Getting 'Old'

Coming off a great week over here in Bintulu, Sarawak! Here's the details::

Well, I think I am getting old in the mission. Not only is time passing by way too fast, but everything around me and everything I own testifies to me that I have been out a while now. All of my stuff is falling about. My white shirts have stains beyond bleaching power. Trust me I've tried. They are just running down. My shoes are not necessary falling apart because we don't walk a lot in this mission. They are disintegrating. Literally. So many rainstorms and so many times put on and off. All of my clothes are just tearing and falling apart in general. I have officially become, Malaysian. It's official. The air con in our house is too cold. I can't handle anything cold now even a cool breeze. You have to think, it is literally like 90 degrees or higher outside plus 80% humidity at all times....and Elder Thompson feels perfect. I can stand cold air con anymore. The smells, even the horrible ones of fish and straight sewage, begin to feel like home. I don't know how to explain words in Malay in English. It only makes sense in Malay now. Just a fore warning for when I get home, I'm going to need a sweatshirt, slow, simple English, and something to keep my jaw from dropping.

The best part about living in an industrial town is being able to buy industrial sized things. Well, at the house we have a waffle maker some how. And well, we may have bought an industrial size tub of waffle mix and are now stuffing our faces everyday. They are so good.

I'm getting everyone in the house in ridiculous shape, including myself. Elder Meacham and I had been going hard in the gym since day one. I am secretly getting him ready for football at USU and trying to make me Iban belly look so bad. I got the whole house in on it and made a workout plan for everyone. We are hitting the gym hard everyday and loving it...well, some of us, when our legs can move properly without hurting! 

Just taking over the branch here in Bintulu and backing up President Salleh in getting things done! Sometimes I feel like the devil or angel on his shoulder telling him what he should do but we have a lot of great stuff coming up. Time to get this branch back in shape! I love it here. 

That's all I have for you! Have a good week!

Elder Thompson 

Malaysian Missionary Pet

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Draper, Utah Missionary Letters seen thru Mar 25-2017

Iban is my Culture

Hey everyone! I hope you are all enjoying your daylight savings over there on the other side of the world. Meanwhile the sun still comes up at 6am here, goes across the middle of the sky, and then sets around 6:30p, everyday. It hasn't changed in the last how ever many months I have been here. What even is daylight savings? What even are seasons? Living on the equator is cool I guess. 

We are emailing in Tuesday here so a bit unusual. The cyber cafe we were at yesterday had power off. They didn't pay their bill.......so Malaysian. Anyways we are on today, but don't have too much time!

Here is what happened this last week!:

Last P-day we purged the house. Yes. PURGED. Every house that I have ever been in on my mission has been, well let's just say, less then clean and basically like your missionary hoarding worst nightmare. Dad you would love it. So, in every house, I always give it one of my famous "Elder Thompson Purge of the House". We threw out bags of crap and old things, donated a ton, and cleaned in places that haven't been cleaned in probably over 2 years. The spirit can now be felt and Elder Thompson's OCD for organization is fed:)

We went to Kuching to this week for a mission tour in which Elder Evans of the Seventy came in. It was way fun to go back to Kuching and see faces I haven't in like 2 weeks. The mission tour was awesome, and sleeping in hotels while eating your favorite food with your favorite people doesn't hurt either. 

We saw the Simmons (Mission Presidents) three days later when they came up to TJK to visit the branch and sustain me a member of the branch presidency. It was cool to talk with them again. 

Funny things that happened this week. One was at our members house where we were teaching our investigators. Their Nanak (Grandma) still has her Mom alive and she lives there. We rarely see her because she lays there most of the time around the wall. This woman is 107 years old!!! She is still kickin though. She is way funny. She is pretty much blind and, as if speaking Iban wasnt already hard enough, you have to do it with 10x the volume. Haha I was laughing a lot that night, loving it. 107 years old!!!?!? Are you kidding me?!?

I love you all! 

Elder Thompson

 

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Draper, Utah Missionary Letters seen thru Mar 18-2017

His name is Salleh

Last week for P-day right after we go done emailing we went down into the Bintulu city and explored around there. I much rather prefer the country and people out here. The kampung feel is way better. We headed back up and stopped at a beach on the way home that we had been looking at and that was way fun. We chilled there for a bit and enjoyed the view and the ocean breeze. This place is beautiful!

I want to share more about our branch president here. His name is President Salleh and is one strong saint. He is diagnosed right now with cancer and fighting through it with chemo. He is still leading this group of saints out here with all he has and he is doing great. Lately he has made great progress. He went from very tired and almost all energy lost, to a happy smiling and laughing guy even sometimes. He is fired up to get back into it as he has been out of it for a while. He is an awesome example of giving everything he has to the church and so is his family. Way cool.

Another cool experience this week was when we were meeting with our investigators and we were asking them if they had any questions for us. One of them, Henry, answers and says, "What is the Atonement?" Now, given they were raised with old Iban traditional religion which is basically the equivalent of Pirates of the Caribbean witch doctor stuff in my eyes. This question was way cool and the next question he asked was, "Why do we need to be baptized? It was textbook, but so unexpected at the same time. I loved and I still love testifying of our Savior's Atonement for each and every one of us. It gives us purpose. It gives us perspective. It gives us a chance. Even a glimmer of hope. Even for a couple of Iban boys who lived deep in a jungle for most of their life and who know nothing about a man who gave them everything. If only they could understand what God has in store for them. It is my honor to give that knowledge to each and every soul I meet, and to find out that same answer for myself. 

Love you all!

Elder Thompson 

 

 

 

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Draper, Utah Missionary Letters seen thru Mar 11-2017

Bintulu is Great! & Monkeys Do Throw Poop!

How is everyone doing? Elder Thompson coming at you from Bintulu, Sarawak, East Malaysia, on the island of Borneo, on this beautiful P-day morning! Here's what happened the last week.

Well, I had to leave, Matang. It was, as it always is, sad and hard to leave all those people that I have grown to love and live with. The last two days there we were honestly running around like crazy trying to visit all the members and say bye. I will miss Matang and always remember the people there forever. But, the sadness was not long felt.

For my last P-day there we went with my whole district and we drove out to a mountain that is really close to our house there. We basically didn't have anything in mind other than we wanted to have fun and adventure. Well, we found and wildlife center/zoo and it was way fun! We saw some huge orangutans and we got poop thrown at us by monkeys. Yes, people, monkeys really do throw poop. We were laughing way too hard at that, haha. We say various animals, but not your typical ones. These were like Malaysian jungle and island of Borneo species animals. So cool.

Ok, then I flew on a plane to Bintulu and the last 5 days has been way fun. The area is super small. I have never not done so much biking in one week. Here is my description of Bintulu which I will explain. I am in a branch and area called, TJK (Tanjong Kidurong). So, TJK is this small town, industrial town, jungle village, suburban neighborhood, run down, rural, island paradise, coastal town.  Did you get all that?  I sense every one of those things every day here. It is really small. It is mainly factories and factory workers. That is what the town is built on. But in the same time you find yourself in a jungle village that all of the sudden turns into a random suburban neighborhood, like what?! It is super run down and rural. We are far out and there is for sure no white people here, but that's normal. All in all, at the end of the day, you look around and see palm trees swaying and ocean breezes coming in and you think, this coastal city/island paradise is great. Plus, to add to it. EVERYONE here is Christian and Iban. Who we are looking for. It's Iban paradise here and people are so nice. The members are great and the branch has a lot of potential to grow. So happy!

Oh yeah, another great thing, Elder Meacham and I are in the same house again here! So good to see him. We have gym we go to here too, so we enjoy pushing each other just like the old high school football days ;) 

That's all I have! Until next week!

Elder Thompson

 

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Draper, Utah Missionary Letters seen thru Mar 4-2017