Thanksgiving in Malaysia ! ! !

happy thanksgiving everyone, the day has finally arrived!

this year i am particularly excited, I'm not sure why, maybe it was all those praise and thanksgiving hymns. but it is turning into a pretty good thanksgiving. we live right above the senior couple here, and so me and sister lim and elder and sister reidt are cooking everything and all the elders are coming over and we are going to hang out all day and play games and stuff. and sister reidt already made apple and pumpkin pies yesterday, and lemon today, so basically, I'm so excited! so even though I'm far away from my real family (sniff sniff, i love you guys..) it sort of feels like a family here, and it is nice. it would be sweet to have Christmas here too. we almost didn't have thanksgiving though. first we were going to have it on Thursday, then the zone leaders were being all weird, so fine, we'll have it on pday, but there wasn't enough time to make all the stuff, and we tried switching pday and we weren't allowed, and then it ended up being me and sister lim going to the market for exercise yesterday morning to get all the stuff for pies, and now its today and it is going to be good. the funny thing is, the zone from miri is having their thanksgiving on Friday, because that is Thursday in America. weird. oh well i don't care, I'd rather hang out all day and not feel guilty about not working. ah, missionary life.

in other news, me and sister lim are excited because there is a baptism on Saturday! and for the first time my whole mission, a family is getting baptized, all together. cool, huh? sulin, simbut, and their son, david. they are such a cool family. they got interviewed for their baptism yesterday, and the wife, simbut, was nervous and it was so cute. she was telling us when she was in school, she would cheat all the time and write the answers on her hand and have signals with her friends during tests and stuff. oh yeah. when we went over the questions with them, they were trying to memorize all the steps of the gospel and everything, which is funny, because that's not even part of the questions. simbut is so funny, when we were teaching the ten commandments, she was telling her eight year old son, read this, honor thy father and thy mother, do you see that? she said. haha i really love that family. so they are getting baptized this Saturday along with this Chinese girl we've been teaching, Ah Mei, she is twenty-five. i really like her, she is so quiet, and her Malay is not that good, and her mandarin isn't that good either, she speaks hokkien Chinese. (i never knew languages were such a big barrier before i got here) but between our Malay and sister lim's Chinese we taught her (thank goodness she understands the Chinese book of Mormon) she is so quiet, and really shy, because her Malay is not good, and we were worried for her interview, because before when we asked her what repentance means, she would just say 'pray', and she would say it in Chinese. 'yeah', we'd say, 'that is definitely part of it...' but when we went over the questions with her on Monday, she did beautifully, we are really excited for her, too. her dad is coming to the baptism. sometimes he listens in on our lessons, and he told us he could come to church after Chinese new year, so we will see. (but he said that after he heard us teaching about tithing, so that's pretty good)

i have a lot more to tell you, but i will save some for the letter. things are going really good right now. our district leader is sort of on fire right now, and he is getting us excited about the work, its a really good feeling. we went out to lunch with our whole zone, and right there in the restaurant, he got us two new investigators. what?! but i know right as i feel like the work is going so good and things are coming together, i can feel a transfer or something coming on.. but whatever, i got to see sulin and simbut's baptism, so that is enough. and it has taken me so long to feel this way, to feel confident in the language, to feel more confident as a missionary that with our faith we can make miracles come about. but it was definitely worth it to slog through all the bad times and hard stuff to finally feel this way. sometimes i don't want to go to sleep because i want to enjoy the feeling a little longer.

anywho, family, i love you, enjoy your thanksgiving!

Sister Harrison

Is this much fun legal?

hi mom and dad and everyone,

kuching is doing good and things are moving along. last week we only got two new investigators, which for this area, is not good, its a really low number. so this week we've been trying to do better, our goal is one new investigator a day, and we got one on Monday, and one on Tuesday, so far so good. we met a really cool girl yesterday, we knocked on her door, just said basically that we were from our church, and she let us right in, and got us Milo to drink, we shared a little bit, and she was very happy for us to come back. what?! that is all you could ever hope for when you are contacting. we almost didn't go knocking too because we didn't have that much time. crazy. seriously, the people are just prepared to hear the gospel, every day it is a testimony builder to me. i mean, sure, there are tons of people who just start shaking there heads when you try to talk to them and people who pretend they aren't home and everything, and then there are people who just let you right in.

yesterday was actually a pretty fun day, our last appointment was a birthday party for one of our investigators, Ah Mei, she is Chinese. we didn't have that much time so we were eating pretty fast, they made steamboat for us, which is a pot of boiling soup in the middle of the table, and you cook meat and veggies and stuff in it, so delicious. so we said, uh, sorry, we have to go.. and they said, no no, the cake, you have to sing to her! so they brought out the cake and we sang, and then we were stuffing the cake into our mouths, and i started sneezing like ten times, and it was almost our curfew, and we were running around a little like chickens with our heads cut off. and then sister Lim made me help her finish her cake because she couldn't. we were so full, because we had just had two appointments before where they fed us. yay for missionary work. it was a fun night and we rode home in record time. we were really glad we went because it was just her family and us, not that many people came. it was really nice, it felt like we were a part of her family. but don't worry, i still remember who my real family is, i love you family, and i miss you,

sister Harrison

Thanksgiving, Success and Singing

hi family

dang, sometimes i feel so far away.. Asher is going to school, what? Harrison can not only walk, but talk, too, what?! I've officially been out for a year now, i hope Xena still remembers me! anyway, the holiday season is officially underway here. I've been celebrating thanksgiving this whole month of November. "celebrating thanksgiving" means that when it is my turn to pick the hymn for companionship study, i choose from the 'praise and thanksgiving' section of the hymnbook. i just discovered that section, and let me tell you, this thanksgiving season is going to be a really good one.

anyway, we have had some good things and some bad things go on here in our little kuching world. we have some baptisms coming up, and for me it is the first family that i have ever taught, so i am really really excited about it. the wife, Simbut, just recently opened up and she loves church, and is reading the book of Mormon, when before, she would just sit and listen and her husband was the one to talk to all of us. so Sulin is the husband and Simbut is the wife and David is their son, he's eight. they are really cool and will get baptized in a couple of weeks. bad things, a family we have been working with for a long time, reni and tedong, we stopped by once a couple of weeks ago and they were drunk, i might have told you about that. last Saturday we had a really good lesson with them, they really want this in their life but struggling to make the changes. so that was way good, but then on Sunday, they didn't come to church. oh well, we are seeing them tonight, i will tell you how it goes.

oh one last cool story. last week we had some time because and appointment fell through so we knocked a couple of doors in that same apartment complex. usually knocking there isn't that great, it has a lot of Chinese (in my limited knowledge of the Chinese language, i know how to say, 'we're Buddhist' -wo men pai sin-) but we knocked just two houses. one had a girl named tracy, who actually said we could come back, and when we did, she was so good. she has lots of good questions, and has talked to lots of people from lots of different churches, which is usually a good sign. then yesterday when we gave her a book of Mormon, she got out her bible and stuff, and she already had a really old book of Mormon in her house. i seriously couldn't believe it. i guess it was her dad's, who lives in bintulu, which is like nine hours away. crazy! but she is cool, and i hope good things happen with her. if she gets baptized and if reni and tedong get baptized, those are the two craziest stories of how we found them. that would be really cool.

anyway family, i love you, i hope you have a good thanksgiving season, feed my picture some corn again??

sister Harrison

PS i made up a song on my bike that turned out pretty good, I'll share it with you. it goes to the tune of "my favorite things" from sound of music. enjoy

kitabs and bug bites and biking in dresses

sunshine and tan lines and sweaty blonde tresses

visiting Ibans and making them sing,

these are a few of my favorite things

oh malaysia, when i leave you,

i will be so sad,

but if i remember my favorite things,

then i don't feel so bad.

rice, chicken curry, and endless, hot summer

can't teach the Muslims, its really a bummer

and in melayu they haven't a thing,

Malaysia Malaysia makes me want to sing

oh Malaysia, when i leave you

i will feel so sad,

but if i remember my favorite things

then i don't feel so bad

Mufflers Hurt !!

hi family,

just another little weekly update. still here in kuching, still doing missionary work. oh yeah. still learning a lot. i woke up today, and i was just so happy, so i must be doing something right. we saw this family last night, Sulin and Simbut and their son, David, and they are so good. last week we saw them and talked to them about baptism, and they weren't really that sure about it, Simbut, the wife, said she was afraid of cold water. but they went to church and really really liked it. and when we saw them yesterday, we came in, sat down, and they asked us when they were getting baptized. awesome, we had this whole lesson prepared talking about the gospel, and why we need to be baptized, and if they wanted to get baptized at the end of the month, but bam, at the beginning, they asked, and we said, how about the 26th? awesome. this is the first family I've taught that really wants to get baptized and is really excited about it. it is so cool. dang, what a good gospel.

in other news, i burned my leg on a moto muffler last night, one was behind me, that i just was still hot, and i stepped back, and bam. that is the second time that has happened on my mission, the last time was in sibu, same scenario. ouch. now I'm going to have twin scars on the back of my leg. excellent. but everybody here has scars from motos, seriously everybody. so I'm glad i fit in that way.

today for pday sister lim was nice enough to let us go to the church, and she wrote letters while i just played the piano for like an hour and a half. i really miss the piano, i could remember a lot of stuff though, some pieces i memorized forever ago, and sort of a lot of that Ben folds stuff that i always used to play. good times, i didn't realize how much i missed it. so we may be at the church every pday after this.. haha.

okay family, i love you, have a good week,

sister Harrison