Presly is so excited to open his mission call from the First Presidency.  He is our 2nd young man to get a mission call in our JB District.  Presly was called to serve in the Toronto, Canada mission.  Everyone in the room yelled and told him that he would probably freeze his butt off, since he has only known 85 degrees or higher, here in Malaysia, his whole life.  We asked him if he has ever seen snow.  He replied "no"!  He is to report to the Provo MTC on December 14th, and then he will probably get a taste of cold weather.

 Presly is one amazing young man in the Masai Branch.  He currently holds 5 different callings in the branch.  When he leaves, there will be a huge hole.  Presly is the branch clerk, the branch Young Men's president, the Institute teacher and the Seminary teacher and, from now until he leaves for his mission, he was just called to team teach Sunday School Gospel Doctrine with me every other week.  He will be a powerful missionary.  He loves the Lord and knows the gospel very well.

 On Saturday, September 13th, I was privileged to perform my 2nd baptism on my mission.  This is Sis. Madline anak Taie from the Kota Masai area of our one branch.  These are the two elders who did all the teaching and preparing, but when she was asked to decide who should baptize her, she said, "Datuk".  That is the Malay word for grandfather.  Everyone here calls me datuk.  Elder Ferguson, standing next to Sis. Madline, was not a happy trooper.  I barely know Sis. Madline, except seeing her in my Gospel Doc. class.  Still, I'm very honored she asked me.

Our four wonderful elders in Masai spent quite a lot of time preparing a special musical number for the baptism.  Left to right is Elder Ferguson, Elder Taikin, Elder Robins and Elder Spurrier.
They are so much fun to be around and they all get along so very well.  They sang, "I Need Thee Every Hour" in Malay and I got to help them change up the song with each verse.  I led the music, in the audience, and had them sing the first verse with just two of them, then come in together, which harmonized so nice, and then give a repeated slower ending.  They were great.

 This is a wonderful picture of our dear friend and brother, Bro. Gema.  It was taken in November of 2013.  Bro. Gema was admitted into the hospital to have a large cancerous tumor removed from his body.  The surgery went well and it took him through December to heal and recover.  We thought everything was just fine and now he could return to work and get back to his normal life of raising his little family and helping his son, Hairy, go to college.  We called Bro. Gema as the Elder's Quorum President in January of 2014 and began a preparation period to eventually call him as the Branch President before the year was over.  Everything was on track and Bro. Gema was his happy, loving self.  The whole branch loves him and supports him.  Then, around May, Bro. Gema changed.  He didn't remember who we were, began having headaches and began sleeping much more during the day.  Things seem to get better for a time, and then go badly again.

Today, Sunday, Sept. 14th, Bro. Gema and his wife and son took a plane flight over to East Malaysia, for our dear Bro. Gema to be with his family before he dies.  He now can't move at all, he is in adult diapers, he can't speak or walk or even smile, when I asked him for this picture.
I leaned forward to Bro. Gema and, in Malay, I told him that I love him with tears rolling down my face.  He looked up into my eyes and gave me a very small nod of his head.  The hospital refused to take him, his family can't take care of him and now, this amazing man will leave us.  It was hard to say goodbye.  Our guess it that the cancer was not completely removed and now has spread through his whole body.  We may never know what it is, but I will miss him so very much.  We will probably never see each other again in this life, but I will remember the great leader and friend that I have in Bro. Gema.  He has affected my life deeply.  There are these more difficult times, when the Lord knows more than we know.   My part is to trust in Him and allow His plans, for Bro. Gema, to play out.  I know that one day, I will stand with Bro. Gema and hug him again. 

 We had a unique experience on Friday, Sept. 5th.  We were invited to a program called, "7 Billion Acts of Goodness".  The host organization was Brahma Kumaris, a group of wonderful people that promotes goodness and doing little acts of kindness throughout the world.  Their philosophy is if the population of the planet, 7 billion people, each do an act of kindness and goodness, it would change the world and make it a better place to live.
The program was suppose to begin at 7 pm, but didn't start until around 8:30 pm, because one of
speakers plane flight was delayed.

 One sister who spoke to us was a sweet Muslim lady, Sis. Fauzia.  She was quite funny.  She spoke of helping others less fortunate than us.  The second lady, next to her, spoke and she had a similar theme.  Then, another older lady got up and we went into 20 minutes of "meditation", to find our inner self.  I think I got lost.  We previously went out to eat with Elder & Sister Hadley, the Public Affairs couple here.  We had a plate of chicken and some unusual potato salad, which wasn't enough to fill a bird.  I was still hungry.

 Many people then ended the program by coming to the podium and making a pledge.  Elder Hadley's pledge was for our church to help the good people of Malaysia and everyone clapped loudly.  They hung their pledges on this tree and then lit up the tree with Christmas lights.  After that, around 10 pm, we validated our parking ticket, got in the car to leave, and found out that the validating machine didn't work.  We had a huge back up of cars trying to get out.  It proved to be an interesting night of meditation and helped me learn more patience.

 On Saturday night, we celebrated our "Moon Cake Festival" with a barbeque at our branch president's home.  We had lots of noodles and chicken wings, spicy curry, prawns on the grill and banana's on the grill.  Linda made her very famous "apple crisp", which is a big hit around the elders.  The barbeque began at 7 pm with us and the 4 elders.  We ate and then went back for more.  When much of the food was gone, the other members of our JB Branch began to drift in (late as usual).  By 9 pm, we had quite a showing of people, but the apple crisp was already gone.

 Here are two more interesting foods in Malaysia.  The black container is "water caltrops" or buffalo nuts.  They look just like the horns on a water buffalo and turned upside down, they are in the shape of a mustache.  The second container is "taro corms" or taro root.  It is like a potato, but sweet.  All the elders (and me, of course) took the water caltrops to hold up under our noses so they looked like mustaches.  You have to use a set of pliers to open them up and then they have a nut that tastes similar to a water chestnut.

 All our barbeques and parties are held outside, in front of peoples homes.  Pres. Tan, Hong Min lives with his mom and dad and they live in a very nice home.  You can see the "winding staircase" in the doorway, right above Linda's head.  Our 4 elders, (front to back) are Elder Smith, Elder Earl, Elder Moore and the red head in the back next to Sis. Schollenberger, Elder Mitchell.  They are such fun to have here.  We ended up with 2 investigators and other non members who came out.  It was a fun evening and good food before fast Sunday.

Just before we left, Sis. Eunice put on a demonstration of how to take "dragon fruit" and make it into a Chinese lantern.  All the kids participated, scooping out the inside and placing a small "tea light" candle at the bottom.  They were quite pretty in the dark.  I must have gone back three times or more, eating a little of this and a little of that, while different groups of our members arrived throughout the evening.  I sure ate quite my share of apple crisp, along with a few extra chicken wings and curry potatoes.
Just the perfect barbeque picnic.

Today, we celebrated Malaysia's 4th of July.  It is "Malaysia Merdeka Hari" or Malaysia's Independence Day on Aug. 31st.  Today, also, is the day I was baptized into the church, 45 years ago in 1969.  Anyway, we had a huge celebration at a members home.  This is one of our elders, Elder Takin, from Malaysia.  He is stirring, by hand, the chicken wings in the marinade before they are placed on the outside fire pit.  The chicken wings were delicious.

This is our wonderful Sis. Rosita.  She is our newest member in the Masai Branch and is such a strong lady.  Off to the side of her apartment complex is a jungle area, where we invited the entire branch to come and have a meal together.  The mud was up to the sides of our shoes and we ate around a tarp covered area, but it was a great feeling to be with those we have grown to love.
Sister Rosita bore her testimony and she cried while reading the scriptures to everyone.  She is one amazing lady.

Her is one of Sis. Rosita's sons, Oatneil.  He is quite a handful and causes lots of problems at the branch.  He is with our newest elder, Elder Spurrier from Salt Lake City.  Our elders are doing a great job here in Masai, getting another 3 people ready for baptism soon.  Today, we began a new morning Sunday schedule at 9 am to 12 noon, and we had quite the turnout.  It was thrilling to see that many people out to church again.

Elder Robins is our short little elder in Masai.  He is holding up some chicken wings that are going into the marinade.  He fits perfectly here in Malaysia, being about the same size as all the Malay people.  He gave a terrific talk today at church, speaking to the members about serving faithfully in the kingdom.  It was great.  He really speaks bahasa very well.  You can barely see Sis. Schollenberger standing in the background.

Our branch president's wife is expecting her 5th child this December.  Pres. John and Sis. Alan already have 4 daughters and are really hoping for a boy this time.  Sis. Alan is one of our strongest members in the branch, going around each Sunday and picking up those who do not have transport to church.  She was cute this morning in church.  Her husband was conducting the meeting and forgot to announce the sacrament hymn.  Just out of the blue, she raises her voice and yells at him to tell everyone the hymn number.  He sat down and just shook his head.  He sure loves her.

We love our President John.  His full name is John Korea anak Bahak.  He is so faithful and does so much to keep our little branch functioning.  He only comes up to my chest, but his spiritual stature is tremendous.  He is loved by all his members and always comes up to me, each Sunday, to give me a hug and welcome Linda and me to church.  He is funny, each week, as he goes around holding all the baby boys in the branch, hoping that it will rub off on him and his wife will finally have a little boy.  They still have not found out yet from the doctor.

Right along side of our little Independence Day celebration, in the middle of our little jungle setting, there are banana trees growing all around.  It is interesting how the bananas grow upward instead of downward.  You can see each bunch growing in the tree and it looked like this bunch still needed a few more weeks before they could be picked and eaten.  The problem is who they really belong to.  Probably the one who picks them first, gets them.

This great man is our Bro. Jimmy.  We went with Bro. Jimmy and his family, last December, to the Manila Temple.  He is a great elder in the branch and his wife, Sis. Minang, is the Relief Society President.  He is a great husband, supporting his wife very well in her calling.  He is standing in front of an old abandoned car, sitting in front of their apartment complex.  The inside of the apartments are kept up very well, but the outside is just next to jungle growth and rubbage and old cars sitting around and lots of mud and debris.

We were thrilled to have Bro. Robert and Sister Sarawa come out to our little celebration.  This is one of the little boys that I was privileged to give a name and blessing to a few months back.  Sis. Sarawa is holding their son, Ivanoel.  You can see, off to side of Sis. Sarawa, that most of the people's garbage is taken outside and burned in front of the apartment complex.  It's around 85 degrees and the Malay moms still keep their babies dressed in long sleeve shirts, with hats and usually in a blanket.  I would be sweating, which I was through the entire meal.

We must have had about 40 to 50 people come out to our 4th of July (in August) celebration tonight.  It was lots of fun and lots of food.  There was chicken wings, soup and curry with rice and noodles, different fish dishes, including one that is fish brains mashed up, sweet and sour eggs in onions (I liked that one), and the drink was rose water mixed with susu (milk).  It looked like Pepto Bismol and the elders told me that it tasted like it too.  My beautiful bride made a big pan of apple crisp.  The Malay people don't eat many things that are sweet, so everyone took a little bit and then went back for more.

You can see the apartment complex in the background.  These buildings, usually 4 stories high, are nicer inside and are covered in black mold outside because of the high humidity all the time.  Linda was happy when they finally brought out some small stools to sit on.  Right behind this apartment complex, Sis. Minang had two of her cars stolen. Before we came in, I put the steering wheel lock on my car and hoped it would still be there when we got back.  It was!
We had a very nice evening, with lots of good food and good friends.

 Here is our newest "greenie" in the mission on the left with the darker hair.  His name is Elder Spurrier and he is from Salt Lake City.  He is a wonderful addition to our Masai elders.  His companion is Elder Ferguson on the right.  You can almost read his name badge.  Whenever we get a new elder in our district, Linda and I take them out to Kenny Roger's Chicken Roasters for a meal.  We love eating there.  It's our favorite American restaurant we found out here.  I always order the half chicken with barbeque sauce, 3 sides, a delicious banana muffin and mineral water.  Good food!

 Today is Elder Smith's birthday.  He is 19 years old.  It is so strange to see our elders coming out at 18 years old and just out of high school.  Elder Smith is our District Leader and does an excellent job teaching us in District Meetings.  He always gives a super spiritual message and lesson each Tuesday morning.  Elder Smith just got a new companion, Elder Moore and Elder Earl got a new companion, Elder Mitchell.  We will be taking all four of them out to Kenny Roger's in a few days.  One visit for two new elders and a birthday.  Linda made a delicious chocolate bunt cake with Duncan Hines icing.

 We bought this yellow watermelon the other day and had it for supper.  It was so sweet and juicy.  It tasted just like the red watermelon we get back home, just a different color.  I thought it was much sweeter.  This is called "kuning tembikai" or yellow watermelon, of course.  The full watermelon is not as big as the watermelons we have back home.  These are about the size of a soccer ball.  We have red and yellow watermelon at least once a week or so.  Great with any meal.

 On the 15th day of the 8th month, in the Chinese calendar, we celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival or the Mooncake Festival.  The mom to the two kids we teach every Tuesday and Friday gave us two Mooncakes to try.  The cut open one has a "pandan" jelly filling inside.  Pandan is a green leaf used in cooking and baking here in Southeast Asia.  It makes cakes and jellies green in color and tastes similar to coconut.  I really love pandan cake.  It is "sangat sedap"!
The other uncut Mooncake was filled with a sweet potato filling.  Every store sells these Mooncakes at little stands all over the city.

The other odd food for this week is these delicious "pau" balls.  Sister Ng makes these pau balls for every branch activity we ever attend.  She brings a small grocery bag of them to sacrament meetings and any other occasion.  We reach in the bag and take a small handful and just nibble on them.  Some are made with various bean fillings or meat fillings, but Sis. Ng's plain pau balls are delicious, just by themselves.  It's just some kind of dough that is steamed over hot water and taken out to dry.  Really good stuff.

This past week was the annual Chinese "Ghost Festival".  All throughout the city of Johor Bahru, you find large piles of paper that represent a large pile of money.  The Chinese people then stand in front of the large pile of paper, offer up their prayers with incense sticks, and then they light up the pile of paper and set it on fire.  This represents these earthly people sending money and prosperity to their ancestors in the spirit world.  You can see a blue table with a pineapple and other fruits and cakes.  During the night, the ghosts are suppose to come and take the offerings.

 This a a giant stand, on the side of a road, similar to the covered tents we have back in Utah when they sell fireworks in July.  The yellow bags on the ground are bags of paper strips that they sell to be burned for their paper money ceremony.  On the table are smaller packages of incense that many Chinese people come up and purchase to take back to their homes.  As we drive around our city, we wonder who is really taking the fruits and cakes during the night.  It sounds like our silly childhood tradition of a "tooth fairy" who takes the tooth during the night and leaves some money in the morning.

 These are rows and rows of huge incense sticks that are sold to the public.  Each of these incense sticks are over 6 feet tall and about 9 inches across.  They are really big and as you drive past the stand of these, they light the top of these sticks and let them burn down to the bottom.  There was no smell from the large sticks as we came right up to them and took pictures.  The smoke is also suppose to drive away the evil spirits or ghosts and bring good fortune to those who light them.

 Almost every time we have a lightning and thunder storm, which is almost daily, the power to the traffic lights are knocked out.  This is one of the intersections to turn right onto Pasir Gudung, our local freeway to go up to the Masai Church building.  The funniest part of this huge "every man for himself" traffic jam, was a police car came up behind the motorcycle, in the left of the picture.  They were sitting right along side of us, so we were glad to see them because they should get out and direct the traffic jam.  Instead, they waited for the lori on the right to pass through the intersection, and then they proceeded through and got on the freeway.  Unbelievable!

 On Saturday night, August 16th, we were invited over to Pres. Jeff Lee's home with his wife, Sister Cheryl.  A year ago, Sis. Cheryl had a baby boy named Hyrum.  This is Hyrum's first birthday party.  There were about 40 to 50 people that came over to the party.  The party was catered with all kinds of delicious foods and desserts.  The first metal tray had rice (of course), then spaghetti, then chicken tenders, then fried chicken, then some delicious steamed vegetables.  After those containers, there was fish and some kind of potatoes and a filled vegetable pastry and lots and lots of little finger desserts.  It was "sangat sedap"!

Here is Hyrum's one year old birthday cake.  This cake was pretty good, this time.  It was covered with a whip cream icing and didn't taste too bad.  Usually, the icing out here in Malaysia tastes exactly like pure butter.  You take a bite of the icing and it has no sugar or sweetness to it.  It tastes just like butter with food coloring.  You have a hard time gagging it down, even though it looks so delicious.  All the Malay birthday parties we attend get the same kind of butter icing cake.  Can't wait for "butter cream icing" again.  I love Macey's Food Store in Spanish Fork.  They make the best butter cream icing.

 We had a great family home evening with many members and non members in the Masai Branch with Leonard and his family.  He leaves for his full time mission tomorrow and will be serving here in the Singapore Mission after returning from the Philippines MTC for two weeks.  We had an outside testimony meeting and then, of course, some great food.  Here is our wonderful branch president, Pres. John (in the green shirt).
One of my most favorite dishes, that his wife makes, is a sweet and sour chicken.  It is "sangat sedap". (very delicious!)

 This is sad picture of the garbage just tossed off to the side of one of the buildings.  We were thinking of making this one of our service projects and clean it all up.  We still have to convince our elders to help us.  In Singapore, it is very well kept up and beautiful on the entire island.  In Malaysia, it is a little different.  We saw much of the same thing when we picked up our son from Peru, when he ended his mission a number of years ago.  Every home that we have been in, here in Malaysia, is beautiful and well kept up.  The sweet people are so proud of their homes and it is always a treat to visit our members in both our branches.  Just sometimes, you come across scenes like this.  It is difficult for a housing complex of hundreds of people to try to control the outside of the building. 

 This is a classic picture of me trying to continue my quest for greater patience.  We purchased a small cabinet for the JB Branch.  It will sit up on the podium and will hold hymn books inside of it and the headphone receiver will sit on the top.
We could have purchased it for 89 ringgit, all assembled.  I chose to get it for 75 ringgit and build it myself.  Just like a box from Ikea, back in Utah, you open the box, get out all the pieces and read the directions that have no words, just pictures and arrows.  I'm trying to look at the tiny pictures with my magnifying glass and kept my cool after two hours of working on it.

 We love our missionaries.  This is the third time Linda and I visited the Johor Zoo.  The place is pretty lame and most of the cages have nothing in them.  When you see an animal, it looks underfed and we all sweated like crazy.  On the far left is Elder McCarthy from New Zealand (I don't understand much of what he says with his accent), then Elder Takin (a native Malaysian).  In the middle is our short but cute elder, Elder Robins, then Elder Ferguson and Elder Smith on the end.  The two Zone Leaders could not attend with us due to a teaching appointment.  These are the greatest kids ever.

My final picture, this week, is the normal lines at the Jusco Food store.  You usually have to wait in line for 45 minutes to an hour before you get checked out.  You would think they would get more checkers, but it has never happened yet.  It gives us a chance to visit with people.  We usually go to Tesco Food store with the missionaries each week on our P-day (Monday).  Then, when we are done with driving them around and getting the majority of our groceries, we go to Jusco, where they have great meats and a wonderful supply of fresh fruits and vegetables.  For the three and half weeks without a car, as it was getting repaired, we went to Jusco because they have taxi's right outside the front entrance.  You just pull up your grocery cart and load things in the trunk of the taxi and get back home to our apartment.  If you look right in the middle of the picture, you will see a Chinese lady in bright yellow.  She tried to "butt" in line, but the Malay gentleman in the white shirt in the front of the picture, let her have it.  After some arguing, she got into another line.

 Here is Leonard anak Jimmy, our very first missionary from the Masai Branch in the Johor Bahru District.  We are so proud of Leonard.  We have worked with him and his sweet family for some time.  We went with Leonard and his family to the Manila Temple last December.  He is so excited to serve the Lord here in the Singapore Mission.  We were privileged to buy Leonard a new suit and other things to help him get started on his mission.  It will be fun to go to our Zone Conferences, for the next two times, and see Leonard at our meetings as one of our full time missionaries serving with us.

 Today ends the month long celebration of "Ramadan".  Hari Raya Aidilfitri is the day that ends the holy month of dawn to sunset fasting.  Our sweet Muslim friends, here in Malaysia, do not eat all day until about 7:30 PM and then every hawker stand and restaurant and eating establishment is packed with people eating their one evening meal.  Even the taxi's stop working during the evening so the driver's can eat after fasting for the whole day.  During Ramadan, all the stores sell colored lights and colored garland, much like our Christmas holidays.  People go around visiting their families and greet each other with the words, "Selamat Hari Raya".  (Good Celebration Day)  This "Festival of the Breaking of the Fast" is a religious holiday in Malaysia and there is no work on Monday and Tuesday of this week.  All banks and post offices and schools are closed and most shops and businesses owned by the Muslim people we be closed to celebrate Hari Raya.

 Here is another display of the things that you can purchase for the Hari Raya celebration.  All kinds of colored garland and many different types of Christmas lights decorated the malls and the homes and businesses of our Muslim friends.  It reminds us of Christmas in July.  During the month of Ramadan, the Muslim families go home to their villages that they were born in and visit family and friends, seek forgiveness from each other, visit ancestor's graves, say their prayers in mosques and eat all kinds of Malaysian delicacies.
When we go out to eat lunch anywhere during the month of July, there is only Chinese people in the restaurants.  But when sunset comes, the malls are packed with hungry Muslim families, saving their places at various tables, waiting for sunset to arrive before they order their evening meal.  It's been a really great experience to see how other people celebrate their special days in their religion.

These final two pictures are very important to Sister Schollenberger and me, but to anyone else, they are just pictures of the podium at any church building.  This one is the beautiful wood paneling that we had to replace in our foyer and all the new wiring that needed to be put in for our headsets that we use for translation purposes.
It has taken us nine months to get these things fixed and repaired in our two church branch buildings and lots of frustrating hours working with different companies.  I need to still purchase a small cabinet to put in front of this black transmitter box, and then we are done in JB.

This little black thing is the microphone that is pulled out for the priests to speak into when they say the sacrament prayers.  The cost of this very tiny microphone is 1,300 ringgit.  That comes to about $450, which is quite a lot for the members out here in Malaysia.  The company had to order it from Japan and it must have come on a very slow boat to get here.  Finally, today in our Sacrament Meeting, the brethren used this new microphone and it worked very nicely.  Now, I still have to get our Masai Branch building's kitchen repaired and the entire podium replaced.
When you step on certain places on the podium, you fall through, so the entire plywood framework needs to be redone.  Then they will re-carpet the podium and put it all back together. (We hope!)  We resurfaced the baptismal font and had it repainted.  This company replaced all the red paneling in the foyer, which was eaten through by termites and they fixed cracks in the cement walls.  Another company does all the wiring and electrical work.  And still another company fixes the air conditioning and another company sprays for bugs.  We are called almost weekly to go up to one of our branches and open the building and wait for work to be done.  I guess it comes with being the District President, or maybe, it comes with being the Senior Couple who is available anytime they need you.