Consultants and Cookies

A good day today. 
This is Angela.  She is 19 years old. She lives in Matang a suburb of Kuching.  She went with her parents to the Manila Temple in May to be sealed to them. She loved doing baptisms in the temple during the week we were there.  She is a student at a local college.  She is planning on serving a mission after she completes this course of study in two years.  She is the only Christian in most of her classes.  She is a wonderful, strong member of the Church and a great example to those who know her and..... 
She is a Family History Consultant! 

Because she is on break from school we were able to pick her up and bring her to our apartment to use our internet so she could enter the family information into Family Tree for a family in her branch who are going to the temple with us next week.  Brother Aret and his family do not have computers.  Sister Angela does not have internet at her house but she has a computer which she uses at school.  We have WiFi so we brought her to us so she could do this work for Brother Aret and Sister Linyang.

Elder Moulder helping Angela delete a duplicate record for Sister Linyang in our apartment.  MacDonald's was the dinner of choice by Angela also as you can see.

While she was working I asked her if she was hungry and needed something to munch on.  I told her I had carrots or M & M's.  Guess which she chose.

She was very fast entering the information we had some time before the Young Single Adult Family Home Evening group began so we decided to make cookies.  Angela had never made cookies before.  Her family, like most here, does not have an oven so they do not bake things like we do, they cook everything on a stove which doesn't work well for chocolate chip cookies. 

We had a great time making the cookies and Angela even enjoyed eating them!

She took some home to her family and we took the rest to District meeting with the missionaries on Tuesday.  They appreciated Angela's cookies.

I do love missionary work!!!

A Happy Birthday

 Thank you to everyone who wished me a "Happy Birthday".  I did have a great birthday surprise cake from one of my Malaysian "sons", Jeffery.  It was a wonderful day and a a great way to celebrate at the home of a young family who are new members.  We taught them about the blessings of the temple.  

I do have a blessed life!

Not Really Halloween

 October 31st we spent a few hours and went to visit the so called "Pink Mosque" in Putra Jaya which is the government seat for Malaysia just outside Kuala Lumpur.  It is a large city which looks like Washington DC without the traffic (at least when we were there).  The government has spent billions of dollars to make this place as western as they could.  All the ministers of government are here, the buildings were designed mostly by foreigners, including the mosque which was designed by a German, the streets are wide and smooth, there is little or no trash to be seen, no street vendors.  In other words, it really doesn't look like anywhere else in Malaysia.

 Although it was Halloween, this is not my costume.  It is a robe that women are required to wear to go inside the mosque.  Heads, arms and legs must be covered.  It was made of very soft but heavy material and was not easy to wear in the heat, but it was worth it for the experience.  The mosque is beautiful inside and out and I learned so much about their worship.

The cute lady below is Azizah.  She is a nurse but volunteers out at the mosque to answer questions and tell people about the mosque.  She met us inside the mosque and began talking and we were obviously interested in what she was telling us she just kept talking and talking.  I loved it!  I did learn much about muslims that I did not know before.

Ed did not have to wear the robe, but he was still so hot inside the mosque.  I just enjoyed listening to the guides and learning.  We even learned how they bury their dead.  I had always wondered how their face could be toward Mecca.  They are buried on their side so the face of the deceased is really facing toward Mecca. Friday afternoon they were expecting over 6,000 people there for prayers.

We really are doing missionary work, not just flying around the country visiting tourist spots.  We had set up a meeting with someone but they had to go to Sibu at the last minute so we had time and the senior couple we stayed with wanted to show us some of the area.  This is what we chose.  We had a meeting later in the evening with the Family History Center Director and then we were going to go see the Petronas Towers lit up at night, but the meeting went longer than we had expected so we didn't get there.  We keep saying, "another time" thinking we will always be back to these places, but the time is going by so quickly I'm afraid we will miss an opportunity to see or experience something wonderful.  (Like, I really want to go to the place where visitors get to help bath the elephants)

We feel like we are having success with the work we are doing.  It is slow, but many things that are worthwhile are.  We will wait to see the results later or....we may not see the results at all.

Well, it is past midnight and we have a long day of training and planning tomorrow in Ipoh so I better get to bed.  Happy Halloween!