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