Christmas in KL

Halo Keluargaku,

Oh no! I can't believe the basement flooded! What a nightmare, and on Christmas too. It's funny though, when I first looked at the picture you sent, I didn't even notice the torn up carpet, I was just looking at how different and awesome the rest of the downstairs looked! Somehow I'd totally forgotten that it's even changed since I've been gone. It looks awesome though, that basement really did need some work.

I'm glad to hear though that at least Christmas Eve was the usual Christmas festivities. Johnny looked absolutely thrilled with his presents. What a goofy little kid! I laughed when I saw the picture of his "rubber ducky" too. He'll be a fine hunter in no time.

Well, the rest of Christmas for us was a little bit uneventful as well. We went to our Iban investigator's home and had some delicious Malaysian food (satay [which is kind of like shishkabob], chicken and beef curry, some vegetables and of course lots of rice), but best of all we met a whole lot of our investigator's family who all accepted the invitation to come to church the next day. Well, they loved it, so now we're teaching a whole mess of Ibans up here who are progressing really well. We're very, very excited about it. One of the challenges here in KL is finding native Malaysian families who won't just move to a place where the church doesn't exist soon after their baptism, so these families are a big answer to prayers.

We finished the night with a quiet dinner with a young couple here in the branch. It was really nice. Christmas was really great this year actually. A whole lot of fun and a nice break from the normal toil of missionary work. Just some time to spend remembering the Savior and having fun with some friends was awesome.

Well, the work here in KL is going great, but there's definitely an adventure everyday. Just the other day we knocked into a half Thai/half Burmese man (a very unusual combination) who quickly became kind of a friend and an awesome investigator. Anyway, from the very beginning he explained to us that although he was Buddhist, he knew there were a lot of Christians around that area and he was determined to help us find them. Well, we were ok with that, so just the other day he takes us to this hawker stand, introduces us to a Burmese lady there, and tells us that in 30 minutes she's going to take us to go meet a bunch of Christian Burmese people. Sounds good! Well, we wait, and wait, and wait, and eventually when we're starting to get a little concerned she finally takes us up, first to three drunk Burmese men, out of whom only one spoke very limited, very drunken English, and then to a whole group of people who seemed like they had a lot more potential. Well, we started off trying to decide what language to use to teach them.

"Siapa di sini pandai cakap Bahasa Melayu?" (Who here can speak Malay?)

Silence

"Who can speak English?"

Silence

We turned to one girl in the group.

"Kamu pandai cakap Melayu?" (Can you speak Malay?)

"Tak tahu" (Don't know.)"

Do you speak English?"

"No."

Great. Well, we do our best trying to get our half Thai/half Burmese friend to translate for us, handing out Burmese pamphlets, doing whatever we can to try and get the Spirit into the room and invite them to come to church, but not much luck. Well, pretty discouraged we decide to leave when someone says something like, "It was nice to meet you."

"Wait, you speak English?"

"Broken, a little bit."

We turn to another member of the group.

"Wait, do you speak English."

"Can, just a little bit."

Well, that was a surprise. Anyway, after discovering that the entire group spoke ok broken English, it was time to go, but we did get an appointment to come back next Saturday when a bunch of members of their church are gathering at that house so we could share a little bit. So, such is the life in KL.

We were talking to a Nigerian Recent Convert last night and asked him how many languages he spoke. I actually laughed out loud when he said that he spoke 11. No way, 5 is pretty common, but I didn't even believe 11 was possible. Well, we started to test him on as many of them as we could, and it turns out he can probably speak 11 languages. Crazy.

Well, I'm really loving it here. KL is doing great right now and it's already been one of the unique experiences of my life to serve in a place like this. It's a huge blessing! My whole mission has been one of the choicest blessings of my life so far. I've come to love the Book of Mormon so much. I know that it's the word of God and can change lives dramatically. I love this gospel and this work. It's so fun to feel the Spirit testify that what you're saying is true, and to see people's hearts change in response to that. I love inviting people to follow Jesus Christ, and I love to see how much faith the good people of Malaysia have. My mission is awesome!

I love you all so much. I'm so grateful to have a family that enjoys all the blessings of the gospel. I'm grateful for all the sacrifice that has made my life possible. Hope you have a great new year!

I love you!
Elder Blissett