hello!
it's a lot later than usual that I am emailing, we decided to go on a little excursion with the elders and our branch president to the Mount Kinabalu park. wah! it was sooooo nice. so gorgeous. it was way foggy and green and cold and just so nice. I took some photographs, I'll try to get them printed and sent in the next few weeks. it was actually really really nice to get out of KK and do something more than just sleep on our P day. I just sat and looked out the window and marvelled a little bit about how beautiful God created the world. technically, He didn't have to make it this beautiful I don't think. but He did. I think it was for me. and any of the other people who are slightly obsessed with getting lost in nature. it was perfect.
the subject of my email has a funny story. of course:) one of my favorite people in the world, a member, loves to karaoke. she was telling me about her recent experience at karaoking and she said she sang that song, "killing me softly with his song, killing me softly! with his song!" or however the crap it goes. well, she was telling me this at church. and she wasn't whispering. and she also didn't just mention that was the song she sang, she actually sang it. in church. loooooouuuuuddddd! LOUD! I will give her props, she made it sound really nice. a very powerful voice. but in church! adoi. hahahaha. I was seriously, just, in heaven at that moment. the simple joys in life. right? oh the simple joys. her little niece is a recent convert so we go over to her house every week to teach her and we went yesterday afternoon. she usually waits outside for us or like right in her front room with the doors open, so she always sees us when we're walking up to her house. yesterday I started singing with as much power and strength I had, "killing me softly with his song!!!!!! killing me softly! with his song!" and then I hear the largest like, belly, gut laugh in my life. and she goes, "sister! you need practice before you can come karaoke with me!!!!" haha. we got a good laugh. I sure did try my best! I don't have tessbabes voice, what can I say.
so it has been quite the week. we put two really REALLY cool investigators on date the other day. basically if they get baptized, I think their whole long house will too. and it will be a miracle story. I don't know. it's hard to explain. it is this ghetto little house on the side of the mountain in the middle of nowhere, and we kept going there and going there and it was always like, really awkward and hard lessons that the people weren't interested in. but for whatever reason, we kept going back. then a few weeks ago we met Kamlan, the husband of a woman we had tried to teach. he is SO cool. he's such a kampung man, I don't know how to explain that either. but he is solid, and he has a desire to know the truth. and I have a feeling if he finds the truth and recognizes it, after he gets baptized his wife will follow. and I absolutely adore his wife. we also met Jukilin, who is sooo funny. he's young, maybe a bit older than me, and just a goof. so spacey. but one day when we were over there teaching Kamlan, he walks out of his room (we had never met him or even seen him yet) but he walks out of his room holding a book of mormon. so I like look at him, really confused, and started talking to him. turns out, about five years ago the elders had given him a book of mormon, but never taught him. and when we met him that night, he was in 3 Nephi. he had started reading it when they gave it to him and he had read all the way up until that point. I was like, shocked, talking to him, and he just goes, "so, I am still confused though. I figured out after a while this wasn't the actual bible....so what is it?" hahaha. so then we started teaching him. and he is my favorite person ever. the best word to describe him is just a goof. but anyway. they both have baptismal dates, and then another family that lives in the room next to him has started listening and participating in the lessons. we are going to try to put that husband, wife, and daughter on date as well. last night when we taught them all there was ten people sitting there on the floor with ants and cockroaches and mosquitos and dogs, all gathered around us reading together from the book of mormon. oh, and singing. Kamlan played the guitar and we tried to fit our hymns to his tunes. seriously, it is hard for me to put to words the feelings I have about them. I see so much in that little house, that I used to dread going to. I have eaten my words ten thousand times over. I love them all. I get very emotional just thinking about them all. missionary work is insane. it just is.
also, something I thought was pretty funny. I have been in charge of the phone for a few days, and something really occurred to me I had never noticed before. so here, it is literally impossible to have a conversation, big or small, from asking what time it is to a perfect stranger, to talking to someone about joseph smith, any time you speak to anyone, there are a series of questions you absolutely must go through. starting with, "apa khabar?" (hows it going?), "khabar baik!" (good!), "dari mana tadi?" (where were you just now?), "buat apa?"(what did you do?), "kau sihat?" (are you healthy?), "sudah makan?" (eaten yet?) if you answer "belum" (not yet), you get a few more sentences asking why, and then telling you to eat rice because it gives you "tenaga" (energy) that you can only get from rice. but basically, those questions I ask/answer around 50 times a day. and it is hysterical. I actually love it. do they have that stuff in america? I don't remember anymore! do you ask people if they're healthy? it is really hard to be on a mission sometimes. you seriously forget how to speak english. like, proper english. and I have completely forgotten any and every idiom. I try and fail. my favorite attempt was to sister hite the other day, "she didn't even know how to keep her feet from the sky!" we have laughed about that a lot. I'm not sure where that one came from. also not sure what it even could mean.
I feel very spoiled, in the last week and a half or so I have gotten letters from you and dad and tomas and christina! wah!!! I am so spoiled. thanks a lot. I'm not sure I'll have time to write letters this p day, we basically are out of time after this. but next. and then hopefully I will have them by then. it is interesting that letters seriously take 10 or 11 days from america every time. from greece, it takes anywhere from 10 to like 23 days. something ridiculous like that. I'm grateful you are all a consistent week and a half:)
I will share one quick little sad story. just because I can. so, the other day. it was a really rough night of no sleep, followed by just a hard morning. like, nothing that was gonna kill me. nothing absolutely earth shattering happened. it was just a rough time! so we were walking to one of our lessons, and I didn't feel super well, it was hot, and I was toooooootally feeling a bit sorry for myself because my glass had been half empty all day. of course karma soon follows that:) I am walking and decide that nothing shakes the blues out of me like running/leaping a bit. so instead of walking over the sewage ground gate thing, I decide I'm going to very gracefully leap over it. and hopefully make my companion smile too. well, I took a step on the gate thing, (it's like bars...like, I honestly don't know the word for it. but it's a bridge over a sewage with this iron metal bar thing you walk on) so anyway. I take my preparatory step, which was very powerful because a really nice leap was going to follow, but curse my crocs and my skinny jensen feet! my whole foot slipped in between the bars!! so I fell!!! and I fell hard! my foot was stuck and I just ATE IT. on the side of the road. in the afternoon, with rush hour. my foot was still stuck and twisted all skee-womp-us and I just layed there in the dirt. didn't even move. my comp started taking pictures. eventually I came to my senses and got my foot out of the stupid bars, and it hurt like a mother. but then I heard all these boys in one of the work trucks nearby stuck in traffic start yelling and asking if I was okay. and then I realized just how ridiculous life is sometimes. seriously. so I started laughing almost uncontrollably. but then also, there were a lot of tears. partly because my foot was throbbing, partly because it was like one more thing on top of my poor picked on me day!, and partly because it just serves me right. beware of self pity! when I feel bad for myself things like that always follow. but it was good. now I am laughing really hard just thinking about that blasted event. HA. you just have to love life.
find joy in the journey.
anyway! I am out of time already. but it was a good week. and I feel basically totally healthy already. we have to go to a check up appointment at the doctors on friday, and after he clears us I think we are basically in the good. hallelujah!
I hope all is well at home:) I love you all!!!
oh and pray for greece. it's pretty scary crazy right now. also pray for the missionaries there. something like this could be just what the doctor ordered for some newly humbled people ready to receive the gospel.
I LOVE YOU!
No comments:
Post a Comment