End of the New Year Celebration

24 February 2013

Today is the official last day of the Chinese New Year Celebration.  I know….you thought it was over….well so did we, but as I write fireworks are going off again all over the city.  There have been fireworks every night somewhere but tonight it is bigger and more sustained and it has started early.  So no one has said anything about how long the fireworks will last tonight and we didn’t ask, it has just become part of our nighttime; pops and crackles and that “old typewriter” sound. I will miss the lovely displays.  I wonder what will replace them.  

Much time this week was spent helping fix bikes, buy new bikes and get new missionaries established in their new assignments.  We had our first Zone Meeting with new Zone Leaders and about half new missionaries.  We are enjoying our new Sister Rhodes upstairs.  She has been a great addition.  Our Zone Leaders are great leaders.  I was asked to give a 3 minute talk on our purpose as missionaries during the Zone Meeting.  It was a great meeting taking most of the day on Tuesday. 

Monday we met the Physical Facilities person from KL who came for the final inspection on the new Church building in Kuching.  The architect and contractors came on Tuesday to go through the building for the final inspection at the end of the 1 year warranty period.  Enjoyed getting to know him.

I have been sick since last Tuesday night.  I have come to appreciate being able to count on buying a decongestant or cough medicine or Puffs with Vicks.  First you have to find the right shop and then you have to be sure you know what you are buying and where it came from.  Some American brands are available but at a substantial cost.  We will have to see how I do and then we may need to do some “finding”.  I just need to be well for Tuesday when our official FamilySearch employee trainer comes from Taiwan to train us.  We are so looking forward to that!

The other senior couple who is serving in Kuching, Elder and Sister Nielson, have been here for almost two years.  They are leaving in April and another couple is coming in before they leave so they can be trained.  They are called as Seminary and Institute missionaries and will do some of the traveling that we will be doing but for a smaller area of East Malaysia.  It is frightening to think that they may feel the same way we did when we arrived and they will be asking us the questions we have been asking almost daily of the Nielsons.  We don’t begin to have the answers!!  Well, we will just do all we can and the Lord will magnify us and we will build memories together.   It will be great.

One of the things that Sister Nielson has done while here is establish a Kuching District Music Program.  It is held at the new chapel (referred to as the KDC – Kuching District Centre) every Tuesday night.  The Sister missionaries and one Elder companionship help teach students on little keyboards and most of the students are youth who have become the accompanists for their individual branches.  Sister Nielson has “invited” me to take over the music program when she leaves so I started this last week teaching for the first time.  She assigned me two students but only one came, a lovely young woman, Melissa (pronounced Maleesa) who has a wonderful touch on the keyboard and I think plays by ear.  She is very quick to learn and is diligent in practicing one hour each day.  There are between 15 and 30 students total in the program.  Most Tuesday we have 15 who come;  transportation is always an issue.  [HUGE fireworks display just went off for 5 minutes outside my window in the street. So fun!!!]  Sister Nielson has planned a concert for April 6^th so I took some pictures of the students last Tuesday to put on posters and flyers to advertise the event around the District.  Aren’t they cute?

 

Language study is ramping up for us.  We aren’t yet engaging in conversation which we should be, but we are understanding more and more as we increase our vocabulary.  Our nightly ritual of praying, crawling into bed and drilling each other on our weekly words was challenging for Elder Moulder at first.  He would turn his back to me to try to go to sleep as I would say an English word or phrase and ask him for the Malay word or phrase.  Each response became weaker and weaker one night as he tried to feign falling asleep (with the characteristic sense of humor) as I kept the words coming.  Then the word was “to have a wife”…..without missing a beat the weak and sleepy response came….”nirvana”.  I burst out laughing so loud I was sure the Sisters above us would hear (it was about 11pm).  He was not thinking that having me as a wife was nirvana at that moment but his response was successful enough to stop the study for the night.  For the life of me I can’t remember the word for “to have a wife” because I always remember “nirvana” which definitely is not the Malay word!  

So far most days have been cloudy or partly cloudy and the heavy rains have come at night.  There have been a few days where we have been happy to stay inside even though our poor young Elders and Sisters ride their bikes around in the downpours.  We did have an experience last week driving in uncharted territory to take a young woman home who had come to a missionary preparation class at the Nielson’s.  Her name is Stephanie and she wants to be a missionary.  There are about 10 young single adults here who are planning to go on missions in the next year or so.  It is great.  Anyway…..we were happy to help out and take her home knowing that she was a member of the Matang Branch which is a little bit of a drive and across the river.  It was about 10pm by the time we started out and raining very hard.  It had been raining for several hours so there was water building up along the outside lanes of the roads.  She is a little tiny thing and she has a very soft voice so I asked her to sit in the front seat to direct me.  We drove to the place where the Matang Branch meets and she directed me to a road that went past and told me to go straight.  We drove for about 10 minutes and I began to wonder how far this was going to take us.  Another 5 minutes went by and she directed me to turn left which I did and then she said nothing for about 5 more minutes.  I then asked and she told me just keep going straight.  I was obedient but wondered if we were going to end up in a jungle somewhere in the dark with the rain and getting stuck.  Soon I was directed to turn right and continue straight again.  This time though, we didn’t go too far and there were shops around so I was more confident we could find our way but then she said turn right.  

At this point, as I turned right onto a small but paved road Elder Moulder spoke up from the back seat.  “Uhhhh, this isn’t a road”.  He had been following our trip on the GPS so he could get us home, but according to the phone GPS we had turned into a field.  Now this has happened to us before in the States and we have never worried too much about it, but every moment we went further into the “field” I was more apprehensive.  We continued to the end of this road to see that it turned right.  There were little connected houses along one side and a real field or jungle (we couldn’t see) on the other.  The road again made a turn which I was directed to follow.  At that point we came to a dead end with little residences in front and on both sides with cars in front of them and the rain continuing to pour upon us.  I thought we had arrived.  But then cute Sister Stephanie directed me to turn a bit left and drive up along a walkway…..at least I thought it was a walkway.  I looked at her and asked, “here??”.  She nodded yes.  I drove on the walkway.  At the end of the walkway we had to turn right again and she pointed to her house and I got as close to it as I could.  I was basically in a little driveway circle place.  Elder Moulder had an umbrella in the back and gallantly got out and walked Stephanie to her door.  

When he got back into the car we realized it was 11pm.  We looked at each other and the question was, “Can we get back out of here?”  Fortunately, I was able to back up without hitting another vehicle, falling into a puddle or ditch, made it back down the sidewalk and  find our way out of the "field" to streets where the GPS led us back to our covered parking place at our apartment.  We were grateful to have helped and grateful to have been helped! 

On Friday we made our first Family History presentation to the District Branch Presidency Council.  There were about 17 people there from Branch Presidencies.  We had 25 minutes on the agenda of a one hour meeting and we did it in 22 minutes but the meeting lasted almost 2 ½ hours.  It was a good training meeting for the Branches and the District leadership did a great job.  I loved that as they spoke about everything from missing baptismal clothing (that’s a problem everywhere in the world isn’t it?), the Branch Mission Fund, using electronic devices to access the scriptures rather than the books to toilet paper and towels for the bathrooms they referred often to the Handbook of Instructions.  Elder Moulder and I were very impressed.  The District Counselor actually ended the meeting by holding up the Handbook of Instructions and testifying that if they would all study and follow the Handbook they would be blessed.  These are such valiant people.  

We had our first hospital experience also this week.  A young man (age 27) from another city called Muka has been through chemo therapy for colon cancer and was sent by his doctor to Kuching for a specialist from Kuala Lampur to come and see if he needed surgery.  The Nielson’s know the family but they were leaving for their work trip and asked us to please watch over this young many and his parents while they are here.  We went on Tuesday to meet them and they are a sweet family.  The young man, Sylvester (who speaks good English because he watches TV he said), wants to go to Salt Lake to the temple and to see snow.  His mother, Rosita, did not speak English but his father, Brother Bangat, did so we communicated with them.  Because I was sick I didn’t feel well enough to return to the hospital after the first visit, but Elder Moulder was able to go and help the family with some food, a new crutch for Brother Bangat, who had a bad foot [more HUGE firework noises very close by], and help him give his son a blessing before the surgery.  They left Kuching and went back to Sibu (the larger city close to Muka) the second day after surgery to recover there.  We hope to hear from them and possibly see them the first of March when we go to Sibu for the dedication of the new Church building there.  We understand there will be a busload of members from Muka who will come for the Open House March 9^th and stay for the dedication on the 10^th and then return (3-4 hour bus ride) to Muka Sunday evening.  I am sure they are very excited for this building although we have learned that there have been so many problems with poor construction that it will be a miracle if it is ready to open.  We pray it will be.  President Chua (pronounced chwa), the District President has been working so hard to get it done.  He wants us to come and train everyone in Family History for the Family History Center in the building.  We hope we will be ready as most do not speak English.  We will need to use the Elders to translate since we still aren’t good enough to train on detailed stuff in Malay. 

Saturday night we had another baptism. One of those baptized was a man who we met two days after being here.  He is so sweet and shy and I am so happy that he was able to overcome some of the challenges he had to be baptized.  We had a conflict on Saturday evening with a birthday party for a prominent member of the church here in Kuching so I had to rush out to join Ed at the party but it was a special experience to see him so happy that he was finally able to receive this blessing.  He has a strong testimony of the Sabbath Day and I’m sure he will know how to strengthen the Branch as he learns and grows. 

The birthday party was something else.  It was for Sister Molly Ero, wife of Lebanon Ero who are long time members here.  They are the ones who picked us up at the airport the first day we arrived.  They are very wealthy people and have a great family and do a lot for their Branch, which is the English speaking Branch.  They held it in a large room in the Hilton Hotel.  It is an annual dinner event for her birthday and they apparently do it for the anniversary and Valentines Day too.  She is lovely and I ws so impressed with the birthday card their daughter made for her.  It was a large (about 14x14) 4 page card all handmade.  The cover had a photo of Sis. Molly.  The first page had 12 pop-ups that when opened revealed a message from the daughter and a picture that came up.  The messages were all about what a wonderful mother she was for bringing their family into the gospel and taking them to the temple to be sealed so they could be an eternal family.  I was very impressed. 

Molly and Lebanon were wonderful hosts of a typical Chinese style (still celebrating Chinese New Year) meal with multiple courses shared by tables of 10.  They invited family and church members and people who work for him and missionaries.  It was delightful with way too much food.

Thought I would share a picture or two from this event. 

These new friends were not happy I surprised them with a photo but it is the best one I have of the table ^_^

Left to Right:  Maureen, her neice Forena, Molly and Helen

Molly and Lebanon

The Family...Their son is in the blue on the far left, daughter Laura (who made the card and took photos all night in the red next to her mom), in front of Molly is the youngest whose name is Liahona, Lebanon is holding their grandson and their oldest daughter is next to him.  I don't know the other people.

 

 

We attended another Branch Conference today in the Kota Sentosa Branch.  It was our first visit there although we have met many of the members from that Branch.  Both Ed and I (per usual for the first time we visit a Branch, were invited to give a testimony.  I had changed mine to reflect some of the new words I had learned so I could be broader in expressing my feelings and testimony.  One of the bad things about broadening my testimony and learning to say it and not read it is that people then think I can speak it much better than I can!  I was asked by the Relief Society President who taught the lesson today, to read from the scriptures…..from the Indonesian scriptures.  I am able to do that, but I don’t always understand the words so I use my Samsung reader to keep up.  I was very happy I was able to do that because the 2^nd time she asked me to read, she also asked me to explain the meaning of the scripture!  I had to do it in English….so sad.  One of these days I will be able to respond in Malay….limited Malay, but I will be able to at least respond.   After the closing prayer the RS President stood up and said, "Okay, let's take a picture!"  So everyone got out their cameras and we took a picture! 

The President is Sister Angelina, 2nd from left in the front.  The cute lady in the front who is 3rd from the right works at the This Spring mall where we often go.  She saw Elder Moulder there last week and came up to him and asked if he remembered her.  He couldn't remember her name but did remember her face.  Apparently she had a difficult time communicating with him because she said today that talking with him was like a chicken talking to a duck!!!  Everyone had a good laugh about that, including cute Elder Moulder.

During Sunday School we went to the Family History class taught by our two youngest Consultants, Belinda and Marina.  They are so cute.  They have the room decorated and they had the hymns playing as we entered for class.  They were prepared to teach lesson 4 to the two students who came.  We are so impressed with these two cute sisters.  They are great examples.  They had everything ready as you can see by the pictures below.  

The girls did a great job decorating, complete with tinsel and stars, temple pictures and a warning in red marker on the white board to leave the room as it is! 

Maureen on the left is the District Director, Belinda is in the middle and Marina on the right.  I think Belinda is 18 and Marina is 19.  They are my hero's!  (Notice the tablecloth and flowers on the table.  I told them they were definitely ready for Relief Society!)

They had all the forms they needed to teach lesson 4 from from Member Guide and had bookmarks to hand out.  I think they had kept some left over from the Open House last year of the Kuching Buildilng.

Here they are helping their two students, Bro. Christopher (hasn't been a member a year yet) and his granddaughter, Forena complete family group sheets.

 

My favorite moment of this week happened during the District training on Friday night.  At one point one of the older men stood up and moved to an empty chair next to the other older man in the room.  They are from different Branches, but obviously knew each other well.  I was watching them and at one point as they were talking quietly to each other (both speaking their tribal language, Iban I suppose) one of them patted the other’s knee and then the first one put his hand over the other’s and patted it and they just patted each other’s hands for a few minutes with big smiles on their faces after sharing a funny story or experience.  It only lasted a few minutes, but it was a tender exchange between two older members who have been through a lot of changes in their lives.  They have lived hard if I compare my life to theirs but they are faithful servants in their respective branches and were happy to be together. It was very sweet.  Both of these men always have smiles on their faces and love to shake our hands.  I will enjoy getting to know them and serving with them for the little while I am here.

Chinese New Year and Valentines Day

Our week began slowly because of the many people who were visiting their villages away from the city for the Chinese New Year.  The city has been shut down for the whole week but today there were more cars on the road and the markets and shops for the most part are opened again.

In Kuching there are six Branches and the two senior couples have divided them so that we each have three to sort of take care of.  The couple who was here before us were called as Leadership and Member Support Missionaries so that was their primary assignment.  We are called as Family History Support Missionaries for all of East Malaysia so our time is a little different although the other couple here are Seminary and Institute Missionaries so they travel also.  So what this all means is that we attend meetings for two Branches each Sunday, rotating the Branches that meet at 9:30AM since two of them meet at 9:30AM and the third at 1:30PM.

Last week we went to the Stampin Branch at 1:30PM (which we can make most weeks because it is the only one meeting at that time) and were invited to sit in on Branch Council with the sister missionaries and the other member leaders.  Due to Chinese New Year there was only one other local member leader in attendance, the Primary President.  The Branch President is a cute man who is maybe mid to late 20's, is single and has only been a member for about a year.  He is hilarious.  We love him so much.  He has tried to call counselors but they have all said "no" so he runs the Branch by himself.  He is passionate when he speaks.  He is a strong personality.  The missionaries were all afraid of him and he was a tough one to teach.
So....We sat down and President Ramba invited Elder Moulder to say the opening prayer.  Elder Moulder of course accepted and stood up and said the prayer in Malay.  No sooner had we said "Amen" and President Ramba was shouting with a huge smile on his face and could not contain himself he was so surprised and happy to hear the prayer in his language!  Seriously, he was so animated about it that we were all laughing and the sisters grabbed their camera's because they had never seen him react to anything like this before!  He did get control and continued the meeting but throughout the meeting he would just look at us and break out into a smile and shake his head and say how happy he was that we were learning Malay and he was sure we would be fluent in 6 months!  I was very uncomfortable with that deadline, but here is what it did for us......We want to learn this language more than ever.  The reaction of this cute man who is trying to do everything he can to keep his covenants and serve the Lord lit a fire in us and we want very much to learn the language well enough to communicate with him.  Most of the people here speak some English, including President Ramba, but to know that we are interested enough in them to learn their language was huge for him and we know it is for many others.  (I had a similar reaction when I said the prayer in Malay in Relief Society but not quite as animated ^_^ )  So this began a stronger effort for us to learn 50 words each week and to coordinate other efforts to learn.

President Ramba playing with some of the little boys in the Stampin Branch

Monday was laundry and cleaning and the sisters come down to use our computers for their one hour of internet time to communicate with home.  (They are so grateful they can use our computers rather than going to the internet cafe and listening to bad language and loud music and other bad stuff....we are happy we have two computers they can use) We planned, washed, hung our laundry out to dry in our living room ^_^ and then we wanted to get something to eat so we went out to find a restaurant.  We had thought that with the holiday we would be able to get to the Spring mall and go to by favorite Mixed Rice place, but we were so surprised that the mall was filled with shoppers and the parking lot was full!  We decided to try another place and it was also closed so we tried a new area behind the church were we hadn't driven before. We had been to one place there with the missionaries on our second day in the country but we had walked so we were in new territory with the car.  As we came around a corner there with most of the places closed we saw the word "Thai" and there was a woman sweeping away the residual from the firecrackers, etc. of celebrating.  I think the name of the place was "Thai Expressions" or something like that.  We pulled up in front and she smiled and I rolled down the window and asked if they were opened.  "Yes," she said, "but we only have one server."  I asked, "Can you cook food?"  "Yes" she smiled and said so we parked and went inside.

As we went inside I immediately thought of the cool Japanese restaurants that have a small waiting area and a door that leads to separate private enclosures where you sit on the floor and are served.  There was a desk and a bench and then I noticed a group of shoes by the front door.  She invited us to sit on the bench and remove our shoes while she went to get us some ginger tea.  We sat down and I began looking around and that's when I saw it......a poster advertising the prices.......for massages!  We were in a massage parlor!!!! Ed quickly put is shoes back on before the cute lady came back with our tea.  We apologized to her and explained that we though it was a restaurant and she laughed.  We found out that she is from Chiang Mai, Thailand which was my first area on my mission to Thailand in 1974.  We left and waved to her as we drove away.  After that we decided to just go back to the apartment and eat peanut butter and toast or standard quicky food these days.

Monday is also the day of mission transfers.  These were the first transfers since we arrived in the mission so we didn't know what to expect.  As senior missionaries with a car, we help out the young missionaries whenever and however we can.  We had one of our cute Sisters transferred to Singapore so she won't need her bike there but wants to keep it, several of our Elders were moved so the week of transfers we have learned is a busy one.  Saying goodbye is also difficult.  It is always surprising how close you can feel to some people when you have only been with them a short period of time.

Moulders, Sister Wilson(moved to Singapore), Sister and Elder Nielson at goodbye dinner for Sister Wilson

Yummy Three Sour Fish we had at the goodby dinner.  We tried a new Chinese restaurant close by the Church.  It had only been opened a few days and it was very good!

We have met several times now with Sister Maureen who is the Family History Director in the Kuching District.  She is very anxious to get going with the program in this area.  The Country Family History Director, Sister Loh, who lives in Kuala Lampur has really started a fire in some of these members for Family History.  It is wonderful!  So we spent a lot of time working up a plan for the year for her and to present to the District President and Branch Presidencies.  In a place where leadership is not very deep it is always a challenge to have people show up and participate. There are some very faithful people here who shoulder the burden of carrying huge leadership roles.

Thursday the Mission President arrived to do temple recommend interviews and such.  They arrived with some of the Elders who were coming to this area and there was also a Zone Leader Training for East Malaysia.  In this mission there is a lot of travel paid for by the Church because of the distances.  Anytime the President needs to train the missionaries are flown to a central location.  The Zone Conference was for East Malaysia Zones so all the ZL's from the island met here in Kuching and then flew back to their assigned areas.  In March all missionaries will have a conference in Singapore.  The Seniors also have their own conference at that time so there is quite an expense to get everyone together and we do it every 3 months because of visa restrictions.

Regarding the visas.  Usually a visa is given for 90 days, but some missionaries get border agents who restrict their visas to 7 days or 10 days so they have to make another trip.  Of course they can not do it alone, so another missionary must be with them and it can become a problem.  We have to be sure to clarify that we are volunteers, not missionaries because to the Malays a missionary is a paid position and it may be giving a job to a foreigner and not a local native.  But as with everywhere, we are here at the "invitation" of the government.

Thursday evening was a Valentine's Party for the Stampin Branch.  President Ramba and his clerk prepared to give out paper flowers to ward members beginning with the oldest couples and then made sure everyone had some kind of recognition and love given to them.  It was hilarious to watch these two men trying to make sure they didn't forget anyone including investigators and the new Sister missionaries who arrived just that day!  He had asked the missionaries to sing and it was fun to stand up with Elders, Sisters, President and Sister Mains (Mission President) and the other senior couple and sing "Love At Home" for the Branch membership (about 40+) in attendance.  They loved it.  I also sang for the group.  I sang "Why did I choose you?" the love song I sang to Ed on our wedding day.  It was fun

Cultural Hall with stage and round tables....imagine that!  ^_^  The building has many similarities to buildings in the US but there are some differences.  The missionaries love coming to this building, however because it is one of only a couple that have a drinking fountain!

Members preparing the drink for the Valentine's Party.  It is always a mixed punch that is served, never water at least so far in the three weeks we have been here!

Table spread with pot luck dishes from the members.  The tub on the left with the purple lid is filled with rice.  There is another tub behind it.  We have eaten purple rice and red rice and white rice.  It's all good!

Friday a Chinese member invited all the missionaries to her home for lunch.  She prepared a bunch of food and it was all wonderful.  She has been a member of the Church here in Kuching for 19 years.  Interestingly she is like many of the Chinese members here who grew up in the schools learning English and then speaking Chinese at home so they have limited Malay language.  That is one reason why there is an International Branch in the District that is conducted in English.  Sister Lim is a wonderful woman and so lovely to speak with.  She knows a lot and she is willing to serve where she can.

Sister Lim, Sister Moulder, Sister Poh - Kuching Branch

On Saturday there was another Branch Enrichment activity.  There is always food involved in every church activity it seems (just like home) so the food was prepared at home, brought and set out on a table in the kitchen and then we had a lesson.  After the lesson we went back to the kitchen and one of the women demonstrated how to make donuts!  They were so cute.  Since they are not able to cook in the kitchen they all took some of the dough home to cook there.  They asked me to take a picture of them and they posed proudly with their donuts.

Butter(margarine) in a bag

Playing pony with the Sister Missionary while being with mom at RS Enrichment

Elder Moulder went for another walk today in the sun and ended up with stripes on his already red forehead.

Investigator Sister Bia with her birthday girl, Erica and other daughter Shirley

Sarawak specialty a multi-layered cake.  It is very good......^_^

Sunday at all the Branches Ed was sustained to be a member of the District High Council.  It is typical that the senior Elders sit on the Council so we were not surprised.  

I have been struck this week with the humility of these sweet brothers and sisters.  Many can speak English well enough to tell their stories and other stories I hear from the missionaries.  I watch the little children and I love how the fathers are very involved with them.  I have felt a sadness for them and a humility and gratitude for having been born in a free and prosperous country and into a family with the gospel at it's center.  I am so humbled by these little families who do so much in the Church and are teaching their children to love the Lord and to be obedient.  Theses families are few and the parents will have great responsibility.  One family who touched me at Church today in the Matang Branch is the Branch President, his wife (Primary President) and their 6 beautiful children.  The little girls know the hymns perfectly and sing out in the meetings and lead the rest of the congregation (maybe 30 people).  The oldest girl is about 10 and she sings with passion and enthusiasm.  They are the pioneers here in this land where the Church is about where it was in the US in 1842.  They are the leaders who will march across the plains (or jungle) here and establish the Church in this land.  It was a tender experience for me yesterday.

I love being here.  I love this work.  I love Our Father In Heaven who cares about each of us dearly and wants each of us to have the blessings that He is waiting to give us while we are here on the earth.  He has created it for us to experience joy and to learn that He loves us and will not leave us alone and comfortless.  I am so grateful for Our Savior and His Atonement.  I am humbled that He would take my sins and my weaknesses and pay the price so I can be nurtured by Him and the Holy Ghost and lifted up in my sorrows because He knows me and knows how I feel.  He knows these, my brothers and sisters in Malaysia, too and I am grateful that He asked me to come here and serve them so they can perhaps know Him a little better because of my testimony and service. 

Chinese New Year and The Big Texan

Gong Xi Fa Cai! 

We have had a fun week watching the people preparing for Chinese New Year.  We have been frustrated with the huge traffic jams from so many shoppers and then we have enjoyed clear roads for the past day and a half because so many of the residents have returned to their home kampong (come-pohng) or home village, for the New Year celebration.  Last night and this morning it was great to be on the road because there wasn't much traffic to speak of but Wednesday, Thursday it was awful. 

Now, you have to understand that Chinese New Year is celebrated longer here than the new year is celebrated in the States.  School is out for a week and people travel, and have guests in their homes and celebrate with fireworks the whole week.  Saturday, Sunday, Monday and part of Tuesday most of the businesses are closed or have limited hours.  Of course there are the visits that people are making to each other's homes to wish a happy, safe and healthy new year to friends.  Coming back to the apartment after Church this morning we rounded the corner by our apartment and the other side of the street was filled with parked cars, some with little flags on them.  Looking in the driveway as we passed we saw a very prominent white Rolls Royce with a flag on the front and a driver who was dressed in very proper classic clothing standing by the car ready to open the door for the owner.  Don't know who it was, but obviously someone important.  There had to have been 3 other cars with diplomatic type flags and maybe another half a dozen cars just parked in the street.  The other cars just moved around them.
  
So, I thought I would share a few more photos of the places we have gone and seen the fun decorations.  The pictures below are from two big malls that are close to us.  These displays are available for mall shoppers to pose and take pictures of each other in them.  Don't you love the fake cherry blossoms in the background of this one???

Another view of the "rickshaw".

I saw many families posing here.

These two pictures are of a display in the grocery store in this mall (This Spring it is called) of wrapped oranges which are given to older people as a gift of respect and endearment.

Before I could get this photo at a new mall called City One I took a couple of pictures of friends just hanging out at the mall.  This mall is so new that ost of the stores are not yet opened but they had the mall decorations for Chinese New Year all over.

I really loved this little bridge.....

I was driving when I took this picture.  It is a beautiful temple with a huge standing Buddah....can you see it?    The picture below is a better picture of the temple but you can't see the Buddah as well.

Ed was a little nervous with me shooting pictures as I drove by but there weren't very many cars on the road so I felt safe....really I did!  ^_^

This is the produce section of the grocery store in This Spring Mall that we go to often.  On our first trip we discovered at check-out that these ladies have to weigh, wrap and price your produce or you cause a wait at the cashier.  We won't do that again.  We also learned that the bakery inside the store is a separate business and you have to pay for your bread there before leaving the bakery area.  We had cute little girls running after us on our first trip. Fortunately they smiled and were all very nice, including the Chinese man who was behind us waiting while we had not one but two delays for produce on our first trip.

This is a scary but wonderful feature!  The parking is all under the mall so when you fill your cart with groceries you use this special flat escalator to take your cart down to your car.  It is at a pretty steep incline so you have to hold on to your cart when you get on so it doesn't get away from you! 

 Our week was overall a good one.  After last Sunday when we visited the Matang Branch and met the Kuching District Family History Director and found out that she had a meeting with her consultants already set up this week, we were so happy to finally be moving ahead with actual people who are here doing the work we have come to support.  We are thrilled.  

Monday we did the laundry, which takes a long time to dry inside, and had another training phone meeting from Hong Kong given by the Harrington's there.  It was good to see the information that is available to us for training that is online. 

Tuesday's are always fun because we have District meeting with the young missionaries and we do role play and sing together.  By the way...we have some great voices between the 4 elders and 4 sisters plus us.  It is really fun to hear.  After our District meeting the missionaries go to lunch together so we have gone with them every week.  We decided this week to treat them all to Magnum ice cream bars.  The missionaries love them so they were all happy.  

The Big Texan!

One day this week Ed decided he wanted a hamburger after we had worked out at the gym we joined so we went to This Spring and he tried "The Big Texan".  He did enjoy it and said it tasted really good.  He said he probably won't buy one again, but we will see when his Texan taste buds might get the better of him again....

You'd never know he was on an island in the South China Sea would you?  Cute Eddie!

 I had my favorites as always.....rice, vegetables, chicken and chicken soup.  This time one of the vegetables was bamboo.  I seem to recall that bamboo has absolutely no nutritional value but it is many oriental dishes.

 Wednesday night we had out meeting with the Kuching District Director and some of the Branch Consultants.  It was a great meeting.  Maureen began the meeting by asking if we would like some time to speak.  (We had prepared two short videos to show if she asked us to do anything.)  These videos help teach the doctrine of why finding our families is important.  They show the temple and the baptismal fonts inside and these sweet people were so happy to even see a picture of the temple.  The closest temple here is Manila, Philippines.  It is a huge expense for these sweet, humble people to save enough money and to take the time off of work to make the trip to have their families sealed together for eternity but they want to do it and long to be there. It was a tender moment for me.  During the meeting we found some problems that will need to be addressed, but overall it was great.  We made an appointment with Maureen to meet with her the following day to go over a plan for the District for the year to present to President Govin, the District President.  She is very excited about it. 

Friday we helped out the Elders and the Sisters.  The Elders (Pratt and Acton) phoned in the morning and said they had a package to pick up and didn't want to have to pay for a taxi to pick it up if we didn't mind getting them and taking them to the post office.  Of course Ed didn't mind getting them.  Then in the afternoon we  got a call from the Sister's (Trottier and Tehrani) to see if we could take them to a couple of appointments so they didn't have to ride their bikes since Sis. Tehrani had been ill a bit this week.  Again we were happy to take care of them.  Who wouldn't want to help these cute girls!
  

Sister Tehrani and Sister Trottier starting off their day fresh and sweet!

 By the end of a day of biking around in the rain, warm weather and humidity they often stop in because they know we always have cold water and Magnum bars for them!!

Friday evening we went with the Sisters to an appointment and their investigator had all the fun treats that are typical for guests during Chinese New Year.  

Most of the treats we tried were very good.  The striped things on the plate are a special Sarawak (the Malaysian state we are living in) Cake and takes a long time to make.  I will get a better picture of one later.  They have multicolored layers and the cake is quite good.  I think Sister Rita (an investigator who shared all this food with us) said it takes about 9 hours to make one cake! 

Saturday was my first time at a local Relief Society function.  It had been requested by some of the local members that Sister Nielsen show them how to make her wonderful rolls and how to make really good mashed potatoes.  These women want to break out and move away from rice with every meal and they think that we have bread or mashed potatoes with every meal like they have rice.  The wife of the District President is one who asked to learn about making good potatoes because her husband spends too much money buying the mashed potatoes at the local KFC!  

We started with a small group but more came later.  I loaned my Texas His and Hers aprons to the Sisters T for the activity.

Ready to make rolls!

Cute ladies trying something new.

Mashing potatoes the USA way

 While we were at the Church making rolls and mashing potatoes Ed decided he wanted to get some exercise so he walked for about an hour in the sun.  We haven't seen a lot of sun since it is the rainy season, but it was a beautiful day and he turned into a little bit of a crispy critter!!

A sunburned Eddie waiting for dinner at "The Mango Tree" a Thai restaurant close by where we live.   Hurray!!!

So we waited on Saturday night for the fireworks to begin to celebrate the new year.  We have been told that we wouldn't be able to sleep at all because the fireworks would go on all night long.  At about 11:30pm the first firecrackers started.  It was like being in a  huge building with thousands of old typing machines being typed on and hitting the keys as hard as you could.  It was loud and quite constant and then the bigger fireworks began.  Boom!  Boom! Boom! and then that screaming sound some of them make.  It was glorious!  

Out on our porch I could see them on the left in front of us and on the right.  I tried to get some pictures, but it wasn't too easy.  Even now as I am typing this on Sunday evening there are a few sounds of fireworks that did not get used up last night.  Today at Church meeting the Sunday School instructor stopped the lesson for a couple of minutes because someone across the street was setting off some fireworks.  They are really loud.  He just stood there solemnly for a few seconds and then he looked up and smiled and then broke out into a chuckle.  

So, the fireworks last night lasted about an hour and then all was quiet.  I was happy so we could sleep, but a little disappointed that it was over.  I chose a couple of pictures that may give you an idea of what I saw from our porch.  It was raining the entire time so the dots you see on the photos are from the rain in my flash.  The odd shape of the bottom photos is because I took those pictures to the left of the porch and I caught part of the porch in the them but I thought they good enough to put up here.  

Enjoy the week and

Gong Xi Fa Cai!!!

The horizon was red with the many, many fireworks being set off around the city.  This shot is taken straight from the porch in the direction of the "Chinatown" part of the city.