I stuck a bunch of random pictures in again for this week.  We took two of our missionaries out to buy new bikes, with our new car.  I was a bit nervous about putting bikes in the back, so we purchased a large blue tarp and laid it down.  Then we placed one bike on its side and laid the other bike on top of it, making sure we didn't damage any spokes on the wheels.  Finally, we stuck the two elders under the bikes.  The closest elder is Elder Fabiano and the furthest one is his companion, Elder Wadsworth.  Great kids and wonderful missionaries.  They are both in our JB Chinese Branch.

 Here we have the first baptism of 2014.  Elder Coleman, far left, baptized Sister Erika.  Along side of Sister Erika is her uncle, President Joe.  And the right is Elder Coleman's companion, Elder Cook.  Pres. Joe and his mom were the first to get baptized, then through his example and being called into the branch presidency, he brought in his sister, her husband and now his niece.  He is on fire.

 We were called on evening and asked if the elders could come over since they cooked dinner for us.  It was fun.  Here is a picture of their dining room table after preparing the meal.  We had some Chinese chicken soup, some kind of rice dish with meat and eggs in it and a large bowl of mashed potatoes.  They were so proud and the food was rather good.  After the meal, we went over to their apartment to pick up some of our wash, since we were using their washing machine cause our machine broke.  After seeing their table, we were a bit worried for the next day after our food digested.

 Another classic missionary apartment picture.  Here our elders are drying their socks by ironing them.  We are lucky to have a dryer in our apartment, but they just hang their clothes out to dry on racks.  If they want to speed things up, they simply iron the clothes.  You really can't tell if they scorch the socks, since they are already dark in color.

 The missionaries convinced me to go and purchase a "sarung".  The Indonesian and Malay men and women wear these quite a bit.  The men's colors are in blues and browns and are usually checkered.  The women's sarungs are very colorful and beautiful with birds and flowers and all kinds of pictures on them.  I couldn't get Linda to show off her sarung.  The elders showed me 3 different ways to wrap the sarung around my waist.  There is the simple way of pulling it tight and then rolling it down, with nothing fancy showing.

This second way shown in the picture highlights the darker strip in the front and a third way places the darker strip in back of two other folds in the front.  I haven't mastered that one yet.  The sarung is very comfortable, stays up and is easy to move in and gives you a thrill when a breeze blows up from the bottom.  The material is one large tube sewed together that you step into and then wrap it various ways around you.  When I asked how to use the restroom, they looked at me funny and said you just pull it up.  There are no zippers in it.  Takes some getting use to.

 Linda thought I should add this picture to our collection.  We went over to a Chinese family for a lovely supper and the mom made these Santa Claus cupcakes.  They are made of strawberries and whipped cream.  She loves to bake and is always making something for us, trying to thank us for teaching her two kids.  I was very proud of the 13 year old boy we teach, Fong Yee.  He got a score of 62 on his final exam in English.  Last time he got a 42 and 40 is failing.  His dad was even prouder.

 This is our wonderful branch president, President John, holding his little daughter in his lap with his wife, Sister Alan in the background.  It was President John's birthday and we went out and bought him a cake.  We didn't bother looking at it and when he opened it, he thanked us and then pointed out that it said, "Happy Birthday, Pres. Jhon"  We were horrified and he just laughed.  Pres. John turned 37 and has been a member for 3 years and the branch president for 2 of those 3 years.  He is a great minister among his people and they all just love him.  He is a very humble man with great potential here in Malaysia.

This final picture is three of our JB elders showing off their white flour mustaches.  Elder Wadsworth on the left, Elder Loke in the middle and Elder Lee on the right.  Elder Fabiano is in the kitchen, making pizza dough and these three made great faces putting on the flour for mustaches.  I forgot to tell you that one of the other items that came over to our house when the elders brought us dinner was homemade pizza from Elder Fabiano.  This picture was taken at our monthly "linger longer" after church.  Linda made a loaf of cranberry/orange bread, which everyone ate right up and the elders just stayed and stayed, making pizzas for everyone who wanted some.
Today (Jan. 5, 2014) we shipped off Elder Lee to the border.  He is going to serve the other 19 months of his mission in Holland.  He is from Singapore and stayed here while visa and other paperwork was approved.  He is going to be a great missionary.  He speaks excellent English, Chinese, and Dutch.  Go figure!