December 30, 2008

hello family how are you all! well i am now writing you from kuching which is such a cool place! so the first day elder schneider and i went and visited with a few people. the most interesting i felt was meeting with a recent convert family of 7 people. 5 kids all under the age of 7 who all lived in a tiny little wood house on stilts. it was so neat just because they were so kind and you could just feel there strong spirits.

so i am riding a bike here. the bikes are not so great but its a good thing that we have them or else we wouldnt get anywhere this area is so big. yesterday we went suuuper far away from the house to a place called londeh to meet with a few investigator families. So while we were riding there the rain started. It rained, imagine the hardest rain you have ever seen in california for about 2 and a half hours hahaha. then elder schneider got a flat so that was a test of my bike tire changing skills. but it was so fun in all honesty. at first i was like ahhh man im all wet. then you get to a point where its just the way it is. word is that happens almost every day here so that should be interesting haha. but i honestly already love this place.

Elder schneider is such an awesome person. we get along really well and this is going to be good. it like never happens to put two new elders together like this so they must be trying something new with us. i am really excited to prove that we can do this well. so my new adress is:

matt johnson
33 jalan desa wira taman desa bumik
o93250
kuching, sarawak
East Malaysia

But you can just send anything to singapore. they will be more reliable i think.well thats something crazy about Jennifer B., never thought i would see the day haha.and i did use the candy if thats what you mean haha. but ya ill be using that flashlight here for sure as well as some of the other stuff. my p day clothes are fine. i barely ever wear them. i just wear the normal clothes everywhere. its just easier. and whenever you go outside and you're not playing sports or something you're supposed to wear white shirt and tie apparel.thats funny about gerry working for chris! good for him. it will make him a little more tough. i hope he always brings alot of food seeing as hes diabetic and chris likes to not take brakes unless you tell him to....ok fam i hope your all doing well and happy. because i know i sure am! this new place is totally awesome. Im in the jungle! haha.well...jungle/city so its the best of both worlds. ok love you all hope you have a great week!

elder johnson

Matt is being transfered to East Malaysia

Here is some info on his new area, in general. We are waiting to hear more about his specific location and new address.

East Malaysia consists of the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, located on the island of Borneo to the east, across the South China Sea from Peninsular Malaysia (West Malaysia) which is located on the Malay Peninsula. While East Malaysia is less populated and relatively less developed than West Malaysia, its land mass is larger and it has notably more natural resources, which are chiefly oil and gas reserves.

Of note, Sarawak contains the Mulu caves within Gunung Mulu National Park; among these is the limestone cave with the largest chamber in the world, the Sarawak Chamber. The Mulu national park was declared a World Heritage Site in 2001.

Sabah's many attractions include the World Heritage Site Mount Kinabalu, and Sipadan island of which is a world renowned diving hotspot.

The indigenous inhabitants of East Malaysia are fiercely partisan and maintain culturally distinct dialects of the national language, Malay, in addition to their own ethnic languages.

Federation
Both Sabah (formerly British North Borneo) and Sarawak were separate British colonies from Malaya, and did not become part of the Federation of Malaya in 1957. However, both voted to become part of the new Federation of Malaysia in 1963, encouraged by the inclusion of Singapore, which was expelled from the federation in 1965. Previously, there were efforts to unite Brunei, Sabah and Sarawak under North Borneo Federation but that failed after the Brunei Revolt occurred.

As states of the Federation, Sabah and Sarawak retained a higher degree of local government and legislative autonomy when compared to other states in West Malaysia. For example, both states have separate immigration controls, requiring Malaysian citizens from West Malaysia to carry passports or identity cards when visiting East Malaysia.

The island of Labuan was part of Sabah until 1984, when it was annexed into a separate Federal Territory, administered by the federal government. It was used to establish a centre for offshore finance, with its own separate tax system and customs.

December 24, 2008, following call home to family

hello again family. just letting you know that i got your emails! ok well it was great to hear from you all and it sounds like you are all doing well. ok i will talk to you later. next wednesday i will let you know my new address for the mail. but email will be staying the same. that was so good to hear from all of you! and thats crazy to think there's going to be another addition to the fam! congratulations again shanny.

ok love you all! im off to play with some nepalese haha. o ya and if you feel like looking up info about the history of east malaysia especially kuching and if you find anything interesting you should let me know seeing as like i said, i dont get to learn much about history and what not while im here. ok love ya all!

elder johnson

December 17, 2008 to Family

hello family!
thank you mom and dad for the letters! sounds like everything is going quite well. Glad to hear you made it home safe mom. It sounds like you had a good efektif time in utah with the coontz fam. so elder kartchner has been in singapore since monday for his visa run. so i have been on exchanges with elder wall from the petaling jaya area for the last 2 days because his comp. got transfered. so to be honest these last few days have been nice haha. its good to get a small break from companions every once and a while haha. but he's coming back around 3:00 today so i will be seeing him later. but about the mtc bill thing i thought i had mentioned it but i was fairly sick about a week before we left. i had an ear infection for i think the first time so they gave me antibiotics. but all is well. speaking of which, i am now feeling better. i had the cold for about a week but im getting over it now.

Speaking of starting something when i go back i know i will change something, i will make sure wherever i am that the elders know where i am and that i want to help because i now know how important members are to missionary work. having someone come along that is not dressed up in a tie and testifies of the same things is so valuable to helping investigators grow. i dont know mom, if you or dad have got the opportuinity to or if the elders there ask for help, but if you have the chance i know that helping the missionaries helps them sooo much, as well as being super important to the investigators as well as being rewarding spiritually. So as of right now, thats kind of all im thinking about changing when i return haha. but people saying goodmorning back would be good too haha. (saying good morning back when we say it in church).

But ya right now we have 7 people on date for baptism so i hope for the best. they are all neat people and i love them so much. there is one guy in particular from bangladesh that is so cool. if we have an appointment on friday i look forward to teaching him all week haha. its kinda weird though because of the limited language usage i think whenever i call him he answers, " hello jesus! how are you?" haha. i guess he just assimilated me with jesus...its really werid because he calls me johnson in person. sadly though both gun and dinesh have been uncontacted for about 5 days and weve been trying hard to find them so... i hope we can find them soon. im pretty sure its just that our schedules aren't matching up well. and it doesn't help that nepalese people don't have phones personally. usually one person in a room has one (usually in a room of about 12-18 people which is ment for 4 or 5 people max). so hopefully we can get a hold of them soon.

But one story that breaks my heart but is so good at the same time is about a nepalese investigator that has a baptisimal date named Hem. so the other day we met with him and taught him a few commandments but had not taught the word of wisdom yet. so at the end he started talking about tea and about how he had bought some really good green tea that is supposed to do wonders for your body and he offered us some. so we proceeded to teach him the w.o.w. turns out someone skamed him into buying 500 ringets worth of this tea...which is a months salary if not more for him. so it was so sad because i wished we had taught him the wow before he bought it. but we figured it would be a good test of his faith to see what is more important. So he said he would stop drinking it.a few days later we saw him walking outside and we asked him how tea was doing and in his limited malay he said " o, te tutup" which means closed haha. it made me so happy. Hem is so cool. enough about that though.

One thing i realized though. you know how for alot of missionaries their mission makes them much more fluid and seem like they are great speakers...well its the opposite for me haha. My broken english is getting awesome. im starting to speak like a caveman haha. like when i was teaching elder beir my district leader for training and instead of saying the celestial kingdom is compared to the glory of the sun, i said without thinking any different. this place like bright of sun...all spaced out and slow hahaha. and i was just supposed to be like teaching another missionary not an investigator haha.

But that story about the nepalese people, sounds pretty accurate. it sounds like there are probably primarily woman in nepal just because all the men get married and go other places for work. For example, i have only met 2 nepalese women since being here versus like 500 nepalese men if not more. so they will do what it takes to survive because apparently you can't in nepal... :( but anyways, i hope that package does arrive so i will know later this afternoon when elder kartchner gets here.

So word is that we get phone cards for calling home so i will do that ok. so i will be calling you at 8:00 in the A.m. here on christmas eve the 24th, which means that i will be calling you at around 4:oo pm your time on the 23rd. so i will not exactly be calling on christmas but thats when i have to do it so im not calling you at 3 in the morning, so i hope you can all be there then!

So batu caves were pretty awesome. i took so many pictures. mostly of monkeys. there were monkeys eeeeeveyrwhere haha.like monkeys within 3 feet of my face in some instances haha. i am going to go and try to make a cd with pictures and send it home today hopefuly so we shall see.sounds like dad is quite the bag piper these days. sounds like alot of fun to be honest. and i think you should be doing that more than work dad! after all you are working for free haha.thats good about the beckster. glad to hear shes feeling better.

Shannon quit her job hu? well i dont know much about why or the details and what not but im sure it was for good reasons and was well thought out...shannon's calculating like that...hahah.

OK parents and rest of the fam i hope your all doing well and hope you know i love you! ok i will talk to you next week! until then merry christmas! and have a great week!

love,
elder johnson

December 11, 2008 to Family

hello family!

sounds like the last week has been pretty interesting! Dad and duke hangin out alone at home? this sounds like trouble...haha. I wish i coule have seen you in the parade dad thats would have been neato. i dont think i got to see you other than just at home playing.o ya before i forget i wanted to say to becky that one of the elders here elder mattox is from northern florida, so he is quite southern one would say. and so he has sparked interest in the south for me. so now i have this awesome image of georgia/the south and it makes me want to go there haha. just big old trees, huge houses and kudzu everywhere haha. o ya and i asked him about kudzu and something about the south planting it in the north to take it over and he said " yup your sister served in georgia" ahaha.but sounds like the surgery wasnt quite as breezy as it sounded like last week? it seems like thats how it usually works. you feel quite good the day of, wake up and ouch...i hurt...haha.snow sounds like so much fun! i will miss it.

sounds like you had a really good time at church mom. its true though. the church is the same here as well and its pretty darn far away. the only difference i have seen thus far is when people say good morning in the microphone everyone says it back haha its pretty funny.so the day that i wrote last that night i got to play basketball. so we went over to the appartments where most of our investigators live and played there. a bunch of little nepale guys were sitting off to the side of the court watching me and elder bickmore (just came for zone conference) play. so i went over to them said namaste and they all got excited like normal said a few more things in nepale and before i knew it we had 10 people playing and more that wanted to haha.

just so happens the next day at zone conference we recieved a training partly on building relationships of trust. This is so true. we cant just blab at people without them knowing about us or being able to trust us. unless they are super ready. but usually not haha. so regardless we went back that saturday and got 10 new nepale investigators from playing basketball. so i got to have fun for an hour and on top of that a whole bunch of new people to teach! so awesome!so 2 days ago i got to teach all day in malay! it was really cool! we went with a member named eder. he served in malaysia on his mission and has been off for about a year. so needless to say he helped so much since he speaks malay natively. but still it was an awesome experience.

i feel so blessed for the mtc experience. i got to talk to those peaple and help them hopefully come closer to the lord. while my companion since he didnt have that experience in the mtc(but has been out for almost 6 months now) just sat and listened. i am greatful for that time in the mtc even though at the time it seemed so long.and yestrday was sooooo good! we extended 4 baptisimal invitations and 4 people excepted. one was dinesh whom is so ready already. he is so awesome. and to a guy named roni from bangladesh and 2 others to men from nepal. all of which if it wasnt for work would be baptized within the month but will most liekly take into january.we had district conference on sunday which was really good. we got to hear president and sister skelton speak again. they are both so lovely and funny. i like them so much. and one of our investigators from nepal named gun pronounced goon got to go. He changed his work schedule to go to church which is really hard to do. he said that if he liked it he would change his schedule for good. he also got to meet president skelton for a short while. it was really good for him. i havent spoke much about gun but he is another super good nepalese man. i feel so bad for them since they are forced to work so much for so little money. its awful. the people of america are so very blessed. a job in america payiing 10 dollars an hour which is not a very good job at all is like better than any foreigner could get here. thats about 35 ringet an hour which is amazing seeing as people here work for four about 4 ringet an hour. americans are so blessed.

i hope this experience here will help me to never complain about the american economy when i go back. but enough about that.

ya still no packages but whatevs. something i would like though. some elders here have sufjan stevens christmas music and so if you would send me those cd's that would be nice. i think there just in my dressor. but if you cant find them, no worries.i get around by foot and bus. sometimes taxi. but not usually because you cant contact more than one person in a taxi. the bus system is really good here. and quite cheep.so it rained super hard yesterday. alot of the roads were flooded. no serious damage or anything though.

i got a picture with me in it so i hope i can send those home soon haha. ok well i had better go! we are going to batu caves for p-day. its a huge tamil community so it should be fun and full of good food. also theres a huge hindu temple with monkeys everywhere. so that should make for some interesting pictures haha. ok love you all! thank you so much for the letters! o ken glad to hear your going to church with brandon! keep it up ok. i know the lord blesses us when we are doing the simple things he asks of us. i love you kenny and think about you often! hope you are still safe on your motorcycle and not doing anything crazy on it. Everyone rides motorcycles /scooter things here and i havent seen one yet half way as nice as yours yet hahaok i love you all and hope you are all doing well! have a great week!

Love elder johnson

December 5, 2008 to Family

Hello family!

Well, i am writing you on this fine thursday because today and tomorrow are zone conference and p-day is today. well o would just like to say how very much fun i am having here. RIght now i just feel odly excited and happy to be here...i cant really explain it haha. these last few weeks have been especially wonderful! just the other night something really neat happened.

I was talking to two little boys and i noticed that elder kartchner was trying to communicate to a little nepalese man that spoke malay and he was having a hard time communicating, so i got to go over and talk to him. turns out he is hindu and not at all but he said he had a friend from nepal who wanted to learn, but i feel so blessed that i could communicate with him. I didnt really think anything of it because that is a common way to get away from us here to tell us that they have friends that are interested so i didnt think anything of it. But later that night on our walk back home i heard a hay tunggu!(wait) and this little nepalese man was chasing after us leading his friend by the hand!! haha. it was so cool. The mans name is dinesh, he speaks ok english and he was born in nepal but grew up in darjeeling india and he rock climbs! haha. but anyways, we taught him the next day and gave him a book of mormon in hindi. we then met with him the next day kindof on accident, but when we spoke,we asked him what he had been doing to day (day off) he said he hadbeen reading all day. he has already read one half of the book of moron in about a night and half a day! so cool.

Im so excited to be here. thats just one story about whats happening here its all so incredibly fun, i feel bad saying that this is fun because it seems a little irreverant, but its true, its fun.well it sounds like you all had a great thanksgiving! were you all there? kenny too ya? we ate with the australians and it was just like an american thanksgiving. It was goood. you must tell me who stopped coming to church? thats really weird!we go to church in a place called petaling jaya which is about 15 minutes from where we live, so its not too far. On any givin sunday there are probably about 60 people more or less, more if were doing our job! haha. and ya its in englishBut nope no sign of packages yet, kindof dissapointing, but that is ok because i know that you have been sending them, and its really not any huge deal, its just fine.but like i said, zone conference is today and tomorrow, so i need to be going soon.all my clothes are holding up quite well, its quite sweaty here so you can imagine what my collars already look like haha.

i will work really hard to take pictures today and tomorrow so i can send some home. sorry i havent sent any yet! ive just been super busy and i dont know where a picture place is.but about eric and talking to the chinese man in argentina, that is the story here everyday haha. the most common language is malay, but the extent of people knowing it doenst go much past hello how are you, can i have one of those haha. because only the malay people know the language really well, and we cant teach them. so knowing malay is for east malaysia. one day i will go there and thats when ill use it more extinsively. but as for now, its used for contacting little nepalese men who speak it worse than i do haha. but like i told you earlier, it worked so thats all that counts.but yes that is true about the members and fellowshipping they are what really matters in the long run in the converstion process. anyways christmas package, if anymore are so be sent, some tasty jerky would be nice...haha. besides that all is just fine dont worry about anything.im dissapointed because megan sent me some pictures but this is a different internet place and it wont let me see them.

So I'll have to wait til next week...ok well thank you for all the letter, thank you to grandma as well i appreciate the messages so much! ok wish i could talk more but i must go! love you all so much! so its true about the okland temple being closed??!? ok well i gotta go, love you!

elder johnson