Renee' Sees her first Cockroach !

hi family!
this last week was very eventful. number one, last week i got four flat tires! one on Sunday, one on Tuesday, one on Thursday, and one on Saturday. crazy town. two in the front and two in the back. and i know what all of you bikers are thinking, and i did check for nails and such in the tire. turns out the back tire had a pretty big hole that was causing some problems, but that i couldn't really do anything about. but then i found a spare tire laying around, so i put that on yesterday, and so far, so good, no flat tires. but now my brakes are all messed up, somehow i cant get them 'perfectly aligned' when i put the stupid tire on. gears and brakes just make life more difficult, (can i hear a holla for fixed gear?) but this bike has done pretty good by me so far, so I'm not complaining. in other news, we also moved this week, the elders moved out of their apartment, and we moved in because it is closer to our area. menjigitkan. which means disgusting. that apartment was so dirty, but we spent a morning cleaning, and now it looks a lot better. (the only problems now are getting hot water and bugs, i saw my very first cockroach in Malaysia in this apartment) but we do live by both of the senior couples, which is awesome, sometimes they make us dinner when we come home, and they let us use their computer for email, woot woot!

but enough about that. missionary work is doing really good too. we were teaching these two girls, Nancy and Florence. they work at the mall, and we were going to drop them because they hardly have any time to see us, and they couldn't get work off on Sunday. so out of the blue yesterday, on our way to lunch, we got a call from Florence, and she wanted us to come over and teach. so we said, okay, sure. we went over, it was a good lesson (we taught it at the mall, in the food court) we asked them again about church, and for some reason, now they can come, take work off for a few hours. we were so surprised, we seriously were about to drop them, and they just blew us out of the water. they are so cool, they gave us free Milo (which is delicious, sort of a mix between nesquick and hot chocolate) and they are excited to come to church and have us over and everything. awesome!

so yeah, kuching is doing good. missionary work is going, like it always does, i don't know where the time goes. sister richey has almost been home for four months now, and she is getting married in September! and sister petty goes home next week, and sister seve two weeks after that. dang, my companions don't stay around for long after i am done with them. we will see about this next one..

but i love you family, i'm always thinking about you, good luck to Tracy about the bar, the last day is today, right? love you family!

sister Harrison

PS. parents, you are going to Dustin's weddding this weekend? well, just so you know, a sister from this mission, sister Goodwin, is from his stake! her little sister is going to be a bridesmaid at his wedding, she is good friends with his fiance. i bet her parents will be there too. so if you want, you should look for her. her little sister is really blonde. sister Goodwin is awesome, we lived in the same house in sibu in my very first month. but anyway, have fun at the wedding, and tell Dustin hi and congratulations!

Books and Baptisms

hi family,

as you probably heard from my subject line, there is big news in the Indonesian language department. there is a new Indonesian book of Mormon! it doesn't sound like much, but it is big big news. the old book of Mormon is good, but a really hard translation, it uses tons of deep Indonesian words that even Indonesians don't understand. and as people here speak Malay, it was hard for them to understand scriptures in lessons and chapters they would read on their own. so now there is a brand new one, and it looks super nice, it has cross references and an index and an introduction, all of which the old one didn't have. we will have copies of it maybe in a month. and news on the Malay translation of the book of Mormon, they are in second nephi, hooray! so maybe in about a million more years they will be done. i don't understand why there is no rush to get materials in Malay, it is super frustrating. but this book of Mormon is enough for me, i really think people will really like it and be able to understand it.

in other news, we are having two baptisms this Saturday! one is a girl who is eleven and one is a really old man. he was supposed to get baptized last week, but he smoked one cigarette last Wednesday, so it is this Saturday. we bought grandpa (the old man) these really strong candy lozenge things to eat when he wants to smoke. we took him over to the house, and the family started to eat them, i hope he has enough left to last to his baptism.

i just got the family letters yesterday, thank you Kim, i think that was the best idea ever. it sounds like everyone is doing good and has cool things happening in their lives. I'm super jealous about the Jamie/lance bike trip, and about all the swimming lessons the nieces and nephews are getting.. (its been a long time since i went swimming, but i have been biking, so i can't complain) and i heard Kim and Byron found a house.. does it have a pool? because i have a sneaking suspicion that there are going to be a lot of road trips next year..

anywho, things are going good here. its still hot here, but i really think I'm getting used to it. i hardly even notice it anymore. do you know what that means? I'm going to die the next time I'm in Utah for winter. before i always prided myself on my thick blood, but now my blood is as thin as they come. when i get out of bed to say my prayers in the morning, the air con freezes me to the max. what am i going to do?

so family, i love you tons. have a good week, I'll see you on the flip side

love, sister Harrison

Gotta love the Chickens

hi family!

i really can't say anything, i have the best family in the world. best support under the sun. things here in kuching are going pretty swimmingly. on Monday we had to drop half of the people we had on baptism date. they went to the Methodist church two weeks in a row, gah. but i explain more about that in my letter. we also found some pretty promising people, one family who is super excited to come to church. so even though we had to drop people, they were replaced by better people, so the work goes on, and life is good.

this weekend grandpa is getting baptized. he is the grandpa of a really awesome, active family. he is the one who is the old iban man who can't here very well. but he stopped smoking, and comes to church in style every week. to teach him, we speak in Malay, and his family yells iban into his ear. yesterday the district leader and the zone leader gave him his baptismal interview, because they are okay at iban. we could basically hear the whole thing because they had to yell the whole time. the best part was the zl asked if he ever killed anyone (i guess they didn't know 'commit a serious crime' in Iban), he said no. they he asked if he had killed any chickens, and he said, 'i can't lie, I've killed a lot of chickens in my time' haha. that is for real. one time we were in the house and he was doing this Iban tradition, he had a chicken and was sort of waving it around and saying stuff in Iban, and then they killed it. they did kill it in another room, but they had the blood in these Tupperware containers. awesome.

anywho, he is getting baptized on Friday. we were filling out his baptismal record, he doesn't remember his birthday or year, he doesn't remember when he was married, it took him awhile to remember his dad's full name. family history here would almost be impossible, just wait for the millennium. that will be a really cool baptism, I'm excited for it.

in other news, we are getting two brand new missionaries here, and one is becca's friend, willem kampenhout. i haven't met him yet, but he is going to be in my same district, so that will be awesome. what a small world. he is going to love kuching, it would be an awesome place to start your mission.

so I'm just working on teaching and talking and have this new goal to know every person in the branch, which will really help me a lot, i think I'll be here for a long time. but it's a long list, and there are a lot of less actives on it, so lets go.

family, i love you so much. i miss you tons, but i know you we still be there for me when i get back. i hope you are sucking all fun you can out of summer. love you!

sister Harrison

Vitamins Save the Day !!

hi family.

i had a good fourth of July, i mostly celebrated by singing all the American songs i knew out loud to annoy my companion. it was a good day.

Sunday was the first time our new branch met. our branch, because it is two branches combined, has two elders quorum presidents, two relief society presidents, two young women presidents, so all that stuff has to be worked out. but even with two rs presidents, they were confused at who should be doing what, and so they just had the missionaries teach the lesson, which was the first time i had ever taught in church, and it went pretty well, i thought.

our people are doing good too. we have one lady that is so close to baptism, she just needs to come to church a couple more times. but this week she couldn't come, because all of her children had pink eye, and she was getting it too. it was so sad, all her kids had one or two eyes totally swollen shut. even her little little baby had it. we didn't even want to go in there, because i have already had enough eye infections to last me the rest of my mission. so that is really sad, i hope they get better soon.

in other news, a couple of weeks ago, my hair started to fall out. nothing big or anything, no clumps, but quite a bit. lots of hair in the shower drain, lots of hair on my combs, and lots of hair on my clothes. so i started to get a little worried, i mean, this family has a history of hair loss, especially when we are only eating mashed potatoes. or only eating rice and noddles. anyway, so i made a goal to eat more veggies. but the hair kept falling out. and one night for like half an hour i ran my fingers through my hair, and strands just kept coming out and kept coming out. it was scary, i don't want to be a bald missionary! so i called up the mission president's wife, who is a nurse, and what do you know, she suggests a multivitamin. and what do you know, three days later, i still have hair loss, but it is much, much slower. thank goodness for vitamins. i will never scoff at them again. and now i don't have to worry about eating vegetables all the time, haha. so that was one of the big events of the week, and I'm glad my email is that it has stopped, and not that I'm worried that I'm going to be bald later.

so that is everything for this week, i hope things are going good at home. say hi to all the nieces and nephews for me, i love you all, talk to you next week!

sister Harrison

Training in my future?

i can't believe that the fourth of July is almost around the corner, crazy. this is going to be my first fourth of July that i celebrate on soil that isn't consecrated by liberty, justice, freedom and democracy. it is going to be a tough holiday to get through. the truth is the holiday is just made more fun because my companion is from Australia, and there is another elder from Canada, and so, especially this close to independence day, we take every opportunity that we can to wave our proverbial flag. yay for America. hopefully one of the elders will translate the star spangled banner into Malay, so take that, Malaysian government who gives religious freedom to everyone but Muslims.

we just had zone conference, and it was awesome. i had a really good talk with president Clark in our interview, about how it is easy to just glide on the surface of things, especially in missionary work, to do what is expected and go through the motions. but it is when you try with all your might that real things start to happen. he talked to me about when someone asks you to go a mile, go with him in twain, how all the blessings come during the second mile. so i have been thinking about that a lot. i love zone conference, it really revs you up and gets you excited about the work. the next zone conference is soon too, at the end of July, hooray.

your email turned out to be right on the money, dad. i just found out that when sister seve goes home, i am going to get a brand new missionary. so i definitely have been thinking a lot about missionary work and what i need to work on. when i found that out, i told sister seve we had to do role plays every day, because i have no idea how to commit people to baptism, help them get over concerns, how to get referrals, i don't know anything! but it won't be for awhile, and i know i have come a long way. the other day, we met this awesome family (already members) and it was just amazing to me how these phrases in Malay were just coming out of my mouth. like they were just falling out, no problem. i wish that would happen when i taught, but i still have a lot of time left to learn. let's just hope i don't mess this sister up for the rest of her mission.

anywho, things are going good, we have two people now that are coming closer to baptism. one is a lady who is really good, but her husband is a complete bum. he just come home drunk everyday after work, and won't watch her kids when she wants to go to church. what a piece of crap. oh well, i hope she keeps going strong, and her husband lets her be baptized. the other is this old old man who can't hear very well and only speaks Iban. he is sweet, and he hasn't smoked for two weeks already, he is so cool.

i really like the gospel and being here in Malaysia. you can really see how the gospel just rings true to people. usually we don't have any problem teaching the word of wisdom or the law of chastity, because people already know (well, with the exception of coffee and tea) that those things just aren't good things do be doing. they already know, it just rings true to them. its cool.

anywho, family, I'm not used to writing emails this long, i better sign out. but i love you, and things are doing really really good here.

sister Harrison

PS hi dad. dad, you would love the food here. everything is spicy, and i love it. they put chili sauce or peppers on almost everything. (its true, at McDonald's, you eat your fries with chili sauce instead of ketchup, it is delicious) and the curry here is to die for, just plain old Malaysian chicken curry, and it is so good. I'm going to have to learn how to make it so i can cook it for you guys when i get back. so i have developed quite the endurance for spicy food, i don't know if plain American spice will be enough for me when i get back.. just kidding.. i love you dad!

The Knee is better !

hi family,

sorry i didn't email yesterday. this week is zone conference, and so our pday was pushed back to today. things are going good, my knee is better, not swollen anymore. and i have stayed away from mystery pills, I've learned my lesson. there is not that much to tell, this weekend is district conference, and the district is splitting from three branches into five, which is a pretty big change. it is cool, because you need to have five branches in order to become a stake later on. so maybe a couple of years down the road will we have a stake in Malaysia, yay! the work is going good. we have some cool people, one is an old man, the father of a member, and when we told him that he couldn't smoke anymore, he broke his cigarettes in half, and he hasn't smoked since! he is so cool. the longer i am out here, the more i realize how important the gospel is to people's lives. without it, our life isn't really that much.

things at home sound fun, I'm glad that you went camping, i hope it was a lot of fun, sorry it was so cold! when i come back i have a feeling i am going to be cold all the time. i get cold if the air conditioning is on in the house, seriously. good thing i brought a sweatshirt. when my comp turns on the air con, i put it on. crazy. but I'm not used to the heat yet either, unless you call sweating buckets used to the heat... gross.

so family, i love you're guts. everything out here, the heat sweat, weird things that happen to your skin in Malaysia, everything is worth it. say hi to America for me,

love you, sister Harrison

Wounded Knee

hi family,

today was definitely a feast day on the email front, not only did i get a lot of emails, but they were all very long, i love my family!

things here in kuching are going O. K. time is going by really fast, it seems like every day is full of people to see and places to go, and by the time i know it, we are on our way home for the night. that's the way i like missionary work. it seems like since I've been in kuching, i have just noticed how far i have really come. i have a new confidence about missionary work that i have never had before, its a pretty good feeling. the language feels good, I'm not scared to talk to people, i have things to say in lessons. there is still a long way to go, but it is nice to feel like i am getting somewhere. and sister seve is aWEsoMe. we get along really well, it is so nice when that happens. i know (from experience) that i'm not going to be best friends with all of my companions, but it is just so nice when you do get along well, maybe that is one of the reasons things feel like they are going pretty good here, and going pretty fast. its so sad, she leaves in august, and she keeps joking that I'm going to be a trainer when she leaves aaaaahhhhhhhhh. i don't think i am ready for that kind of responsibility. but we'll see, it is a long way off.

do you know what i hate? when people work on Sunday. it is so sad, because if they can't come to church, we can't really teach them. we are teaching this sixteen year old boy named Fabien, and he is really cool, he reads and prays and knows a lot about the gospel, we've been teaching him for awhile but i think we are going to have to drop him because he can never come to church. it takes a lot of faith to quit your job to come to church. anyway, that is the thing that i am most sad about right now, because he is so cool, and the church could help his life so much. we are teaching some other cool people too. one is this really old grandpa of a member, he can't hear very well at all, and he only speaks Iban. so we say something, and his grand kids yell what we say in Iban into his ear. he smokes, but i think he will stop. he came to church last week, and he looked super classy, this really Iban man, in gray slacks and a maroon button up shirt. i hope he gets baptized.

anything else? oh yeah, my knee has been giving me some trouble. i twisted it back in KK, and it has just been swollen and stiff since then. the other night, i was carrying my bike up the stairs and it gave out on me a little bit. Its really scary to me, because this same kind of thing would happen before my surgery. anyway, I've been taking ibuprofen to lessen the swelling. i remember my doctor saying it doesn't matter when you take it as long as you take the same twenty for hour dosage.

anyway, my knee has been feeling better now, i think the bike helps it a little. I'll keep you updated, and I'll go in if it starts to get worse, don't worry.

anywho family, i love you a lot, thanks for all of your emails. until next week,

sister Harrison