Dear Family

Thank you so much for the constant love, prayers and support I feel from you. They've carried us this week for sure.

SO! As I'm sure I panicked you all with the short letter and the awful communication from last week, let me tell you we are doing fantastic here in Miri! I feel I forgot to mention some other good things that happened last week. Elder Tony, an A.P., went on splits with us on Wednesday. We had some good experiences, including helping an old Chinese Man changed his tire. As a result of that, a nice Buddhist man gave us a ride home from where we had to walk because Tony didn't have a bike. The Lord truly blesses those who serve him.

This week has been another relatively harder one because of the massively celebrated Chinese New Year. Accordingly, and the fact that all our sisters got sick at one time or another, all the missionaries had a hard week with trying to meet the people we wanted to, but we had some fun days filled with parties at members houses. At one point, we biked over 2 hours just to get to Sis. Tracy's house! Though, she did give us a Kamus Dewan she hadn't used since school. It's a Malay Dictionary in Malay, sort of like the Oxford English dictionary for English People. Lots of fun.

Also, speaking of Books, right now I carry around a Bible in Iban, a B.O.M. in Malay, and a D&C and P.G.P. in Indonesian for teaching purposes. Also, the church has a new security guard named David who apparently was a former investigator and remembered the church! He's way cool, and an ex paratrooper in the Malaysian Airforce. Also, we had an American show up to church! His name was Matt McDonald from Texas and he's going to be living in Brunei with his family on a 4 year assignment with his family who's coming in about 2 weeks. Anyway, the prayer list is the same, and I love you all! Enjoy the Pictures!

-Elder Christensen

Here are a few things from Coy's new companion's letter, Elder Griffin (from his last two letters):

We also visited Sister Sia. Now, Sister Sia had told the missionaries the last time that they visited that she didn't want them to come anymore. She is a baptized member, but she's basically stopped believing. So she agreed to let Elder Christensen and I come back one final time.  As we met, we listened a lot to her and showed her a lot of love, the Gospel softened her heart, and I showed her the pictures of my own baptism. She agreed to a return appointment, and we hope that she will return to full activity!

We also met with some potential missionaries, Darrel and Robert. They are really cool! So, we were in a Kampung and that's where all the poor people live, and when my camera actually works again, I'll try really hard to send pictures. You can probably look up Kampung on Google Images. Anywho, due to the fact that they are poor, they have no electricity, so we literally taught a "candlelight lesson". It was so cool! We just lit like three candles and taught. The houses are all wood, on top of these stilts in a river, so I felt like I was in Pirates of the Caribbean or something, it was so legit!

 On Thursday, one of the AP's, Elder Toney, followed us. Unfortunately, both of our lessons fell through. So, we saw an old man who had a flat tire, so we helped him. By the time we were done, it was pouring rain, but we were on foot so we just walked and everybody tried to huddle under my umbrella. Out of nowhere, this random Chinese/Buddhist comes and offers to take us home. So we get in his car, teach him a little about the Gospel, and referred him to the Chinese Elders. When we asked why he was willing to help us, he said, "I saw you helping to change that man's tire, so I figured that I might as well help you out as well." It was nice!

So, we have an investigator named Brother Day, and he is extremely addicted to alcohol. He has been trying for a long time to overcome it, but it has been very difficult for him, so we suggested that we could give him a blessing. He accepted. So, last night, we went to his house with President Langi. There, President Langi anointed the oil and I pronounced the blessing. During the blessing, Brother Day just started weeping! And Brother Day is a small but tough Iban warrior, with a deep voice. I was so surprised, and I almost started crying too, because the Spirit just flooded the house and it was so strong! I know that there were angels in that little house, I'm positive of that. After the blessing, he thanked us profusely and then hugged us. He also wept during the closing prayer. It was probably one of the most spiritual experiences of my mission, that's how powerful it was! It was a miracle!

We emptied the baptismal font. We ended up making five siphons and then pouring buckets of water into this little drain. It worked really well and it was a lot of fun! We didn't even get too wet! By the way, I'm going to get an Iban and a Chinese name tag. Therefore, I will have Elder Griffin name tags in four different languages. (Malay, Iban, Chinese and English. Possibly even Tamil.)

I biked for over three hours a couple of days ago, due to Chinese New Year. We bike to the airport, nearly, to eat at a member's house, and then we biked to the entire other side of Miri for another appointment. Suffice it to say that my legs probably haven't worked that hard on my mission and my legs are still recovering haha but it was fun. I'm not sure how far we biked, but we were biking for probably an hour and a half straight, not to mention us stopping and being force-fed. I almost threw up, it was great and terrible all at the same time, probably like the Second Coming will be!

 We were going to visit a less-active member, Sister Sia, who lives in a place called Kampung Api. She wasn't at her home, so, feeling a little down, we returned to go see if some other less-active members of that Kampung were in their houses. As we continued back, Elder Christensen randomly started talking to some Iban Datuk ("grandpa", pronounced Dato') that was working on a moto. His name is Franky. We talked to him and his daughter, Silla, gave them a Book of Mormon, and set up a return appointment. They asked us to Sembayang, or pray for this baby that Silla had. Franky was saying that it just cries all the time, so we did and it just stopped crying. Then, we left and it started again haha.