Here is my lovely wife, teaching our new Family History Consultant how to get into FamilySearch.org.  We are sitting at a McDonald's, in the middle of a large mall, using their free wi-fi service.  It may have been free, but it took forever to get into the program.  While they worked, I had a cheeseburger and chicken nuggets.  Linda looks too interested at this point.  Our little Family History Consultant is a 13 year old in our Chinese/English Branch in JB.  We were at least able to communicate since she spoke good English from her schooling.

 This week, I tried my own stir/fry.  We went to our favorite veggie and meat store, Jusco.  It has great vegetables and fruits and a nice selection of meats.  We are always able to get real beef there, which when cooked, actually turns brown.  The Malaysian beef stays red and will not brown up.
Here are the fresh prawns that I bought.  You first have to twist off their heads, then you carefully pull off the tail and make sure you take the long vein with it.  It has all the "poop" inside of it.  Then you have to get the hard shell off the large tail section and you finally have your prawn ready to put in the stir/fry.  It was great.

 I added some peppers, onions, pea pods, mushrooms, broccoli and cauliflower in some pure olive oil, then the prawns turn orange and look like shrimp and then I mixed in oyster sauce.  It was yummy, but the oyster sauce was too salty tasting.  I'll have to go on line and figure the oyster sauce part for next time.
Here is a picture of 2 of our 3 districts in our zone.  We have 10 elders locally and 4 more up in Melacca, about 2 1/2 hours north of us.  Elder Crum next to me, Elder Harr next to Linda, Elder Earl, Jin, Robins, Takin, Thatcher and Cook in front and Fabiano and McCarthy standing. 

 We really love these kids and get very close to them.  Elder Cook is a great young missionary who has been in our area for the past 3 transfers.  We've gotten pretty close to him.
The next 2 pictures are this unique phenomenon
that happens each year in May.  We have hundreds of these moth/butterfly creatures everywhere.  The white pointy part is really the back end of their tails.  In our little apartment complex, there are hundreds of them flying around the inside courtyard where the elevators are.  They are on all the walls and floors and trees and just about everywhere. 

Interestingly, they only live a short time, laying their eggs and then dying.  You see their bodies laying all over the place.  When you come out of the apartment, they startle you when they all take off flying and hit you in the face and fly off.  You try to scan your key card to let you out of the building and they are sitting on the key pad and on the walls and in the plants and anywhere they decide to land.  We came home the other night and lots of dead bodies were lying all around the front entrance to our apartment.  

 We had to take a picture of this site, which happens up in Masai in a parking lot every Saturday evening.  It looks exactly like "Halloween Trunk or Treat", which we do back home in America, but hundreds of cars line up in a row and open up their trunks and sell their items from the back of their cars.  Most of the cars are selling hand woven dresses and clothing items.  We are standing up on the side of a large hill, where the McDonalds, Burger King and SubWay Sandwich places are.  We eat at one of them every Sat. night before we teach Seminary.

Our final picture for this week is the monthly "birthday celebration" that the Masai Branch does.  At both branches, on the 4th Sunday after church, we have "Linger Longer".  Everyone brings their favorite dish, (which they made sometime that morning and then we eat everything cold) and we all get together and eat a meal.  We always bring something that is already cold, like brownies or pineapple upside down cake or muffins or cookies.  One time, we actually brought some macaroni salad, which we kept in the fridge.  We are always amazed that we don't get sick.  All food in Masai is served stone cold.  You get used to it.  Anyone who had a birthday in the month of May, which is my beautiful wife, gets to come up and is sung to and then they cut the cakes that the branch purchases.  Sister Norma is in red by Linda and Sister Barbara is in blue.  The three make up the District Relief Society Presidency.  Elder Crum had a birthday also in May, and little Eddie, always gets in line first for a piece of cake.  His birthday must be every month.

 We had the wonderful opportunity to have 2 dear friends come and visit us here in Malaysia.
Ted and Kaye Davies, from Spanish Fork, were on a Southeast Asia holiday and decided to spend a few hours with us.  What a great honor.
Ted was one of the greatest bishops I served with up at BYU and Kaye works in the finance dept. at Nebo School District.  We made arrangements to have them come for part of a day, but their plans changed and we could only have them with us for 2 hours.  We went out to a breakfast cafe with them and enjoyed our time together.

 Their trip began as they flew into Changi Airport in Singapore last Monday, then they stayed with some friends in Singapore and toured the sights there on Tuesday.  Then on Wednesday, we visited with them from 8 AM to 10 AM.  The Davies had their neighbors travel with them, Roman and Ann Takasaki.  It was fun talking to them about our mission and the many differences between here and back in America.
They had a driver come pick them up and then they headed off to Melaca, then to Kuala Lumpur and finally they ended up in Bangkok, Thailand.

 This is a great picture of one of our torrential rain storms that we have almost daily, always around 5 to 6 pm.  All through April and May, it rains daily for about an hour and floods everything and everywhere.  This is looking out our little back patio and yard.  When you pass through the gate, it leads to the large swimming pool in our apartment complex.  We did swim the first few months of our mission, since it's 85 to 90 everyday here, but now, we just stay inside and exercise to one of our videos with the air conditioner running.  So nice!

 Almost all the hotels and stores and especially, in all government buildings and banks, you see these pictures hanging inside of them.  It is the king and queen and son of Malaysia.  The government is similar to the British form, where they have a king and queen, but the prime minister really runs the show and is usually seen on TV and in the news.  The only time we have ever seen the king and queen was once on TV, at the National Day events, when they appeared for a few moments.  Still, the people love their monarch and revere him by hanging his picture in their places of business.

 This is Yan Hao's clay car.  This little 5 year old, that I teach every Tuesday and Friday, is the sharpest little guy ever.  We have received hundreds of books from our grandson and other books from local schools back in America.  He has read them all.  He is here to learn better English, but he is very sharp.  So, I went out and bought modeling clay.  Every Tuesday, we build something in the clay, take a picture and then on Friday, we write a story about it.  This has finally held his attention and he loves to play with the clay.  His car is called "Shakespear" from Saturn.

 I had to add these last two pictures.  This is the typical road, in front of all the shop lots or "kedai's" here in Malaysia.  There are thousands and thousands of little stores and markets and little shops.  Our two church buildings are within these shop lots in two different cities in Johor.
During the day and in the very busy shop lot areas, this is the typical driving and car parking that goes on.  It drives me absolutely crazy.  If a person wants to go into a shop and purchase something, or if a person needs to stop by the bank and make a deposit, you simply pull your
car up to the front of the shop and park it, right in front of another parked car.  If the driver of the vertically parked car needs to get out, they simply begin honking their horn until the owner the the car behind them hears the horn and comes out to move their car.  They park this way everywhere.
Sometimes, you can't even fit between the cars to get through the street because they double park, then triple park and sometimes even quadruple park.  How stupid are they.  The elders tell me to try it, but I just don't have the nerve.  When a delivery man drops off water or supplies or equipment to any business, they just pull their lori up in front of the store, blocking the cars that are already parked there and unload their stuff.  Now, to drive down the road, you have to go around them in the other lane.  The fun part is when another store is across from them and a driver does the same thing, completely blocking off the road.  You just have to sit and honk you horn until they move; if they move.  So frustrating.  And, you may ask, where are the police?  They drive right by it and ignore it.

 Here is a sweet picture of my beautiful bride on our 40th Wedding Anniversary.  We had big plans on April 19th to go bowling with our elders and all the YSA in our District, but no one showed up.  Then we planned to go out to eat for our anniversary, but we got stuck in a traffic jam.  We did end up teaching our first Seminary class in Malay with 8 kids.  So we celebrated our anniversary by getting online and making up our Gospel Doctrine and Seminary lessons in Malay.
She is as cute as ever and we now begin our next 40 years together.  I don't know how she puts up with me.

 The next day, April 20th, is our Easter.  Here in Malaysia, no one celebrates or even knows about Easter.  Even at church, they welcomed everyone to Easter services and then all the talks had nothing to do with Easter.  We couldn't find a ham in a Muslim country like this, so we had some ham lunchmeat and cut it up over a baked potato.  We colored two Easter eggs (brown, of course, since we are in Malaysia) and our yummy can of Spam, which is getting tastier all the time.  A sweet sister gave us some rolls and there is our Easter dinner for 2014.

We see these signs almost weekly at our local Tesco (like Walmart) store, but don't even pay much attention to them anymore.  We love their "phonetic" way of spelling.  In the top wording, the hard sound of "c" is with a "k", since their "c" makes the "ch" sound.  (Bimbit means "mobile)  The bottom wording is with their other unusual sound "sy" which is their "sh" sound.  All the other consonants are just like our sounds and it's fun to read words like "farmasi" (pharmacy), "aksesori" (accessory), "akademik"
(academic), "butik" (boutique), "mesej" (message) and our all time popular one, "kredit cad" for (credit card).

 On Sunday, April 6, 2014, we went to the Masai Branch as we always do.  It was our Fast & Testimony Meeting and next week, we will have the privilege of watching General Conference, when it is sent to us on flash drives.  As I sat on the stand, President John, our branch president, came up to me and said that I was asked to bless this beautiful baby boy.  I was honored.  His name is Aivenoel (Ivan Noel) Baba anak Robert.
I then sat back down and the president came up to me again and said that the next set of parents also asked me to bless their little boy.  Number 2.

 This beautiful little guy is Vesly Smith Anyan anak Mike Aleyster.  He is the little boy belonging to Sister Venessa, who I was privileged to baptize a number of months ago.  Her husband, Mike Aleyster, was baptized just weeks ago and they are the most wonderful couple in our branch.  Mike will soon receive the Melchizedek Priesthood.
After this little baby blessing, another parent asked me to bless their little boy.  I don't have a picture of him, but his name is Atkinson Nelly anak Galam and he belongs to Sis. Melati.  Three baby blessings in a row.  What a record!

On Saturday evening, the day before our Fast & Testimony meeting, we were invited over to Bro. Uki's home, along with Bro. Gema and his family and Bro. Rantai and his family.  The lesson was on faith, given by our two sweet missionaries in the Plentong area, Elder Scheutz and Elder Thatcher.  After the lesson, we played a fun game that I had to remember, so I took some pictures.
You begin by packing flour in a plastic container and turn it upside down on some newspaper.


Then you place a piece of candy on the top of the flour tower.  Everyone then takes turns using a plastic knife and cutting away at the tower.  You can cut a large area away or just a very small little slice.  The fun part of the game is whoever makes the flour tower fall down, has to get the piece of candy out with only their teeth.  Here is Elder Thatcher, who lost.  He had the fun task of finding the piece of candy with his nose and teeth. (after I went up and buried it deeper in the flour pile)



Here is a great picture of Bro. David, making a very large cut down the side of the flour tower.  After his turn, Elder Scheutz went and made another large cut down the tower and the next player was Elder Thatcher, who barely touched the tower when the whole thing fell down and he had to pick out the candy with his teeth.  The room has about 30 people all sitting around in a circle and the temperature is well over 90 degrees.  It really makes the flour stick to ones face when you are the loser.


This is the spring time here in Malaysia and every street is lined with these very large pink and white flowering trees for miles and miles.
The temperature is a constant 85 to 90 degrees throughout the year, but we go through similar seasons as we do back home in Utah.  January, February and March are a wetter monsoonal season with lots of moisture (even though this year was quite dry).  April, May and June are the spring time and very beautiful.  July, August and September are quite warm, with temperatures going above the 90 degree mark.  And then comes our very cold winter months, when the

temperatures go down into the mid 80's.  The flowers come and go and the rain comes and goes, but the temperatures seem to stay the same.  Depending on the month of the year, the humidity also goes up and down.  Linda curls her hair and sprays it so nicely each morning and it lasts for a few minutes when she goes outside.
We look forward to seeing General Conference this next week and enjoying the time to hear from our church leaders.  Linda and I only have one more General Conference here in this great country of Malaysia.
We just came back from our Senior Conference in Singapore, along with our two days of Zone Conference with the elders and sisters of our Zone.  We also successfully got through immigration again, which is a real ordeal.  We went through another causeway crossing into Malaysia called the Tuas Crossing.  It took Linda and I almost 4 hours of traveling.  We get on the MRT underground railway trains and go to the far west side of the Singapore island.  We then stood in line for over an hour and a half, standing in the rain, to wait our turn to get on a causeway bus.  We packed into the bus like sardines, with our large luggage that we had to carry on the bus.  Then you get off the bus and go through the Singapore Immigration and get back on the bus with your luggage in front of you.  Then you get off the bus and go through the Malaysian Immigration, which is scary.  If they don't feel like giving you a "chop" (stamp in your passport), then you are sent to an office and are given a "talking to" by the immigration officials.  Last time we went into Malaysia, we had the wonderful experience.  Going through Tuas though is usually better than going through the busy Woodlands causeway crossing.  We made it through immigration, got back on another bus with our luggage in tow and went to Galan Patah.  There we exit the bus and find a taxi to take us home.  No taxi was available, so we had to hire a special blue taxi that has a meter.  Usually, it costs about 50 ringgit, but a metered taxi is much more.  It cost us 76.80 ringgit to get home, but we made it.  Now, we are able to serve here in Malaysia until June 25th, when we have to do this all over again.  We are so glad the Lord can soften hearts and help us through the immigration experience, busses, taxis, rain and all.  We just remember that "all this shall give thee experience, and be for thy good". 

 Our blog pictures, for this week, are some fun ones.  This lovely picture is the head of a pig.  It was given to us at a Zone Meeting and all of us were invited to have some.  I ate the pig snout.  It was really, really gross.  Mother would not try it because it was quite spicy, but the worst part was not the spicy taste, but the huge amounts of fat.
When I put it in my mouth, three huge pieces of fat broke off from the nose piece that I was eating and it was very difficult to swallow all the fat without gagging.  One of the other elders was turning white in the face as he was trying to eat his piece of the pig's face.  I try everything now.

 This beautiful little baby boy was born to Sister Mira, one of Bro. Uki's daughters.  His name is
Vivister Willie anak Henry.  We just call him Willie.  He has lots of dark, black hair and is so cute (comel).  We went over to Bro. Uki's home and took a baby gift to Sister Mira.  As we all sat down, Bro. Uki motioned to me to give an opening prayer and, without much hesitation anymore, I said my prayer.  When I was done, Sister Nancy said, "Pandai", which means "clever".  No greater compliment could be given.
The sweet Saints here are so honored when we white folks learn their language and speak with them.

 We also went over to visit Bro. and Sis. Ng.  Bro. Ng is the 1st Counselor in the JB Branch Presidency and it was his birthday.  We bought him a nice new blue tie.  We sat around for a while, sweating up a storm in their apartment, when Sis. Ng brought out the birthday cake.  I was excited for some delicious cake, but to our surprise, she brought out a jello mold cake.  The yellow layer was OK, the middle layer got worse and the top red layer had some kind of "super sour" white fruit in it.  There were pieces of chocolate in the cake, but I didn't get any in my slice.  We sang Happy Birthday, chasing around the jello blobs on our plates.  So much fun.

We also had a great Family Home Evening at Bro. Gema and Sis. Eta's home.  We had about 20 people there.  We opened with a song in bahasa, then I gave the opening prayer, then we jumped right in to this fish dish.  I am not a big fish fan, but this stuff was really good.  If you ignore the teeth and the head and tail, the sweet and sour sauce with onions all over the fish was quite tasty.  You have to pick out all the little bones, but the meat was great.  I had three helpings and loved this "piranha" onion delight.
I don't know what kind of fish it was, but it was very good.

 Chinese New Year has finally ended on February 15, 2014,  It began on Jan. 30th and runs for 15 additional days after Jan. 31st.  Every night was fireworks and firecrackers.  The most amazing thing we saw was a Dragon Dance and a Lion Dance. 
We were coming over to our church building, to open it up for a brother who left his suitcases in the building, when a lori pulls up and a group of men jump out and begin playing loud music and moving this pink dragon through the street and into a Chinese restaurant.

 The precision of the men and boys moving this dragon was phenomenal.  They would run around, pushing the head and body up and down, then they would lay on the ground and make the dragon move, then they would twirl the dragon in loops, etc.  It was something to see.

 You can't see it in any of these pictures, but there is a young man who holds a round spinning ball in front of the mouth of the dragon and leads the dragon dance.  It looks like the dragon is trying to eat the ball and the head of the dragon continues to follow it perfectly, with great precision. 

 You can somewhat see the young man, holding the ball on a long metal pole to his right.  It is yellow on top, then red and green and blue at the bottom.  All the time the dragon is rotating around, the young man has to jump over the pink body of the dragon and keep his pole moving along.  It is hard to explain, but a beautiful sight to see.  The 6 to 8 young men, playing the drums, cymbals and other instruments in front of the restaurant, were so loud you had to cover your ears.  The dragon dance was quite an experience.

 On Valentine's Day, Feb. 14th, our apartment complex invited everyone to the office area where a lion dance was going to be performed.  Again, another awesome experience to see.
There were two lions, with a young man in the head portion of the lion and a smaller boy in the tail end.  The eyes blink and the mouth opens and closes while the lion dances around

 I have to mention the little lady right behind the lion, holding a red notebook with a built in camera.  She is the sweetest Muslim lady that runs the office at our Molek Pine Apartments.  We just love her so.  She speaks very good English and helps me to learn some bahasa whenever we have to pick up a parcel.  She tells us about her vacations and always asks us about our vacations to Singapore and what we did there. 
Anyway, the lion dance was suppose to begin at 10 AM, but they didn't arrive until 10:45.  We hung out with our four elders, just visiting in the cool, breezy morning by our swimming pool.

You can see more of the detail in the head of the lion.  The two large eyes blink and the mouth opens and closes.  For one part of the lion dance, there are four sets of oranges laying on the ground.  The lion dances around the oranges, picks them up with his mouth and then invites people to come close to him.  The lion then puts one orange on his mouth and flings it out into the air.  A person catches the orange and then receives good luck for his catch.  At one point in the program, the lion came right up to Linda and gave her an orange.

 As the lion walked away, the back young boy just about kicked Linda in the head.  Here is a great picture of the two lions who fight each other.  You can see, in the bottom of the picture, a red plate.  This plate had a bunch of oranges on it and the lion would hover over it and take the oranges into its mouth and then fling them at people to catch. 

 Just like the dragon dance, there were 6 to 8 people playing a very big drum, many cymbals and a flute like instrument that kept the beat.  It was very loud, just like the dragon dance.  The yellow furry lions would dance all around the pool and then back and forth around the oranges and finally move in place to jump up and eat a head of lettuce, that was hanging from the balcony.  Apparently the front person stands on the shoulders of the little guy in the back and the lion becomes very tall to snatch the lettuce up.
Very impressive performance.

 Here is our final two pictures at our recent baptism this past Saturday.  Cheah, You Yi Sam was baptized.  He is standing by his sweet wife in the blue top and his mom, next to him.  Bernie, his wife, has been a member for only a few months and Sam's mom has not joined the church, YET!  Elder Loke was privileged to baptized Sam and Elder Baer will confirm him on Sunday.  Sam is what we call a "kingdom builder".  He is so mature already in the gospel and will be a great leader in Malaysia.  The final picture is from the elder's camera.  It is our four elders in JB, Elder Loke, Elder Baer, Elder Wadsworth on the far left and Elder Fabiano next to me.  We sure love these great missionaries.  Linda and I are very honored to serve with them, here in Johor Bahru.  This is our first Chinese baptism since we arrived in the mission 11 months ago.  We finally are seeing growth in JB.  We are most grateful to our Father in Heaven for allowing us to help teach Sam and Bernie and see the growth they have made.  I hope to always be a "kingdom builder".

 Happy Chinese New Years!
January 31, 2014 is the first day of the Chinese New Year and we had such an amazing time.  This is the year of the horse.  You see horse statues and horse images on TV and in every mall and everywhere.  This is a picture of two horses in a jewelry store.  You see red lanterns and red decorations and red everywhere during the month of January here in Malaysia.

 Every food store has pallets and pallets of oranges in colorful red boxes.  It is the biggest thing that is given away as a gift to others during the Chinese New Year celebration.  Every time we went to our local store, you would see so many people with 10, 20 and 30 boxes of oranges on large flatbed carts, checking them out and loading them in their cars.  In the front of our apartment complex, a familiar site is a tangerine or orange tree that many stores sell for people to put in their homes.  Linda and I are standing by a tangerine tree at the entrance of the Molek Pine Apartments.

 Another gift that is given to people are all types of little cookies and pastries.  We had so many small containers of these cookies given to us.  Each time we collected two or three of them, we would take them with us to our District Meeting with the elders and handed them out there.  The brown pastries are pineapple filled and the green cookies, in front, are green pea cookies.  I don't particularly like the pineapple ones, but the green pea cookies melt in your mouth and then you chew the little pea on top.  Very sweet and very addicting.

 This is my favorite picture.  All Chinese New Year clothing is red, including all bras and ladies underwear.  I just had to stop and take a picture of this.  Linda was embarrassed and I got many Malaysians looking at me while I took the pictures.  The belief is if a single sister wears red underclothing, this would increase her chances of finding a future husband and her possibilities to get married in 2014 are greatly improved.  I tried to get Linda to buy some, but she already is tied down to her spouse for quite a long time.

 Here is another display of kids clothing for the Chinese New Year.  Bright red and pink colors and then lots of brightly colored flowers that adorn their homes at their entrances and along side of their altars.  Another huge belief is the importance of the number 8.  It is a lucky number.  On all elevators, there is no number 4 though. That number seems to be unlucky.  The word for number 4 sounds like the word for "death", so it is not used.  Instead, there is floor 3 and then 3A and then floor 5.  Interesting!

 Just a block from our apartment building is a Chinese temple.  We drive by it almost everyday.
It is beautifully adorned with all kinds of lanterns and banners and at night, there are special colored lights that hang down from the surrounding trees and looks like they are raining.  As the light comes down to the end of the light stick, it changes colors and is really intriguing to watch.  You can barely see the statue of a sitting Buddah right behind the yellow banner.  The yellow banner is not usually there, but this day, it is acting as an awning.

 Another symbol of the Chinese New Year is the bamboo shoots.  These little vases are found in almost every store, so I had to buy one for our home.  There are three levels of the bamboo in the vase.  A larger circle of bamboo on the bottom, then another level in the middle and the highest level at the top.  It symbolizes prosperity in a person's career and the every upward progress that can be yours through the year.  I just loved the shoots of bamboo growing out on all sides of the 3 stacks.  You just add some water in the vase and watch it grow.

 We were invited over to my 1st Counselor's home, Bro. Hong Min Tan, for a traditional Chinese New Year meal together.  Linda took the picture and I'm sitting in with our 4 Chinese elders.  Everyone eats from the center pot of food, which included squid (not bad), cuttlefish, scallops, and crab.  Also, in the chicken juice were lotus root (tasteless), with steamed lettuce, tomatoes and mushrooms.  I didn't like the quail eggs in pig feet meat with livers and hearts.  It is always fun to try new foods and have such a great experience with our JB Branch members.

 The fireworks were something else.  I have seen fireworks for all my life, but nothing like this.  They began at 12 midnight on Jan. 30th and went nonstop for 57 minutes.  The first 9 minutes were continuous "sky lit up" fireworks.  It was a sound you can't describe.  The rest of the hour were huge bangs and pops and we didn't get to bed until after 1 AM.  Things finally calmed down a bit and we could fall asleep.  This picture was an 8 foot strip of firecrackers, that you light at the bottom and the sound will scare away the evil spirits in a persons home.  It was loud enough to scare anything away.

Every store sells these Chines New Year pre-package gifts.  They flew off the shelves and cost around 330 ringgit ($110 USD). The color red chases away the evil spirits, just like the firecrackers, so, of course, everything is wrapped in red, with red clothing, red lanterns, red decorations and red foods.  The oranges and tangerines are given to bring a person luck through the year.  Therefore, we have a fridge full of oranges.  Our Chinese kids, that we teach, have given us oranges (two oranges symbolize two pieces of gold).  Our members give us bags of oranges and now, we are stocked with vitamin C for some time.  We have loved being a part of all these amazing traditions and experiences of our first Chinese New Year.  Next year is the year of the goat and Chinese New Year is on Feb. 19 for the Lunar New Year of 2015.