Dec. 2, 2009

Subject: ai yo ada hujan banyak!

Oh my gosh there is a lot of rain! (the subject line)

I didn't write yesterday because we have zone conference this week. Wed was
a normal day and today, thurs, we have a full day Pday. We are meeting with
the mission pres and APs and all that fun stuff today.

Oh how thanksgiving sounds so wonderful in your letters. I'm glad you got
to watch so much football daddy, sounds relaxing. And I'm sure the food was
amazing. Much to my surprise and happiness, the food for thanksgiving was
amazing here also. I was sad because I knew was missing out on Deb's sweet
potatoes this year, those are my favorite. But the couple in the area south
of us put together an amazing dinner and she did in fact have sweet
potatoes. AND THEY WERE PURPLE. Ya, i know. It was all the same goodness
and purple in color. Never have I ever been so happy.

It's good to hear about the BYU UT game, never a dull game between those
two. It is so weird to celebrate holidays here. It's kind of nice, I don't
really think about it. The only Christmas decor I see is in the shopping
centers here. The KL mall had some pretty intense decor which surprises me
because they don't celebrate Christmas in this Muslim country. It's all
done for the commercial aspect I guess. For me, it is still so hot the last
thing I think about is Christmas.

So let's see, here are the updates. Nanda got baptized on saturday and it
was awesome. He was so happy. And ever since he has been the best little
missionary. He has set up appointments for us to meet with his friends
everyday this week so far. And they are all just like him. We met his
roommate Som last week, gave him a Book of Mormon, and found out yesterday
that he had already finished reading it. Holy cow. It's something about
these Nepali men; probably because they all work night guard shifts and have
nothing else to do. I'm not going to complain though. We gave Nanda a copy
of Gospel Principles in Napali for him to study and two days later he came
back with about 10 copies of the entire book. I had to laugh, there aren't
any copyright laws here that's for sure. He says he is going to hand them
out to all his friends. Awesome.
Nanda told us yesterday the Nepali embassy called him in and made him give
them his passport. He doesn't know why. This worries me very much. Nanda
says they probably just want money, but given his circumstances I still get
worried. Embassies are so corrupt here. I am so glad to be an american!
The US passport is so respected, you can do anything.

Speaking of passport and legality issues. My heart is broken. Remember
Marilyn, my marilyn that I talked to on the bus and then saw on the train?
We taught her and she pretty much told us her entire life story. I don't
know what it is about us that makes her feel like she could spill it all but
she told us things she has never told anyone. She has had the hardest life
I have ever heard of; everything from rape, visa problems, to prostitution.
There are very evil agencies here who get people from other countries to pay
them a lot of money and give them their passports to come here and work. I
guess they tell these poor people they will set everything up for them when
they arrive but then they steal their passport and make them work without
pay. Anyway she came to church with us on Sunday. She loved it. She cried
through the whole sacrament meeting. She told us she was so happy to
finally find a church she felt good at and felt was true.
But we found out she was illegal because this agency stole her passport.
This means we cannot teach her. I wanted to teach her anyway and not tell
anyone, just let her be baptized! But sister Mccurdy follows the rules
better than I would and made us go to her home Tuesday and tell her we
couldn't teach her. She bawled. She was so sad because she felt like she
had finally come across something good in her life and was being rejected,
yet again. I cried too, we all cried, we're girls. Right now I'm just
praying really really hard that she can get her papers figured out so we can
teach her. She can still come to church so that's good.
This happens a lot. We had to drop a man from Pakistan who was on baptism
date and everything because we found out he was illegal. I hate it, I hate
this rule.
But life goes on I guess.
MIRACLE: Mr. Kong came to church. He thought he had to work out of town
again this weekend but his Father called him randomly Saturday night and
told him to come back to KL. Which meant he was able to come to church. He
liked it. He likes "learning about jesus". He said he didn't like all the
people around him at church though haha, he hates crowds. We'll have to get
him over that. He also has some friends he wants us to teach. The guy
isn't even baptized and he is a missionary. I love it. Interesting thing
about Mr. Kong: he has no first language. It happens a lot here. He is
chinese-malaysian, but never learned chinese, never learned malay that well,
and his english is not very good either. He really has no native tongue.
It's strange. We love him though, he is one of the happiest guys I've ever
met.

I have realized that I haven't really described the situation here in KL
very well. Malaysia has a Muslim government. That is why we cannot teach
them here. It is a rule specific to this mission. Even in East Malaysia it
isn't as bad because the chinese are more in charge over there. You need a
passport to go from east to west malaysia. We were told about the no muslim
rule in the MTC but for some dumb reason I didn't make the connection that
there would be this many. I was thinking "oh ya, when I run across a muslim
every month or so, I can't teach em, ok got it". Not so, there are a lot.
If they are Malay, they are Muslim, if they are Chinese-malaysian we can
teach them and if they are foreigners that are legal we can teach them.
I live on the ninth floor of a complex. Our place is average. We live very
comfortably. I have the typical entire bathroom as a shower so it's always
a trial not getting the toilet paper wet but other than that, the apartment
is great. There is an AC unit in every room so it doesn't get hot. And we
have a balcony to hang our clothes on outside. We have all normal
appliances so it's not like i'm roughing it in any way. Sister Mccurdy is
from West Jordan, she has been in KL for 10 months and has been out a year
total. She wants to get out of KL but she's a good sport about being here
still. She loves and hates this place at the same time.
KL is big. We cross six lanes of crazy traffic to get to the bus stop each
day. Everything is dirty and smells bad. I don't even know what I'm
smelling but the gutters are RANK. We live right in the city on the main
road called Jalan Ampang. We are pretty close to everything. We spend most
our day traveling on buses and trains though because the city is big.
The church building we meet in used to be the Spanish Embassy. It's kinda
of cool. The church is not a recognized church in Malaysia so we aren't
allowed to have a sign up on the building or anything so it looks kind of
like a house. The bills we get at our apartment all say To: the Malaysian
church of jesus christ of latter day saints, so we don't get in trouble.
They are working on getting the church recognized, it's in progress. In
east malaysia they are allowed to build church buildings but again, that is
because the chinese are mainly in charge not the muslims. People travel
pretty far to come to church. Our branch president lives two hours away.
All the leadership in the Branch are Ex-pats, which is good and bad. I wish
there were more locals involved in leadership but there's not enough I
guess.
When we meet people we don't say we are missionaries. I say we are here
volunteering for our church. I am getting good at recognizing who is malay
and who I can teach. But religion is not a sensitive subject here at all.
If I can't tell I just straight up ask, "so are you christian? buddhist,
muslim?" nobody takes offense.
Hopefully that gives you an idea of what it's like here.

It is always so good to hear from you every week. I WUV IT.
Things are actually going pretty well. My first two weeks here we had two
baptisms. I think I was spoiled... Hopefully we can continue to find more
people. Finding isn't the issue, it's keeping the people once you find
them.

I love you!
sister v