so, a typical day? wake up, maybe go running, shower (its all very exciting) for breakfast i usually have cereal, big surprise. They have interesting cereal here. no malt o meal :( but they have these honey flakes, that are so. good. oh yeah. but i think we are going to start to make a lot of rice with veggies and stuff, because it is so cheap. and then i can have rice and milk and sugar for breakfast, i'm very excited for that.

when we tract, we ride our bikes to this place called sentosa, and it is mostly iban houses. a lot of them are really run down, just boards. and we sit on the floor a lot, but it like it. a lot missionaries have calluses on their ankles from it, i can't wait for that.
when we were contacting, mostly people just invite us in and listen, i think because we are white. there are no white people around. when you see another white person, its like whoa, double take. but its kind of nice, we don't get a lot of door slams, either people ignore us or let us in. And they always give us something to drink, juice or coke ( i know, i had coke for the first time, but what can you do?) and a lot of the time crackers or cookies. they are really nice people
and yeah, we just do that, and give lessons. right now i'm just learning, so i'm not a big part, but i'm getting a little bit better.

and this ramli burger place just opened in our area of sentosa,i'm so excited. ramli burgers may be the best thing about malaysia, and i've only ever had two. it is just a burger that is wrapped in a fried egg (yum) with chili sauce and cheese, and the best bun you have ever had. and one stand even put these thin slices of cucumber on it, so so good. i want to send a picture for taste for taste maybe.
so hopefully, now with that stand, we can add a lot more ramli burgers to our week.

i finally made it to Malaysian!
so far things have been o.k. i am in sibu, which is in east Malaysia (Sarawak, for all you geography nuts out there, and i know your out there) its a city, though not that big or too busy. Apparently it has grown a lot recently, it just became its own district, with three different branches, two iban, one Chinese.

what is iban, you say? i will tell you. they are the native people of Borneo(the whole island, of which east Malaysia is a part--I'm sorry, geography is important to me) and they used to be headhunters a generation ago. oh yeah.
but they are the main reason the language is so messed up here.

so i technically learned Indonesian the mtc, because they don't print anything in Malay, the reason for that is because Islam people here in Malaysia feel very strongly about what they consider 'their words' (aka allah, see recent news, under 'christian church bombings') so we don't have a book of Mormon or anything, and the missionaries learn Indonesian. But once we get out here, we speak Malay. but in sibu, we are teaching the ibans, whose native language is iban.

hmm, what else? This mission is the best mission ever, here are a few reasons why

4.clothes. what you wear doesn't really matter, because people wear whatever they want all the time. basically anything looks nice. And we get to wear sandals all the time!

3.Missionary houses are pretty nice here. we live in a house the church rents from some Chinese people (the Chinese are the wealthy people here) four sisters, two stories, two bathrooms, washer, wood floors, need i go on?

2.Our beds are huge! easily queen sized, mine my even be a king. No one wanted it because it was the hardest one, but i like it.

1.the best thing? the thing that will forever seal Malaysia as the best mission? we can watch Rocky. not even joking, it is on the approved movie list, oh yeah.

Note from Dad, Renee' flew out to Singapore on 4 Jan 2010. We hope everything is well. We got a chance to talk to her before she left Salt Lake.

here is a tip about how to make your mtc stay a more enjoyable one. Use your resources. The computers here only connect to one website, lds.org. you would be surprised that you can actually do a lot of stuff from it. Let's first talk about how awesome mormon messages are. When we first got here, the mongolian missionaries next door made us watch the one about creativity. (its really good by the way) apparently, they have seen it like twenty times or something. My favorite is when an elder says, oh, the music gets so good right here, and then he pretends like he is leading an orchestra, priceless. And the thanksgiving one, so good, sometimes we quote it (embarrassing? maybe). So when the Christmas one came out, it was like an event, akin to a cd release or movie premier. We all gathered in one room with snacks from missionary packages and turned off the lights. It was pretty exciting, and the movies was pretty good too. I hope I still wait for new mormon messages when i'm off my mission.

Also we found out how to get on to youtube from lds.org. And before divulge this information, I have to say with great power comes great responsibility, and this power must only be used for good, never for evil. Here's how, if you watch a movie from youtube, a mormon message or somesuch, a searchbar to youtube pops up. Mostly we listen to the tabernacle choir, it is all very exciting.

But we happened to stumble upon something called, i think, awesome organ solo. And it is!(solo with your feet, anyone?) I wish i could send you a link, but diffinetly go search for it. It is someone playing 'go tell it on the mountain' on the conference center organ. it changed the way i feel about the organ permenantly. who know mormons had a little 'soul in them?

and just for the record, we don't just watch movies all day. These things are few and far between. Its the little things that make the mtc fun, like having a thirty minute yoga class every gym. elders doing yoga is fun. and interesting. But until next week, which will be my last mtc post!
and of course, selamat hari kristmas!

I like the mtc. mormons are nice and they are funny sometimes, and mormon missionaries are even nicer and funnier.
So I was waiting for my elders so we could go to gym, and I was waiting by these couches in my building where some of the 'spanish' missionaries study and practice. Across the room were some missionaries teaching to an empty chair, or so I thought. Someone else walked by and said, familia de quatro, si? and my mind said, family of four, what is he talking about? I decided to investigat. As it turns out, they had stolen three apples and an orange from the cafeteria, drawn on faces (one complete with moustache) and attached toothpick arms. Una familia de quatro. But that isn't the whole story. I decided to eavesdrop a bit. So, an elder said, "did you guys get a chance to read the book of mormon?" "Oh, great! how did you feel about it?" Then the other elder whispered, "what are they saying?" first elder whispered back,"they read it, they find it a bit overwhelming"
for some reason, that story always makes me laugh, i hope I told it funny enough.
But things like that make the mtc really fun. Also taking jedi master pictures with real light sabers. Hopefully I can send you some of those. they are as awesome as they sound.

hi family. I just found out about tracy's baby, I can't believe she is almost a week old aready! just mira nuttall, no middle name? what color is her hair? I couldn't open the pictures thay are blocked please, please put some in the mail, i'm dying!

things here are going a-o-k. my sister companions left this week, which was sad. now i'm companions with these other sisters who are way nice, but I think they think that i'm crazy. you win some you lose some i guess.

Elder Holland came and spoke to us today, it was so cool. He talked about how much his mission meant to him, pretty powerful stuff. Elder Oaks spoke to us on tuesday, talk about a double whamie. Listening to apostles is like nothing else.

language is coming good though. its has a really cool set up, like nothing i've heard before. can i bear my testimony to you guys?

saya tahu bahawa Allah adalah bapa syurga kita, dan dia menyayangi kita. -i know that God is our Heavenly Father, and he loves us

saya tahu bahawa Yesus Kristus adalah juruselamat dan penebus untuk manusia, dan Dia menderita bagia dosa-dosa kita. -I know that Jesus Christ is our Saviour and Redeemer, and He suffered for our sins.

saya tahu bahawa Joseph Smith seorang nabi Allah, dan dia mendirikan gereja serta injil Yesus Kristus. -I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, and he restored the church and gospel of Jesus Christ.

saya tahu bahawa Kitab Mormon adalah benar, dan berisi firman Allah. -I know that the Book of Mormon is true, and it contains the word of God

saya tahu bahawa kita ada seorang nabi yang hidup di dunia ini pada hari ini namanya, Thomas S. Monson. -I know we have a living prophet on earth today, his name is Thomas S. Monson

dalam nama Yesus Kristus, amin

i'm the only missionary, elder or sister, going to singapore! I'm what's called a 'solo' sister, i have two english speaking sister companions, and two indonesian speaking elder 'companions'. They are really good, very spiritual and focused. But they are both from hawaii, so they know how to have fun too.
we have devotionals every tuesday, and elder william walker spoke at my first one! he is a temple director or something, so he talked all about temples, and showed a lot of pictures. I haven't been to the temple for over a week, i feel like its been so long! but we are going later today, and i am so excited.
I like the way the MTC feels too, tons of missionaries all trying to do their best and all pretty focused. it is really cool to be able to experience it. a once in a lifetime thing.
but it seems like you, mom and dad, are doing good, and your missionary work is going well. I'm really, really grateful that I was lead to make the choices i made, that I don't have to worry about anything like that at all.
i love you both, and i love being a missionary so far. talk to you later!