This week has been hebat sekali, so I'm feeling pretty good right now! I didn't get Tyson's e-mail though.....maybe you could send it to me? Okay, well, here we go: tiga, dua, satu, bermula-bah!
So, as Elder Schuetz and I are going about, working with everybody to reactivate all of the less-actives, we have found out that it's a lot easier to find new investigators that way. So here's a little statistic for you to show you how many less actives KK1 by itself has. So, the past few weeks, we've had about 60 people coming to church. Itu sahaja, saya tahu. So, not very many. Last week we actually had 71, so that was a blessing. Well, the recent count of less-actives is about 180, or more like 190-200. And the worst part is, a lot of them left for the following two reasons! 1. Back in 2005, Sacrament Meeting used to be held in English. It's all Malay now, and some of the Chinese people decided to leave because of that. 2. Offense and Gossip. Yakah? Mengapa-lah? It's just really frustrating, and a lot of less-actives are holding grudges, and it's just like, "Waddu, dan lupa itu-bah! Just forget about it and get to church!" But in the most loving way possible, of course. They still are people with feelings! Well....other than that, everything has been amazing! Most of them aren't that bad, in reality.
So, as we were going to look for less-actives to teach, we found a man who works as a bartender in a place called Jesselton Hotel. It's the oldest hotel in KK, and the guy there, Aji, is pretty much a legend. I'm going to send a picture of him. He was white hair and he's Malaysian. He's part-Chinese. So, as we were talking to him, he was like, "Here, pick some food," so we did. And he ended up just buying a bunch of stuff just out of the goodness of his heart. It must have been like at least 100 Ringgit for all of it! I was so stuff, I honestly thought that I was going to muntah. (Throw up). But we each ate a 9" pizza, a big bowl of pasta, a really good chocolaty-fudge-ice-cream gooey thing that was sedap sekali (sedap: delicious; sekali: in the highest degree), and then we drank water and a Coke and managed to leave after eating more than that.... It was good, and he is hebat. He's like an "Icon" here in KK, and we managed to contact some of the waiters there too. It was a really nice restaurant. And really expensive, but it was all free to us!
So, as I said, we have a lot of less-actives, and that's not mentioning dropped investigators. I feel that my Malay is improving so fast every single week, it's crazy! So, I called about 200 people that used to be taught by the missionaries, from 2008 onward. We went through the old teaching records and sadly, most of them we can't contact, due to poor record keeping by previous missionaries or changed numbers and no address, or a mixture of both. But we did find two families who were only taught like one lesson, and now we are teaching them.
First, a woman from the Philippines, and she has two kids. We weren't able to meet with her. Okay, I'm going to vent a bit. They have cell-phone here called handphones. If we call 4 times, we will be lucky if they answer. They won't call you back because they don't want to use of their credit. (They pay money to get credit, so it's like minutes in America, but they never want to use it. So they'll do "callbacks". They will dial our number, hang up before we pick up, and then we call them so we use our credit and they save theirs.) So that's how it is. But we will try to contact her again soon.
Chin and Ling-Ling. This is a family of Chinese people, which is awesome, because Chinese people are hard to teach. So we invited an investigator, Henry, who knows Chinese, to teach with us. The man who lived there, whose name was one the teaching record, Yapp Miew Fah, passed away, so we taught the family about life after death. They accepted it well, but they didn't come to church.
So.......those people that we taught were contacted in like 2008, so about five years and they ended up learning again! I love this work! God is so good!!!!! Hebat sekali! It's so cool to hear about everybody's missions! Jake, James, Nick, Tyson--I love y'all, so work hard and fulfill your tugas! (Tugas: role, duty). So, as I said, we have been sort-of renovating our apartment: we got a new hose shower! It's so good! Our other hose was bad, but this one is better haha (that's a sentence that I never though that I would say.) And on Saturday....Malaysians, as a common courtesy, offer you food and drink when you visit. I thought that I was going to muntah lagi. It was BAD! It was good food and even if we stopped just to say hi, they invite us in, give us a drink and food, and when you need to leave, they just say, "Makan lagi, Elder; makan lagi!" (Eat more, Elder; eat more!" And we can't reject them, lest they get offended....so, basically, I felt really sick Saturday night. I must have biked about 40 kilometers. (25 miles). Malaysia was influenced by Great Britain, so cars are on the wrong side of the road, and it's all kilometers and kilograms. It's a pain to convert.... and Celsius, not Fahrenheit.
Other investigators...not good news.
We have had to drop a few of our investigators who have not been keeping commitments. But one of our investigators quit his job as a bartender! We didn't tell him to, but he was feeling guilty, I think. So he got another job. It's hard to get in contact with him. But we're close to getting to him, he gets baptized in a couple of weeks.
Lilybeth, Gocelin, and Jeffrey: Handed over to the Sister Missionaries. We have four Sisters: Sisters Caballa, Christiansen, Parker, and Nelson (she was in my Zone in the MTC).
Well, I got to go, and as for the package, I don't really need anything. Wow, it's almost been 6 months....... Wow.....
And I work out everyday and run straight for 15 minutes on Saturdays so I can eat french toast.
Well, I love all of you! Sayangi kamu!
Elder Joshua H. Griffin
PICTURES
1. Aji the Icon
2. Sunsets in Malaysia: Notice the contrast--red and blue!
3 and 4. We found a hanging bridge that was all rickety hanging over a river. My mission is basically Indiana Jones. Snakes, natives in loincloths with poison blow-darts (no joke). It's the best!
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