The Life of a Traveling Missionary

Hey there again everyone! 

You may or may not have guessed it but we got our bikes here in Kuching and now we can get ourselves places! I was so stoked when my bike arrived, who knew you could love such a thing on your mission so much. With bikes comes that added fun of trekking through every rainstorm, day and night, on the sides of roads where you only have about 1 ft. between you and huge semi trucks passing by....so much fun :) ?!  You never do get dry here in Malaysia on this island. You are either drenched in sweat, soaking with the rain of the last downpour, or you're showering off just to go out and do it all again! Man I love it here.

With the bikes we are able to get out farther and go explore our area more because we know nothing about it. Half of it is not even on the map, haha. Nothin' like riding through jungles finding those people! Everywhere we go we are constantly asking people, "Where are the Christians?" or "Where are the Ibans?" I have gotten so good finding Iban Christians here it's become my 'profession.' 

 

With that being said, it has been so awesome to be back wit my Iban family. Sitting on floors and teaching lessons while sipping on flavored water and munching on some crackers had never felt so much like home. I have to get the Iban dialect back on my tongue though if I want to keep up, but I have been loving hearing Iban again. Soothes the soul:) With these people you can't be shy, which is perfect because that is how we do missionary work here. Teaching some BOLD lessons out here in the jungle!

 

 Last but not least, we do or die here as missionaries. (Well, spiritually.) (But yeah sometimes physically.) In this area we have to keep our spirits up and energy up at all times because that is what the members and the people need here. The same goes for the members here. We expect them to do it or die...spiritually. In the words of my good friend Jefferey [Holland?], "This is a life and death contest we're in...". Man how good it feels to be on the front lines, fighting the good fight. 

Love you all!

Elder Thompson 

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Draper, Utah Missionary Letters seen thru Sep 24-2016

Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia

 

A big Apa Khabar comin' at everyone this week I am back in Sarawak, Malaysia! 

Let me just run through really quickly how my past week has gone.

Well Monday my last companion had to go to Singapore so I had to send him and travel with him there and back. I had another Elder named, Elder Child, with me for like 24 hours while they did that. It was awesome getting to work with him!  Tuesday we had to travel again to pick up my last companion and then travel back to the house. At that point it just became a busy night as we were trying to meet with everyone and I still needed to pack to leave!

Wednesday I woke up and got on my way to the airport and left KL. I headed to Singapore to stay the day there before I was to pick up my new comp. It was weird to return back to the area that I have served in before because I just knew everyone there.   It was good to see a lot of old friends on the mission too while I was there.

Thursday we had some trainings and then I got my new companion, Elder Haslam! He is so cool and I can already tell we are going to have a ton of fun. I don't know if he knows that though because I only speak Malay to him, haha.... so yeah, it'll come!  He is from Highland, Utah and ready to work. This day was full of airports and plane rides all day into the night until we finally got to the house.

  

 

Well, the rest of weekend has been fun but a bit interesting. We don't really have bikes...and we live in the outpost of Kuching. We are a 30-45 min bike ride from any other missionaries. We have really enjoyed walking around our little neighborhood outside of Kuching, city in Matang, and living there! Our house in brand new and it is huge for only two Elders. We live right beside straight jungle so morning workouts should be fun;) We have no idea where to go and where to find food or where people live. It's a fresh start to the area! There wasn't a lot happening before but that'll change!

The best part about the whole thing, I'm back with my Iban family. This branch is Iban. I love the Iban tribal people here. I love it here already. I love my mission.

Love you all!

Elder Thompson

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Draper, Utah Missionary Letters seen thru Sep 17-2016

Headed 'Home'

Now before anyone freaks out let me just clarify the title of this email. Today is transfer day and just when you thought the mission couldn't get anymore crazy and mixed up, I am being transferred again!  It's been a good 2 weeks here in Kuala Lumpur, but the Lord wants me back to my home, Sarawak, East Malaysia. Everyone, I am going back to my people!!! I will be serving in Kuching, Sarawak. It is called the Matang branch. Guess what? To make it more interesting, I am going to continue to be a district leader there but.....there's more! I'll have another trainee,  I will pick him up this week and you can bet we are only speaking Malay.....You thought I was done, right? No, we are 'white-washing' the area. Yep, I and my trainee know nothing about anything there. So much fun, right?! It's gonna be fun. Those are my people!! That is my language. Ah, I'm stoked.

 

I don't have a whole lot more for this email so I'm sorry. The transfer news kind of blew my mind already....

This Sunday we had an investigator at church and he stayed longer with us afterword to eat with the branch. We had potluck. It was about an hour after everyone was done eating and starting to clean up, I was leaning up against a wall and he came over to me. He leaned up against me, looked around, and said, "This is amazing." 

I echo what our friend said. This church, this mission, this gospel, these members, all of it. All I can say is, "This is amazing."

Love you all!

Elder Thompson

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Draper, Utah Missionary Letters seen thru Sep 3-2016

Txfr Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Well, coming at you all live from another run down internet cafe in the middle of the ghetto hood of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia! I'm back!

I'll just give you all a quick run through about what has happened in the last week relatively. On Monday I figured out I was leaving Singapore and I was a bit in shock. This is what they call a mini-transfer and they just like to surprise us sometimes I guess! So much fun you can never get comfortable in the mission haha.  Wednesday I said some 'goodbyes' to everyone which was all so sudden and headed out to KL (Kuala Lumpur).

 

My new area is called Cheras. Boy is it ghetto. I love Malaysia though I had such a feeling of belonging when I first arrived. These people speak my language and I just had all these feeling of nostalgia come over me. 

Let me give you a little bit about my life from day to day here in the Cheras area in the Malaysian ghetto of KL city! I wake up at 5:45 every morning just so I can catch the morning Muslim prayer call that happens at around 6am.  I don't need to worry about hearing it because we stay in an apartment 23 floors high surrounded by over 30 mosques within 3 miles radius. It is the coolest thing ever and annoys most missionaries, but for me it just soothes my soul, haha!  These are my people. I have had so many more opportunities to speak Malay, it feels so good. This is my language. It also soothes my soul. The branch members here have already gotten into my heart. It is such a diverse branch. We have Iranian recent converts, and Pakistani members and soon to be members, and Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Malay, and the list goes on. It is so cool here! 

 

 

 

I don't have too much else for this week, just the new culture over here in West Malaysia! Love you all!

Elder Thompson  

PS:  Something to notice when sitting in Church next Sunday in your WardHouse:  Cheras Branch: 

  

 

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Draper, Utah Missionary Letters seen thru Sep 3-2016