Linda and I organized a Young Men / Young Women Activity, playing "Minute to Win It".  We had a lot of fun.  We held the activity at Brother Jimmy and Sister Minang's home. 
In this first game, Helena and Leonard had to stack 6 dice on a popsicle stick. 

 We got 3 new elders in our area.  This is Elder Meister from Australia and Elder Gaultier from Logan, Utah.  They had to bounce 3 ping pong balls on the floor and land them in the bowl on their heads.  They were pitiful.

 We had these two girls unwrap an entire roll of toilet paper spinning around and looking like mummies.  The one young lady in the yellow fell over.  She was so dizzy. 

 The big favorite was for everyone to participate in moving their Oreo cookie down from their forehead to their mouth, only using their face to move the cookie.  The sad part was it is so hot and humid in Malaysia, that the cookies stuck fast and didn't move so easily.  We eventually had a winner.

 Stanly had to keep 3 balloons up in the air for one minute.  He was really good at it.  The only drawback was to do this activity, we had to turn off the ceiling fan and it was even more hot and humid than before.  Right after he won, we all ran to turn the fan back on.
In the white long sleeved shirt is Presley.  He is a wonderful 20 year old kid who will be a member for 1 year in September.  He wants to go on a mission right away.  He is currently the Young Men's President and is one amazing young man.

 Two of the kids had to stack 5 apples on top of each other.  We were sure it would be impossible to do in one minute, but one of them made it and gave another point to their team.

 Here is Elder Meister again, sucking up
M & M's with a straw and moving ten of them from one plate to another.  He beat his opponent by just one M & M.  Whichever team won the most points, they were the team who was able to eat first.  But, of course, tradition over road that as they always serve the senior couple first and then the elders.  Until each of us begins eating, no one else eats and everyone watches to see if we like the food.

 These 2 little guys are not in the Young Men or Young Women, but we allowed them to play this game.  Everyone cheered them on.  They had a hard spaghetti in their mouth and had to get 6 "penne" noodles on their spaghetti.  The little guy in red, wearing one of the elders name badge, won.  He was so proud.

Helena had to keep a green feather up in the air for one minute.  Again, no ceiling fan and lots of hot air with 12 kids, 4 elders, 3 other adults who cooked the food and both of us in this small living room.  This is the average size of the homes in Malaysia.  Pepto Bismol pink is a very popular color.  Off from this living room, to the right, is a small bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom.  That is the entire house.  Sitting on the sofa is the other new elder, Elder Tan.  He is from Malaysia and speaks Chinese.  We sure can use him in our JB Branch with the Chinese members.

 We have these fun little "gecko" lizards everywhere.  Sometimes they get into the homes.  I was kneeling, saying my prayers the other night, and felt something crawl over my leg.  I jumped into the bed and just about knocked Linda out the other side, screaming like a girl.  We chased the lizard out the front door and as I used the broom to get him out, I broke off his tail.  The tailed flailed all around as the body ran off.  I'm sure, he is going to get all his relatives and come back tomorrow night to get me.

 For P-day this week, we decided to go bowling.  The mission rule here in Malaysia, is everyone wears mission clothes when in public, even on our P-day.  You can wear shorts when working in your apartment or if you are out and doing a service project in someone's yard.  Here is Linda, bowling her little heart out.  She was really good

 This is Elder Smith, from American Fork.  This was our last P-day together, before mission tranfers this coming Thursday.  We found out that we will lose Elder Steven and Elder Smith.  We will then have Elder Chan become our District Leader and a new set of missionaries will come back to the Masai area. 

 I bowled a fairly good game, but after about three bowling throws, I got a "charlie horse" way up in my butt muscle on the left side.  It hurt for days.  I still beat all the other missionaries with my "butt handicap".  We had lots of fun bowling and it only cost 10 RM for 2 games, which comes to $1.50 per game.

 This is our famous Elder Steven.  We call him our "chocolate baby".  He is a Malaysian, but his ancestors are from India.  The picture shows that he didn't do the best job bowling.  He served as our District Leader and will now be transferred over to East Malaysia and assigned to Kuching.
He is really excited about the area he is going to but discouraged to have to train another brand new missionary.

Here we are, standing outside in the hot sun in front of the bowling alley.  Just a few days after we took these pictures, the country of Indonesia began burning their forests to clear some land.  It apparently got out of control and the smoke has caused a lot of trouble here in Malaysia and in Singapore.  The normal PSI reading for particulates in the air is suppose to be below 90.
Our number was at 401, which means we have to wear masks if you go outside.  We are now in our summer season, with normal temperatures in the high 90's.  When it is not summer, our regular temperatures are about 85 degrees, so it is not that much difference. 

 On Saturday, June 8th, we continued with our Gawai celebrations at Brother Uki's home.  Brother Uki (in blue) is the patriarch of this family, with 21 people living in one small home. 
We had so much food and "seronok" (fun). There is five families that are all related to Brother Uki that live in this home.  Super humble, wonderful people.

 With almost every Gawai party, you have to get up and do the traditional dances from East Malaysia.  Here is Linda dancing.  We played a guessing game from the Book of Mormon and if you couldn't come up with the answer by the time we counted to ten in bahasa, then you had to get up and dance.  Everytime a sister lost, they would go over to Linda and ask her to dance with them.  Elder Olivares and I got up and danced together.  Sorry, no pictures.

 I was able to get up on the 23rd floor of the adjacent apartment tower and take pictures of Johor Bahru.  This is a picture of the newest tower being built and you can barely see the green building right behind it, which will be tower number 4.  There are 2 more towers in the works.  Just off to the right side of the picture is the tower Linda and I live in.  We are on the first floor.

 This is the typical "shop lots" that are everywhere in Malaysia.  They are usually 2 or 3 stories high.  The store is located on the first floor and people live on the 2nd and 3rd floor.
These shop lots are quite nice, but most of them are quite dirty, with garbage thrown right outside the front doors and lots of dogs running all around.  The red roofs, on the bottom of the picture, are homes in a very nice area of town.

 This picture is from the 23rd floor, as I zoomed in to show how the driving is on the left.  It has taken me a few days to get adjusted to it, but now, it comes quite naturally.  You sit in the right hand side of the car, but drive on the left side of the road.  All exits on freeways are on the left side and there is no way to take a right hand turn.  You can only continue on the freeways and get into the "u-turn" lane and go back to your destination. 
                                                
This white set of "shop lots" is where the LDS church is located.  You can't see it from here, but it is just one block away from our tower apt.                            

We went out today, after getting the elders bike repaired, and ate at an Indian restaurant.  They serve the food on a large green live leaf.  Linda and I got the vegetarian plate.  You get a large pile of seasoned rice, then pick three different vegetables.  They throw in some curry and a crisp piece of bread, like a large potato chip.  It was very good food.  Both of our large plates of food cost $4 together.  We hardly ever cook at home, because it so much cheaper to go out to eat.


We have seen a great deal of opposition from Satan with the local leaders and members.  We visited a sweet family last night and gave the head of the household a blessing.  Last week, he accidentally hit someone on their motorbike.  The person got knocked over and then got up and walked away walking his motorbike.  The entire family was inside the car and were afraid to get out, since there were many motorbike kids all around.  The damage to the car was about 2,600 RM (ringgit) and will take 3 weeks to repair.  Right after that, his oldest daughter had a baby and had to deliver the baby C-Section.  The father had to help pay for this also.  He called us and told us that his family of 7 had no food, but will be able to get back on their feet in about 3 months.  There is no such thing as a "bishop's storehouse" out here and people have to just do the best they can.  I asked him if I could give him a blessing and he knelt down on the hard tile floor, kneeling straight up for the entire time.  Our branch president was robbed and attacked a month ago, and many are scared to go out by themselves.  Satan is trying hard to stop the work here, by attacking his choice leaders and strong members.  When this much opposition happens, it is usually a precursor to something wonderful that is coming, that will greatly bless our two little branches.  I mentioned, in the blessing, that Joseph Smith went through much opposition and the Lord told him that all this would give him experience and be for his good.  We love these wonderful people of Malaysia and pray each day for their safety and happiness.  We will wait to see how greatly the Lord blesses these sweet, humble people.  We also pray that we will see the day when wards and stakes and a beautiful temple will be here in Malaysia.  So much strength and love for the Lord, in these tiny branches.  It doesn't matter where we live, we still partake of the same sacrament and sing the same beautiful songs and teach the same wonderful principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  The Lord's church and kingdom, even in its infant stages, is still the same and growing.  What an honor to be a part of it.

 Last week was Linda's birthday.  The 2 branches came together and celebrated with lots of food and cake.  One Monday, May 27th, I was all excited to give her the present I was planning to get.  The elders kept her busy while I went into 4 different stores to find her a new "oven".  She has this small thing that can only bake 6 cookies, if you're lucky.  It burns most things we try.  After 4 stores, no luck.  Everyone had sold out of the larger one I wanted.  This picture is the sweet Muslim sales lady that helped us find the oven I wanted, one week later.

 Here is Elder Steven, sitting inside the oven box.  It was large enough for him to crawl into the box and fit quite nicely.  We had a bit of a hassle at the store.  The oven was on sale a few days earlier and they forgot to take down the promotion sign.  We had to pay an additional 120 ringgit, after talking with the store manager and calling the company.  We still lost and had to pay the higher price.  I really didn't care, as long as I could get the bigger oven for Linda's birthday.

 Here are the two ovens, side by side.  The new oven is a convection oven, which circulates air around while it cooks.  That will prevent burning.  Linda made a "fruit cocktail" cake with brown sugar on top.  It turned out perfectly.  It was soft and delicious and all gone in a few minutes.  Even though we have to leave this oven behind when we go home, some other senior couple will enjoy a larger oven in this apartment.

 The elders and mother and I have tried very hard meeting up with this sweet young Chinese sister, just baptized a few months ago.  Her name is Zhen Li and she speaks very little English and none of us speak Chinese.  So the new plan for our mission and for our area in Johor Bahru is to always take a member along when teaching and connect the new convert or the less active to an active member who will befriend them and love them.  It has really worked.  This picture is Brother Ng, who just got back from the Hong Kong Temple with his wife and son in April.  He speaks bahasa and Chinese very well.  We didn't understand anything he said to Zhen Li, but the Spirit was so strong and she was so grateful for the lesson we gave her.

We are going around to everyone and telling active members and all our inactive people about "CPR".  This stands for church attendance, prayer, and reading your scriptures.  If they have those 3 basic things in their homes and in their lives, they will have daily spiritual experiences and stay converted in the gospel.  Many of our members stay close to the church as long as the elders or the senior couple visits them.  When the elders get transferred or the senior couple goes home, the new converts become less active and stop coming to church.  This new approach is really working and we are seeing wonderful results by always bringing a member with us to bear testimony and attach themselves to both active and less active members.

This past week, we went to Singapore and had our first Senior Conference and Zone Conference.  It was wonderful.  The only thing we forgot was to take pictures.  We left on Tuesday night, right after we taught our 3 Chinese kids.  We just got a new little five year old boy to teach, by the name of Yan Hao.  It is very smart and very cute.  His mother comes with him each time.  We waited for about 45 minutes for the taxi and then left for Singapore.  We have to go through immigration and customs for both countries, first leaving Malaysia and then entering Singapore.  When we arrived, we got into our hotel room at the V Lavendar Hotel.  Very beautiful and very tiny.
We were essentially in a very small "hamster" cage.  There was a queen size bed with a TV on the wall, a small bathroom and a very tight shower.  That was it.  We didn't have the room, next to the bed, to kneel for prayer, it was that tight to walk around the bed.  But, we didn't have to pay for it and the best part was it had "hot water".  That's a real treat, since no homes in Malaysia have hot water.
We then got on the MRT, the underground Singapore subway system.  What a thrill!  You scan your card and get on this very, very long train and you are whisked away and seconds later, you're at the next stop.  There were so many people on the trains, in the morning, that we had to wait for 7 trains to pass by us before we got up the nerve to become extremely aggressive and push our way onto the train before the doors close behind you.  We were like sardines in a can.  We had 7 stops and then got off and walked to the Stake Center.  The Senior Conference was a spiritual high, with Elder Woo (of the 70) and his wife speaking, then Pres. and Sister Mains and lots of other panel discussions and break out sessions and testimonies.  We then went out to eat with other senior missionary couples and shared a wonderful evening together.  The next day was Zone Conference, and that was not as exciting because much of it is geared to the young elders and sisters.  The sessions were about the correct language of prayer (thee, thou, thine, etc.) and how to use the Restoration pamphlet, etc.  It went from 10 AM to 9 PM, with a huge lunch of pizza and brownies.  There wasn't a piece of anything left after the elders and sisters got to it.  We spent 3 nights and 4 days in Singapore and loved it.  We didn't venture very far, being new to all this and was very happy to run into some senior couples who helped us along the way.  We then had another wait of an hour or so, standing in the hot, humid outside, waiting for the taxi again.  This time, leaving Singapore went just fine, but trying to get back into Malaysia came with some difficulty.  We were detained for a while and finally got back home.  I never can sleep, when it's not your own bed, and I enjoyed a wonderful nights sleep in our bed in Malaysia.  Now we kind of know how to go back and forth and what is expected for both conferences.  We must do this every 3 months, which is the law in Malaysia.  You must leave the country and get a new passport stamp or "chop" in order to return.  I hope September's conference is just as wonderful and will begin praying that the Lord will soften hearts for coming and going through immigration and customs.  It is so great to be here in Malaysia with such wonderful people.

 Today, June 1, is Gawai Day in Malaysia.  It is their Thanksgiving, a day of harvest and celebration.  Through this past week, we were invited to 5 different homes for a Gawai feast. 
This first home is Bro. Tony and Sis. Nancy, just baptized 2 weeks ago.  We ate so much and then danced the traditional Gawai dance.  It was like a line dance and I did well. Sorry, no pictures of mother and I dancing, but I was good!

 The second Gawai party was at Pres. John's home.  He is pictured here in the green shirt.  He is the Masai Branch President.  Again, we ate and ate.  The first was at 11 am and this one was at 1 pm.  Similar foods are given: rice, of course, noodles, curry, chicken and pork, pototoes and lots of delicious desserts that are hand made.  At this home, they had cockels.  They are like a clam in an open small shell.  You scoop the shells on your plate and suck out the slimy little bugger.

 Home three on Gawai day was at Pres. Chen and Sis. Barbara.  Pres. Chen is the E.Q. Pres in the Masai Branch.  After being extremely full, Pres. Chen takes a plate and prepares your food for you, by piling on lots of everything.  I tried some tapioca leaves this time.  They looked like cooked spinach and tasted like salted grass. Gross!  I did like the "ikan" (fish) in a sweet and sour sauce with fruits and vegetables.  Very good stuff.  Sis. Barbara works with Linda in the District R.S. Presidency. 

 The 4 Gawai party was at 7 pm at Bro. Tinggom's home.  You can see my gray pant knee in the forefront of the picture.  We hid in the corner, so they couldn't see that we took very little.  After we were so full of food throughout the day, we opened the container of desserts that Sis. Rose made.  They melted in your mouth and I took about 3 helpings.  We are now getting sicker and sicker and only have one more home to visit.

Finally, we ended our day at 8:30 pm at Sis. Joanna.  She is reaching for the bowl.  Elder Chan is sitting by Sister Norma, one of the pioneer saints from the early 1990's that started the church here in Malaysia.  We had delicious Milo in beautiful tea cups.  We laughed all day and ate all day.  They had to roll me to my car.
They tell us that on Christmas day, the senior couple gets invited to over 10 homes and you must eat at each home or you offend them.  I feel "sakit" (sick) already.  It's pronounced "socket"