Let Us Waste and Wear Out Our Lives

Gembira email kamu semua,

Well I guess the most exciting news first, my bike got stolen.

But let me back up to last week, where I ended my email by saying my bike had a flat. After emailing last week, Sister LeBaron and I went to the bike shop to replace my tube. Easy, right? Then this past Thursday, while I was on exchanges with Sister Blauer (she and Sister Thompson flew in from Kuching), I got another flat tire. No big deal, we had Sister Racheal and her Husband Edwin give us a ride home, and the next day, Sister LeBaron and I went to the bike shop again and they pulled a nail out of my tire. I replaced the tube again. No big deal. New tubes are like 10 ringit, even though the bike shop always tries to make me buy the 20 RM tubes. I always tell them a nail is a nail, no matter how good the tube is.

On Saturday, Sister LeBaron and I bought a cabbage so we could make a salad for the Relief Society activity. Sister Gloria, the RS president asked us to teach the Sisters more about simple exercises to do and maybe a healthy recipe. In the mini-roundabout, the bag with our cabbage split and fell off of Sister LeBaron's handlebars, and it rolled into the middle of the roundabout. Miraculously, all of the cars zooming by dodged it, and the rest slowed down. I hopped off my bike and was waiting for the cars to stop so I could grab our cabbage, and as I went to get it, this car rammed into it and it exploded. The second our cabbage got destroyed, it started pouring rain. Imagine me standing in the middle of a roundabout, cars stopped, and me yelling, with my arms outstretched, "Apa hal?! I was going to eat that! You could have stopped! My cabbages!" (Kudos if you get the reference). I laughed it off, but Sister LeBaron was pretty bummed about our cabbage. We went to the grocery store right by the church and got a new cabbage, and went on our merry little way, in the pouring rain.

The Relief Society activity was so much fun (pictures included) and all of the Sisters thought our stretches were so fun/funny, but they loved them. I asked them, "Do your shoulders ever hurt? Or your back?" and all of them said, "Always!" So they loved learning new stretches/strengthening exercises that will help them as busy moms. It was good because Sister LeBaron and I didn't know we were going to be teaching exercises for 40 minutes, we just kind of wing-ed it (you do that a lot as a missionary, it's great). The next day at church, the Elders told us all of the Sisters were talking about how much fun it was, which made me feel good.

After the Relief Society Activity (they brought some delicious Iban noodles, and lots of cakes), we went to our appointment, placing our bikes next to a house in a kampung, like we always do, out of sight of the main road. Usually, we lock our bikes to a sokang (support/post) but we were using a different bike lock because we (ahem, Sister LeBaron) lost our keys when we were in Singapore. The lock wasn't big enough to put around the post, so Sister LeBaron, since it was her kunci day (kunci is the word for key) and it was my handfone day (handfone is the word for...phone. It's really weird), she locked the bikes together. I had the thought, "We should really try to lock our bikes to the post like we usually do" but I shrugged it off because we've never had a problem before, even when we couldn't lock our bikes to something stationary. Plus they were out of sight so I thought it would be fine. P.S. When I come home and call my phone a handphone and say SMS instead of text, don't think I'm too weird.

We had an amazing lesson with Julia and Dawi, the prettiest girls from Indonesia ever. They've walked to church with their kids (Dawi as a 3 year old and Julia has an 18-month old) two weeks in a row now. Julia is only 20 and Dawi is 23, which makes me wonder what I've done with my life because they're both amazing moms. We're still trying to get Dawi's husband to want to learn from us but he'd rather drink for now. Julia's husband works offshore. They want to both get baptized before Julia goes back to Indonesia. We've asked the APs and office couple in Singapore to find out if there's a church in Marakai, Indonesia, so if any of you know, let me know.

I was really excited to teach them that we have God's power on the earth right now, called the priesthood, and there are men on the earth, in Miri, who have this power. The power to heal, to comfort, and to bless. How great is that? I showed them a picture of my family and told them how grateful I was that my dad and brother had the priesthood, and then I flipped to a picture of my MTC district and told them about when I was sick in the MTC and I was grateful that Elder Jackson gave me a blessing of comfort.

Anyway, Satan must really think we're doing good work in Miri, because when we went to get our bikes, they were gone. Sister LeBaron said, "Sister Wynn, I'm so sorry I was careless." She looked so heartbroken. I tried so hard to be mad at her, and at the thieves, but I couldn't. I think it's funny when we try to be mad haha. I said, "I'm sorry too Sister LeBaron. I had the thought we should lock our bikes to the post and didn't say anything." We asked everyone in the neighborhood if they saw who took our bikes, and searched and searched and did everything we could. At first, I asked these kids about my age, and then I thought, "I should try to contact them." So I brought up that I was from America, and a volunteer from my church. They weren't interested, maybe because I was talking about how the gospel of Jesus Christ could make them happy and I looked really sad haha. Sister LeBaron got a return appointment with someone named Wynn. I'll get to that later.

We saw a kid ride by on a bike, and it was dark at this point and I was at a loss of what to do, so I took off running after him. Sister LeBaron and I saw him turn into a kampung, so I said, "Act cool." and we casually walked into the kampung. It wasn't our bike. We asked around some more, called Rachael and Edwin to give us a ride home again (they're so great) and we made the sad walk to the red kedai to get picked up. We bought ice milo pops for 20 shillings to eat away our sorrows. The Elders were so sweet. Elder Wayment said we could borrow his spare bike and Sister Guzman called this morning and said we can use her bike since she's in KL.

That night, we decided we weren't even mad at the thieves, just sad that they would resort to stealing. There's something sinister about how whoever stole our bikes must have been watching us because we put our bikes out of sight. It'll be awkward meeting the thieves in heaven and saying to them, "Um...you stole my bike. I needed it to do missionary work. But it's okay, I tried to forgive you as quickly as I could."

That morning, we read together the Sermon on the Mount, where Christ talks about loving our fellow man. "And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy bicycle, let him also have thy brand new tubes also. And whosoever shall compel thee to bike a mile, go with him in twain."

When I texted our zone leaders, and asisters, and President and Sister Mains (wow we are such a bother) to tell them our bikes were stolen, I said, "It's okay. We still have our helmets. And testimonies!" Sister LeBaron said as we were walking, "They can have our helmets too." 

Sunday, Rachael picked us up for church, and dropped us home that night after coming with us to a lesson. We walked to all of our appointments after church, and you know what? Miri looks different on foot. Sometimes we zip by so fast on our bikes we forget to slow down and take it all in. Ngian and Tungalim gave us t-shirts that say, "I heart Miri" and shrimp crackers, and they also wrote in our notebooks letters about how much they love having us in their homes. We went to find Wynn, and couldn't, but found a lady that said she was a member of the church and invited us in to teach her friends.

During this lesson, I felt for the first time like I wanted to give up and go home. No one was really interested, and one of our less active members we've been working with for a long time stumbled out of one of the rooms in this random house we were in, drunk out of her mind. We've been trying to get her to stop smoking and drinking for a while and she was so willing to throw her cigarettes and alcohol and buah pinang into the Miri River before. My heart broke.

Sister LeBaron and I wrapped up the lesson quickly, because I'm pretty sure we were both about to cry. I gave our drunk friend a pack of Hack's candy with menthol. Sister LeBaron bought a bunch to give to all the people we're working with who want to stop smoking. I said her name and said, "We want to give this to you to help you stop smoking like you said you would. You need to stop smoking and drinking. I care about you so much." We left. It was pouring rain again, and we felt so low. But we ran into Wynn, and his cousin Anu and his wife Solia invited us into their house because of the rain. "Masuklah!" They had 3 cute little kids and they had a sweet spirit about them.

We explained what we were there for, and Anu said, "I know! I love missionaries!" and showed us his Buku Kenangan (Book of Rememberance) with his baptism pictures in it! We asked why we've never seen them at church, and Anu said they always had work on Sundays. We taught the importance of reading scriptures, and told them we would get them The Book of Mormon in Malay (they only had copies in Indonesian). And then we asked them to ask their bosses to get time off to go to church. And Anu said, "Saya berjanji." I promise.

That was huge. You know why? Because when we ask people to do things here, they say, "Tengoklah," (we'll see) or "Tidak berjanji," (I'm not gonna promise). But no, Anu, this amazing priesthood holder told us, when we were going to give up on missionary work for that day, "I promise you I'll be at church next week." We really needed that. He said he was so grateful for us, and that we go door to door in the hot sun and that the missionaries found and taught him. Sunday turned into a good day, my broken heart was mended.

Last P-Day, the district went to Parksin's and stopped by the handicraft souvenir shops. I caved and bought myself a sumpit (an Iban blow dart gun, you know you're jealous) with turtles etched into it. I also bought a beautiful vase with an Iban longhouse etched on the front of it. I love it. I'll send pictures next week.

I also ate durian for the first time. It's true, it's pretty nasty. If gasoline and rotting onions were a fruit, it would be durian. After district meeting, we had all the greenies try it. Pictures to come next week. 

Sister LeBaron's any my motto this week is from D&C 123: Let us waste and wear out our lives and cheerfully do all things that lie in our power.

With or without bikes, the work goes forward.

This week was hard, but I'm happy, as always. I can always rely on my Heavenly Father, always pray to Him.