Hello wonderful family!

Here's a story we just heard

The Dayak people had a tradition of leaving the bodies of stillborn babies in a basket and hanging them in the trees in cemeteries. A family had just done this for their little boy. A week or so later, an older man died, and when that happens they usually wrap them up in a mat and carry them to the burial plot on their shoulders. The family had just done this when they heard a baby crying. They looked at the basket in the tree to see a large jungle cat jump out. This cat had heard the baby cry and nursed it for a week.

That baby was the grandfather of our Elder's Quorum president, Bro. Mike.

Crazy weeks are crazy, and busy, and wonderful. I love you so much, I love this country, I love the people here, I love being a missionary.

Monday was fun, we were able to meet again for a B.R. singing day at the church again.. Tuesday mornin' started early when we sent Elder Stowell to the airport. He, Elder Lambert, and the Przybyla's were all leaving that morning, so we went to the airport to help the Sliders. It was really bitter-sweet, some of Elder Stowell's recent converts came to the airport to show him off so a lot of tears were shed. Elder Ee was left without a companion, as well as Elder Gara, so we put them together for the day. We were waiting for Elder Jahali, asal dari Kuching, who was also finishing his mission to pass through the airport so we could take his luggage for him. He somehow had troubles at immigration though, so we were delayed long enough that we had to do our reporting with the A.P.'s sitting at a little coffee shop. 

We barely got everyone to the KDC in time for District Meeting, where we locked up the luggage and managed to start on time. With the new Districts, we only had 1 District Leader in Kuching and we were missing a lot of people with the transfer that morning. We had a combined meeting then, giving Elder Bester a chance to give a final training of his mission to prepare us for what we were meant to do. He did a profound training, using Ammon defending the flocks as what we should do for the branches here. He has a profound love for Kuching, and was not happy to be leaving. He also did an activity involving plastic plates on the floor to show how we need to work with branch leaders.

We were busy getting things logistically coordinated for a while after that, but eventually we got home.

There was a lot of crazy other things that were going on this week, we got everyone in their area by the end of Wednesday though. There are a ton of new missionaries in the zone, and all of them have seen incredible miracles this week. We had a lot of people fall through the next couple days, but we saw some very compensating miracles. 

We have been cooking in a lot this week, because of Mr.Ng from last week. We were able to go Saturday morning to help him harvest vegetables to send to the market, then transport and unload. He was very grateful, and paid for our lunch. As we were cleaning vegetables we had great discussion about church and such with him and his wife. He told us that next Thursday was his hardest day and most profitable, so we said we could come back with the Chinese Elders :-)

Friday night we called Augustine, we had been trying the entire week to get in touch with Jihap, and he finally answered. Augustine told us that there had been forest fires near Bau and they had been helping to defend their neighbours gardens. Augustine had gotten a bug bite though and was sick, asked for a blessing, but the problem was that that weekend was the end of Ramadan and was a public holiday. All the members weren't available, but through a miracle change Elder and Sister Hammer were able to bring us out there. Kevin, Augustine, and Jihap were all there, Augustine had improved dramatically from the night before and was healthy, so we just reviewed Priesthood with Elder Hammer doing a great job explaining separate duties. They blessed and passed the Sacrament on Sunday.

Sunday morning we had another miracle, Mariana and Layau were able to attend church because her father drove them, they just had needed a ride home which the Govin's provided.

Bro. Mike also did a miracle starting Home Teaching in Elder's Quorum, we so happy to be a part of supporting the Priesthood here in full fellowship.

That night the Govin's took us to some Hari Raya houses with their family, and we found a new family through a referral, Sister Ge and her childen. They were very smart and had lost their Bible years before, so we were more then happy to supply them with a new Kitab :-)

Love you all!

-Elder Christensen