Week 12: Butterworth, Malaysia

The Ballad of Butterworth Week Eight

Hello everyone! It's me again! You would think that me being in Malaysia would have given you some breathing room from Elder Weatherford, but here I am writing to you again! :)

This week was SUPER fantastic! First, we got to go to Singapore on Monday and we stayed until Wednesday. I was companions with Elder DJ (the Zone Leader in KL), and it was so much fun. Singapore is just such a cool place; the MRT is so fun and clean and it is fun to talk to people on it, and the buildings are all so nice and the food is so good. Our zone conference was really great; I learned a lot of great things that I am excited to apply. I also got to meet a lot of really cool missionaries; I saw Elder Duzett (who came in when I did) again, and I met some of the new missionaries. I also got to pick up some packages from you sweet people, which was really nice. It is weird to think that I am not the newest missionary anymore haha...the time is going by super slowly and super quickly at the same time.

When we got back to Butterworth, we had a great rest of the week. It was a normal week full of Bible Study, English class, trying to find people to teach, lots of language study, killing cockroaches in our apartment, and everything else.

But then, we had a SUPER exciting Sunday! Teh was baptized, confirmed, giving two callings, interviewed for the Aaronic Priesthood, and bore his testimony!!! He is such an amazing person, and it was so cool to see him start on this journey. Moong Kau was also able to attend the baptism, and it was great because I think it gave him hope that he will have his own one day. Moong Kau is doing really well and still is living the Word of Wisdom, but he got a job in Taiping (which is two hours away) on Monday to Saturday, so we are now only able to meet him on Sundays. We also had a potluck after church on Sunday, and there was nasi lemak (coconut rice) and so much good food! We ate and then they gave us the leftovers, so we had it for breakfast!

We also found out that Elder Pack and I will be going to Kuala Lumpur next Monday by train for exchanges with the Zone Leaders. I am super excited for that! This transfer has been crazy...first a trip to Singapore and now a trip to Kuala Lumpur. Where next, Switzerland?!? So, that means that emailing might be a little weird again next week. Sorry about that!

I love you all so much! I am so grateful for your continuing prayers for me and for Butterworth, and I am so grateful for the chance I have to live here all the way across the world. It is hard for me to be so far away from you all, but it has really given me the chance to fully devote myself to the Lord and come closer to Him. I love you all so much!

Best,

Elder Weatherford

P.S. A couple funny stories from the week: (1) Elder Pack said that I woke him up at 2AM with my sleeptalking. The best part is, I was quoting something from "How to Begin Teaching" in Preach My Gospel haha. I guess that is better than other things I could have been saying :P and (2) we were talking to a man and then an old uncle on a moto pulled up and started yelling "Go sell your religious somewhere else! Malaysia doesn't need it! Go convert President Trump!" It was kinda awkward, but everyone was nice about it. Being a missionary is full of crazy experiences...

Additional information about the mission

I am pretty sure that Elder Powell is the one who books all of our flights. He is a senior missionary who works in the office in Singapore. I actually met him in the MTC, it was pretty cool. And yeah, we tend to fly. We have five zones in our mission...Singapore, KL (which is all of Western Malaysia), and then Kuching, Sibu, and Miri. The Singapore and KL zones are 95% Chinese speaking, and then Kuching is 70% malay, and then Sibu and Miri are 100% Malay. It is pretty crazy, the east has all the Malay missionaries, the West has all the Chinese. So we tend to fly, but for exchanges (next week!) we are taking a train to KL. Most of the missionaries are foreign, so I would guess that I will never have a native Singaporean or Malaysian companion. There is one missionary from Singapore, and two missionaries from Malaysia, but they are Malay speaking. And yeah, it has been raining a ton, so I get pretty soaked. My pants don't get too muddy, they mostly just get soaking wet, and sometimes some dirt gets thrown up by my tires. It is quite the life!

The Sisters in Penang are also Mandarin speaking, and Elder Pack will interview people for baptism over there, but there haven't been baptisms in the area for a while. We really want to attend each other's baptisms, but unfortunately our church services are at the same time, so it makes it a little harder haha. And the people who sent you the picture, I'm not totally sure who they were. They came up to me and said "Hey Elder" and then asked if they could send a picture to my parents. It is crazy to me how many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints there are around the world.

I would love to send you a picture of the Butterworth church. I have one picture of the outside, and I will take one of the inside this week. They actually don't call English speaking missionaries anymore, only Chinese and Malay. But, some areas (Singapore and KL especially) are so educated that most people speak English so there is not a lot of Chinese or Malay spoken. But yeah, West Malaysia and Singapore is super Chinese, and east Malaysia is super Malay. The east has a lot of Iban peoples (an ethnic people) that only speak Malay, but are not Muslim, so we are allowed to teach them. In the West, most of the Malay speakers are Muslim, so we are not allowed to teach them, so it is mostly Chinese. I talked to some Elders in Singapore who serve in a Chinese speaking ward, and they said that most of their ward is people from China. It sounded so cool, I would love to serve there some day! It sounds like a blast.

The zone leaders mostly just skype in for baptismal interviews...that's what they did for Teh. And money has been working out great! Food is really cheap here, and they give us plenty...I have been doing the opposite of starving haha. Thank you for your concern!

The circled part is our church, in a cute little shop lot.

Spiritual Experiences

This week has been full of cool miracles, but I think that the biggest one was Teh's baptism. It was just so amazing to see how prepared he was to be baptized. He also shared a lot that really helped me to appreciate what role religion has in my life. He talked about how before he accepted the Gospel, he really only chased after money, and he never felt fulfillment in that. But now, through the Gospel, he has found true fulfillment. I think that even though he is still so new to Christianity, he is a great example to me.

On Sunday, our Branch President said something that really has stuck with me. He talked about how when you put a potato, an egg, or a coffee bean into boiling water (stick with me here), they all react differently. A potato will become soft, an egg will become hard, and a coffee bean with make the water into something different and fragrant. He said that our trials are like our pots of "boiling water." However, it is up to us how we react. We can let our trials soften us and make us weaker, we can let them harden us and make us angry, or we can choose to let our trials make us into something fragrant, like coffee. This is still something that I am slowly learning. At times, I still really wish that I never had trials, but I know that if that was the case, I would never grow. We will all have trials, that is for certain. What is up to us is how we react...how can we use our trials to make something beautiful? 

That's what I've been thinking about a lot this week. I love you all so much, and I hope that you are able to use your trials to make something beautiful! I can't wait to talk to you next week! Mwah (blowing a kiss)!

Best,

Elderu Ford (that is my name in Tamil haha)

Pictures

1. A cheesecake that Sister Emy (going to be baptized soon) bought for us.

2. The Bukit Timah house where all the missionaries stay for zone conference in Singapore.

3. Elder Pack and I with Teh!

4. Elder Pack and I in our rain outfits. There is a typhoon in Hong Kong right now, so it has been raining so much. Most days, I get home and I am so soaked that it leaves a pool in the elevator. It is so fun though, I love rain!

5. Another picture of us with Teh, the Petersens (a senior couple in Penang) and our Branch President Ching.

6. The nasi lemak we had in our potluck (had to include a picture of the food).

7. Me wearing my crocs with church pants...looks a little weird, eh?