June 8, 2010

So I wrote last week... But now I realize that i didn't send it. I'm a dope. During the week, one night as i was falling asleep I suddenly had the thought "hey! I don't know if i actually sent my email or not!" Then I told myself of course you sent it, you typed it all up why wouldn't you send it... Turns out I didn't send it after all. What a bummer to because I remember finishing that email and thinking to myself, "that was a good email". Oh well, now I don't even remember what I wrote about. I do remember writing one thing and that is, all the elders were bugging about being transferred again but i didn't think it was going to happen because I had the feeling that I was going to stay in KL for a long time, also I wrote that I didn't want to leave becuase i loved KL....

Figures that the week I write home saying I don't want to be transferred is the week I get transferred. They told me Thursday morning and then on Monday they flew me over the South China Sea and now I'm in Borneo. Borneo is the Island shared by three different countries, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei. It is a quite large island. I am serving in a city called Miri, the state Sarawak, of East Malaysia. Miri is located pretty close to the ocean. I am told it is about a ten minute bike ride from our area, though I have yet to see it. Yes, I am a biking sister now, complete with a pink helmet. I'm adorable.... and i look like I'm 6. I've been thinking about hanging ribbon from the handlebars. They had an extra bike for me to inherit here and it is a beauty. I saw it and thought, "youre kidding, that's my bike??" It looked like a piece of junk. BUT, it is a nice bike. I found out that as soon as the Elders purchase a new bike they attack it with a file. They file off all the paint and scratch it up real good to make it look like it is a piece of junk. Bikes aren't as likely to get stolen this way. Its a pity to make a pretty new bike look so terrible but I think the Elders secretly enjoy getting the "ok" to distroy something.

My new companion's name is Sister Whittemore. She is from Florida. She's no Sister Lim. But I'm not going to compare. In Kl, Sister Lim came with me to the airport because she was instructed to wait there to pick up her new companion Sister Wing (my old MTC comp). We got there way early because we didn't know if there would be traffic or not, there is absolutely no way to predict the traffic in KL, it is so random. It was nice though, we had lunch together at the airport, and walked around through the shops for a while. When it was about time to go I told Sister Lim I bettter get going and she started to cry. I gave her a hug goodbye and she wouldn't let go. There we were in the airport in front of everyone, hugging for a good amount of time and she was sobbing. It was sad, and kind of awkward. I did my best to make her feel better about the new companion she was going to have but it didn't really work. I had to leave and she was still sobbing. I felt terrible. Sisters....everything is so dramatic. I'm really missing sister lim though.

I feel like they have transferred me to a different mission. There is nothing similar between the work here and the work in KL. In KL we had to leave about an hour travel time between each appointment. Here we get on our bikes and are at the next appointment in 10 minutes. Also I don't really understand much of what is going on. I feel new all over again, and I don't like it. My language really is terrible and it is kind of embarrassing. They look at me like, "really? you've been here nine months and you still can't speak?" oh well. Everyone is very nice. Also instead of meeting people at train stations or malls or public places we go to their homes. I like that. It harder for them not to show when we are coming to their home :-).

The first evening here it rained, it poured. Can't use an umbrella on a bike so I wrapped everything in my bag in plastic bags and we were off. We got drenched. You should have seen where Sister Whittemore was taking me; mud trails, having to duck to dodge low hanging branches, up to a wooden hut on stilts. Where am I? Last night we had a pretty cool appointment. We taught a family who are getting baptized this Saturday. Their home is on stilts over a river. You have to walk to it on a make-shift board plank to avoid the mud and swamp. They don't have electricity and we met them at 8pm so we got to teach by candle light. As I walked up, the door to their wooden hut was open and I saw three candles with a bunch of people gathered around and thought to myself, "no way" It felt like CAMPING. I liked it because it was so quiet, so peaceful. there were no destractions from the TV or loud music or anything. Just the flicker of the candles.

Those living in Miri are mostly from the Iban tribe. I cannot tell the difference between the Iban language and the Malay language. During our lessons they always switch back and forth between the two. It feels good to finally realize that the reason I was not able to understand anything for the past 15 minutes is because they were speaking in Iban. It feels not so good when I don't understand anything and I lean over to my companion and ask her if they are speaking in Iban and she says "no". will I ever learn this language? I'm sure there are plenty of missionaries who feel this. I just hate that I'm feeling it already nine months out. There is an Elder here from my MTC group and when he saw me the first thing he said to me was "Sister! you are already half way done! that's so crazy." I yelled back at him "don't remind me!" this all goes by way too fast.

Sorry again for missing a week. It was totally unintentional. I appreciate the fact that you still wrote me. I am very lucky to have such a supportive dad, and family. I love your emails. when I print them I read them over and over.

LOVE YOU All

-sister viehweg

May 26, 2010

where did may go? Hey I'm really sorry about the random snow fall you guys had, that blows. I always remember hating it when the snow would come when I thought it was finally summer time. That's Idaho for ya... seems to happen like that every year. I really cannot believe the school year is coming to a close over there. Life goes on as normal doesn't it.

Life is still good in Malaysia, still in KL. I'm enjoying it thoroughly though. This branch is like family, they are the best. And I have been able to witness those I teach morph in to full fledged serving members in the church, whether they are ready or not :-).
Can I tell you how hysterical Paul is. He makes me laugh so so so so hard. Funniest man ever. He had me laughing on Sunday for a long time. The branch had a big clothes swap on Saturday and Sunday. Anyone who wanted could bring unwanted clothes to the church and it was all free for the taking. Paul showed up on Sunday, saw the clothes, and went crazy. I wish you could have seen him. It was the happiest day of his life. I found a suit that fit him, he put it on over the pants he was already wearing, and wore it for the rest of church. I sat by him in Sunday school and he kept telling me "wow sistew wee, God has really blessed me today, He blessed me with a new suit today. No other church in the world would have given me a new suit today, this church is true..". it was hysterical. He came away from that clothes swap with so much junk. Paul is not the best dresser in the world, in fact he looks terrible every day. At church all the sudden Paul would disappear and I would find him in the room with all clothes stuffing hideous, old, torn pollos into a bag. It was like Christmas for him, I'm not sure I have every seen him so happy haha.
Also, in Sunday school we were being taught about Ruth and Paul was making funny comments throughout the lesson. I especially like the famous verse that says "your god, my god" you know the one... When we read it Paul punches a fist in the air and says " whoa, thats powerful! sistew wee's God, MY GOD" Sistew wee you know what it sounds like? It sounds like 'you jump I jump jack' (from titanic)" He is so weird. I probably shouldn't laugh as hard as I do because i think it only encourages him, but I can't help it.

We have been doing FHE on Monday nights at the church for all the single adults and it was been a lot of fun. This week was the best. Recently I got UNO cards and on Monday I taught everyone how to play UNO. That was no easy task. We had a good time though. I discovered something new about sister lim that night. She truly believes if we do not bless the food, we cannot eat it. At the end of FHE we asked a member to give the closing prayer and to bless the refreshments. Well, this member forgot to bless the refreshments. I didn't think anything of it but sister lim rushes over to me and whispers urgently "He didn't bless the food!" The look she was giving me was like, "what do we do! we can't eat the food now! OH NOOOOOO". I told her I think they will be ok to eat, God knows we meant to bless them... and that seemed to put her heart at ease. I laughed inside of myself, she was really worried about it.

I don't know if I have mentioned Jastin yet. We have been teaching a boy named Jastin for a few weeks now and he is great. Jastin is from Punjab India. He came here to Malaysia only about a month ago. In Punjab he studied to become a catholic priest for 4 years, but then his mom died and I think some other things happened, and he decided he did not want to follow that path anymore. Like so many other foreign people have done, he hired an agent to help him come to Malaysia and get a job and working VISA. AND, like so many other foreigners, Jastin fell victim to a dishonest agent who took his money and left him here in Malaysia with nothing. I hear stories like this happening all the time. It is very sad. Through talking to people on the street he was able to find a place to stay, and by meeting and talking to some other people, somehow he was given our card, called us, and came to church. Since that time he called us and showed up at church we have been teaching him and he is getting baptized on Saturday. Yesterday after his baptismal interview we were talking to him for a while and he said in a way, he felt like he should thank that agent who brought him here to Malaysia and cheated him. He said if it wasn't for that man, he would never have come here, and he would never have met us of learned about the church. It's amazing the Jastin can see the good that has come from his trials. He says he really has felt led and he said he thinks there was some divine aid given him. I assured him I knew that a loving Heavenly Father was aware of him and leading him to find the truth. Heavenly Father really watches out for us. Jastin desperately wants to serve a mission but he is already 26 and we told him usually 25 years old is the cut off for boys to go on missions. I think he is still going to try and ask the branch president to see if he can go. He is a smart kid, very humble to. I remember when we first taught him about baptism and authority. He said, "you mean you're telling me, that I since I was baptized in a different church you could say I have not yet been baptized?" I said, "that's exactly what we're telling you". He accepted that without any doubts or arguments, I was amazed.

We are still teaching all men. WE DESPERATELY NEED MORE WOMEN. This branch is all men. This is great, future priesthood leaders, but if there is no women, the men don't have as much incentive to continue coming. Even in the youth, there is one young woman, and about 20 young men. It is so strange. Sister Lim and I started teaching these two young girls last week, they aren't really progressing that well, but we are desperate to keep them because we want more girls in the branch. FHE is always all boys. A young girl from Korea has been here on business for a few weeks and has been attending our branch during her stay here. She came to FHE and you should have seen these boys, they were so excited to have a girl there! I don't blame them. I would hate it too if every church activity I went to was all boys, that would be lame. Hopefully we will be able to find some girls...

anyway, I better get this off to you.
I love you all so much
sister viehweg

May 19, 2010

hey hey what's happenin today?
So spring/summer is finally approaching the States? wonderful news. I wish it would leave here. The other day I think it was a record high, I didn't have a thermometer but it seemed hotter than ever before. Good thing the dependable 4:00pm rain came to cool everything down.
Guess what. This week was epic in the history of the Singapore Mission. We are now allowed to wear our name tags in Malaysia! Crazy huh. We got the "go ahead" from President on Friday. We are longer trying to hide who we are. I think President Clark just has more guts than previous ones, I don't know, but he is tired of hiding I guess. I will admit, the first day wearing the name tag was very very weird and I did not like it. Everyone was staring at my neck...which I guess is the idea. We are getting use to it. Before we only were allowed to wear them inside the branch meeting house. Hopefully this is just one small step closer to building the kingdom in Malaysia.
Remember when I told the story about how the baptismal font didn't get filled up in time for the baptism? Well, we had a repeat. This time is was our baptism and not the Elders; but we were not to blame! Like responsible missionaries, we went to the church the night before the baptism (it was scheduled to occur after church) and turned on the water to allow it to run and fill all night. The font takes roughly 11 hours to fill so we were going to turn it off when we got to church the next morning. The next morning rolls around and we get a call from the Elders saying "You forgot to fill the font!" We couldn't believe it when they told us it was empty because we let it run all night! Now, the font has a pump that must be turned on in order for the water to be emptied out. This pump broke and during the week someone came to replace it; turns out, the pump was left running when it was replaced and the entire time the water was running, the pump was pumping it out, thus zero water Sunday morning day of the baptism. This is horrible. There is absolutely no way to fill the font fast. We tried hauling buckets again but when to turn on water from another faucet in the church the font stops running, and then all the water in the entire church stops running completely. It's like it runs out of water. Terrible plumbing system...stupid. We had to postpone the baptism to later Sunday night instead of right after church so we could somehow get the font filled. After church we found a spicket out by the road that had slightly more pressure than our church (still less than an average garden hose) so we emptied all the trash cans in the church and hauled them to the font one by one. It was hot, we were sweaty, it felt like a crowded day at hot yoga... BUT, we got the font filled enough to do a baptism. Moses was baptized on his scheduled baptism date! Didn't think it would happen. Baptisms are the most stressful part of this mission. How backwards is that! Everything that can go wrong will go wrong. The best part is that Moses called the night before saying he had to work and we would have to postpone the baptism. Sister Lim managed to talk him into coming by telling him the font was already full and people were already coming. The font was not full, and because the baptism was no longer right after church, nobody came. We are liars, but what can you do. Moses is baptized and happy so everything is good. Brother Kong asked if he could baptize him, I think he quite enjoys doing it. Moses speaks Malay so Kong practiced the prayer in Malay. I knelt by the glass and held up the prayer written on a piece of paper just in case though, good thing too because he read the whole thing :-).

Want to know something funny. In the restoration movie, the one we show everyone we teach, there are two scenes that just don't apply to people in this area. There is a scene of a kid picking blackberries, and one of the Smith family getting maple from trees to make syrup. Without fail, when these scenes come up the people here ask what are those? or what are they doing? Nobody knows what a blackberry is and definitely nobody has seen someone get maple from a tree before. Its awesome.

Welp, hope you all are doing fantastic. Thanks again for the letters. I love and miss you. Sorry this one is short, I have been having some computer troubles.

Sister Viehweg

May 11, 2010

herrrro ewuhwee body,
so good to talk to you all on monday. I didn't know it was possible to have a phone conversation with 9+ people but you made it happen. Impressive. I hope you could here me better than I could here you. My connection was so so so bad. I think it is my phone though because often even when we are making calls here we have a bunch of static. Our phone got stolen a couple weeks ago so we are using this fisher price looking cell phone until we get it replaced. It's awesome. It's kind of sad how the phone was stolen. At the grocery store we go to they make you check your bag at a guard desk before you can go in to shop. I should have taken the phone with me but I figured, it's a bag check with a guard watching it, it should be ok. big mistake. When they returned the bag to me my phone was gone. I didn't realize it was gone until we got home. We used another older phone to call our number and some guy answered. We tried asking who it was and we told him that he had our phone (also a big mistake), he kept saying wrong number wrong number. What a tool. I yelled at him "this is not the wrong number this is my number!" Yet another mistake because then he switched off the phone and we couldn't call anymore. So now, no nice phone.
Sister lim is very shy to talk to English people sometimes. Whenever we go to the ex-pats homes in our branch I can be pretty sure that I will be doing all the talking. She says she isn't confident enough in her English, which is ridiculous because she is stellar. But I guess she has a hard time following the conversation sometimes when a bunch of natives get talking to each other. We tend to really slur our words :-) and use idioms, slang, etc. So, she was actually pretty nervous when I handed her the phone to talk to you hahaha. I walked in holding the phone out to her and she was shaking her head saying "no no no". She's a good sport. Love her. She talked to her family on Sunday and it was awesome to listen to her rattle off in Chinese. I'm starting to pick up a few phrases in Chinese and it is really fun. I like this language, it sounds cool and is fun to mimic. She gets excited when I repeat things she says because she says my pronunciation is very good, only problem is two seconds later I forget it.

I can't believe I forgot to bring this up while talking to you but guess what, I had to go to the hospital on saturday. It was a joy. I had a lovely UTI, and I knew it was a UTI but there was no kerr family to call to get a perscription :-) so Sister Clark (presidents wife) made me go to the hospital. They sent me to the Urology and Men's Health Dept. That was a lot of fun. I walked in and there were a bunch of men in the waiting room reading pamphlets entitled things like, "Prostate Cancer" and "Are You Man Enough?". Sister Lim and I felt slightly out of place. After seeing the doc, I was right, and he gave me a prescription and told me to drink more water.
I know I need to drink more water, I purposely don't drink a lot of water and this is why: drinking lots of water means going to the bathroom lots of times. As missionaries we are outside all day long. The public restrooms are frightening. Public restrooms in the US aren't too clean either but compared to the ones here they seem like surgical rooms. There is never any toilet paper, some don't have toilets they have a whole in the floor (called a squater) AND THEY MAKE YOU PAY. When I first came to a restroom that made me pay I thought "wow, this better be a palace inside" -negative, no palace. So my solution? don't drink water. Hindsight, I know it was not too bright of an idea and I am paying for it now, but it seemed logical at the time. Last week was miserable, but I am feeling much better, and I carry toilet paper in my bag....

I'll close with this, nothing makes my day more than going to an appointment to teach one of our investigators and having them show up with a friend asking, "I asked my friend to come along is that ok? I hope it's ok..." Honey, there is nothing more ok in the world. It's the best. It happened twice this week. We met a guy named justin from Punjab who showed up with his friend. His friend had never been inside a church before and was pretty pumped. He was snapping pictures everywhere. We asked his friend to come on Sunday and justin said, "oh don't worry, I will bring him". And Paul showed up with a friend yesterday. His friend only spoke Chinese so Paul translated for me while we taught. It was hysterical. Paul's translation strategy is to just say the major word of the sentence. haha. What I heard was "God, love, Adam, the Fall, came to earth, atonement, etc.." good thing I know what is being taught already. And he would get so confused. He would start leaning over to his friend Jo Wei and begin translating for him into English. Jo Wei doesn't speak English. I would yell, "paul! your supposed to be translating for me!" It was hysterical. Good thing I have sister Lim.

I love you guys so so so so so much.
sister viehweg

May 3, 2010

hey dad,
i should have written this last week so you could confirm but i forgot. can you call me this time? I don't want to go through the whole mix up of not being able to get through to you guys like last time. I hope this is ok. my number is 011- 60- 3- 0169200472. the last part being my cell. I looked up the first numbers to input online, I hope they are correct... call at 4:30- 5pm sunday your time and i will talk to you at 8am monday my time.

wow, i had so many birthday wishes. you guys all remembered, and you remembered to send the emails early. you guys are all boss. every night I thank Heavenly Father for such a supportive family. I really love you guys. My birthday was wonderful. It was fast sunday, and fast sunday in the KL branch is always amazing. There is something really special about the testimonies here. I love them. That day some ex-pats invited us and the elders over for dinner and they didn't even know it was my birthday. so lucky am i. when she found out it was my birthday in relief society (from sister lim who announced to everyone that it was her companions birthday) she was ecstatic, she was so excited we were coming over. Sister lim gave me a present too, she gave me some pink earings that she got in singapore. She is the best. After dinner with the Mickinnley family that night the Elders showed up at our apartment with a cake and ice cream and sang happy birthday to me. They are awesome. I was so so full but they wanted to eat the cake right then, so we sat and had another little party. It was a great day. Except for the fact that the Elders kept telling me, "man sister you are so old, like really you are SO OLD, wow 23, that's old" what a bunch of fetus they are...

I have to express right now how much I love this branch in Kuala Lumpur. It truly is in the Kirtland stage. It's just trying to get on it's feet and it's trying so hard to grow. The members here work so hard and they have so much faith.

So the cafe berinternet we are at today doesn't have a printer, since i couldn't print them out I have spent most of my time reading all these great emails. This email is going to be short. But I'm talking to you all on sunday anyway so no worries. This way I will have lots to tell you on the phone, not that I won't already.

Guess what, Kiran got called to the Singapore mission too. He goes to the provo mtc in september. so by the time he gets here I will have six months left. I'm so excited for him. He really had high dreams of serving in AMERICA but at least he gets to go there for two months, even if it is just the MTC.

Last night sister lim and I got put in charge of the first official Single adult FHE at the branch building. It was a success! It was a lot of fun. Most of the people we baptize are single so we think this will really help everyone get to know each other and make friends. I don't know why they haven't been doing this all along. Somehow, someone put Brother Kong in charge of bringing treats. He totally out did himself. I was so impressed. He made fried rice, fried mee, fried mee hoon, and some wierd sugar drink for everyone! He cooked all day for family night haha. I hope everyone doesn't come expecting a meal every week. Brother Kong cracks me up, you have to meet him. He is just the funniest guy and has the funniest expressions, and the WORST ENGLISH. Lately he has been coming with us to a lot of our appointments to help us teach and he has really enjoyed it. He adds his little testimony to our lessons and his experiences. I love it. He has accompanied us to some great lessons and also to some not so great lessons, but he loves them all. Anyway, at FHE sister lim and I thought it would be fun to play pictionary with everyone. This was hysterical. We had english, malay, chinese, african, we had people from every where and it made for a really funny game. people were yelling stuff out in all sorts of languages. And NOBODY could draw worth anything. they were terrible. it was a lot of fun.
The best part though was seeing everybody interact, we had 3 investigators come and the elders had 2. I loved seeing the members chatting with the investigators and making them feel welcome. This is a missionary's dream come true.

I know this email isn't that informative but we'll talk sunday. love you all
Sister Jessica Viehweg - Mongolia, haha

speaking of mongolia, fun fact: mongolia has 120 missionaries serving there and they are all Mongolians. That's amazing, they already have a stake and everything! The church has been there as long as it has been here. Funny how some places grow so much faster.

April 27, 2010

HELLLLLLLLLLLOOOOO,

(funny thing real quick, I was typing the above and accidentally hit the P key instead of the O key = HEEEELLLPPP hahahah, I don't know why but I think that is funny.)

Anyway, Sounds like a party at home! I miss you all terribly.

So I've heard a number of times from a number of people that I write like I talk... I'm not sure that is a good thing, it definitely means I'm not a grammatically correct writer that is for certain. But, as long as you're all entertained...

Be informed, next week is Zone Conference again for the Kuala Lumpur Zone. This means our P-day is going to fall on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. So if you want me to get your emails next week WRITE A DAY EARLY. And I want me to get your emails next week so don't forget. Promise? I have a feeling you're going to forget. I am a little upset Zone Conference came again so fast. They are supposed to be six weeks apart and this one is only four. The reason I am upset is because we had a little wager with the Elders serving 6 hours south in Johor Baru regarding baptisms. The companionship with the most gets free dinner. We are tied right now and we have one set up that would ensure us the win, but it is set for the Sunday after Zone Conference. We were banking on those six weeks! oh well. Chances are the Elders wont let us buy them dinner anyway, it's great being a sister :-).

On Sunday Paul was baptized. He was the guy who left a note in the church mailbox saying he wanted to learn. Guess who baptized him. The one and only Brother Kong. It was awesome. The baptism was after church so we got them changed and in their white jump suits but then had to wait until the Presidency was finished counting tithing. While we were waiting I realized Paul and Kong weren't with everyone else on the couches. I went to see where they were and found them in the Relief Society room practicing. It was so cute! For the baptism I knelt by the glass and held up a piece of paper of the prayer for Kong to read, he hadn't quite memorized it yet. But he did a fabulous job. I was very proud.

Other big news is Moses. Two weeks ago we got a call on Sunday from a girl asking directions to the church. When they arrived Sister Lim recognized her as a member for Miri East Malaysia, her area before KL. Ketrien, the girl, walked in with a guy saying, "dia mau dibaptiskan, dia mau dibaptiskan" = "he wants to be baptized, he wants to be baptized". He lives about an hour away by bus so we have been going once a week to teach him. It's amazing how far someone will travel to go to church with a pretty face. they are a cute couple. The big news is this is the first time I have taught someone completely in Malay. Ya, six months here in Malaysia and this is the first time I'm teaching in the language. I'm still terrible, but sister Lim is fabulous at Malay so it works. We trade off teaching sections of the lesson. Mine are always pretty short because I run out of things I know how to say, but Sister lim's are quite long and she usually recaps what I teach anyway. We invited him to be baptized yesterday and Sister lim made me do it. I didn't know exactly how to phrase it and I'm sure it came out sounding something like, "you can prepare receive baptism nine may?" but he replied
"boleh" which means "can" so he understood. It's funny, here to answer a question, instead of saying ok or yes, people just repeat back the question word.

EX: "can you meet us today? "can", Do you have a pen? have. except they don't know the word "have" its usually "got a pen?" "got". Anyway, we are excited for Moses.

We are also teaching two women from Japan right now. Yoko and Eiko. Yoko I met on the train, she overheard me talking on the phone to someone and she recognized my English as American English. She had just returned from living a few years in San Francisco so she was excited to meet me. I was standing waiting for the train and I noticed she kept looking at me and smiling so I walked up and said "how are you" She kind of freaked out a little bit and was very excited to speak english. She even asked if she could take my picture on her phone. It was awkward. But she is nice, we met her again yesterday and tried to convince her to come to church. She has never been before so she was a little aprehensive but she said she would come next week. Eiko, we met through a member in the branch. She was renting from them and they brought her to church. she is kind of crazy but nice, and willing to meet with us. When I went to Singapore a few weeks ago I brought back a Book of Mormon in Japanese for her. She was very excited when I gave it to her. The only difficult thing is she lives about two hours away from church. We really have to help her see how important church attendance is so she will be willing to make the sacrifice to come.

That's about all for this week. It's still hot, it still rains, although not as much it seems, we may have just finished rainy season, I'm not sure.
Guess what, mother's day is coming. get pumped.

love,

sis v

April 20, 2010

Oh my goodness. I just skimmed all y'all's emails. wow you guys are busy. April must be insane over there. It sounds like the rents have gone to provo every week for a month. You should buy a jet, i think you would get your money's worth. Bryson, shannon, natalie, one of you look into becoming a pilot. Speaking of Bryson, he's in choir? That's tight, I didn't know. And Shannon, your LAX team sounds boss. Remember, "what's winning without the losers" -tank evans (surf's up, one of our approved movies at the moment.)

Britt, are you sure you want to go to Houstan? The weather sounds worse there than here in Malaysia! If that's where you end up going get ready to wear your hair in a bun every day, because it is SO HOT. That's what I do....i'm so frumpy.

Weird that I have already missed a year of school. I'm not missing finals that is for sure. That's a week of torture. I'm pretty sure the only thing that got my through finals was dance parties at night with Ashley Gooch haha. Excellent stress reliever.

Let's review this week:

We spent a lot of time talking to people on the trains trying to find new investigators. Funny story: The other day we were traveling the trains around 6:00pm near the Petronas Towers. This is the time everyone goes home from work so the trains are insanely packed. The doors open at the train stop and you just see a wall of bodies smashed inside. Sister Lim and I were going into separate doors (when contacting we each cover one end of the train, so we can talk to more people) and she got in, but at the door I was going into there was absolutely no more room for anyone else to get in. I realized I wasn't getting on this train and would have to wait for the next one. So, I ran over to where Sister Lim got on and yelled for her. She was stuck inside amidst a mass of people and by the time I got her attention the doors of the train closed. haha her face when she saw that I wasn't on was priceless. Throughthe glass windows I managed, with hand signals, to tell her to get off at the next stop and I would meet her there. And then I was alone.... So, I did what any sister missionary would do, I started talking to the handsome guy next to me. We chatted, got on the train, I gave him our card with a map of where the church was, invited him to come, and then got off at the next stop where Sister Lim was waiting for me. Those trains are crazy.

Turns out, talking to him was not the best idea because the next day he kept messaging our phone asking if I was married and how old I was. I didn't reply because we were in appointments. He messaged again asking, "can you teach me? are you married? I'm looking for a girlfriend who loves God." ...awesome. Looks like I won't be messaging him back. We'll pass him to the Elders haha, he will love that.

Want to know something I have learned on my mission? Cold water kills. People here think you are insane if you drink cold water or iced drinks. I have heard all of the following; "cold water is bad for health", "cold water will give you cancer", "ice water makes you fat", "cold water harms your digestive tract" etc. It's so funny. I think that's the case in other countries too. Is the US the only place that likes cold water?

We watched a movie today because it is P-day and I started laughing so hard as I was putting in the DVD. This is why: When i pressed "open" a female voice said "Prrease inserrr disc" I chuckled at the accent and put the dvd in. When I pressed "close" the voice came again saying "Rroading disc, prrease wait". I laughed out loud and yelled, "Sister Lim! they recorded you inside the player!" She started laughing really hard and then started hitting me. It was awesome.

Our investigators are doing pretty well. Vasugi is our eternal investigator. She has been taught all the lessons, she sings in the branch choir, she attends institute, she comes to church every sunday, she goes to all the Relief Society parties, yet she still refuses to set a date to be baptized! I think there are some underlying issues that we can't seem to get to the bottom of. She told us yesterday that she wants to talk with the Branch Pres about some things. She says she has some things she doesn't want to talk to us about. I hope it is nothing too drastic. I have found that she is really concerned with her own retention. She told us in one of our lessons that she sees people get baptized and then she sees them do things that they shouldn't be doing and quit coming to church. She doesn't want to be like that. Also, in her other church she knew the pastor was doing things he shouldn't, and wasn't following all the commandments. She's just skeptical right now but she believes everything. I dunno, maybe the Branch Pres will be able to resolve some of her concerns. We'll see. Last night we had our lesson with her at one of our member's homes. The member's name is Jenny and it is just her and her husband. Her kids are all at either BYU or BYUH. She just got back from visiting her sister who married an American and lives in Utah. She went to visit because it was her nephew's funeral. Tragic story actually, he was serving in Romania and he and his companion both died from CO poisoning I think. You might have heard of that story. Anyway, Jenny just got back and I am so glad. I love this lady, she is so nice and invites us over a lot. She cooked dinner for us and then helped us teach Vasugi. It is always so nice to have members there when we teach, the testimonies they share with our investigators are priceless.

Well, my time is running out. I love you guys

sis v