So, Elder Ferguson. No I guess I haven’t talked much about
him. So first off, seeing him at the place he’s at shows me how far I’ve come
in the language and it’s really kind of amazing. People are kind of shocked
when I tell them I’ve only been in Malaysia 4 months. It’s actually a really
good way to contact people. By the way, the training is going well I guess, I
don’t have a whole lot of experience but I try to share what I do know. He
makes a whole bunch of language bloopers but I guess I probably did too. He
also has a lot of greenie power (greenies imagine themselves (for the most
part) as invincible and thus they are extremely hopeful and confident), it’s
kind of nice cause I was just starting to lose mine. He’s not a huge fan of the
food here but he does all right. He’s also finally getting to the point he can
keep up on his bike. But ya we get along way good and have a lot fun doing the
work.
This week on Wednesday we actually were told the whereabouts
of the badminton place and we had an informal activity there with a bunch of
members. Pretty fun. Thursday turned out to be a bust. We planned to go
tracting all day but as we left the house I noticed it was a little windy. As
we rode south I noticed that the entire sky to the south was black. And as we
came out from the houses to where I could actually see, there was a column of
blackness reaching into the heavens. I wish I had gotten a picture of it. Basically
it looked like the black gate of mordor but in the sky above the layer of
normal rainclouds. Every few seconds it would glow purple and emit streaks of
lighting. And it was coming right for us. By the time I realized how serious
this storm was it had sent out two arms of clouds and had surrounded us except
in one direction. We began riding that way as fast as we could and I soon
realized we could get back to the house if we went the back way. Then it hit. At
first it was your basic rainstorm, turn up the voltage and wind 100%. On the
way home a bolt hit about 30 feet to the left of Elder Ferguson, I literally
felt the shockwave from the thunder. Bolts continued to strike near to us the
entire way home. It was seriously nonstop thunder the entire way and bolts were
regularly hitting houses, trees and power poles pretty close to us. We
continued along in high spirits with the wind to our back the entire way. Just
as we were getting back to Matang Jaya (the neighborhood where our house is)
the real storm hit. Immediately it was like swimming through the air. Elder
Fergusons front mud fender was ripped off his bike and flew past his face and
he almost got blown into the drainage ditch. basically the entire road was a
river and our bikes were throwing up so much water if you stopped peddling and
put your foot down it was like water skiing. By the time we got to our house
the 2 foot wide by 4 foot deep runoff gutters on both sides of the road were
overflowed and the entire road was filled with water, luckily it didn’t get any
higher though. But anyway that continued for the rest of the day and also the
night.
Friday was a way good day. We went tracting and pretty much eliminated
the last area I had not explored. It basically was an all Islamic kampong. However
when we went to badminton on Wednesday I noticed an area of Bondour that we had
not knocked before so after we explored we went there. There were about 7 streets
each with like 20 homes. Most were Orang Cina (chinese) but 2-3 on every street
were Christian. We went through all the houses with no luck until the last
street. The first house an 18 year old Iban Roman Catholic guy named Louris
came out and talked to us. He said he was pretty busy but we got him to accept
a return appointment today at 7, wish us luck. Two houses later we met a man
named Herman who lived with his parents and grandparents. He was RC and Bidayu
and had grown up speaking English and was attending a university. At the end of
the month he is going to Singapore to continue his schooling. But anyway he
started a job today that is from 10-10 every day, pretty normal here. But
anyway, he said that although he wouldn't have time after Monday he ended up
coming to church yesterday, he had lots of questions about the priesthood and
the Book of Mormon, it was pretty cool! Although he has no more time now, once
he goes to Singapore he will have a lot more and we plan on passing him to the Singapore
Elders.
So ya. We continue to work with the less actives in both
Siol Kandis and Kampong Kudei. This week we had some really good lessons with
some of them. Brother Tuhah also continues to come to church and is way cool. we
haven’t been able to visit him because either we can’t get a hold of him or we
can’t find his house or I can’t understand what he’s saying over the phone, but
anyway ya.
Conference. We will
get it in both English and Malay this week so as we’ve been visiting less
actives we've been inviting them.
Also I think I already said this but in Malaysia nobody
listens to the anti-piracy laws and the government doesn’t care. Thus as you
walk around you’ll find lots of movie and music kedais with these cheap Chinese
made plastic sleeve movies and music CDs. Most of the time movies are available
here before they come out in the theatres in the United States. And they always
have one or two TVs playing the latest movies or news. As we walked by, one time,
it had a news headline about the government, shutdown or something? It was in Malay
and using big words so I couldn’t completely understand. Anyway... About 3 days
later this guy called to us from the side of the road and said that he had been
a friend of an Elder Matheson, an Elder that served in Matang in 2010-11. He
asked us what was wrong with our government and also if we had reported to the
embassy yet.... We explained that it probably wasn’t that big of a deal. So
anyway what’s the rundown on that.
Pictures below.
Sincerely
Elder Halpin
For some reason people here like putting
Egyptian statues everywhere.
This is one of like 4-5 I know about.
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