We had a great 4th of July barbeque with our elders and investigators and branch members.  Here is Elder McCarthy, from New Zealand, wearing his USA socks for the celebration.  Our picnic started out with 4 people invited and we ended up with 30 to 40 people, bringing the traditional 4th of July foods like whole prawns, spicy chicken wings, fish balls, lots of rice, and, of course, smores.  Only these smores were made from marshmallows, cadbury chocolate squares between vanilla cookies.  There is no graham crackers, out here, so vanilla cookies had to do.
Not quite the same, but it was fun.

 Here is our barbeque pit in our apartment complex.  In the front of the barbeque are the spicy chicken wings and at the back of the barbeque pit are the chicken brats and chicken hot dogs.  It's also difficult to find anything made out of beef.  Sam, our recently converted member, was the grill master and had a great time lighting the grill with these charcoal pieces that you purchase.  The charcoal is like the charcoal stick that you sketch with, very light weight and easy to light.  Laying in the charcoals, are aluminum foil wrapped purple sweet potatoes.  They were really yummy.

 This round dish was the highlight of the party.  It's Linda's macaroni salad.  It was delicious and everyone wanted to recipe.  Pasta is not a big item out here in Malaysia.  We watched many of the members take a very small amount of macaroni salad on their plates, taste it and then return for seconds.  Elder Earl, our Zone Leader, returned five times for large helpings.  He said it was the only thing, beside the watermelon, that was like a 4th of July picnic.

 Here is our wonderful Sam, keeping watch over his grill.  Of course, right behind him is my sweetheart, making sure that Sam was doing things correctly.  Along side of Sam is Jaden, our recently baptized 9 year old.  We were amazed how only the elders and Linda and I sweat profusely.  All the other Asians don't seem to sweat out here.  It was about 90 degrees at 8 pm, just like any other night, but the humidity is high and the sweat runs down the back of your neck through the entire night.  At least we didn't have any mosquitoes.  They were smart enough to go somewhere cooler.

 Many of our members, from the Johor Bahru branch, came out to our little gathering.  Sis. Lily is on the far right.  She was just baptized a few weeks ago.  Next to her is Sis. Bernie.  Sam is married to Sis. Bernie and they are both doing a fabulous job in the branch.  In blue to Sis. Jessie and across the table is her husband, Bro. Res Tan.  In orange is our sweet R.S. President, Sis. Amy Kurup.  We love Sis. Amy.  Kneeling down, next to a small barbeque to heat up our marshmallows, is Bro. Weaweh from Nigeria.  He is a great addition to our branch and teaches in the Elder's Quorum. 

A parting shot of our swimming pool, next to the barbeque pit.  This shot is looking over toward our apartment on the 1st floor.  Our apartment is right behind the orange life preserver, hanging on the palm tree trunk.  We don't go in and out of our outside entrance to our apartment very much anymore, since our elders live upstairs from us, on the fifth floor.  Now, they just need to come down on the elevator and visit us daily.  Since we are the only members around here with computers, the elders are over quite often.  Many are going home soon, so they get college stuff ready and check plane flights.

 Another amazing Gawai 2014 celebration!  Here is our banana tree, connected to the lighting in the middle of our Masai chapel.  All the fun treats are hanging from the banana leaves, with balloons and pineapples, grapes, and, of course, bananas.  All the children run around the tree and get as excited as Christmas morning, waiting for the people to come up with their machette and cut off the treats and place them at the bottom of the tree.  Our Gawai party started at 5 PM and we ended around 9:30 PM.  Lots of fun.

 Right before the cutting of the treats, all the Young Women dress up in their traditional costumes from East Malasyia.  Patricia and Mia are on the far right.  They are the sweetest sisters in Bro. Rantai and Sis. Sani's family.  Then, next to my sweetheart is Fauzina, Brother Uki's granddaughter and next to Fauzina is Erneshia.  Pres. John is right in the middle of things.
The elders enter the room first and dance around the tree and then the girls, in their traditional dress, come in and dance around the tree before the cutting ceremony.

 Our elders in Masai began the program with a beautiful song, "If the Savior Stood Beside Me".
Elder Crum (who already went home today) is on the far left, then Elder Robins (our short elder), with Elder Jin playing the piano and Elder Thatcher behind him.  Elder Thatcher has been in Masai for 7 months now and is finally getting transferred this week.  Next to Elder Thatcher, holding the music is Elder Tan and then Elder Takin.  Elder Tan and Takin are native Malaysians.

Here is the classic picture of me dancing around the tree.  I'm going after President John, the Branch President, with the machette in hand, which you cannot see.  The person who is handed the machette dances around the tree a few times and cuts off one or two items and then gives the hat and the machette to another person to go up and dance around.  We ran out of battery power in the camera, so we don't have the picture of Linda dancing around the tree. She was good.

 This adorable little boy is Brother David's son.  After all the elders and the traditionally dressed girls danced around the tree, he stayed in the middle of the chapel and just kept on dancing to the beat of the music.  He was so cute and everyone kept clapping for him.  He danced around the tree about 4 or 5 more times and didn't miss a beat.  He's going to be quite the Gawai dancer when he grows up.  He's going to have all the Iban girls after him.

This is our wonderful Brother Rantai.  He started off the dancing around the tree with his traditional vest and hat and the machette attached to his waist.  Bro. Rantai and Sis. Sani are great members that live quite a distance away from the Masai church building.  They are always there each week, with their 3 daughters, Patricia, Mia and their youngest one, Angela.  Patricia joined the church first and then, through her example, she brought in the rest of her family.  They have been members for just over a year and a half now.  They are strong and dedicated Saints.
After all the dancing and singing and clapping, we all move upstairs and have the delicious food.  The food arrived before 5 PM and then it just sits in the pans until we ate around 8:30 to 9 PM.  I'm so convinced that the Lord watches over His missionaries, because we never get sick from eating the food that sits out for hours.  We had delicious lemon chicken, and pork, noodles and rice, lots of vegetables and fruits and an entire pan of prawns.  These shrimps are longer than my entire hand and you are suppose to just pick them up and eat everything.  You start with the head, including this long antenna and two little black beady eyes, then the body including the shell and legs and finally the tail.  Ibans and Malaysians eat the entire thing, since the prawn is steamed and the shell is not as hard to chew and swallow.  I had a hard time with that, because I kept focusing on the experience, in a few days, of the prawns coming out the other end and how painful that may be.  All those shells and tails that don't digest.  Where else are they suppose to go.  All in all, it was a great party with lots of people having a wonderful time together.  The Masai Branch really knows how to put on a great Gawai celebration.

 Here is another "first" in our mission.  Leonard Kasi anak Jimmy is the very first missionary to receive a mission call from our JB District and from the Masai Branch.  He was called to serve in the Singapore Mission and speak Malay.  He reports to the Philippines MTC for 2 weeks on August 1st.  Many have taken much time to prepare Leonard for serving as a full time missionary.  He is super excited and we were privileged to be there, at this home, to see him open his mission call.  It will be fun to see Elder Jimmy in future Zone Conferences.

 Elder Crum, on the right and Elder Takin, on the far left, baptized Sister Roseta and her 3 sons.  She is a wonderful sister who participates each week in my Gospel Doctrine class.  Elijah (13) is in the back, Johannes (11) is the cute one in the front next to mom and Otneil (like oatmeal, except with an "n" is 9).    The baptism had a large number of people come out to support Sis. Roseta and her family.  Elder Crum ends his mission in 2 weeks and will return to Arizona.
Elder Takin, who speaks Malay and Iban, will get a new companion and keep working with the

rest of the family.  Sister Roseta's husband is standing behind her, with their youngest daughter in front of Sis. Roseta.  The young man in blue is Sis. Roseta's older son, his wife next to him and the other two children in front belong to them (Sis. Roseta's grandchildren).  She hopes all of them will join the church.
I'm thrilled because we are accomplishing the 4 JB District goals for 2014.  We set the goal to have 5 new brethren receive the Mel. Priesthood and we now have 7 ordained.  We have the goal to have more YSA activities, which we are doing.  We set the goal to send a missionary from our District, which will now come to pass and we set the goal of 20 baptisms for the year.  We now have 10 as of June 21st.  We are half way there.
Heavenly Father is sure blessing our little Johor Bahru District.

 On Saturday, June 14, we had a JB Branch Activity.  The whole branch came out and we flew kites.  It had rained the entire morning, quite hard and we were concerned that few would show up.  By 5:30 PM, we had over 60 members, non members and investigators out with their kites.  The only problem was there was no wind, no breeze, nothing.  The adults ran all over the place, keeping the kites up as long as they moved, but we had a difficult time.  We still had a great time.

 Everyone brought a kite with their kids.  This is Sister Annie with her son.  They brought their "minion" kite. 

 Sister Eunice is in the checkers shirt and Sister Melanie is in red.  Sister Eunice was in charge of this Primary activity.  She is the Primary President.  We home teach Sis. Eunice each month.  She comes over to our apartment and we make her breakfast.  She stays for a couple of hours and we have a wonderful time talking together.

 Here is Sister Melanie again, who was just released as the branch Relief Society President.  The most wonderful lady ever, Sis. Amy, was just sustained as the new Relief Society President a few weeks ago.  She is the sweetest lady in the branch and we just love her.  Her good husband was made the 2nd Counselor in the Branch Presidency.  Bro. and Sis. Kurup are great members in our little branch.

 Here is the cutest sister in the branch.  We brought some kites and just gave them away to some of the children in the branch.  The elders helped everyone put their kites together and we just stood around (or just sat there) and supervised.  I'm good at that.  As long as we show up, the members are happy.  They won't begin an activity or start a meeting unless we are there.  It's kind of silly, but that is how things go out here in both branches.  It was a very humid day, after our morning rain, and we just sat there sweating and enjoying the others running around.

 Here is Elder McCarthy with the blue tie and Elder Smith with the pink tie.  Elder McCarthy is from New Zealand and has the funniest accent.  I usually cannot understand him at all.  Elder Smith is from American Fork, Utah.  They are such hard workers and are doing a great work here in the Johor Bahru branch.  They are our English speaking missionaries, who primarily find people who speak English who are from India or the Philippines.

 This is one of our wonderful Zone Leaders, Elder Earl.  He is also from Utah.  An ice cream man pulled up on his little moto and ran his bell and everyone came running.  He served ice cream cones with chocolate, strawberry and "durian" ice cream.  Just like the real durian, the ice cream stank so badly.  Everyone still enjoyed the cool treat.

 This is our other Zone Leader, Elder Fabiano.  He is from Florida and goes home in August.  He is so fun to be around.  Elder Earl and Elder Fabiano are our two Chinese speaking elders in the Johor Bahru branch.  They have had a baptism a week ago and have another one scheduled in a few weeks.  We love Elder Fabiano.

 Here is the most kites up at one time, with all the dads running their little hearts off, trying to keep the kites up.  We were there for about 2 hours and there was not one bit of wind the entire time.  You could feel a breeze, here and there, but nothing more.  If you didn't keep moving, your kite came down.






Our final picture is the beautiful sunset as we closed our activity.  We had a great time with our little Chinese/English branch. 

 We had a really exciting week here in Malaysia.  On Monday evening, after helping the elders do their weekly food shopping, we decided to venture out to the southern part of Johor and shop at "Cold Storage".  This is a store that sells many items that can be purchased in America.  We were able to pick up delicious pretzels, cherry and blueberry pie filling, brownie mix, black beans and we found an actual measuring cup with American measurements on it (ounces, pints, cups, etc.)  We loaded everything into the car and left from the underground parking lot.  We made our usual "u" turn at the light and headed north to go home.  There was lots of stop and go traffic due some resurfacing a few kilometers ahead.
We were standing still and suddenly, the van behind us slammed into the back of our beautiful 6 month old church car.  The guy hit us quite hard, bounced off the back, and then hit us again.  Linda was just fine, but I could immediately feel that my back was strained, exactly the same place where I

 had the tear in my muscle a few months earlier.  I have been nursing my right side and now, I think I got it slightly injured again with this whiplash.  Linda immediately got out the black book that the church gives us to follow in case of an accident.  It started by telling us to stay where you are, put on your emergency blinkers and call the emergency number.  Here, it's 999 and we called it.  Then, I went back to the young man who ran into us and asked if he spoke English.  He did luckily and we exchanged information.  I took pictures and got yelled at by those driving by (being called "bodoh" which means "stupid") since we were stopped in the middle lane of a three lane highway.  We then were told by 999 to go to a police station and file a police report.  It took hours, including a 2nd trip to another police station the next day, but we survived our first accident in Malaysia and are just fine.
I am amazed it is only my first in 15 months.  The drivers and motorcyclists are crazy here. 

 The highlight at the beginning of this week was a fun birthday celebration for Linda's birthday.  Our sweet elders brought over a godzilla blow up figure and put a "unicorn" horn on the front of it and called it a "godzillacorn".  They found some of that blow up bubble stuff that you put on the end of a straw and create bubbles.  They put the bubbles around the base of the godzilla for it to stand up.  Then they attached the unicorn horn to the front and stood in front of Linda and sang happy birthday.  It was really cute, but we have no idea what the meaning was.  Then they handed her their birthday card, and it all fit together.  Elder Smith is the artist and he drew the unicorn, with the 4 elders giving Linda some balloons and a gift.  You can see, from the picture above, that they could only find one balloon.  They signed their names to the bottom of the card and were so proud to present it to her.  Linda kept the silly godzillacorn up for the entire week.  We sure have fun with these kids here in Malaysia.  You wonder, sometimes, what they are thinking!

  Here is my lovely wife, teaching our new Family History Consultant how to get into FamilySearch.org.  We are sitting at a McDonald's, in the middle of a large mall, using their free wi-fi service.  It may have been free, but it took forever to get into the program.  While they worked, I had a cheeseburger and chicken nuggets.  Linda looks too interested at this point.  Our little Family History Consultant is a 13 year old in our Chinese/English Branch in JB.  We were at least able to communicate since she spoke good English from her schooling.

 This week, I tried my own stir/fry.  We went to our favorite veggie and meat store, Jusco.  It has great vegetables and fruits and a nice selection of meats.  We are always able to get real beef there, which when cooked, actually turns brown.  The Malaysian beef stays red and will not brown up.
Here are the fresh prawns that I bought.  You first have to twist off their heads, then you carefully pull off the tail and make sure you take the long vein with it.  It has all the "poop" inside of it.  Then you have to get the hard shell off the large tail section and you finally have your prawn ready to put in the stir/fry.  It was great.

 I added some peppers, onions, pea pods, mushrooms, broccoli and cauliflower in some pure olive oil, then the prawns turn orange and look like shrimp and then I mixed in oyster sauce.  It was yummy, but the oyster sauce was too salty tasting.  I'll have to go on line and figure the oyster sauce part for next time.
Here is a picture of 2 of our 3 districts in our zone.  We have 10 elders locally and 4 more up in Melacca, about 2 1/2 hours north of us.  Elder Crum next to me, Elder Harr next to Linda, Elder Earl, Jin, Robins, Takin, Thatcher and Cook in front and Fabiano and McCarthy standing. 

 We really love these kids and get very close to them.  Elder Cook is a great young missionary who has been in our area for the past 3 transfers.  We've gotten pretty close to him.
The next 2 pictures are this unique phenomenon
that happens each year in May.  We have hundreds of these moth/butterfly creatures everywhere.  The white pointy part is really the back end of their tails.  In our little apartment complex, there are hundreds of them flying around the inside courtyard where the elevators are.  They are on all the walls and floors and trees and just about everywhere. 

Interestingly, they only live a short time, laying their eggs and then dying.  You see their bodies laying all over the place.  When you come out of the apartment, they startle you when they all take off flying and hit you in the face and fly off.  You try to scan your key card to let you out of the building and they are sitting on the key pad and on the walls and in the plants and anywhere they decide to land.  We came home the other night and lots of dead bodies were lying all around the front entrance to our apartment.  

 We had to take a picture of this site, which happens up in Masai in a parking lot every Saturday evening.  It looks exactly like "Halloween Trunk or Treat", which we do back home in America, but hundreds of cars line up in a row and open up their trunks and sell their items from the back of their cars.  Most of the cars are selling hand woven dresses and clothing items.  We are standing up on the side of a large hill, where the McDonalds, Burger King and SubWay Sandwich places are.  We eat at one of them every Sat. night before we teach Seminary.

Our final picture for this week is the monthly "birthday celebration" that the Masai Branch does.  At both branches, on the 4th Sunday after church, we have "Linger Longer".  Everyone brings their favorite dish, (which they made sometime that morning and then we eat everything cold) and we all get together and eat a meal.  We always bring something that is already cold, like brownies or pineapple upside down cake or muffins or cookies.  One time, we actually brought some macaroni salad, which we kept in the fridge.  We are always amazed that we don't get sick.  All food in Masai is served stone cold.  You get used to it.  Anyone who had a birthday in the month of May, which is my beautiful wife, gets to come up and is sung to and then they cut the cakes that the branch purchases.  Sister Norma is in red by Linda and Sister Barbara is in blue.  The three make up the District Relief Society Presidency.  Elder Crum had a birthday also in May, and little Eddie, always gets in line first for a piece of cake.  His birthday must be every month.

 We had the wonderful opportunity to have 2 dear friends come and visit us here in Malaysia.
Ted and Kaye Davies, from Spanish Fork, were on a Southeast Asia holiday and decided to spend a few hours with us.  What a great honor.
Ted was one of the greatest bishops I served with up at BYU and Kaye works in the finance dept. at Nebo School District.  We made arrangements to have them come for part of a day, but their plans changed and we could only have them with us for 2 hours.  We went out to a breakfast cafe with them and enjoyed our time together.

 Their trip began as they flew into Changi Airport in Singapore last Monday, then they stayed with some friends in Singapore and toured the sights there on Tuesday.  Then on Wednesday, we visited with them from 8 AM to 10 AM.  The Davies had their neighbors travel with them, Roman and Ann Takasaki.  It was fun talking to them about our mission and the many differences between here and back in America.
They had a driver come pick them up and then they headed off to Melaca, then to Kuala Lumpur and finally they ended up in Bangkok, Thailand.

 This is a great picture of one of our torrential rain storms that we have almost daily, always around 5 to 6 pm.  All through April and May, it rains daily for about an hour and floods everything and everywhere.  This is looking out our little back patio and yard.  When you pass through the gate, it leads to the large swimming pool in our apartment complex.  We did swim the first few months of our mission, since it's 85 to 90 everyday here, but now, we just stay inside and exercise to one of our videos with the air conditioner running.  So nice!

 Almost all the hotels and stores and especially, in all government buildings and banks, you see these pictures hanging inside of them.  It is the king and queen and son of Malaysia.  The government is similar to the British form, where they have a king and queen, but the prime minister really runs the show and is usually seen on TV and in the news.  The only time we have ever seen the king and queen was once on TV, at the National Day events, when they appeared for a few moments.  Still, the people love their monarch and revere him by hanging his picture in their places of business.

 This is Yan Hao's clay car.  This little 5 year old, that I teach every Tuesday and Friday, is the sharpest little guy ever.  We have received hundreds of books from our grandson and other books from local schools back in America.  He has read them all.  He is here to learn better English, but he is very sharp.  So, I went out and bought modeling clay.  Every Tuesday, we build something in the clay, take a picture and then on Friday, we write a story about it.  This has finally held his attention and he loves to play with the clay.  His car is called "Shakespear" from Saturn.

 I had to add these last two pictures.  This is the typical road, in front of all the shop lots or "kedai's" here in Malaysia.  There are thousands and thousands of little stores and markets and little shops.  Our two church buildings are within these shop lots in two different cities in Johor.
During the day and in the very busy shop lot areas, this is the typical driving and car parking that goes on.  It drives me absolutely crazy.  If a person wants to go into a shop and purchase something, or if a person needs to stop by the bank and make a deposit, you simply pull your
car up to the front of the shop and park it, right in front of another parked car.  If the driver of the vertically parked car needs to get out, they simply begin honking their horn until the owner the the car behind them hears the horn and comes out to move their car.  They park this way everywhere.
Sometimes, you can't even fit between the cars to get through the street because they double park, then triple park and sometimes even quadruple park.  How stupid are they.  The elders tell me to try it, but I just don't have the nerve.  When a delivery man drops off water or supplies or equipment to any business, they just pull their lori up in front of the store, blocking the cars that are already parked there and unload their stuff.  Now, to drive down the road, you have to go around them in the other lane.  The fun part is when another store is across from them and a driver does the same thing, completely blocking off the road.  You just have to sit and honk you horn until they move; if they move.  So frustrating.  And, you may ask, where are the police?  They drive right by it and ignore it.