Well this week has been very interesting indeed. Still haven't gotten through my mid-mission crisis but boleh tahan haha. Elders Capener, Hays, Wilson, and I have discussed and decided that around the year mark for missionaries, everything bad happens to us in our personal lives and our mission lives. Elder Capener just came out of his, thank goodness. I like to think this is a refiner's fire for me, pretty soon the Lord will burn out all the dross (and tapeworms) and I'll just be a pretty little block of silver.
The good thing is despite being sick all the time, Sister Callor and I are best friends (how do I keep getting the best companions?) so being stuck at home for most of the week hasn't been bad. On Monday, we meet the Scott family at an FHE at President Changgai's house. I think it was way weird for Elder Scott, haha. I remember picking Mikel up in Japan and him saying it's strange when your mission life and personal life collide so dramatically. It was bittersweet to see so many of the members say goodbye to him. We sang Harap Tuhan Sertamu Selalu (God Be With You Til We Meet Again). Cliche right? So perfect though. I'm gonna miss that kid and his eternal five o'clock shadow.
Tuesday was zone meeting, and like biasa, Elder Hays and Allen rocked it. The title of this meeting was "The Pursuit of Happiness" which was perfect because last week I said "I've had a happy mission and a happy life." I'm a generally happy girl, and I've been promised unreasonable amounts of happiness in my life. I think of the adjectives I use in my emails to describe my mission, and in Malay, there's like two whole words for "happiness," kegembiraan and to a lesser extent senang, so you know it's a pretty big deal here too.
So why have I been so unhappy lately? They told us to keep developing our personal relationship with the Savior. Since we've been doing that since last transfer, our numbers in the zone have doubled. They want us to continue to do that, and also think of the things that have made us happy in our missions, and to write goals that'll help us be happier. Those two elders are pretty dang smart. I glanced over at Elder Hay's notebook and it says "Love the life you live." I need to ask him where he got it.
Well I took my worm pills, and everyone warned me that they'd wreck me, but they didn't. I just got super drowsy, had some trippy dreams, slept a lot, and my gums hurt a little. It was the weirdest experience. We took it easy for a couple days, and then went to the birthday party of the son of one of our investigator families. Man Bidayus party hard!
We were a little late because we stopped and helped this guy fix his flat tire, and by that I mean we called Elder Fletcher (remember him from Miri?) and asked him to bike across town and fix it for us because he's pandai car stuff. It was good to catch up with him again as I tried my best to help. I said "Remember when we were little greenies in Miri?" His Chinese is SO good now, not that it was bad before. It's crazy what a year can do. We got super greasy but tidapa.
The birthday party was cool because they asked us to open and close with a prayer, and I felt bad being a little late because there were like 50 people waiting for us, and I wondered vaguely if their little house would collapse from all of the people masukking it. Then they brought out vodka and beer (why is it always vodka and beer?) and I turned to Sister Callor in a panic and said, "This feels like high school all over again!" I just wanted to call my dad and tell him to pick me up haha. That was also Sister Callor's first experience being offered alcohol, the irony of it being on her mission. I declined politely but loudly enough for all the guests to hear. "Yup, we don't drink alcohol! We can visit you this week and explain why!" We made a mental note to teach this family the Word of Wisdom lesson soon. Why there was alcohol at a 3 year old's birthday party is beyond me.
Luckily, a lot of their friends and neighbors were really curious about the weird white girls at the party, and we contacted a lot of them and got return appointments. Most people in Kuching see us biking around, know that we're missionaries, but are too shy to ask anything.
The next day, Sister Callor and I were still feeling super lethargic, but we decided to go thrash the nations anyway because we were tired of being confined to the indoors. We stacked our day with appointments, including one way out in the boondocks in Matang. One of the families we contacted at the party is related to our investigator family and they wanted to meet and learn about the gospel! So we set up a pass-off lesson with the Matang elders and were excited to jalan-jalan across the Sarawak river.
We met with a recent convert before our journey to Matang, and she fed us a ludicrous amount of food and horlicks, this weird milk drink. Sister Callor downed it out of politeness, and then we biked away. It was so hot that day, stupid hot, so we tumbled off our bikes and threw up into a ditch together #compunity. It was the worst.
I went into what Elder Wilson calls "rage mode" and decided we were going to Matang anyway. Sister Callor agreed, so we biked the half hour out there. Once we got across the bridge, I got bitten by a couple ants that were stuck in my shoe, and thought to myself, "Why did I think going all the way out here was a good idea?" The phone number our contact gave us didn't even work when I tried it, and we had an address and I didn't know where it was. But when I called the elders that morning, I told them we were going on faith.
We met up with the elders at E Mart and Sister Callor and I sat on a curb and tried to rest. We pretended like everything was fine and followed them another half hour to the boondocks in Matang. We got hit by so much rain, I got splashed by a truck but it was kind of fun, then the clouds dissipated and we got hit by so much sunlight, but it was pretty. Matang is like the Idaho Falls of Malaysia, everything is pretty spread out but there are nice country roads everywhere. We found the right house and went in and I had one of my favorite pass off lessons to date. This family is so prepared to receive the gospel. They had so many good questions about how they could strengthen their family. Everything that went wrong about that day suddenly became worth it.
We biked back on some beautiful winding country roads, and then Sister Callor and I biked back to Kuching. About 2 hours, round trip. We collapsed when we got home, covered in mud, a little sunburned, and way happy. Sister Callor got super sick (we're pretty sure she had the flu last week and we just didn't know, whoops) so we called the Matang elders and asked if they were on our side of the river, and if they could bring us some 100 plus and pears please?
It was already 9:30 but they said boleh and wondered where they were going to find pears. The four of them went on a grand adventure and got a little lost in Kuching. They asked someone to help them find a fruit stand, and they followed him on a moto downtown, by Waterfront, and then past that to a sketchier part of town. Elder Wilson wondered to himself, "Isn't this around where those two European students got stabbed the other week?" and turned to Elder Yang and said, "Get ready to smack a fool." Exact words, I promise. Luckily Elder Yang grew up in the hood of L.A. so they would have been fine. Also, the man who helped them was indeed sincere and helped them find pears in the middle of the night. By the time they got to our house, it was so late, but they were just happy to help.
The Matang Elders = Knights in shining armor. 1 Nephi 8:10. The pears were delicious.
Despite this week kind of being crappy, it was still good. Even on my bad weeks, it's just goodness mixed in with a few dismal moments here and there. Here's to happiness.
Pagilak bertemu baru.
Love, Sister Wynn
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