This sweet little ten year old girl is our 21st baptism for the year 2014.  Our goal was to baptize 20 people from our two branches and we exceeded the goal by one.  We are thrilled with our wonderful elders that have worked so hard to meet the goal.  Her name is Debra Olivia Bettie anak Dutin Pawan.  The great part of this baptism is the one baptizing her.  He is Mike Alyster, who was baptized at the end of 2013 and is doing so well in the gospel.  He is a priest now and working toward being advanced in the Melchizedek Priesthood.  So proud of him!

 On Christmas afternoon, we were invited over to a birthday party.  This is the one year old birthday girl.  She was so cute and excited for everyone to be at her birthday party.  When Iban's have a birthday, everyone in the branch and every relative and neighbor is invited over.  There was a constant flow of people coming over for food and kek (cake).  The funny thing is there is no gift giving, just food and drink and fellowship. 

 This "barbie" kek brought back some really fond memories for us.  My dad was a baker for all his life and he use to make these same barbie cakes for our little girls when they had birthdays.  The only difference was my dad's icing was so delicious.  The icing, here in Malaysia, takes exactly like eating straight butter, or it is the "whipped cream" icing.  My favorite is the "buttercream" icing from the Macey's Food store in Spanish Fork.  Can't wait to have some again.

 After many, many months of practicing, we finally had our JB Branch Primary program on Sunday, Dec. 28th.  It was as good as any put on in America.  We had 5 little girls, all dressed in their white dresses and 5 boys in their white shirts, singing numerous Primary songs and each saying their parts in English.  It was very touching and very well done.  Sis. Eunice, the Primary President, did a great job.  Sis. Bernice, standing next to her is Sam's wife and a member of the Primary Presidency.  Lastly is Sis. Rachel, our 14 year old Primary teacher holding Hyrum.  She ran the music CD's and everyone did such a great job.  It was a beautiful program.

 Our beautiful Christmas ham.  This is a real Christmas miracle, here in Malaysia, to find anything made from a pig.  It is very forbidden in the Muslim culture, but we finally located one.  You can see the cost on the sticker.  A small ham, like this one, cost us $105.28.  It was so worth it.  We fed all 8 of our elders, we took some to the next dinner appointment and gave some away to one of our members who didn't have any food in his house.  We ate at 3 different homes and enjoyed our 2nd Christmas in Malaysia.

 The amazing Christmas Eve miracle was being able to baptize this young lady, standing next to me, in Mandarin.  I worked for about a month trying to memorize and pronounce the baptism prayer and did just fine.  Her name is Chan Yi Rin, and after stating her name, I began the prayer in Mandarin.  All the members, about 30 or so, just gasped and couldn't believe it.  So now, as our mission comes to a close soon, I have been blessed to baptize 2 Malay sisters and 1 Chinese sister, in their native language.

This is Sis. Rosita's Christmas tree.  She went outside and cut down some tree limbs and stuck them in a vase and then decorated them like a Christmas tree.  Whatever works.  The tree leaves were all dead, but she was so proud of her "make shift" Christmas tree.  There are no Christmas trees here, no Christmas lights, no Christmas music, no gift giving, or TV shows or even Christmas songs and programs at church.  You say Merry Christmas to people that we pass and they don't know what to say back.  We are very grateful to celebrate the birth of our Savior during this time of the year and also, very grateful that we don't need all the things that come with Christmas to still worship Him and remember Him every day of our lives.  We have a wonderful family and dear friends that warm our hearts during this beautiful time of the year.

Here is the newest edition to our Masai Branch.  President John and his wife, Sis. Alan, had their 5th baby girl.  Her name is Joyee Juffi anak John Korea.  They liked the Christmas carol, "Joy to the World", so they wanted the word "joy" in her first name for the month of December and for the Christmas season.  She weighed 3.4 kilos.  Lots of dark, black hair.  Both mom and baby are doing great and we had fun visiting with them and holding Joyee.  They have already nicknamed her, "JJ".

 Our Masai elders wanted another "P-day" outing and invited us to visit this government building down near City Square, which is near the border of Singapore and Malaysia.  It was quite a neat looking, old building, but we could not go inside to see the interior.  The building itself sits up on a hill overlooking the southern part of the city.

 It is almost impossible to get a picture of Linda.  She hates when I take pictures of her.  I always have to sneak one in, when she is not quite looking.  I happened to catch Elder Capener, with one of his "cheesy" smiles.  I took a bunch of pictures of the government emblem right above Linda's head.  It is two tigers, symbolizing royalty.  Right along side of Linda is a smaller cannon and a really big cannon.  The elders had fun riding them and playing around them.

 Here is Elder Capener dumping the rain water out of the smaller cannon.  Elder Egbert (red head) and Elder Spurrier are behind him and Elder Bester is leaning against the larger cannon.
We had fun getting down to the City Square area and then, trying to find our way home using the GPS unit.  After 21 months in Johor Bahru, we are definitely running out of things to see and do.
Everyone mentioned that the trip to the government building was really "lame", but the company was the best.  We still had lots of fun.

 This year, we attended the JB Branch Christmas party.  Here is our recent convert, Sam, playing the part of Santa.  The kids loved him (or maybe loved getting the presents that he handed out).
We had about 84 people attend the social, which is a huge success.  Many of the people who came were non-member investigators.  That was wonderful.  The evening began with our branch president, Hong Min Tan, giving a brief talk on Christmas and then I gave two short video clips.

 Following the video clips, the elders got up and sang a beautiful Christmas carol.  Our two new elders are right in the middle of the group.  Elder Lebanon is from East Malaysia (Kuching) and next to him is Elder Reynolds from Houston, Texas.  Elder Lebanon's dad is in the Singapore Mission Presidency.  The really bizarre thing is he is also our Masai Branch president's nephew.
President Lebanon Ero is President John's uncle.

After the elders sang, we all got up and had a really great feast, put on by the RS.  We had turkey, ham, pork and all kinds of Chinese and Malay dishes.  It was great.  Following the food, we went back into the chapel, moved all the chairs to the sides of the room and played 3 games.  Here is Elder Lebanon and Elder Spurrier right in the middle of the fun.  Lastly, Linda read the poem, "Twas the Night Before Christmas" where the words "left & right" are used a lot.  Everyone then sits in a big circle and moves their presents left and right until the poem is over and then opens that gift.  Our sweet Chinese people had a difficult time moving the presents left and right, but we all ended up with a fun gift. 

 We went with our Masai elders to the Johor Bahru Kite Museum.  The official name for the museum is "Muzium Layang Layang" (Museum of Kites).  The building had a basement and 2 floors of all kinds of beautiful paper kites that are made here in Malaysia.  I took 24 pictures of all types of beautiful colored kites.

 These kites are called "wau bulan" or moon kites.  They are so famous here in Malaysia, that they are put on the $1 bills (ringgit).  We were able to get up close to each of these kites and actually touch them and see the intricate designs that they put on each kite. 

 Some kites were made into familiar animals, birds and insects.  This one was a giant butterfly and again, all put together with twigs of branches and colored paper.  The actual size of these kites is quite large.  This one is about 4 feet across and the largest one in the kite museum went from the basement to the 2nd floor, leaning against a side wall.  It was huge.

 I thought this one was quite unique.  It is the shape of a dragon with the 14 legs connected with tiny twigs and the head of the dragon being 3D.  This one was hanging very high near the roof of the building and was over a meter in length.  I had no idea that there could be so many different kinds of kites.

The kind Muslim gentleman that gave us our tickets at the entrance of the museum took a picture for us.  He was amazed that all of us could speak Malay.  The elders can really talk with him and mother and I just walk by him and say "thank you" in Malay.  From left to right is Elder Egbert (our red head), Elder Bester from Canada, our favorite kid, Elder Spurrier, and the lovable, cute Elder Capener.  Finally, the most gorgeous sister in the entire mission, with me on the end.

 This is a beautiful picture of the delicious food that was served to us for our "Other Thanksgiving" with our Masai Branch members.  The Malay people do not celebrate our American holiday of Thanksgiving and have no idea what it means and what Indians and Pilgrims are.  The elders put on a cute skit, but no one got it.
So, our branch president wanted to get some very expensive meat for our Thanksgiving Feast for the American elders and for us.  It was "octopus"!

When we got home, I couldn't wait to create the new "Other Thanksgiving" symbol for all future Thanksgiving's here in Malaysia.  The "Thanksgiving Octopus".   I took the smallest piece I could swallow down and lots of mi (noodles) and nasi (rice) to fill me up.  I began chewing the octopus and found that it was surprisingly delicious.  Everyone stands around to see if Linda and I will try the food and what we think, and the members were thrilled that we liked their Thanksgiving meal for us.

 Along with the Thanksgiving octopus, we had lots and lots of prawns.  I had about 6 of them and they take some work if you don't like eating the head, eye balls and shell.  Since that doesn't suit me as much, you have to twist off the head and eyes, then pull off the feet and finally get the shell off the back before eating the yummy meat.
Most Malay's just eat the entire thing, shell and all.  No thanks.  I finally got the octopus down and I don't think I want the experience of passing the shells a few days from now.

 A real big hit item out here is this lovely "tofu".  It looks like very nice pieces of chicken, but we have learned to only take one piece first and if you like it, go back for more.  I took my one trial piece and the inside is like white custard; all mushy and gross.  So, I at least tried it and went back for some more octopus.

The final meat item was sesame seed chicken.  That sounds great and really looks great, but you have to have the jaws of a cow for chewing the stuff and then you pick out all the little bones in every piece.  It was really some tough meat.
Pres. John, our branch president ordered enough food for 100 people and only about 20 showed up for our "Other Thanksgiving".  They had people lining up for the "left overs" to take home and Linda and I were not in line.  It truly was a memorable "Other Thanksgiving" feast.

Happy Thanksgiving from Malaysia.  Linda and I went online and found this cute little "vegetable turkey".  So we created it and set some ranch dip next to it.  Our elders would not touch the vegetable turkey because it looked so cute.  That was the only thing they didn't touch though.  This year, we were able to get a nice large turkey from Singapore and we made our traditional "Moroni Turkey" in marinated soy sauce, 7 Up and oil, with some garlic and horseradish added.  So good!  It was a big hit.

 Linda made a cherry pie, an apple pie and two pumpkin pies the night before and my job was to cut off all the turkey to marinate it.  We had mashed potatoes and filling, green beans, candied carrots, cranberry sauce and rolls, lots of veggies and dip and tons of marinated turkey.  Everything turned out just perfect and we only missed having yams this year.  We were greatly blessed to have our 8 elders over for Thanksgiving.  I still can't wait for 1% WalMart milk with my pie.  I can't stand any of the shelf milk here.  It's all powdered tasting to me.

Here's another shot of our little group in the JB District.  Four Chinese speaking elders and 4 bahasa speaking elders.  Right after we were all done cleaning up and doing the dishes, the two AP's (assistants to the president) showed up at our door and hoped that we had some food left over.  We knew they were coming and put away a plate for each of them.  Elder Wadsworth is one of the new AP's.  He was with us here a year ago and we loved serving with him in JB.  The whole group is coming back later tonight to finish up the pie and anything else they can find.

 Linda and I put on a RS "sewing workshop" for the sisters in the JB Branch.  We had tons of fun.  We bought 2 new Brother Sewing Machines and had an older Singer machine and taught the sisters how to make bed pillow cases and throw pillow cases.  Linda taught the bed pillow cases and I did the throw pillows.  One sister wanted to do a bed pillow case and everyone else did the throw pillow cases.  They thought if I could make one, anyone could do it.  We had Sis. Jessie start, then Sis. Meera, then Sis. Ng and Sis. Lily, Sis. Rachel, Sis. Amy and Sis. Ilene.

 Here is Sis. Ng creating her throw pillow.  She didn't want anyone helping her.  She wanted to do it on her own after watching.  We had a youtube video showing how to make each pillow case, but no one wanted to waste their time watching them.  So we just showed them, stitched up all four sides and usually, had to sew up one or two of the sides again, since the sister missed some of the material.  When we were all finished, these ladies had huge smiles of accomplishment.  Now, they can check out the machines to try sewing in their own homes.

This is the sweetest Muslim lady that we met in Johor Bahru.  She has been with us for the past 21 months of our mission.  Her name is Noor Shaidah.  She is the office assistant at the Molek Pine Apartment Offices.  Whenever we got a parcel in the mail, she would ring us and ask for "Mr. Elder".  When we went over to visit her, she would help us practice our "bahasa" and speak to us in Malay.  She would tell us about her little boy, Ash.  The new owners of the apartments have let her, all the old staff, go and hired new people.  We will miss her sweet smile and always being concerned for us.

Today, Monday, Nov. 24th, we got delivered to our door a 24 lb. Butterball turkey for Thanksgiving.  This is Sis. Davies and her husband from Singapore.  They are the mission housing directors.  We begged them to try to get us a turkey for Thanksgiving and they found one for us and made the arrangement to come over to JB and do some elders apartment inspections and drop off our turkey at the same time.  This year, our turkey cost us 220 ringgit or about $65.  Now we are almost ready for feeding 10 of our elders for Thanksgiving.  We are so excited.