Letter #38 - Week of 29 Oct 2008 - Zone Conference

Hello,

This last week was pretty good.

I'm writing from Kota Kinabalu right now. Today has been a sobering day. My interview with President Skelton and leadership training with our zone leaders have really made me think about things a lot.

Last Wednesday was awesome. Well, it didn't seem so awesome at first. We had made a couple of appointments with less active members, counting on the fact that the Morreys would be available to drive us (they live very far apart from each other and from us). Well, we called both of the members ahead of time; one was very excited to meet with us, while we didn't get an answer from the other one. Later in the day, I put together a mental list of all the things we could try: we needed to find something to do at a time that was very difficult to have a productive activity. Before I started making phone calls, I said a prayer that we would be led to the person we needed to meet that night. Of course, the member I called could not meet with us. I decided to visit Jaimi, although I can't say why. I think it was just the easy way out, really.

When we got to Jaimi's, what a coincidence! Her mother was there. She apparently was just visiting Jaimi to help with the children, and might be here for a long time. She told us that in her village, the Anglican church is very far, and she was happy that this church was so close to her daughter. Jaimi had explained something about the Book of Mormon and our church to her. She wasted no time in talking about baptism. She said she had been baptized in the Anglican church, and she showed us how with her hands. Then she said she was old and couldn't be baptized by immersion. We proceeded to share a simple lesson on the foundation of the Church. Juarak (that's Jaimi's mother's name) is just a pleasant old lady. After just about every sentence we said, she would say "that's wonderful", or"I believe that". Well, needless to say, we misunderstood what she was saying earlier about baptism. She was requesting baptism by immersion, and asked "Is that okay? Can I do that?" Hopefully, she'll be baptized on the 15th of November.

I should still be in Sandakan for that. We all thought I would be transferred next Monday, but it looks like I'll be here at least through the middle of December. Well, not here. Sandakan. One of my zone leaders, Elder Niederhauser, was in his first area for a year, so we had a talk about it. He said he knows it's very hard, especially with somewhere as small as Sandakan, but I just need to forget about it.

I finally got my ballot, but I think it was too late. I didn't get it until Friday. I tried sending it on Saturday, hoping maybe it would get there on time.

That's too bad about Leroy (that's the corrola's name). I hope his bum gets fixed up fine.


I'll be heading on my visa run to Singapore next week.

For the Harvard questions, I remember I got really flustered when I had to evaluate myself. I would advise the student to prepare something about their strengths and weaknesses, their hobbies, some of the books they have read (and be prepared to have an in depth discussion on the book: I think that's one of the most important things. If you can confidently and intelligently discuss a book you have recently read, you're in. If you're like me, and were so unprepared for the interview and flustered that you ended up giving the name of a book you haven't read, you will have a bad interview). I would say above all, be prepared to talk about yourself in a true sense. Don't try to cater to Harvard (or whatever school). They don't want a model student, and they don't want a fake student. They want individuals.

It's fun to be with other missionaries. I think I told you about one of our assistants, Elder Houston. He is hilarious. The word I would describe him with is big. Everything about him is big. He was a soldier that did a tour in Iraq, and he's about 250 pounds, and just confident as anything.

Elder Stone was feeling sick on Friday night and Saturday. We went to the doctor and he had a crazy low blood pressure: 90 over fifty something. He's always had pretty low blood pressure, but never that low. The doctor suspects a couple of different problems. He probably just had a cold this week, but he thinks Elder Stone also has intestinal worms, so he's on worm medication, iron suppliments, and antibiotics. Hopefully,he gets better soon.

As I watched one of the sessions of conference again the past week, Elder Bednar's words really hit me. Our prayers become so much more meaningful when we pray always: when our prayers become continual by, for example, choosing something we need to work on or do better and praying for that in the morning, then focusing our day on accomplishing that, praying and reporting on it at night, and doing it all again the next day. Our prayers shouldn't be isolated events. They should be continually linked to one another.

Thanks for the pictures, and I hope everyone is doing well.

Love,
Elder Muffler

Letter #37 - Week of 22 Oct 2008 - 2 more baptisms

Hey family,

Things are good this week. Well, I'm feeling better anyway. Thursday afternoon, I calmed down and got back to normal. It was strange before that: I couldn't concentrate very well or anything. I was getting ready to see a doctor, but then it went away.

Well, the weekend was awesome. Saturday morning, we watched conference, then ate, then had Douglas's baptism, then had conference again. It was a day missionaries dream of. Because of conference, though, he won't be confirmed until the coming Sunday.

We found an awesome dessert cafe this past week. Actually, I knew about it for a while, but I didn't try it until this past week. The Morreys took us to it. They had amazing cake and ice cream (I suspect it might be real ice cream- not milk solids and hydrogenated palm oil). I thought it was really expensive, but we found out it was not, so we decided to make that a regular P-Day tradition.

Juni and his family came to the Saturday afternoon session of conference. They were really intrigued by the chance to hear from a prophet (it's kind of lame that they came to the only session he didn't speak), and I think they enjoyed it. Well, I'm not really sure if they enjoyed it. We stopped by on Monday, and Julia wouldn't come out of the kitchen to see us. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but looking back, whenever Julia doesn't want to see us, I should know something is up. Juni wasted no time in telling us he discussed things with the pastor at UPC, and coffee was the most important thing to him, so he decided to be baptized in the church that let him still drink coffee. Sad day.

I suppose missionary work wouldn't be worth anything if you didn't suffer some casualties. A sentence from Jeffrey R. Holland is never far from my mind: "Salvation is not a cheap experience."

With that, we're kind of left with no one to teach right now. It's not a very comfortable time. But we're doing our best, and only stand to wonder what good may come.

Conference was so... I don't know the word. Good. It was so good. President Monson's plea for members to pray for those areas of the world where missionary work is not fully operative hit home. We're here among the Muslims and just a hop away from China.

Then there was Elder Wirthlin's counsel to laugh at frustrating times, President Uchdorf's message of hope, and President Eyring's reassurance that a difficult assignment is evidence of God's trust, and President Monson's hope for everyone to enjoy the journey, and don't always focus on the nonexistent future day when everything will be easy. It all seemed applicable to me. Elder Stone said it well "That was really nice of them to design priesthood session for me; I hope you enjoyed it also."

We'll have zone conference next monday, so I'll be writing then from KK.

I think my favorite part of the week, aside from Douglas's baptism and general conference, was family home evening with Jaimi and her children on monday. We went to their house to teach her how to hold family home evening. At the time, she happened to have her niece Marta there (she's Bebe's daughter- the one that came to Jaimi's baptism and really loves the church, along with her husband, but they're both out in the kampung (village); she's the same one who had malaria and we gave her a blessing in the hospital). Also, Marta's mother in law Marina was there. We had never met her before. Well, we started with a prayer. Jaimi asked Marina to give it. Marina gave a very eloquent prayer, which told us she was highly involved in her church. We continued to teach a little about eternal marriage and the importance of family, then had a game and a lesson. Jaimi's children were the most behaved I had ever seen them. They actually sat down and paid attention for the length of the lesson, and they almost made it the whole time without fighting or climbing up the pole in the middle of the room or throwing the blocks we brought for the game. Almost. The children are children, and I wouldn't want them to sit still for too long. That's no fun. For the lesson, we shared the message of the restoration to the visitors.

During the closing prayer, a thought came to my mind: There is no setting I would rather introduce someone to the church in than Jaimi's first family home evening. I felt the Spirit there, and think everyone else felt the same. Jaimi is the ideal portrait of a recent convert for this simple fact: she is doing her best to be better. She is no scriptorian. Her knowledge is limited. She isn't ready to be the relief society president or do any other big thing. But she's sure ready to be an assistant in primary, which she does faithfully. Her family isn't picture perfect, but the children are just a little better every week. She was such a good support to her sister in helping her stop smoking so she could be baptized (let alone the fact that she introduced her sister to the church in the first place). She has told me she wants to share the gospel with everyone, and that's very obvious when she brings family to church whenever they are in town.

Send my regards to Brother Randall. I don't think he was my Deacon's quorum advisor- it seems like he was there when I was either a teacher, or maybe even a priest. I really don't remember that well, though.

Well, that's all for this week.

Love,
Elder Muffler

Here is a picture of Elder Stone, Douglas, and Elder Muffler at Douglas's baptism:



Here is a picture of Elder Stone, Bibi, Jaime, and Elder Muffler at Bibi's baptism:

Letter #36 - Week of 15 Oct 2008 - Bibi got Baptized

Hello family,

My ballot has not yet come.

This has been a good week. We went to meet Jaimi and Bibi last Wednesday. We kind of focused on Jaimi the whole time, teaching her about family history. Near the end of the appointment, I asked Bibi about her smoking. She said she had already stopped for longer than 2 weeks. We said maybe we could move up her baptism a little sooner. She told us she needed to go back to her village on Friday, but she'd be back after a week or so. We were talking it through, trying to figure out how long she would be back for and what not, when I finally just decided we could have her baptism that Saturday- it wouldn't cause any big problems, just a lot of work calling people. So that's what happened. She got baptized on Saturday, confirmed on Sunday, and now she's back in her village tending her rice paddy. She gave an awesome testimony after her baptism, talking about how we met her because she got in that car accident, and how from the very first day, she was planning to go back "besok, besok, besok, dan tidak terjadi": tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, but it never happened. She said it was maybe the hand of God stopping her from going back so she could be baptized.

The zone leaders came yesterday. We actually got a new zone leader who is almost finished with his mission. Our former zone leader, Elder Perrot, is going to be the assistant to the President. Sad day. He gave us such good advice. Elder Stone used to live with Elder Perrot before they came to Sabah, so we both know what a great guy he is. A lot of the times during our companionship study, we'll be talking about a problem, and draw upon the advice of Elder Perrot, like "Elder Perrot once told me the same thing happened to him, and this is what he did ..." Elder Niederhauser came with me yesterday to have Douglas's baptism interview.

Douglas is just getting better. I'm not sure if I got around to it last week, but paying tithing is a concern for Douglas, whose work as a DJ, though relatively high paying, is still not more than sufficient to support his parents and siblings. Now, I don't know the reason behind it, but I do know that Douglas worked extra late Saturday night and gave up his free day on Monday so he could have some overtime. We can only guess he is working more in anticipation of paying tithing. he's so good. I was scared during the interview: they were in the room for a very long time. But no problems, he's all set. And he chose me to do the baptizing, and confirmation (I know he doesn't actually have a choice in confirmation: that's up to the branch president, but President Niun always let's us choose)

Naturally, with so many "free thinkers" around whose money is their god, we hear a thing or two about the U.S. economy. Not too much. We just hear that it's bad. Their god fails them.

Our mission is really hurting for missionaries right now. We've had several missionaries leave with none to replace them. My zone is down to six missionaries right now. We (Elder Stone and I) figure it might be the smallest missionary zone in the world.

It'll be exciting hearing from President Dahlquist. That's pretty neato.

Well, that's all for the day. I'm feeling kind of stressed this week. I hope it goes away soon.

Love,
Elder Muffler

Letter #35 - Week of 8 Oct 2008 - Fire and Brimstone Preacher

Hello,

This last week went very fast. Time is flying. I still feel new. Maybe that comes from still being in the same place I started. I'm not sure. Sunday afternoon, one verse from my scripture study stood out to me. 1 Corinthians 1:27 says "But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty."

As for Juni, well, he didn't come to church on sunday. We visited him on Sunday night and brought our branch president and his wife. When we were walking up to his apartment, I saw that Juni's cousin Christopher was waiting, apparently for us. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but looking back it's very obvious. When we entered and sat down, Juni told us that the whole family had gone to the United Pentecostal church that morning, and the pastor from the church wanted to come have a talk with us. If there is one thing I hate as a missionary, it is meeting pastors. That is the worst thing in the world, in my mind. There is nothing I enjoy about meeting with them. So that made me uncomfortable. I remember slouching in my chair, my heart beating faster, knowing it was going to be a long night.

Mr. Pastor was nice when he walked in. They always are. He was breathing heavy, and made a joke to Juni about climbing so many stairs. He introduced himself to us and said a few kind words in perfect english. Then, after he asked Juni to move from his seat so he could sit, he squared his muscular shoulders to us, clapped his hands and said "Okay! Let's do it in 20 minutes." I groaned to myself "what do you want to do in 20 minutes?" He continued. "You don't need an hour for the Bible. 20 minutes should be enough." He started to discourse to us, but I, simultaneously with Elder Stone, stopped him and asked that we had a prayer first. Of course, he was happy with that idea. Sister Ruth (the branch president's wife) asked Juni who he would like to say the prayer. I wish she hadn't said anything. We needed that prayer very badly. We needed the Spirit with us, and I knew well that Juni would grant the pastor the privelege of praying. And thus he did. The Pastor chanted with a loud, powerful voice "O Lord Jesus, We thank thee Lord, O Lord because we have thy word O gracious Lord and we are freed O Lord ..." You get the idea of what that did for bringing the Spirit. After every sentence the pastor would say, Christopher would chime in "yes Lord." After that, we offered to have a prayer of our own, which we did.

Mr. Pastor claimed he wanted to listen to our message. He maybe gave us 2 minutes before blasting us. I wish I had a film of that exchange. This pastor was extremely intelligent and highly skilled in his craft. He spoke with force and speed that I have never before heard. He got out in 1 hour things that I couldn't say in 4. He spilled out his whole religious philosophy, as well as everything he could identify with our church to be wrong according to his teachings. He spoke of fire and brimstone and the fact that either he or we were going there, and quite frankly, he wasn't. His techniques were designed to agitate us to contention.

Meanwhile, we stayed calm. We listened. When Mr. Pastor would ask a question and give us a few seconds, we would answer. Bit by bit, we got our message across. As soon as I got the time, I looked him in the eye and said "I know the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is true, and the authority from Jesus Christ has been restored through the prophet Joseph Smith." I think I saw him hesitate for half a second before he went on with his tirade. I have tried to imagine what it was like for Juni and his family to watch the pastor provoke the missionaries for two hours in a language they didn't understand.

By the time the circus was all through, I had a very bad headache. His words left me unsettled the whole next day. But what really bothered me from the whole escapade was that Juni was being led astray by this man that showed absolutely no respect for him. My heart ached.

Tuesday afternoon, we went back to Juni. We wanted to go there and pretend like nothing happened, but at the same time fully expecting that after we had left, Mr. Pastor got in a few more words against us that would lead to Juni not learning any more. We walked in like normal, sat down like normal, and after a normal prayer we asked our normal question about Juni's coffee drinking. We had an awesome appointment with them. They expressed their desire to get baptized, and apologized that Christopher's pastor had come and tried to fight with us. In fact, I think Julia was more excited than ever for her baptism. She expressed how the day before, she hadn't felt really good, but then while reading the Book of Mormon she felt a lot of peace. By some of the questions, it seemed very clear the Pastor had a long talk with Juni and Julia, and it seems Juni was negatively affected, while Julia only got stronger. But the truth of God is bound to sink into them sooner or later, and it better be sooner, cause I don't know how much longer I've got in Sandakan.

Douglas has me a little worried. He actually fell through for an appointment yesterday. He hasn't ever fallen through on anything. We'll get that figured out before long, hopefully.

Jaimi's older sister Bibi didn't go back to their village after all. It seems like she'll be here long enough to be baptized, if not much longer. The only thing holding her back right now is that she is still falling into the habit of smoking. She stopped for a few days, and was feeling good, then out of sheer habit she smoked again. She said the cigerette gave her a headache.

Congratulations to Andrew and Christina on the baby. He is awfully cute.

Well, that's that.
Love,
Elder Muffler

Letter #34 - Week of 1 Oct 2008 - Hari Raya Aidilfitri

Selamat Hari Raya,

Well, today is Hari Raya Aidilfitri, the day after the fasting month of the Muslims. People all over the place are dressed in traditional Malay clothing today, and most of the restaurants and a lot of the stores are closed, and people are just really happy.

Hari Raya is fun and all, but it was lame last night when all 4 of the people we tried to meet with were out of town. We brought a member with us all around, and it was kind of frustrating. After they all fell through, though, Brother Voo brought us out for dinner at a Chinese restaurant. He ordered everything for us in Chinese, so we didn't know what we were getting till they brought it out. I've finally gotten to the point that I've tried most of the food, or at least something similar, so I wasn't too worried. We had crab and corn soup, and fish mixed with vegetables, and a meat I didn't recognize. Brother Voo had a hard time explaining what it was. "You know kancil?" Kancil. There's a popular car model named the Kancil. "Like the car?" "Yeah, same word as the car. It's an animal. It's like ... You know kambing?" "Yeah, we know kambing- it's lamb." "Lamb, yeah. It's like lamb, only with horns like this" and he made the shape of long, straight horns. I had my dictionary with me, so I looked it up before I ate it. It's mouse deer- this sort of primitive deer indeginous to Borneo. I found out today its meat is considered a delicacy. I agree.

Juni and his family didn't come to church on sunday. We visited them on Sunday night. Something seemed different about them. Julia was quiet and mostly just stared at the ground. We started to read together a chapter from the Book of Mormon. Not long after we started, I reminded them that the day they had agreed to be baptized had already passed, and asked them when they thought they would be ready for baptism. I was met by blank looks. "You still want to be baptized, right?" Julia muttered something with a sad look on her face. "What was that, Julia?" She didn't answer. We decided to continue reading. After we finished the chapter, we asked "Why didn't you come to church today? You can be honest. Was it because you couldn't, or because you didn't want to?" After the third time assuring them they could be honest, Julia finally opened up to us. "We didn't want to go because so much was in english, and we don't know any english." That's a legitimate concern. Malaysia is a multi-racial, multi-lingual country. Members of our branch have at least 5 different mother tongues, and with the maximum availability of church materials in english, it's little wonder that members prefer to speak english. We reassured them that we will have someone at their side translating whenever they come back, and they seemed pleased. Then Julia had another confession. "I haven't drunk coffee for 3 days already" She hadn't before shown any signs of wanting to stop. It was so excellent. Hopefully, she'll pull her husband along, and they'll be baptized before long. Their goal right now is the first of November.

I was worried about Douglas after Elder Howes left. Douglas was very attached to Elder Howes. I was worried that some things were going to come up and Douglas was going to give up on the church. When sacrament meeting started, he was not present. I saw him enter later, though. He asked me "Muffeh, did you think I not going to come?" "Yeah, Douglas, I was worried about you." Then he gave me the best line I've ever heard out of an investigator. "When have I broken a promise to you?" Wow. He hasn't yet. We asked him if he wanted to move his baptism up until this week, but he said he doesn't feel ready yet. He's scheduled for the 18th of this month.

We had a crazy hurricane-like storm on Friday night. I don't have time to go through the whole story, but I was in a concrete building at the time trees were falling and roofs were flying, but I did get to run through the river/road to get to the member's home 100 meters away and have a branch missionary coordination meeting. Both Elder Stone and I fell in the rain gutter, which was completely indistinguishable by sight from the other water. If you can find out anything about that storm, especially how much water fell in that hour, I'd like to hear that.

I hope everything goes well with Christina's baby. That's exciting.

Oh, Ben ... Doherty football games... going to the Roy's house ... Anything more I should know?

If you ever see any more of my high school friends, give them my email address, or take their address, or something. I'd love to hear from Steven Carson or Beth. If you ever see them or their relatives, see if you can't get an address for me so I can write them. Also, do you know anything about how James Nealy is doing with his headaches, or what he's up to these days?

We went to the Rainforest Discovery Center again with the Morreys today. I wanted to go for sure one more time before I leave Sandakan, and I'm not sure how much longer that will be.

Elder Stone and I get along very well. We see eye to eye on a lot of things. We spent over an hour last night talking about cross country, and Elder Howes, and BYU. It was good.

So, sounds like Nebraska is having a typical year this year. Nice that Sand Creek's doing well. Elder Morrey tells me BYU is ranked top 10. Craziness.

I'm excited for Elder LeBaron. I can really imagine him serving in Germany. I'm sure he'll make an awesome missionary wherever he is called. I've been meaning to send him a letter for a long time, but I just have been too busy.

Send my thanks to Brandon for his 3 letters. They were excellent. I'll reply before long.

Sister Van-Wagenen sent me a letter that I recieved today. If you see her, tell her thank you.

Well, I should probably get going. I feel very rushed this evening. This is the first time I have ever done my email this late on a normal P-Day. We're going to go right after this to visit Juni.

Love,
Elder Muffler