Sunday, August 17, 2014

Week #10.... Kuching, East Malaysia! Wow!

So after being in Singapore for one night I have been moved to East Malaysia in a city called Kuching. 

It's downright crazy here, but I already love it.

-no sidewalks here but we bike everywhere and don't forget it's the left side of the road. That's got my mind all messed up.
-We are over an international ward. So people from everywhere are there and a good amount of them are chinese.
-It's not really Chinese they speak here but a mix of Malaysia English and Chinese among Tai and eban and huayu, haukian, fujiao, tamel, and like a billion other languages. I can't even understand english here a lot.
I feel illiterate here haha
-my companion is the bomb. he's been here a year. 6 months in Singapore and 6 months in Muri in East Malaysia. His chinese is quite good. 
-I gave the lesson  in priesthood this week. Not sure if they understood a lot of it since my english is not the same as theirs. 
-they have sunday school in Chinese and I thought they were talking about seeing God in heaven and how but I asked my companion after and he told me they were talking about Moses and the manna falling from heaven. Great. 
- We live in a decent aprt. ill try and send pictures with two other Malay speaking elders. In our ward we have two English sisters as well. 
- We email in pretty sketch internet cafe's where kids just play Call of Duty or some sort of it all day. kinda sad. Jackson, don't. You the man. 
- We teach in shoplits they are called where most everyone works. It's just a bunch of outside stands selling random stuff.
-I taught my first lesson on Saturday in Chinese. Think it went well. But in the middle of it she started blabbing on about something and later my companion told me it was that I had black hair and she thought that was cool/different
-all the water is bad here so everything has to be filtered.
-it's humid as nuts here. 
-We run in the mornings and its great because whenever you start running slow all the stray dogs will start chasing after you and so then you really start booking it. makes you get a good workout in. Not sure what happens if you actually get caught by one of the dogs. Hopefully that doesnt happen. My companion just says that you kick them but that sounds kind of sketch. I'll try and just run fast enough. 
-Yeah so that's another thing. They have innumerable stray cats and dogs here. Everywhere. 
-we don't have dryers so we just hang our clothes out. They don't have a lot of things actuallly
-We have about 40 active people in our branch and about 70 members. 
-we sit on the floor in people's houses, houses usually have about 2 big rooms in a bedroom. 
-My companion is from North Ogden by the way
- Everyone here is short like a foot shorter than me. And they all love white people (hongmaren) and they all love the NBA. 
-It rains like 24/7 here but you also dry 24/7 here because it is so hot. 
- I already can still I've started talking their english a little. It's kind of like how Chinese people drop the articles in words so it sounds very childish. 
-oh so immigration hates missionaries. we dress down to regular clothes and have to travel without companions otherwise its unsafe. Even so I got taken and questioned quite thoroughly. They think we get paid and are taking into their country's economy so they let me through but on of the missionary's passport who has been back and forth like 5 times they really questioned him hard and only gave him two weeks in Malaysia before he must report to immigration again. That was in KL. Had no trouble in Kuching immigration. My companion did though. Its ok though. They just don't associate missionaries as volunteers but rather as workers. 
-the food here is quite different. Lots of things that I dont ask just eat but nothing too crazy yet. Apparently I will be eating worms soon. Perrrfecct. 
-Everything here is like dirt cheap. Like 10 rigit or 2 US dollars for a $12 US meal. 
-Chinese people just make you eat and eat. Their pride is to make you fat. Companion's gained 40 lbs. But then again not sure if he's been working out. I will just show him another way of life I guess. 
-We are "whitewashing" the area which means that neither companion knows the area. Very hard for him to train me without himself knowing anything about the people or the area but I think President Mains has a lot of trust in us. 
-our land lord thinks we throw matches off the side of the aprt building. He doesn't understand that we are new so hopefully nothing comes of that. 
-Oh and in the sunday school chinese class this one guy member was teaching a bunch of false doctrine like: we can't come to church if we drink Cola and stuff like that. We got some work to do. 
-Right next to our church building is the "Blessed Church" which has rock concerts every night and really gets the people going persay. Everyone loves it there and so many people go there.  


I'll end with a scripture that helped me this week: A lot of people think that logic and facts is the only way to know things however 1 corinthians 2:5 says "That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God."

love you all,

-Elder Pierce


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