Letter #45 - Week of 17 Dec 2008 - Staying in Sandakan

Hello,

I will indeed be in Sandakan for Christmas. Elder Stone and I talked about it this morning, and I think what would work best for us and what I would like the most is for you to call 10 AM Christmas morning our time, like you suggested. Elder Stone will do his call at 8:30 or so.

Well, we've had a grand old time this last week. A lot of things are going really well. Our biggest problem this last week was that too many people are leaving for the holidays.

Jose and Esperanza are still very excited about church. They came again this past sunday, with a little less fanfare, but they still had an excellent experience. Jose showed up in a white shirt and tie. He looked spiffy. We talked to them last Wednesday, and they should be going to KK to get their Identity cards and citizenship or permenant residence status or whatever, and they agreed to be married in January after that, but they should be set to be baptized on February 7. Jose is still struggling with the word of wisdom, but he has reduced his smoking big time from the last time we talked to him: down from 4 packs a day to 4 sticks. He agreed to quit by the new year.

No sign of the package as of last Friday.

I'm really glad I get to spend more time in Sandakan. Elder Stone is the greatest companion. I'd imagine we'll be very good friends at BYU and probably for a long time after.

Jaimi's daughter, who is living in Johor Baru (right across the border from Singapore) apparently lost her job, and will be coming to live here with her mother next Tuesday. Jaimi told us she'll come to church for sure, and she wants us to come teach her next week. I'm excited to meet more of Jaimi's family.

We had an awesome appointment with a less active family, the Albarto's, last night. They live in a little wooden house built on stilts by the shore. They're Filipinos. The husband works as a mechanic and the wife sews dresses in the house. They have probably 8 children, one of which is severely handicapped and sits in a wheelchair from LDS Charities. We shared a scripture with them yesterday, and tried to get to know them better. They're such humble, amazing people. The husband shared some experiences about how Heavenly Father has kept him safe and healthy, which he attributes to reading the Book of Mormon and praying. The wife told us about how family prayer has helped their family get through hard times. They said the reason they don't come to church is that they often don't have the money to ride the bus. They said there are some times they have had the money when they were just lazy, but they promised to try harder. After the wife told about family prayer, she also said that she and the children used to gather around Marc Anthony II (the boy in the wheelchair) and sing him hymns, but they lost their hymnbook. Before we left, we sang him "Silent Night." That didn't seem to affect him much. Then his mother told us his favorite hymn is "I am a Child of God." While we sang that, he started making noises and smiling and shaking his head. He loved it.

We met Alice's children for the first time last week. She has 2 sons, ages 16 and 15, and a daughter that is 12. She really wants them to learn from us, because they haven't gone to church in a long time. Of course, they're all teenagers, and act as such. We've now taught them twice, though, and the oldest one seems very interested. The middle one is a punk. I can't tell whether he's just playing, or he really doesn't care. Last night, about halfway through our lesson on the plan of salvation, he disappeared into another room, then 5 minutes later I looked up, and he had a can of air freshener that he was spraying over the candle on the top of his grandfather's Buddhist alter.

Those sons were really good yesterday. Alice said she was very busy yesterday, and she wanted us to call her sons to see if they would be okay with meeting us. I called one of them (it must have been the oldest- I couldn't really tell though), and he said he would love to learn from us at that time. Well, when 7:00 rolled around, we were waiting outside their neighborhood for a member to help us teach, and they came strolling home from the bus stop. They said they were just coming back from the internet cafe. I was so happy that they came back for no other reason than to learn from us.

Elder Stone and I have a lot we want to do today. I want a set of dumbbells (I kept putting it off, thinking I didn't want to just buy some and then get transferred, but now I don't care anymore), and we want to buy a volleyball so we can play with the youth on Saturday afternoons from now on, then we want to head out to a grocery store a few miles away so we can get some real ice cream (usually the ice cream here is dehydrated milk solids mixed with palm oil: it just doesn't taste the same) for Christmas. Elder Stone also wants to play a board game, so we'll see what they have at a toy store here.

I tried a new food last week that I am addicted to. It's a kind of chinese roll called pau. They take bread dough, and stuff it with meat and vegetables (really, every restaurant makes them different), then steam them. They are amazing. And cheap.

Well, better go.

Talk to you next week, 10 am Sandakan time. If there are any problems, I'll call about 10:15 to see what's up.

Sincerely,
Elder Muffler