A Long Time Silent

Hello Family and Friends,

Sorry I have not written the past two weeks, and this week was a little crazy so we got permission to email today for just a few minutes. 

Last a week we went to a really cool butterfly farm and there were butterflies all over the place, where they got to land on you and you could hold them if you were persistent enough to have them stand on your finger. The week before that we were touring Penang Island looking at all of the street art in a portion called Georgetown - a fairly old part of the city that was highly influenced by European culture. 

Yesterday, we flew into Singapore to have our Zone conference. Our tickets said that we were scheduled  to leave at 9:00 in the morning, but when we got there, we found out that our tickets were actually for 9:00 pm. So we had to switch flights, and we may have missed our flight except that that airline still worked on malaysian standard time, and instead of being one of the last people to arrive at the gate, we were probably among the first half. 

Yesterday we spent all of the day looking for shoes for Elder Florence because his toenails have holes in them because his shoes are so small. President gave us permission to send off a quick email today.

As far as the work goes, many of the people whom we have been working with have not been keeping there commitments. We had one of the people whom we were working with come to Church yesterday, but he said he would be really busy this week, so we are not sure if we will be able to meet with him. We will be working on finding this week. ​

Working Hard

I am so sorry mom, we came back much later from Penang than we would have hoped.

No Air

​​​​This week was good, but we had a lot of crazy things happen to us.

The title of this week come from the problems that we had with our bicycles this week. I am not going to mention all of them, but here are a few insights to let you get a feel into what we had to do: probably around 5 - 7 flat tires, biking an hour and a half out to a shipping company so that my previous companion can get his bike on the other half of Malaysia (and getting a flat tire while we were over there), riding to Penang (on the ferry) to bring a bike to the three Sister missionaries over there who only have two working bikes (also getting a flat tire in the process), walking for a while after a flat tire to a bike shop, only to find that it was closed.

We were riding back to our home on Friday, and a nice nail stuck into my tire. So I got a flat right next to our home. We were able to walk home ok, but it was so far from our appointment that night that we were not able to go. The next day, after attempting to patch the tube on my bicycle, we headed out. After filling my tire with air, it only took about three minutes for me to go flat (I guess we are not that skilled at using bike patches). It is at least an hour walk to the bike shop from our apartment, and so we decided it might be worth it to try to hitchhike and get in the back of a lorry that was going the direction we needed. After three failed attempts (they were all turning the other way, we met a nice Malay man who agreed to let us put our bikes in the back and climbed in. He drove a little bit, and then brought us up front. We rode with him down the street for about 10 minutes. It definitely saved us a lot of time.

Other things, we were contacting someone on the Ferry on Tuesday, and after we started talking to this young Chinese man, one of our members, sitting on the other side of the man, popped his head out and said "Hi Elders!" We then had a member-present contact, and he bore his testimony about the Book of Mormon - pretty cool.

Yesterday was church. We didn't have anyone come (as far as investigators) and that was pretty disappointing, especially since on Saturday night we had three confirmed for coming the next day. Church was good though, and I thought that Elder Florence and I had a good lesson second hour when we taught gospel principles. I gave a talk on "Light of the world, Glory to God" and talked about Elder Hales talk from the last conference on developing Christlike attributes. I thought the talk went pretty well, and I like how Elder Hales talks about our progression to developing charity as we work on other attributes. As we do this, we become the same person no matter where we are!

Have a great week!

Elder Allen

Happy 3a of July!

I can't take credit for the title of this week's email, as it was written on the board by the Elders in Penang when I came to the Penang church for District meeting last Tuesday. Chinese people don't like the number 4 because it is said the same (just in a different tone) as their word for death. That is why in elevators, they have floor 1, 2, 3, 3a, 5 .... Also, for the 3a of July we sang American songs found in the Hymn book. I don't know if the Australian Elder enjoyed it as much as us Americans, but I thought it was great!

Not too much to report from this week, although a lot happened. I am about to run out of time on my computer in this cafe because I had to wait for an email from the company that ships the bike for my past companion. Nothing too crazy to report though, like I said. 

The week was busy though. I got a new companion Elder Florence, and he is kind and obedient, so I am glad that we get to be together for the next little while. He is from California, and everyone in church just talked about how handsome he is, so I tried not to be too offended.

Well, I really am almost out of time, but I have a thought that comes from the book of Mosiah. I really when the Nephites talk about how they go up to fight against the Lamanites "in the strength of the Lord." We too can be strengthened in our times of trial and hardship. 

Have a great week!

Elder Allen

The Turnover

Well, the subject this week comes from transfer news, because it is hard for me to remember everything that I write in my journal, so I just have to write about what has happened recently. We are losing like 20 missionaries in two days, and in a mission of about 120 missionaries, that is a big hit to our numbers. The missionaries who are coming in at this time to our mission all have to go to the MTC for and average of 6 -9 weeks, so we won't get replacements until next week. 

Elder Johnson is leaving Butterworth this week, and is taking a plane over to East Malaysia: Miri. I am also losing two Elders in the District who were on the island right accross from Butterworth: Penang. With the shortage of missionaries, we will not be getting replacements. Instead, we will have a 5 person district as one of the sisters is leaving, and we are getting two new sisters, one of them being a greenie, to be a tri-panionship with the sisters. 

Crazy news! Our new church that has been in the building process for a while opened up yesterday! We worked hard last week getting it ready, organizing books and finishing up things. We had a testimony meeting yesterday and it went really well. A powerful testimony from our branch president about the love that can be powerful for us. Elder Johnson and I had two investigators come, and I was sitting next to one during sacrament. Elder Johnson bore his testimony during sacrament meeting, and our investigators was touched by it. It was cool. We had a good rest of church were we taught 2nd hour, and then out- of-the-blue, no one was ready to teach third hour. So I taught it on Priesthood. It went pretty good.

I love you all and hope you have a good week!