Dec. 22, 2009

Merry Christmas!

Im sorry im sorry im sorry. I should have emailed home about calling last week. Last week when I emailed I actually forgot it was Christmas, it seemed for like the fourth of July to me. I know you guys probably have a lot of fun things planned for Christmas, so i'm sorry if not knowing when I am going to call has stressed you out. Hopefully my call won 't interrupt anything fun you have planned. I'm going to call the morning after Christmas actually so for you guys it will be about 7-8pm Dec 25. You should be 14 hours behind me. Calling the US is cheap here. We have a calling card for about an hour time limit that cost 10RM, about $3 dollars. nice. So ya, the plan is to call at 7am here, so about 5pm there, maybe closer to 6pm, I don't want me sounding like I just woke up haha. Can't wait to talk to ya. I hope this is ok, cuz if it's not I'm not going to get your reply until next week...

It sounds like so much fun at home.

We did a service project at an orphanage the other day that was really fun. Our branch went and cooked chicken curry for about 100 kids, to give the kitchen staff a break. The cooking conditions were somewhat frightening. We had a bunch of red buckets outside we dumped all the vegetables in to wash, using water that looked like it was coming from a gutter. And everyone sat on tables and cut potatoes, wierd green leaves, chicken, ginger, carrots, garlic, onions etc. all morning. As I was helping I was getting kind of nervous to eat this meal, fearing for my digestive tract. After we got everything cooking we took all the kids and watched the Polar Express, I love this movie, and then played a bunch of games. Then we ate with them. I ate the curry. The kids I was sitting with kept taking my camera and taking random pictures, and poking me. they think they are so hilarious. They were cute though. I found a chicken foot in my curry that kind of startled me. And the next day I didn't have any stomach problems so it all worked out!

Last night was quite the experience. We were teaching Aite and Muskan with Kiran's help and afterward he said he wanted to take us to meet another one of his friends in a place called Kota Raya. Kota Raya is a kind of scary place, and we were going at night. I usually just keep my mouth shut because I am always scared at night, doesn't matter where we are, and sister Mccurdy seemed fine with it so I trusted her and kiran. Kiran took us to a restaurant tucked away in the upstairs of this old building, full of Nepali men. We looked so completely out of place. His friend Menika owned worked there so we were able to sit down and talk with her awhile. She was adorable; the first Nepali woman I have met! And she wants us to teach her so awesome. She works all day everyday and never has a day off though. Her brother owns the place so we urged her to bother him for an off day so we could teach her. We'll see. Anyway while we were there men kept coming up to Kiran and us to talk. It's amazing how brave people are when they are in their own element. These people would never have come and talked to us if we saw them on the street. With each person we talked the conversation always ended up with them asking us if we could take them to the US. They want to get there so bad it's ridiculous. We just say, sorry can't help you with that.

Nanda's friend Janak is loving church. He says before he started coming to church he always had money problems, but now he doesn't have them anymore. awesome. I just thrilled me made the connection that it was only after he started coming to church that the problems went away.

I taught kiran how to wink the other day. It's hilarious. Something funny happened that kiran and I were laughing about and I winked at him. He says "Sister! you blink eye what does that mean?" I taught him how and on our bus ride home he kept winking at me. I told him it meant "hey". hahah not entirely true but oh well.

We taught a lesson to Nanda two days ago about General Conference and gave him a copy of the General Conference edition of the Liahona. He loved it. I don't think I have ever seen anyone as hungry for more knowledge. I said "give me one night only sisters and I will finish". The next day, he brought back the magazine, asking for another one. I think I'm just going to hand over Jesus the Christ to him, that'll keep him busy. We gotta get this guy subscribed to church magazines.

Mr. Kong is working in Johor Baru, right next to Singapore, for the next three weeks. We are sad. He usually goes out of town for two days or so and then comes back. So when he originally told me he was going to be out of town the beginning of January I didn't think anything of it. WRONG. We are debating on whether we want to pass him to the Elders down in JB and get him baptized down there.

Britt- I can't believe jason is walking. That's so cute.
Jacey and Tari thank you so much for the emails! Merry Christmas to you guys to. It's always good to hear from you all.
Macsen I can't believe you are applying to Medical schools...
I MISS DEBS GINGERBREAD MEN

talk to you on christmas

sister viehweg