That small black book that Christians use

Halo Keluargaku,

Thanks so much for all your prayers for everyone we're teaching here, and I'm happy to report that our baptisms went through this last weekend. So, there's just two children and the father left to complete the family and it looks like things are getting better everyday with them. It's so good to see a family come into the church together. It's so important for recent converts of the church to have some support, and there's nothing better than a family to provide that. So we feel really blessed and are really happy with the progress we've been able to see here in Tawau.

This last week we've really been focusing on finding new investigators. You always run into the funny problem when you have baptisms of running out of people to teach, so we've been trying to head it off before it gets too bad and spend a good amount of time visiting members and good old fashioned knocking. It's funny, I used to hate knocking, but it's become so regular now that I've even kind of started to like it. It's just exciting never quite knowing who's going to come out of that house and what they're going to say to you. Malaysia is a pretty crazy country, so it always keeps things interesting. We've even had some ok success finding people who are willing to meet with us, so that's really nice.

We're going to Singapore next week for a couple of days this next week, and the week after that we're going to KL for another of those Simplified Curriculum trainings. This is supposed to be the last one though I guess, so our travel schedule should be cooling off a little which will be kind of nice. Traveling is fun, and I'm super grateful that we get to do it so much in this mission, but it's always a little bit hard to get back into the groove of things. I feel bad for our Zone Leaders. They actually have to fly down here to Tawau every time we do have to do a baptismal interview since we're not allowed to do them ourselves and the nearest elders are a 4 hour bus ride away. That would really mess up your schedule.

I was trying to think of something funny that happened this week, but this week was a little bit normal actually. We had one investigator we knocked into this week who absolutely refused to set up an appointment with us even though she seemed kind of interested, only to text us everyday after since we've met her and become pretty willing to meet anytime. Go figure. Another Buddhist man the other day asked us if we thought the world was going to end in 2012 because his Christian friend had told him that "that book" said something about it. "Which book?" "Oh, you know, that small black book, the one that Christians use?" "You mean the Bible?" "Oh, I'm not very sure. Is that what that book is called, the little black one?" Even after being out here for over a year I'm still blown away when I run into a person who's never even really heard of the Bible. It's just a different world out here sometimes. It's so awesome though to get to teach people from the ground up though. To start with someone who doesn't really have any definite conception of God, any clue what a prophet is or really even know what the Bible is, and to get to take them step by step through the whole Gospel is a pretty special privilege.

Well, Tawau is still going great. I'm loving it here and I'm hoping I have at least another couple of months here before it comes time to move on. It's a huge blessing to be serving the Lord here and to have the great opportunity to grow in my testimony daily and to get to help others do the same. I know that the church is true, and I'm committed to following it as closely as I can for the rest of my life. It's the only thing that really brings lasting peace and happiness in this entire world. I'm so grateful to know what I know and to get to share it everyday!

I love you all so much!

Elder Blissett