Our very handsome Presly, standing behind his mom & dad.  Presly is our 2nd missionary that we helped prepare, going to Toronto, Canada mission today (Jan. 25th).  We had a farewell pot luck dinner for him this past Friday and it was quite the surprise to see his non-member parents come out.  They were so proud to take a picture with their son going on a mission.  Many of our Masai Branch members fellowshipped Presly's mom and dad very well.  We are proud of Presly and wish him the best on his mission.

 Now that our time is coming to a close, our members are inviting us out to eat with them for a last time.  We were invited to eat at the Seoul Garden Restaurant, with Jeff Lee and his wife, Cheryl.  Here is their little boy, Hyrum, chewing on a straw.  You can also see the beautiful Muslim ladies, sitting in the booth next to us, eating their lunch.  The place we ate at was quite popular, with every booth filled with people. 
It was a very large "buffet" meal, with a different twist to it.  You get your plates and go to the buffet section and take all the raw meats and vegetables you want.

Then you bring the raw food back to your booth and place the food either into the bowl of fish broth or on the side circular griddle.  There were all kinds of squid, octopus, fishes of all types and a few nice bowls of raw chicken.  We went right for the raw chicken.  You also bring back lettuce and cabbage, mushrooms, tomatoes, lotus root, crab, oysters and clams, and drop them into the broth to cook.  I really liked the fried tofu stuffed with some kind of meat and vegetables.  The only normal part of the meal, was some ice cream that you could scoop up in a bowl and eat.
It was a unique experience.  We went back only once to get more meat to cook, but our hosts went back about 3 or 4 more times.  Jeff Lee brought back noodles and more greens and mushrooms and all sorts of fishes to drop into the soup mix.  We just watched.  It was very kind of Jeff and Cheryl to take us out to eat.  We ate well and really enjoyed ourselves.

 As surprising as it may sound, I actually was given the opportunity to baptize my 4th person here in Malaysia.  Senior couples usually don't baptize anyone, so this is quite a blessing.  And, to top it off, my second baptism done in Mandarin.  Here is Loh, Ri Kai, with Elder Lundahl-Wolford on the left and Elder Durrant on the right.  Kai has been investigating the church for the past few months and just couldn't make the decision to get baptized.  During a pot luck we had on Jan. 2nd, Kai came up to me and asked if I would baptize him and also asked if I could do it in Mandarin.  What a treat!

As I walk around our apartment complex each morning for exercise, I decided to stop and take pictures of all the beautiful flowers and trees.  This is called a "white spider lily" and they grown everywhere.  We are now coming into our spring time here and the monsoon rains have stopped.  We still have very windy days, but the temperature is rising and the days are very beautiful and very colorful.  There are all sorts of "birds of paradise" flowers in many colors, and lots of trees and bushes covered in orange and fushia colors.  I also managed to find a bush of "Chinese Hibiscus", which is the Malaysian National Flower.  It is always green and lush here, with many different types of palm trees, banana trees growing right on the road side, along with rambutan trees, coconut trees and lots of other fruit bearing trees.  We never knew, until you see them growing, that bananas grow curved up, not curved down.  Amazing fun fact!

 Linda and I were invited out to a beautiful hotel buffet on Dec. 31st, to celebrate New Years.  It was like going out to Chuck-A-Rama, but with Malay food.  Just next to this amazing melon sculpture, they served marinated octopus.  Not so good!  I don't mind the crispy fried octopus, but the marinated raw stuff was a bit tough to get down.  This sculpture was at the end of the salad bar, with all sorts of salad items on one side and lots of lunch meats and cheeses on the other side.

Here is the picture of the cheeses and lunch meat bar.  Down further was rows and rows of metal covered hot dishes.  It was fun to read all the signs in front of each metal container.  You lifted up the lid and peeked inside to see if you wanted some.  At the very end was a chef, standing there and cutting from a very large turkey.  You would then drizzle hot cranberry sauce on top and for me, it only took 4 additional trips back to the turkey to really get full.  When you think you're all done, you travel around the dessert island and keep eating and eating.  We spent about 3 hours having a great time with Bro. & Sis. Kurup and their family.  Linda never made it to midnight, but I stayed up and then went to bed at 12:15.  Happy New Year!