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!