On Friday morning, my sweetheart and I got a phone message from our JB Branch President.  He received a call from a Stake President in the Philippines, asking if someone could go and give a blessing to this dear sister in Buta Patah, which is in out branch area, about 2 hours north of us.  We found out that this Sister Amelyn and her mother, visiting her family from the Philippines, were in a car accident and the mother was killed.  They were bumped off the road and rolled over a cliff into a ravine.  Sister Amelyn broke 6 ribs and her mother died after her own ribs broke and punctured her heart and lungs. We left at 1 PM on Saturday, after searching for many hours in Singapore for burial clothing for an endowed member to dress her deceased mother.  Linda was going up to dress the body before they shipped it back to the Philippines for the funeral.  The drive was very long and we were very blessed to be safe in travel.  We gave Sister Amelyn a blessing.  After the blessing, she got out of bed and began walking around.  What great faith!

 This is the grandson, who just lost his grandmother in the car accident.  His name is Alyzon.  What a wonderful young man.  He is married with a little baby daughter, whose name is Susquehanna (like the river in Pa.), named after that place in the Doc. & Covenants.  All our phone conversations with the family were through Alyzon.  After a busy day of blessings for both sisters, visiting the morgue and waiting for the body and finding an ATM to give the family sufficient funds to get the body back to the Philippines, we were asked to take Alyzon back with us to JB.  He sleeps on a mat, above the restaurant where he works, to earn enough money to bring his little family over to Malaysia.  Alyzon is a return missionary and was such a great help all day.  He stayed at our apartment for the night and we took him to our church meetings on Sunday.  He had nothing but the clothes on his back, so we gave him some of my clothes while we washed his. 

 The morgue would not release the body until next Tuesday, so we got all the temple clothing and placed it in the pouch to lay along side the mother in her casket.  The one daughter will dress her in her white dress and the Stake members, back in the Philippines can complete dressing her in her temple clothing later.  When we finally got back into JB around 7:30 PM, we hurried over to a birthday party for our dear friend, Brother Gema.  He was turning 52 and everyone in the area comes to his home to celebrate.  You can see in this picture, that everyone lines the walls of the small home, with the food and drink at one end where Brother Gema is getting his food.  We had about 30 to 40 people there, some sitting inside the very hot room and others sitting outside where the mosquitos get you.

 This is Brother Gema and his wife, Sister Eta.  This great man will eventually be a wonderful leader here in Malaysia.  He was recently released as the 2nd Counselor in the JB Branch and will soon attend the Masai Branch, so he can speak "bahasa" with all the other members there.  Brother Gema will be a member of the church for one year this coming September.  He faithfully teaches Sunday School every week and had recently gone through some tough times with his family.  He was hit by a motorcycle and, at during the same week, his daughter had her baby C-section.  As the patriarch of his family, he takes the responsibility to help pay for the hospital bills and any other associated expenses.
We go over to his home each Sunday evening, to teach one of Sister Eta's nephews, with the missionaries.  Brother Gema bears a very strong testimony each time we meet.

 This final picture, for this week, is another amazing food that we had at Brother Gema's birthday party.  Once you get past the thought of what you're eating, it didn't taste that bad.  It is actually "chicken head".  You eat all the parts of the head, except the beak.  Elder Sheranian and I were both betting each other to take one of these "bad boys" and bite into it.  I won the dare and took the first bite.  Eating around the two eyeballs, while they are still looking at you, is a bit weird.  The neck and head have many tiny bones and we laughed so hard when Elder Sheranian thought that part of the beak got stuck in his teeth and he couldn't get it out.  I wasn't brave enough to even touch the beak.  All the other members at the party were enjoying their chicken heads, with noodles, rice and corn drink.  The corn drink was a cold, yellow drink, that tasted exactly like drinking the juice out of a can of corn.  I still haven't tried too many fish products here, since I'm not a real fan of fish.  I love their prawns, similar to shrimp but a lot larger.  I still have plenty of time to try all the great foods here in Malaysia.
This afternoon, we held our first Auxiliary Training.  My counselor in the District Presidency, President Hong Min Tan, taught about teaching the members in their classes.  We had sisters from the Relief Society, the Young Women and the Primary.  After Pres. Tan, I spoke on ministering.  Our District Theme, which I copied off in English and amazingly in "bahasa", is: "One on One, One by One, Line Upon Line, Here a Little and There a Little".  In bahasa it reads, "Satu pada Satu, Satu demi Satu, Baris demi Baris, Ajaran demi Ajaran, Di Sini Sedekit, dan Di Sana Sedekit."  After I spoke, we broke off into the three auxiliaries and the District R.S. Presidency (which includes Linda) taught the leaders of the Relief Society, Pres. Tan taught the Young Women and I taught the Primary people.  I had one sweet sister, just called this morning, as the new Primary President.  We spent the next 30 minutes going through the general handbook and finding out about sharing time, music and classroom manuals.
Finally, we met back together to have a piece of cake that Linda made.  We left the cake, with delicious icing on top, sit out through the training, and thus, in this warm humidity, the icing ran off the cake and settled on the sides of the pan.  They loved it anyway.  We ended our Sabbath by spending the next few hours, taking Alyzon back to his little mat to sleep on, somewhere in west Johor Bahru.  He really didn't know how to get there and we couldn't get any help through the GPS unit without an address.  A somewhat frustrating end to another great week.  I have now ordered 2 sets of burial clothing, to keep in my district office, just in case we may need them again.  We learned much this weekend, traveled much, and had a great outpouring of the Spirit to help us in our callings.