On Friday, Oct. 31st, Linda and I flew to Kuala Lumpur, for our very first CCM (Coordinating Council Meeting with 2 Area Authories and Pres. Mains.  Left to right: Pres. Victor Chen is the 1st Counselor to Pres. Mains, then Elder Freddie Chan and Elder Woo, Area Authorities, then my head, then Pres. Mains in front center.  Behind him is a counselor in the KL District Presidency and the 3 men in white shirts are the District Presidency from Ipoh District.  It was a great meeting and I handled the plane flights very well.

 We purchased 2 new sewing machines to teach the sisters how to sew.  Linda and I made pillow cases to show them.  Linda sewed the big bed pillow, with a cute yellow strip and blue opening.  I sewed, all by myself, the little 14 inch throw pillow.  It was easier than I thought and we just followed two simple YouTube videos that we found online.  Now, the sisters in R.S. will sign up for the pillow they want to try to sew and they bring the material and we provide the training and the machines.  We are trying to eventually have the sisters check out the machines and make clothing projects at home.

 An absolute necessity, here in Malaysia, is to have your air conditioning working correctly.  Each room usually has a wall unit like this one that sends out the cool air.  We have one in each of our two bedrooms and one in our little study.  This one is in our living room, dining room and kitchen areas.  It now only sends out warm air, which we can just go outside to get that.  We called the landlord and he will send someone to fix it, we hope.  Luckily, we have a ceiling fan running.  We are so pampered.  There is no Malay home that has air conditioning. 

Here is the other half to the air con system, the compressor.  This is what apparently malfunctioned.  The air con people have been to our apartment 5 or 6 times now, trying to repair or service our four machines.  The man told us, just last week, that this compressor has seen its last days and will not work for more than a year or so.  It lasted 2 more days!  We are trying to get it fixed before we have the General Authority staying at our apartment for two days and then the senior couple before us, the Beards, coming a week later to stay the weekend.  Hopefully we can get things repaired in time.  If not, we just live in our air conditioned car.

On Saturday evening, Oct. 18th, 2014, we had these two dear Indian sisters baptized into the church.  Sis. Regima is the mother and her daughter, Sis. Patmah only speak Malay and Tamal.  The daughter understands some English and then interprets for her mother.  We also had Sister Jess baptized, one of our Chinese sisters.  Her picture is at the bottom of these 6 pictures.  It's amazing to have all these different languages and cultures in our two little branches here in Johor Bahru, Malaysia.  These 3 sisters give us 17 baptisms this year.  Our district goal is 20.

On our last P-day, we went with our eight elders to a candy factory.  It was awesome.  Each of us got a free sample of "Barbie microphones" with little star shaped candies inside.  They were "sedap". (delicious)  We walked from one area to another, watching the workers make suckers from giant blobs of hot molded candy, then into the room where they stamp out the little stars, then into another room where hard candy circles come out of these loud machines.  After that, we walked into another 3 rooms, where different candies were produced.  As we walked up to the workers and watched them making these candies and filling the machines with sucker sticks or wrappers, etc, we would get a sample of that particular candy being made.  Such fun!

Each of us had to wear a hair net before we could enter the plant and we were not allowed to take any pictures of the inside.  At the end of the tour, we had the owner take one group picture of us with our hair nets on.  The elder to the far right of the picture, Elder Lee, is the son of the candy factory owner.  Elder Lee is a Singaporean and his parents live in Singapore and have two candy factories in Johor Bahru.  The elders are not suppose to visit with their parents while serving a mission, so we kept Elder Lee far from his dad as he gave us the "royal tour".  We are each holding up our Barbie microphone.  The whole tour only took about 30 minutes, but it was a fun P-day activity together.

One of the most prized things you can receive here in Malaysia, from our wonderful Malay and Iban members, is a hand made Iban tie.  It has only taken me 20 months to finally get accepted, and I was so surprised when Sis. Minang gave this to me today at church.  You can see, from the picture below, that it is made of thousands of tiny beads that are strung together on string and made into this intricate design.  The top of the tie, around the neck, has some pearl sized beads and, at the end of the beads, another tiny set of beads that form a button hole.  On the other end of the neck fastener is a small red button, so you place the tie around your neck and button it in place.  Then you pull your collar back over the larger beads and the tie is ready to go.  They made an extra long tie for me that goes down below my belt.  Sis. Minang's sister made the tie for me and had it shipped over from East Malaysia.  The women also wear these beaded necklaces and beaded bracelets.  It must have taken this good sister hours upon hours to make this tie for me.  We offered Sis. Minang money to give to her sister, but she wouldn't take any.  I was greatly honored and grateful for this beautiful gift of love and labor. 

 Here is our cute little Petreus, Brother Jimmy and Sister Minang's 8 year old son.  He was baptized last Saturday and we had a great turn out for his baptism program.  Sister Minang is our Masai Branch Relief Society President and Brother Jimmy is in our Elder's Quorum Presidency.  They are both such great "kingdom builders" here in Malaysia.  No matter what the activity or meeting, this family always attends and brings food.  These are also the parents of our first missionary from the Masai Branch, Elder Leonard Kasi anak Rabing (Jimmy).

 We loved our General Conference this weekend.  We get the conference proceedings one week later on flash drives.  This time, we were instructed to watch conference on the same time frame as they do back home, 10 AM, 2 PM on Sat and Sun and a 6 PM Priesthood Session and General Women's meeting.  It is always fun taking notes on every speaker and then praying about which talks will be used for the next 6 months for the 4th Sunday lessons in Relief Society and Priesthood meetings.  This picture is our JB chapel with the TV up front.

During this conference, we had English playing in the chapel area, with one sweet sister (Sister Patmah) listening to conference in Tamal (from India) on our laptop with earpieces, and other Chinese members listening in the Relief Society room.  We also have two other flash drives in Masai, each listening to conference in Malay.
It is an interesting time speaking English and trying to learn Malay while everyone around you is speaking 2 or 3 other languages.

Here is our super faithful Brother and Sister Ng listening to conference in Mandarin.  One fun story that I should have taken a picture of but forgot.  During one of the breaks in between conference on Saturday, we took the 4 elders out to eat at our local McDonald's.  As we had finished and were heading back to the chapel, one of the elders pointed out this animal walking very calmly across the parking lot.  It looked like a small cat, but upon closer inspection, it was a rat, looking for some food.  Now, you have to hope that the cheeseburger that I just finished was really beef and not some other critter walking around their parking lot.  It makes one think!  Another fun experience we had on Friday evening.  Linda told me to take pictures and again, I just got too busy.  When you look at the picture of our chapel, just behind the TV is the podium and to the left of the picture, on the stand, we have a huge infestation of termites.  One of the elders was leading the music and fell through the carpeting to the cement flooring as the termites ate through the wood in that area.  So, I volunteered to repair the hole.  What a project!  We first had to locate a store that sold lumber.  There is no such thing as a Home Depot or Lowe's around here.  We found a hardware store run by some very kind Chinese people.  It was literally a maze of shelves and all sorts of things stashed everywhere from floor to ceiling.  We bought a hand saw, some nails and had a 4 foot by 8 foot piece of plywood delivered to our chapel later on Friday evening.  Now the fun begins.  I broke away all the rotted wood and large white termites crawled out from everywhere.  We have a pest control company coming next week to put down some bait, but until then, we needed to fix this hole and shore up the rest of the area before someone else falls through.  My hole was about 4 foot long by 2 foot wide and one foot deep.  I was going to build a frame to go inside the hole and then lay a piece of plywood over the frame to stand on. The entire podium is being ripped up in Feb of next year, when the church gives our area its new budget for 2015.  This is just a quick fix job.  I now begin cutting my first piece of plywood.  I didn't get 2 to 3 inches and ran out of steam.  This 3/4 inch plywood is hard to saw through, so we go to the local store to see if they sell electric saws.  We actually found a great circular saw and took it to the clerk to check out.  We just happened to ask if the saw came with a blade and if they would check.  No blade!  Of course, we are in Malaysia.  Why would they sell a saw with a blade.  You had to buy the blade separately.  And, of course, they don't have a blade to sell.  Great!  So we go to another store and purchase a small jig saw.  The jig saw was a total of 13.80 ringgit, which comes to about $4.50.  This should be a real winner!  We begin cutting the pieces and almost got our monies worth from this saw.  We cut 5 of the 6 pieces needed before the saw "gave up the ghost".  I hammered my framed insert together and it fit perfectly in place.  We covered the carpet back over the new frame and felt pretty good about our construction project.  At least we know that the termites will enjoy some new, fresh wood for the next 3 months.

 

Our Senior Conference photo on Sept. 17, 2014.
If you sit on the small sofa with Pres. and Sis. Mains in the middle, that means you're on your way home.  Elder & Sis. Beus are on the right side of Pres. Mains and Elder & Sis. Bashaw are next to Sis. Mains in blue.  Hopefully, Linda and I should be in the next photo in December.  We currently have 14 senior couples in our Singapore Mission.

 Our wonderful elders, sisters and seniors at our Zone Conference.  This time, all elders, sisters and seniors from West Malaysia and Singapore came together for one day and then all of East Malaysia comes on another day.  Mother and I got the end seats for this photo shoot.

 Before our Zone and Senior Conference, we went to the little island of Sentosa, south of Singapore.  This is where Universal Studios is, along with a huge aquarium and amusement park.  We went with the four elders from our Masai Branch to the aquarium.  It was a blast.
Here is Elder Spurrier, walking through the long underwater tube.  Quite amazing!  The elders came into Singapore earlier this day for a dentist appointment and then waited for us to arrive.  We met up around 2 pm and stayed till about 6 pm.

 Our four elders from Masai.  Elder Robins in front with the green sunglasses, then Elder Ferguson and Elder Taikin behind him and Elder Spurrier in the back.  We sure love these four elders and have fun when all eight of our elders come over to our apartment for District and Zone Meetings.  This coming Monday will be another transfer day.  We will see which elders leave JB and how many new kids we get.  It's always fun to get some new elders, but sad to lose the ones who have been with us for many months.

 I asked Linda to stand still, so I could take her picture.  Here is one of her "cute" smiles.  We were still in the underwater tube before you enter the actual aquarium.  This was unusual; to get Linda to pose.  She usually stops me or runs away and hides.  This time, she actually posed and made a great face.  The elders all got in as "students" for 28 Sing dollars.  We went up to get the "senior" discount and really did well.  It also is $28, but the man only charged us $25 each, because he didn't have any change.  The elders were "ticked off".  It pays to be old!

 This giant tube of a fish tank went up a number of stories.  It was amazing and quite beautiful. 
You were able to walk all the way around the tube as hundreds of different kinds of fish swam by.  All around the giant tube, you could see other fish tanks of sharks, jelly fish, manta rays, sea horses and even a petting zoo area.  You could put your hand into the water and pet the fish in the tank or rub your hand over the star fish and other sea creatures.  Pretty neat!  The elders couldn't wait to play with the slimy fish.

Within this ship, you went into a place with wooden benches and a huge movie screen.  A short video would play, telling the story of Chinese trade fisherman years ago.  Suddenly, a storm begins to form and the room turns into a simulated "typhoon".  It was a riot.  The lightning starts to flash and thunder claps.  The wooden benches move and then the wind comes up and a water mist hits you while the storm rages.  Finally, a harder rain begins while you're sitting there.  For a few minutes, you really felt like you were in a typhoon.  It was fun and wet!

When you enter the aquarium, you walk through a long underwater tube of all sorts of fish and sea life.  When you complete the aquarium tour, you again walk through a long underwater tunnel, except this time it is filled with all sorts of sharks.  It was awesome.  We asked a passerby to take our picture in the tube.  The elders are all wearing their "manta ray" hats.  Linda and I tried to be more mature and not wear our hats during the picture taking.  It was a fun day in Singapore with our missionaries before our Zone and Senior Conference.

 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.