Hey guys I am in Sabah now, a very beautiful country of it's own. And I say that not because Sabah is it's own country, but how different it is from everything else. Try thinking of a highly populated Muslim country, where you meet a bunch of Filipinos and the shops look like they're from Thailand. It's pretty foreign from anything I've been to, so I guess I'm taking a 3-4 month break from Malaysia and I'm in the Philippines for a while. :)
Anyway, this week
has been a pretty intense week emotionally and physically. First of all
the departure from Bintulu. I have never been so torn from someone
before having to leave Bintulu. On Monday and Tuesday I was able to keep
myself together, even though Evelyn my recent convert cried as I was
saying my good byes with her.
Monday night, which was my
bday, we had family home evening over at Martha's house. Mazura made me a
cake made out of potatoes, which I thought was fitting seeing I'm from Idaho, lol. That was a kind gesture though. :)
Tuesday I spent some time
with Semia and Robecca and Mazura. They asked me to cook cookies with
them one more time before I left. That was a lot of a fun, especially
getting heckled for the last time before I went to Sabah. They also asked me to come
over for dinner that night, and so I went off to see Evelyn first and
then went back. (that's the hard part for Tuesday, trying to explain how
missionaries have to leave eventually. She feels abandoned. I called
her today though and she is doing a little bit better)
For dinner that night, they
went pretty all out. They got the most expensive rice for me and some of
the most expensive chicken from a restaurant similar to KFC. They're so
awesome. :)
Then
Wednesday I literally went everywhere. I could list everyone's names,
but I realize that names don't really mean much to you guys, but
needless to say I was all over the place.
My last two houses were
Bujang's and Martha's. I stayed at Bujang's for maybe half an hour. They
gave me ice cream on a bun (a popular thing in Malaysia)...So just to
let you know, Bujang is the father-in-law of one of my recent converts. I
saw this family go from less active to one of the strongest families in
the branch. I was able to hold myself together until I said the closing
prayer, in which I couldn't help myself from crying.. Then went to
Martha's one last time, and they wanted to play games with me, so we
played some games, and then as I was saying goodbye to Martha, I cried
for probably half an hour. I sound like a baby, don't I? But seriously
this is my family in Bintulu. Something that happens when you stay in an
area forever is you get super attached to the people...
The worst part
was they had a party for Stewart and Shorts (the other 2 elders
moving), and so I came in the church trying to maintain myself, but then
they started singing Allah Sertamu Selalu (God be with you) and I just
couldn't maintain myself. It was a pretty rough departure. I've never
met a people so loving and caring in my life. Ibans are truly the
best...
So Martha helped me to the airport on Thursday
morning. she gave me a book of remembrance with a bunch of notes to
remember her by, and also a little beaded decoration that I can put in
my car or just on the wall. (still looking for a place to hang
it)...She's the best. Gonna miss her a lot.
The plane ride was nothing to mention, although I
must say that the airport in Sandakan is the jankiest airport ever. It
is so broken down, and I even saw a bat fly in the roof.
My
new companion, Elder Jahali is awesome. Super funny too. When we're
together, things get pretty interesting. He is also a super huge help in
learning Malay and Iban cuz I have to figure out how to say things
around the house that I've never had to think about saying when teaching
people. So it's a good learning experience.
He says he'll help me get super good at Iban in the next 3 months.
Speaking of which, I might just be here for 4 months, that's the average for most missionaries in Sandakan. Not very long.
So...we
don't have a phone right now. Elder Madsen accidentally took it to the airport with him, and he left it with the zone leaders in Kota Kinabalu (KK), so we gotta
wait till Thursday for the zone leaders to come.
So many times we just had to
walk to people's places with no set appointment, and usually they are
busy, but sometimes they've let us in. It's been a very long, tiring
week. I haven't walked this much in a very long time.
The branch is good too. Maybe
not as naughty as Bintulu though, but it's a lot easier to work with
them. There are a few return missionaries too that are willing to help.
One of them speaks broken Spanish with his family, so I've gotten to
speak some Spanish too. Time to dust off that Spanish in my brain.
The majority of the branch is Filipino and Chinese. There are some other mixes in there of native
people like Dusun and Kadazan, but its mostly Filipino, so we actually
use a lot of English here.
uhm.... yeah that's about it.
Today for p-day we already played badminton and futsal. I got destroyed
in badminton (playing against people that play every single day probably)
but we won in futsal, which was super super fun. I'm getting better at
it. :)
anyway that's it... it's getting pretty late. its almost 4pm already. see you guys later. :)
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