldn't ever have trouble with them. If they even ask for ID from us, they will accept just about anything- a driver's license, a temple recommend, a ministerial certificate, a missionary nametag.

For lunch last Tuesday during our zone conference, I ate some squid. Not my favorite food. I also have eaten duck a couple of times. Duck might be my new favorite meat. It's like chicken, only more moist and fatty and has a little different taste. I love it.

I've got a family that I need to watch out for. Every monday, Brother and Sister Hiew from the branch invite us over for dinner, and they usually have a family member who is not a member who we can teach. Every monday, Sister Hiew takes special care that I eat as much as I possibly can, that I taste everything she makes so that she knows what I like and don't like. I say that Sister Hiew takes special care, but I really mean she has her 17 year old daughter take special care. This week, during dinner, her intentions became just a little more clear. She said something like "Elder Muffler, after your mission, you should marry someone in Sandakan." She said it in Malay, and I didn't know what the word for marry is. I thought she was saying I should return to visit Sandakan, so I nodded in agreement. Yeah, I should. Then I turned to my companion and asked if that word meant visit. He said no, it meant marry. Yikes.

Well, I need to get going. I'm having a wonderful time here, and hope everything is going well back home.

Sincerely,
Elder Muffler