So, we were helping a Sister in the Ward, Sister L., to cut down her banana trees because her neighbors were complaining about it. So we cut them down, no pictures though, sorry. Did you know that the inside of a banana tree trunk is edible? You boil it and then you mix it with curry and spices. I eat a lot of curry here. A lot of the food here is Indian food, actually. Lot's of curry and roti and masala. So, if you ever have the opportunity to go to an Indian restaurant back in the States, you should go!
So, we visited a potential investigator, named J., and we talked to her for about two hours answering all of her questions. She's really smart about the Bible, but we hope that she will also read and start to pray about the Book of Mormon, because she would know that it is true. "All who believe the Bible will also believe the Book of Mormon." -Chapter Heading, Moroni 8. (I think). So the day that we visited her, it turns out, was a day that we thought everything was going to fall through. It did, but it turned out for the best and I'll tell you why. So, the whole day we were pretty much "led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand what [we] should do", because all of our planned lessons fell through. So, right before we were going to teach J, an old man named Mr. T came and talked to us. He asked us to teach him about the Church, and in return, he would teach us a little bit of Chinese, so of course we said yes.
Here's what happened when we visited him: First off, he was hilarious, I don't know why! He was like, "Oh, please, do sit. May I have the pleasure of knowing your name?" And he was way formal. Then he taught us how to count to 6 in Chinese (which I already knew), and then he goes off telling us his whole life story. How he retired in 1988, and like all of these other things. Meanwhile, some odd woman is singing her lungs out, in Opera-style, and Elder Snyder in I have our sweat-rags in front of our faces, trying as hard as we can not to laugh. It was so funny! Well, we taught him about Prophets, and we're going to meet with him again and teach him about the Restoration. The morning before, I praying that we would find someone who sincerely wanted to learn, and Mr. T found us!
So, we were busy doing a lot of service all this week. Helping fix the church computers, the banana tree, cleaning the church......lots of stuff. Anywho--we went and visited a woman who was sick with food poisoning in the Hospital, and we gave her a blessing. She got released the next day, but then her kidneys started to fail, so she was readmitted into the ICU. We visited her family--her sister thought that I was 26, for some reason, not 19. That was really funny! And here is where it gets awesome.
So, Brother C (he visited J with us), follows us sometimes. He followed us yesterday. Well, Y, who was baptized, is already doing missionary work in his own family! We managed to teach his sister, along with another family that wanted to learn! So, in reality, we are teaching three families. Y's family (his parents and brothers and sisters), his sister's family (she has kids and a husband), and then this other family. Last night we taught all in Malay, about Jesus Christ. It's good to speak Malay again! But then, afterwards, they told us that they prefer English, because they don't really understand the Malay terminology for the Gospel. So now we will teach them in English. So, that's 5 new investigators. Including Mr. Ting, that's 6 obtained this week! Ipoh is just on fire!
I gave a talk in Sacrament meeting about General Conference. One of the members flaked and so I had to fill the gap. Fun, right? But, no, the talk was all good, and the Spirit was really strong, so it was really awesome!
I bought a bike. A new one. So, I don't have any money....I wish I would've known that I was going to buy one last week, I would have asked you to send some, but I'm doing okay. The bike was RM1250, so like $400, but it's a really good bike....just if it gets stolen, then I'm in a lot of trouble. So I pulled $200 out of my emergency fund, so I could finish paying for the bike and maybe buy some food to last me for the next month and a half, because I took all of the money out of my support to pay for it. The bike was originally like RM1300 or RM1400, but the man was nice and gave me a discount. It also has a 5 year warranty, but if it gets stolen, I can't replace it. It was either buy a new bike or repair the old bike and pay like RM300 and leave it here when I left, so I just bought a new bike. The old bike's brakes wouldn't work, and I wanted to live, so I bought the new bike recently. I would've waited month or two but.....yeah.
As for N, we haven't contacted his family yet. But we need to. So we will visit them soon, I hope. And with Indonesia, I traveled alone. It was District Conference in Ipoh, so my comp wasn't alone. But I was kind of scared, I didn't know what I was doing or where I was, I just did the best I could and tried to make it in and out of both countries. So, with my passport, it was either I had to leave West Malaysia and Sabah, or get deported back to the US. And I wanted to stay here, so I flew to Medan and...yeah, the rest is history. Elder Schuetz tried to get into Sarawak, but he got deported back to KK with airport security 24/7 and everything, so now he's an office Elder in Singapore.
Well, that's all I have for now. My computer won't allow me to send any pictures, I don't know why, but I'll try again next week! I love you all! Bye!
Dengan ikhlas,
Elder Joshua H. Griffin
