The girls got baptized!

Halo Keluargaku,

The girls got baptized! Hooray! The little brother is set up to be baptized next week and it looks like the mom is going to follow with him as well. We reviewed the baptismal interview questions with them last night and things are looking good to go. So, more huge blessings. It's awesome to see what the good example of some of the daughters did for the rest of the family. Sometimes that's what it takes to get us moving though. So things are going really great with their family and we're really excited about all of their progress. It's a huge blessing for them and a huge blessing for us too!

This week was a little bit exhausting, but I think one of our most productive for a long time! Elder Cazier and I biked, a LOT, and we're definitely feeling it, but I think after a good day of rest we'll be ready to go again. It's funny, when you're in the midst of running around and everything you don't really realize how far you've gone, but getting home at night you definitely start to feel it. Just the other night Elder Cazier and I finished off the night with biking around four miles through hilly Tawau country. It was a great way to end a bike filled week!

Tawau is doing the best it's done in a long time. We're meeting with members everyday and spending less and less time knocking and more and more time working with referrals and looking for more, which I think is exactly the way things should happen in missionary work. Our investigators are looking more solid than ever and it definitely feels like we're spending less time just spinning our tires and more time actually getting somewhere. It feels great! We're seeing the blessings of the Lord everyday and I'm coming to realize more and more what a privilege it is to serve in this awesome little corner of the mission. Tawau is a place I'll remember for the rest of my life, and I'm super grateful for all the time I've been able to spend here.

I'll send a couple of pictures along! The first one is of a coconut Elder Cazier and I discovered and very happily spent some time busting open before our investigators arrived for their baptism on Saturday. I've always heard that it was impossible to break open a coconut without using a machete or something, but now I know better! :D A little bit of needed diversion from a hard-working week.

The next one is a Malaysian lawnmower. What? That's a weed-whacker you say? I guess that's probably what they look like at first, but check out the lawnmower blade on the end of it. Lawnmowers are actually kind of rare to come by here in Malaysia, so instead people just toss metal blades on to the end of their weed eaters and bam! Instant lawnmower. Easy to carry too.


Love you so much!
Elder Blissett

More success and riding bikes

Halo Keluargaku,

Well, first things first. We're having two baptisms this weekend. Hooray! It was a huge surprise for us, but two of the daughters from the Filipino family we've been teaching told us unexpectedly they wanted to be baptized this weekend, and it looks like the rest of the family is probably going to follow in the coming weeks. Awesome! These investigators have been the most diligent about reading the Book of Mormon of any I think I've ever had and it's really shown through in the depth of their testimony and their commitment to the gospel. So, that's very exciting. The Lord has really blessed this area a lot, and it's amazing to get to see that happen. It's also amazing to see the gospel touch the hearts of people from all backgrounds and from all parts of the world. Old, young, Filipino, Indonesian, Singaporean, it doesn't matter. The Gospel is for everyone, and blesses all of our lives the same.

We started riding our bikes this last week and it's been amazing. I don't think I realized exactly how much I missed riding a bike until we put ours together last week and got to start getting around on them. It is *so* much faster than taking the busses and it's really going to open up a lot of options for us as far as when we can meet our investigators and where we can go finding. We're really excited about it. Plus bikes are just fun. You always feel like you're getting a nice, good exercise when you're on a bike.

It's crazy that halloween is coming up. I don't actually know if we're going to do anything here. Malaysia isn't very big on Halloween, although I've heard of branches having parties for it in different places. So, that will be interesting to see, but Halloween coming up means Christmas is coming up too, which I'm already excited for. Christmas is the best.

Well, other than that things are still just going well here in Tawau. Elder Cazier and I are getting along great. We'll be getting a new Zone Leader soon which should be pretty fun, and we've got some investigators who are looking really great. Elder Whittaker and his companion found a super golden investigator last weekend in Singapore too who asked them when she could get baptized, so it's good to hear that he'll probably be having his first baptism he's present at before too long too.

I love you all so much! Thanks for your love and support. You're the best! The church is true, and the Book of Mormon changes lives. I've seen it first hand, those who will read it with an open heart and pray about it sincerely find out without exception that it's true. We're in the greatest church on Earth. It's such a blessing to know the things we know.

Love you all!

Elder Blissett

A Baptism!

Beautiful beach-side Tawau Chapel



Views from the beach

Old and new shoe comparison

Halo Keluargaku,

We're in KL! Crazy, huh? You're probably starting to feel like we're never in our area based on how many times I've e-mailed you from crazy places now, but it's not as bad as it seems, I promise! We had to come here for another of those big missionary trainings (this time with all of Singapore, West Malaysia, and Sabah only) so we're here for four days getting to see all the other elders again and having some awesome training from President Clark. So far it's been really awesome and I'm super excited to get back into our area and start applying some of this good stuff. We're going to be a lot more effective for sure.

Our Baptism went through! Woohoo! Everything went great and the best part of all was hearing ****'s absolutely amazing testimony. It's so cool to see how far she's come in really only a few weeks of learning from missionaries, but in over a year of good preparation from her awesome mother. Her testimony started out normally enough for a recent convert, but after only a few sentences you could just see something change in her countenance and she couldn't even really speak for about a minute. When she finally could she just expressed so much love for her mom, the Lord, and the elders and told everyone about her commitment to endure to the end and make it to the temple. She said she'd never stop coming to church and learning about Heavenly Father. She said she hoped the Elders would keep coming to visit her so she could keep learning about Heavenly Father. It was absolutely music to this missionary's ears, and made all the time I've spent in Tawau 100% worth it. She's solid and is going all the way to the temple. I couldn't be happier! I'm just sad Elder Whit had to miss it, but Elder Cazier has been great too for the few days we've been together.

Elder Cazier is from Elk Ridge Utah and is pretty darn cool. I think we're going to get along really well.

I'm sending some pictures. Most importantly a picture of Elder Cazier and I plus *** and her family at the baptism, a few pictures of our beautiful beach side church (it's so pretty, the pictures don't really even do it justice), and *drumroll please* my new shoes, or at least my shoes newly delivered from Singapore! Yay! I was pretty blown away how different they looked from my old ones (that's a old shoe vs. new shoe picture of the soles. The old ones are hardly recognizable!) But they're super comfortable and shiny and I'm really grateful to have them. Awesome.

Elder Whit and I never did find the beach! We actually didn't even find anything very touristy and just avoided not coming back with any souvenirs and all. It's funny, you always hear about it, but other than scuba diving there's really not much in Semporna at all. Not even touristy shops or anything. It was kind of crazy, but fun anyway just to "jalan-jalan" (a Malay word for kind of just walking around and hanging out). I'm just glad we didn't get lost.

Other than that, things out here in Malaysia are kind of same-old same-old. We're thinking about busting out the bikes in Tawau and seeing how it goes. The buses all shut down at around 7:30, leaving us abandoned pretty much wherever we happen to be at around 7:30 until we decide to go home which limits our options a lot. So, we're looking into using buses during the day and bikes at night. I think it could work out pretty well.

Well, Kuala Lumpur says hi! Things are going great and we're looking at another baptism in a couple of weeks which is very exciting. We had a member's daughter just move here from Indonesia who was immediately interested in joining the church. Well, things were going great until last week we called to confirm an appointment and she told us that she couldn't meet because she'd moved to a city about four hours away. Malaysians are prone to do that kind of thing at the drop of the hat. So, we were getting ready to pass her to the Elders who lived there only to find out she'd decided to move back again. That's ok by us :D. Honestly though, as long as she gets baptized it's not really important to me who does it!

I got the package with the insoles and the candy and everything. Thank you SO MUCH. You forget how awesome stuff from America is until you're away from it for a while. Those pens you sent me are like a bright, gleaming ray of well manufactured goodness in a country filled with crummy pens. They're awesome, and I really needed some new pens, so thanks a lot!

I love you so much! Thanks so much for all your support and everything. I'm so grateful to be in this family. The church is true and it's the greatest blessing to have the opportunity to spend two years full-time sharing it with others. Malaysia is the best (and Singapore too)!

I love you! Talk to you soon!

Elder Blissett

Good-bye Elder Whit

Halo Keluargaku,

Well, this week is a little exciting, first off because I'm writing from lovely Semporna, Malaysia. No, I didn't get transferred, although Elder Whittaker actually is headed off to Singapore. The companionship is coming to an end to soon, but Heavenly Father always knows best, right? So, to celebrate his leaving we decided to finally take a P-Day out to Semporna which is about an hour and half away from Tawau. This is actually the place with all the amazing diving, but Elder Whit and I just came looking for beaches and souveniers. Unfortunately, now that we're here we're not exactly sure where to go to find the beach, but we'll find it! Don't worry!

Our first baptism is this Saturday! Things are looking really solid, so we're very, very excited. Unfortunately Elder Whit is getting transferred on Thursday so he's actually going to miss his first baptism, which is pretty much the worst part about him getting transferred, but we're going to take a lot of pictures for him and make sure he still eats "baptism ice cream." It's very important to eat ice cream after every baptism! Good luck I've found...

I'm super happy to hear conference was cool. Unfortunately it's actually probably going to be a long time (if ever) before I get to listen to it in English! Before Singapore would send out DVDs in three languages to the branches (English, Malay, and Chinese), but now it sounds like they're only going to send the Malay. So, we'll probably watch that next weekend and I guess I'll just have to test to see how good my Malay has really gotten. I'll try and read the "highlight" talks during e-mail as soon as the text is posted, but it sounds like I'll mostly just be waiting for the Ensign. Ironic to be missing conference as a missionary... :D

I did, however, hear from the members that they're building another temple in the Philipines which is very exciting. Go Asia!

Things are still going well with our investigators. We had one investigator set up to be baptized actually move away this week, which is tough, but she's in a place where there are other missionaries, so hopefully everything works out ok. Our family is still doing well. Thanks so much for your prayers, it makes a big difference to them and to us.

My new companion is named Elder Cazier. His last area was in Sibu, Sarawak, and he's a few months younger than I am in the mission. Other than that I don't really know much about him, but I'm excited to pick him up on Thursday. I'm sure we'll have a great companionship.

I'm happy to hear that Johnny likes to read so much. A sure sign of a brilliant Simmons boy. I'll have to teach him Malay when I get home so he and I can have secret brotherly conversations behind your backs. Babies are supposed to be fast at picking that kind of stuff up, right? and if he's already gotten to "shoe" in English, Malay shouldn't be any problem for him at all. :D

I was thinking it was probably cooling off in Utah. Things are just as hot as ever here in Tawau, although people tell us that the cooler season should be starting soon. The big secret is that the cool season is pretty much the same as every other time of the year, so you can feel free to tell people it's just about to start whenever you want! I think the consensus is that there's actually two cooler seasons throughout the year separated by a few months. Who knows!

Other than that it's been a pretty standard week. I'm sad to see Elder Whit go (my little boy has gotten all grown up and is having his first transfer), but that's just part of missionary life. I think he'll do great in Singapore.

Oh! I remembered what I wanted to ask for for Christmas! I think for the first Christmas ever I'm actually hoping to get clothes! The big thing is just a few more pairs of black socks. I seem to have an amazing ability to lose those! And a couple of those broadcloth white shirts would be awesome, those are the best. Also, if you wouldn't mind looking for a thin, fairly inexpensive wallet that would be the icing on the cake. The duct tape wallet may not be surviving a whole lot longer. Seems like a year of Malaysia just makes about anything start to fall apart. And, if one more thing wouldn't be too much, we just got the new movie list and The Emporers New Groove is on it! I love that movie. Would you mind finding a copy? Thank you so much!

Ok, we're going to go search for a beach. I love you so much, wish us luck! Miracles happen every day here in the mission field. Thank you so much for your prayers and faith. The Lord is watching out for us and things are going great.

Love you!
Elder Blissett

Things are easier...Miracles in Tawau

Halo Keluargaku,

That's very strange you didn't get my e-mail until later. We sent it the same time as we usually do! Must have just gotten stuck in the pipes or something.

I can't believe conference is this week! Elder Whittaker and I were talking about it, but we didn't even know when it was supposed to be! That's super exciting. Conference has started to become one of my very favorite parts of the entire year. You really start to get attatched to certain general authorities and I can't wait to hear what they have to say. It's amazing that every 6 months we can hear the most up-to-date instructions from the Lord so easily. It's an unbelievable blessing really! I don't know how we'll see it, but it will probably not be for a couple of weeks. Next week I'll have to try and listen to a couple of talks online though if I get a chance.

Tawau is going great! We have a solid baptism set up for next week and we actually have an entire family right now that's doing awesome. It's really one of the first families I've been able to teach consistently for my whole mission, but they're absolutely awesome. We've been teaching them for a couple of weeks now, and up until our last meeting it was mostly just one of the older daughters who seemed interested. Three of the children and the mother actually came to church on their own this last week though early and stayed for all three hours. At our last meeting we put two of the daughters on baptismal date for October 23 and the parents both say they want to follow as well. So it's going awesome! Thanks so much for your prayers for our investigators, they've really made a difference and please keep praying for this family as well. It's so hard to make this change, but they are very, very close. It's the parents and 5 kids. We're very excited.

We actually had a members daughter who just recently arrived here from Indonesia accept a baptismal date also for October, so hopefully it will be an exciting month. It's unbelievable how the Lord is blessing us, but after four months of hard struggle, things are finally starting to fall into place. Elder Whittaker and I were just knocking doors the other day and meeting some great people when I turned to Elder Whit and said, "Have you noticed that things are just getting a lot easier all of a sudden?" People would talk to us, they were hiding less, more excited to see us, more willing to meet again, everything. He looked back and told me he was afraid to say anything but that he'd noticed it too. It's a huge blessing, and I'm sure we'll still have some hard times ahead, but it's awesome to be able to have things just go right for a while.

So, things are going awesome! We're still striving to rely on the Lord, and we're seeing some real miracles occur. I've grown so much for my time here in Tawau and wouldn't trade being here for anywhere else. The Lord sends us here for a purpose!

I love you so much. Thanks so much for your support. I'm so happy we have a family that is able to enjoy all the blessings of the gospel.

Love you!

Elder Blissett

P.S. You asked what we're doing for food. Elder Whittaker and I have actually been eating lunch and dinner at the apartment most days for the last couple of weeks, so, there's not a whole lot of variety, but I think we're improving every week. This week we're experimenting again with rice and we've been eating a whole lot of eggs. So, learning lots of good skills, right?

Photos!!!

So, it looks like I'm going to be able to send some pictures today, which is awesome! Normally they take too long to load on these computers to send, but it looks like it's going to work this time.



Elder Whittaker and I


Our big biawak (monitor lizard) friend (Elder Whittaker says he was about 6 feet long)








Two pictures of water kampungs (these sweet neighborhoods they build out over the ocean)


A picture of one of the giant ants here (zoom in for the full effect!)




A huge tree by the church




A sign Elder Whittaker and I found at a park here. It's a big list of things you can't do, like, bring your dog, vandalize public facilities, destroy the plants and yup, you guessed it, no "berkelakuan sambung," which means something like "romantic behavior." Public Displays of Affection are actually illegal in Malaysia! Always have to be careful.

First Baptism in Tawau October 9th

Halo Keluargaku,

Well, I have lots of good news to start off. First off, it looks like we're going to have our first baptism here in Tawau on October 9th. Yaaaay! Definitely the best news I could be writing home about. The sister's name is P ***, and she's the daughter of a pretty recent convert here. We were actually teaching here before, but because of a big misunderstanding she and her fiance (now husband) dropped us. But, about a month ago her mom contacted us and told us she wants to learn again, and now, after her wedding last week, she's looking really solid to be baptized. Really excited and super eager to learn. Her mom is awesome and is actually getting ready to go to the temple for the first time this November, so it's a really exciting time all around for their family. It's so nice to be meeting with someone who is so eager to learn. I'll tell you what, there's is nothing in this whole world that cheers a missionary's heart more than asking an investigator to pray and hearing things like, "I want to continue learning about your gospel and go to church every week. I'll keep praying and I believe in thee." So awesome! We're really excited. Keep praying for her though. These few weeks before someone gets baptized can be really hard sometimes, so she'll still need plenty of help.

The other good news is that I found a solution to my shoe problem. Things were looking really bad when we were in KK, and I was honestly terrified that at any second I was going to be socks on pavement. The heels did not hold up as well as I was expecting. So, in desperate times I was driven to (what seemed like) desperate measures. All over the place around bus stations here in Malaysia there's always a pretty good number of older men who hang out on the sidewalk with piles of shoes all around them. They're actually kind of cobblers, but seemed a little
bit sketchy to me, and as I couldn't find a missionary who had ever used one, I was a little wary. But, being in such dire straits, I gave it a shot, and it actually went great. Took about ten minutes, cost me 12 ringgit (less than 4 dollars) and all of a sudden I had nice, newly repaired heels. It doesn't even look that bad. So, it's a good solution for maybe another month or two, plenty of time to get my new shoes. Tragedy averted and lesson learned. Use the old men by the bus stations!

Elder Whittaker and I were sneak attacked by giant ants this week. We were walking through a "kampung" (technically it means village, but kind of like a small neighborhood of houses on stilts) looking for Christians. A few people pointed us down a path, and Elder Whittaker, observing that a low hanging limb had ants on it, was very careful to cross without disturbing them. Unfortunately he tripped and smacked the branch, follwed immediately by me triping in the exact same spot and hitting the branch again. At first there didn't seem to be any problem, until Elder Whittaker looked down and saw his arm was covered with giant ants. About the time I saw him start spinning in circles and smacking his body, I started to feel a stinging on various parts of my body and started spinning around as well, dropping everything and smacking every ant I could see. So, after about five minutes of that, we were safe (except for some insect juices on our clothes) and surrounded by what seemed like over 100 dead ant bodies. We're lucky Malaysian ant bites don't itch or leave big marks or we'd be in real trouble. The strangest thing is though there were people all around us watching these two crazy "orang putih" spinning around in circles, going crazy and smacking themselves all over, and they didn't do anything about it. Not even laugh! They all just stood around and watched. It was very strange. Elder Whittaker and I both found ant bodies in our clothes that night.

We're working with a Filipino family right now who are doing great. Three of the kids at least are lined up to come to church right now, and the oldest daughter seems really interested. Has a lot of real intent and is just willing to try and learn for herself if the message is true. We're really excited about it and are hoping it signals some more baptisms soon!

KK was awesome. We ate a lot of McDonalds/Burger King/Whatever American food we could find. It was exceedingly delicious. Zone Conference was great (like always) and district conference was especially fun. The member of the Area Presidency there was an Seventy named Elder Subandrio, who is actually from Indonesia. It was surprisingly exciting to hear a major church authority speaking Indonesian and just made me realize how much progress this part of the world is going to make in the church. Who would ever think that one of your Malaysian recent converts might someday become a Seventy. It's hard to imagine now, but it's bound to happen someday!

I'm absolutely loving the work! I know that this church really is the Savior's church here on the earth today, led by Him. There's no doubting it when you spend as much with the gospel as a missionary. It gets more clear everyday.

I love you all so much, I'm so glad things are going awesome at home. We actually got to talk to the daughter of a member this week who was at school at LDS Business College in Salt Lake. She just came back here about a week ago. It was crazy to talk to someone who just came from my home, but super fun. She might be staying here in Malaysia, but if she goes back I'll be sure to give her our number or something so that you guys can take her out to dinner or something and talk to her all about Malaysia. Very cool.

Florida sounds awesome, we'll have to make another trip sometime!

I love you so much. The church is true, and I'm so grateful that we can enjoy it together as a family. That's one of the greatest blessings we could receive.

Love you! Talk to you soon!

Elder Blissett