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.