P-Day and Christmas

hi mom and dad!

well, today is p-day, and as dad has requested, i will give you a little run down of how p-days go. the highlight of p-day, is, of course, email, and we either do it at the couple's house, they live below us, or we go to an Internet cafe, which is cheap, but usually full of Chinese teen aged boys playing shooting games with the sound turned all the way up. whatever. we go shopping, and sometimes the couple will even take us to get groceries, nice, huh? we have a washing machine, but we can do laundry on any day of the week. no dryer, though, so we just hang up our clothes to dry. usually we hang out with the missionaries in our zone, they live kind of far, but within a bike ride. we go bowling or to a museum, we went to an orangutan reserve once, pretty cool. and sometimes, sister lim lets us go to the church so i can play the piano, dang, mom and dad, i am really getting into the piano here. i mean, i don't really have time to play it except the occasional p-day, but i bet i could play for hours if i had the chance. i wonder if that will keep going when i'm home and have a piano all the time, i can't even imagine.

so we usually go out for the morning and come back in the afternoon, because we can watch some movies that are approved, so we just watch, write letters, and at six thirty we go out again for appointments with investigators. but we usually just have two appointments, and then come home again. its pretty nice. today is a little different because sister lim is sick, kind of fevery, so we'll just take it easy today.

but we are getting excited for Christmas, because we didn't get transferred! hooray! i was sure they were going to, but it didn't happen. so it looks like we get to be here together for a few more weeks. our mission doesn't have regular transfers because we get missionaries from two different mtcs, Provo and Philippines, plus Chinese elders and people going on visa runs all the time just messes things up. the next missionaries leave in a few weeks, so there will be transfers then, and then another transfer in a couple weeks more. so you never know! but we are here for Christmas, and that will be really fun. probably new year's too, i want to still be here for Chinese new year too, because we have a Chinese recent convert, but that is stretching a little bit. we'll see.

something really cool happened this week too. on Sunday, two new investigators, Akie and Vanessa, came to church. we went to see them that night, but akie wasn't there, and Vanessa was crying and all upset, i think akie drinks, and she wanted to go back and stay with her parents. we saw them again on Monday, taught the word of wisdom, akie said he wanted to try to follow it, even though he has big problems with smoking and drinking. we saw them again last night, and we asked akie why he wants to learn, why he wants to go to church, and do you know what he said? that he wants to change and help his family, and he thinks that this, that going to church is going to make all the difference. we taught them about the gospel, and they were really into the lesson, you could tell by their body language. I'm really excited for their family. that is all it takes, you know, to want to change and have the faith, which obviously they have. we were reading 1 nephi 3.7 with them, and i was explaining the story a little bit, but Vanessa already knew the whole story, it was awesome, Ibans are not big readers, that is for sure, and they don't have a lot of reading comprehension, so when somebody actually reads and knows the story, it is so so awesome. we have this one investigator, who does read, but whenever we ask her what verse she liked, she picks the weirdest verses, like, i, nephi was told by my father to do this and the, and she says, yeah, this verse, i really like this one. hahaha.. another funny thing about ibans while we are on the subject, they have no concept of time. when we meet people who have met the missionaries, we always ask them, when was that, how long ago? and they always always say, i bet it has been two or three months ago for sure, when you know that missionary hasn't been here for one or two years, at least. oh yeah, our recent convert, dorina, always says, i think its almost been a year since i was baptized. yeah a year, maybe in like eight more months. hahaha, got to love the ibans.

i love you family!

Golden Kampung

this has been a crazy week, because it is the last installation of the missionary leadership training, and all the missionaries from East Malaysia are here in kuching for it. right now there are exactly forty two missionaries in East Malaysia, and forty two in West Malaysia and Singapore, crazy. and six sister missionaries in one apartment at one time, lets just say that we didn't exactly get to bed at eleven o'clock, ha 2. the conference was good, except that i had to give a talk on the purpose of missionary (i swear i speak at every conference) . also the zone leaders decided it would be a good idea to have it at their chapel, pretty much a forty five minute bike ride from where we live, hooray. (can i just say, just after biking from there, that kuching is huge? we just biked forty five minutes from there, and forty five minutes the other way is still in our area! )

later this week me and sister lim are going to the youth conference to talk to the young women about missionary work, and then this weekend is district conference, for all the branches in kuching. triple conference week. district conference is always a little stressful because its at a weird place at a different time, and you have to get it all worked out with your investigators, and then, they have a 'welcoming meeting' after conference for all the recent converts and investigators, and there is the mission president and assistants, seeing how many of your people showed up. oh well, it only happens twice a year anyway, but somehow I've already been through four of them...

if sister lim and i stay in kuching we are getting a ten ringgit Christmas tree and going to have an awesome Christmas! we find out on Friday if any of us are getting transferred....

this email is sort of a mish mash of thoughts going through my head right now, but i did want to tell you one kind of crazy story. so my district leader has been telling me for awhile that there is a kampung (like a group of Iban houses) in my area that i don't know about, and he wanted to show us where it was. it never worked out, but finally yesterday me and sister lim had some time and he explained where it was and we went kampung hunting. it involved going down this secret road through the jungle behind this huge Methodist church, past all these Muslim houses, across the high way, then he said to just look for the lane between the factories. we found it, and i had actually been there once before with sister seve, when i first got here, but i had completely forgotten how to get there. so what it was was a narrow little lane between a brick wall and a barbed wire fence, that just kept going back and back and back, and then, it opened up, and there, between the walls of these two factories, all these iban houses. Insane. but a member lives there and we went to see her, and then we went to the very end and started to knock all the doors. and get this, 1, 2, 3, 4, every house we knocked on said we could come back. we only had time to knock four though, so i can't wait to try the rest. so instead of a golden investigator, we found a golden kampung! we are seeing most of them on Sunday, so we will see. i got a picture of that little lane, just wait till you see it, its crazy. it feels good to have some new investigators though, and pretty sweet to start working in a new area, too. can you believe i have been in kuching for six months already? gosh, i can't believe it.

well, i hope you have a really good Christmas season, December is flying by... i love you, mom and dad! stay safe in the snow, okay? and i will live up my first Christmas on the equator.

love, sister Harrison

Ha Ha, Sister Sugi

my dearest family,

dang, family, last week was like the best week i have ever had on my mission so far. an awesome baptism, (my first family!) Sulin, Simbut, and David Maxwell, and Ah Mei. then, Sunday night, we went to teach sulin and simbut's friends who have been learning, Robert and Norena. First of all, Sulin was still in his shirt and tie, so freaking sweet, and the lesson went really well, they are working towards baptism and have stopped drinking coffee and tea (hooray!) not only that, but they introduced us to their friends who just moved in, Akie and Vanessa (and their son is named Tomas Moroni Gudam, no joke). they are interested too. after that lesson, i felt like everything, everything, hard things and working everyday and trials and everything was worth it just to be there for that moment. to see how the gospel has touched the lives of these people, to see them open up to it, to be their friends and laugh with them, there is no comparison. it was like nothing else. so yes, i will be so sad if i get transferred. but mom and dad, if you come here, i will take you to their house. when sulin beared his testimony after his baptism, i almost cried it was so good. he said he felt like he started a brand new life, he was grateful for the gospel, and then, he said, in effect, he was grateful for me and sister lim coming and bringing the commandments to him. Simbut's testimony was so cute, she said before she was afraid, but now she's not afraid anymore, and that was it. what a cool family. you think it couldn't get better, but it does. Our district leader, elder sugi, was the one who interviewed them for baptism, and actually he was the one to baptize them. and yes, they call him sister sugi. so freaking sweet.

there is not really anything else to say, except I'm sending the Christmas present today, so look out for that. oh yeah, and some how, incredibly, i think I'm getting better at the piano. sometimes i play on p days, but i can kind of play by ear now, i figured out how to play the beginning of the 'lean on me song' not only by ear but also by memory, because I'm sure i haven't heard it in over a year. so that's kind of a cool little blessing. I'll tell you one thing, since I've been on the mission I've decided that i want to get really good at the piano, and i want to get really good at sewing, and i want to run a marathon, but I'll leave all those things till later.

i love you family!

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