Dec. 8, 2009

Hey fam bam.

So good to see your emails pop up. This computer is so slow though! It's
been 20 minutes and not one of them has popped up yet. so i'm writing this
on word while I wait.

This week was super. Zone Conference was awesome. They have some really
talented AP elders here that gave great training, as did president and his
wife. Actually all his wife did was talk about acne and that everyone
should be wearing sun screen and bug spray, but nobody does. Nobody listens
to her haha. It's too much of a hassle. She's a nurse though so I guess
she feels like it's her duty. Our Zone conference was actually one of the
AP last day. After the conference ended his parents showed up at the church
house to pick him up. It was kind of weird to see his mom run in screaming
and hugging him. That is forever and a life time away. It was fun to talk
to them though.

Let's see what else happened this week. Mr. Kong has accepted our
invitation to be baptized Jan 2. I'm so happy! I taught him about faith,
repentance, baptism, holy ghost etc. this week and at the end asked if he
wanted to prepare himself to be baptized on that date. He thought for a
minute and said "well, I may be out of town that day so maybe we can plan
for Feb around chinese new year?" No way am I going to let him put this off
a month. I told him, we will plan for Jan 2 and if you are out of town we
can do it either the day before or the day after. He said that would work
haha. I'm excited! I wish you all could meet Mr. Kong, he's crazy. He is
so awkward but so friendly and socially skilled at the same time. I don"t
know what it is. We have taken him over to some ex-pats in our branch a
couple times and he loves them. They are the Sanders from Utah. He is
retired and she works at the US embassy here. Mr Kong calls him Mr Scott.
Im not sure what his deal us but he always calls people by Mr. or Ms. He
has introduced us to his friends and we call all of them by their first
name but we still have to call mr. Kong, "Mr Kong". It's funny. We've
tried asking him what his name that he goes by with his friends and family
but he just says "Mr. Kong". So that's what we'll stick to. IM SO HAPPY HE
IS GETTING BAPTIZED!!!!!!

This Saturday Emmanuel is getting baptized. He is from Cameroon and his
English is horrible. We use one of our recent converts Pascal, from Togo,
to translate for us into French. Turns out we didn't really need him.
Yesterday we met with Emmanuel and Pascal couldn't come. So we went on with
the lesson and he said he understood everything. He just has a hard time
talking back. I love Emmanuel, it is fun to hear this beautiful French
language come out of such a big person and such a deep harsh voice. He is
intense. I'm excited for him to get baptized this weekend. Sister Mccurdy
has been teaching him for quite some time. He kept putting his date off
because he wanted to make sure he understood everything first, with the
language barrier and all.

I think this mission is an extremely high baptizing mission. It sure keeps
things moving. Since there are so many baptisms they really focus on
teaching the recent converts all the missionary lessons over again after
they are baptized. I wish when people were baptized they would stick with
it, unfortunately retention rate is always an issue.

And Nanda. I could go on and on and on about Nanda. I love Nanda so so so
so much. We are teaching four of his friends right now and three have
already asked if they can be baptized. There is something about these
Nepali people. They are eating this gospel up. Sometimes I wish I could
have served my mission in Nepal. I LOVE EM. Just kidding I love it here.
Yesterday after we taught Nanda and his friend Janak, Nanda started telling
us about his Tai-kwan-do skills (however you spell that). Apparently he
knows on move where you flick someones ear in a certain way it will make
them pass out for two hours....what? He told us a story once when he was
in Nepal. It was during election time and he was being chased through the
airport by a bunch of men. One man jumped on his back and Nanda did one
single little move and paralyzed the man's entire left side of the body. I
do not want to get on Nanda's bad side. He said he is going to teach us one
move so we will feel safe walking the streets of KL. I'm pretty pumped
about this. He said he also knows a move that can kill someone, but him and
his instructor made a promise to God when he learned it to only use it for
good. I'm not kidding Nanda is the MAN. If you find a triple combination
in the Nepali language please let me know. I don't think any scripture
exists in that language; I hope they get working on it soon. These Nepali
people are ready baby.

No word from Marilyn. We had District Conference this weekend and invited
her to the meeting on Saturday and the meetings on Sunday but she didn't
show. She says she will come if we come get her but we just don't have
time. I think she is scared to go out by herself because she fears getting
arrested. I feel for her but we have a lot of people we are meeting at
church meetings and just can't travel all the way out to pick her up each
Sunday. We'll see if she comes this Sunday. Right now Im just praying she
gets her papers figured out.

Shannon - you are crazy. It makes me so happy to hear about all the weird
things you do, ya nutter. Keep being a bad girl.

Nattles! - The time I got your last letter was at 1:00am I think. You guys
are about 14 hours behind me here. Whoa crazy right! Sounds like you had a
nice relaxful Sunday morning watching planet earth. Awesome. Let me know
how your stocking turns out ya?

Britt- thanks for you email last week sorry I didn't respond. I can't
believe Minnesota is an option for you guys!! That is awesome. Kara loves
you guys! She would be so happy. Kara thinks Brent is hilarious. As do I.
I can't believe Jason is talking. whoa. Hold up a picture of me every now
and then could ya? Don 't want him to forget who his favorite aunt is

Macsen you da best. I love the letters. Sounds like you have had a pretty
good week. Show O-chem who's boss.

Danielle - track sounds awesome. calculus doesn't sound so awesome. Time is
flying isn't it. Live up this year, it's not as good as college...but it's
still fun. :-)

Bryson - stay hott.
Love you all!!! thanks for the letters

sister v