February 24, 2009 to Mom

hello family!

good to here from you mom. well sounds good theres rain finally there. there hasnt been as much here lately. sounds like you need it over there. that sounds good about the new system for windows. hopefully it will be better then vista haha.ya members not coming to church because of rain is funny but all too true. and nope, not even flooding.but ya we had the baptism of chinpow 2 weeks ago, another totally awesome family of 4 was baptized this last weekend, and another family will be baptized this weekend as well! its soo exciting. they are all awesome people. i hope they all can keep on enduring after we leave. we are realllly trying hard to not let these people get converted to missionaries instead of the gospel. i think that is one of the huge problems here in kuching as well as the state of sarawak here in malaysia. because these people so often have these white guys coming into there homes speaking these peoples own language and they just become so totally amazed with the missionaries that they can't focus on anything else. it really is to bad. so were trying really hard to make these people search for a testimony before baptism and i think its going well.the branch responded really well to the prayers. i actually got to confirm someone in malay the other day which was the first time in malay for me as well as probably one of the first times in the branch for it to be heard. everyone thinks the confirmation of the holy ghost has to be done in english so thats what all the locals do. but no one understands it. so i got to do that in malay as well as the blessing . it was such a sweet experience. i could feel the spirit so strong.the couple is new. they are from canada. they are pretty darn hilarious.i must admit.but ya we do service projects every now and again. whenever people ask for help we do that and we always ask if people need help with anything before we leave from meetings with them. but ya. maybe one or two times a month we do some kind of service project. sometimes more.ibon, is coming along ok. its getting to the point i can understand it alright. theres still alot to go. can you believe pretty soon here ill have been out for 6 months? thats pretty crazy right?no signs of transfers yet. i hope we dont get one for a while. but i will be going to singapore here in about 3 weeks for my visa run. about pictures i put all my pictures on a cd. i made two copies of it and im going to send one home to see if it makes it. ill probably send your birthday presend home with it ma! even though its pretty early.well every day we wake up at 7 as a mission thats the time for some reason. then we excercise for 30 minutes, eat breakfast, get ready, study personally for 1 hr, companionship for 1 hour, language for 1 hour, eat lunch, then we get goin. we get home by at the latest 10 oclock, plan for the next day, then go to sleep by 11. thats our day in a nutshell.well that sounds great about grandpa...feeewww. and no worries about the package ma. sounds good about shanny. she sent me a picture of the little rascal now. looks good. can they tell whether it is a boy or girl yet? sounds like fun they're all comin home. i miss those family get togethers!well everything sounds good, thanks for letting me know about the retirement thing dad. sorry i don't have time to write back. this is taking forever for some reason today haha. but everything sounds like you are all doing well! i hope and pray your all doing well. im still tryin to take care of myself. we've decided we're going to try and eat healthier so that will be good. ok, well i love you all! have a great week!elder johnson.