Week 15: Butterworth, Malaysia

The Ballad of Butterworth Week 11

Hello everyone! Well, I am officially done with my "training" as a missionary, and I am no longer a greenie! Woo hoo! Also, we got our transfer news today, and I found out that I am going to...Butterworth! I am actually going to become the District Leader here, and I will be training a new missionary named Elder Anglin who gets here on Friday. I don't know anything about him, but his picture is pretty neat haha! I am super nervous but also really excited for the opportunities that lay ahead. Also, Elder Pack is going to Puchong, a predominantly-Chinese suburb city outside of KL!

This was a really good week! Elder Pack and I really learned a lot and worked really hard this week, because we pretty much figured that he would be leaving Butterworth (he has been here about seven months). We first had our exchanges in KL on Tuesday, which were really fun! There were so many tourists in KL, it was very different than Butterworth. I learned how to say "hello" in so many languages; Korean, Japanese, Thai, Shanghaiese, Tibetan, Nepalese, Bengali, it was crazy! We also went to a dinner appointment with a really cool German-Chinese family that made us this really good fondue! Overall, I learned a lot and had a great time!

On Wednesday, we took a train back to Butterworth, and then had a pretty normal rest of the week. We did not watch General Conference this week, but we are going to watch it with our branch this weekend. However, Elder Pack and I got on to see the big news, so we saw that church is now only 2 hours on Sunday, and that there were a lot of cool temples. So exciting!! Thank you so much for telling me about your favorite talks, I really look forward to hearing them and sharing with you guys.

On Saturday, Elder Pack and I went to a really good Indian place for dinner to celebrate my birthday. It was so good! We got nasi kandar (mixed rice) with nan bread and all sorts of delicious stuff! Plus, while we were eating, the staff taught us tons of Malay, which was really fun. I had a great birthday!

This Sunday, Peter, his wife, and his three kids, were all able to come to church, which was super exciting! They made the branch almost double in size, it was really cool! Elder Pack and I really hope that they continue to come, and continue to learn more about our church. Teh (two calling guy) is doing really well, but he is really sick, and so we haven't been able to see him this week. Moong Kau (overcoming addiction guy) is also doing really well, and is preparing for baptism in three weeks! Woot!

Today, we went to Kek Lok Si, a really old Buddhist temple, in Penang, and then we went to get frozen yogurt with the Sisters in Penang. It was really fun, I will include some pictures!

I will be flying to KL on Wednesday and spending a couple days there, and then I will fly out with my new companion on Friday to Butterworth. It is really weird; I still feel so young and so new to missionary life, but now there will be someone who is even younger and even newer. I feel a little nervous about if I know enough or if I am familiar enough with the area, but we will see what happens. I have a feeling the Lord will help me out, He always does :)

I love you all so much! I hope that you had a fantastic week, and I am so grateful for all of you! Thank you all so much for sharing with me, and thank you all so much for wishing me a happy birthday! One year older and wiser too? I sure hope so! Continue being the awesome people that you guys are, and remember how much I love you and how much I am thinking about you. You guys are my whole world, I love you to pieces!

Best,

Elder Weatherford

Questions:

1. Yes, Elder Pack is going to BYU when he gets home. He really loves Choir and singing, so he might major in Music, or he may major in Physics.

2. For travel (train tickets, Grab cars, etc.) we pay using our support money (what the church gives us) and then we submit our receipts for reimbursement, and then the Mission Office reimburses us through putting the money back onto our accounts. So, we paid for the tickets, but the money was put back into our accounts. 

3. The splits/exchanges were really good! I had a Monday night (6:30-9:30) with Elder DJ, one of the Zone Leaders, and then I had a full Tuesday with Elder Sorensen, the other Zone Leader, and then we left Wednesday morning. I learned a lot, it was great! The zone leaders know so much about missionary work, it is really cool! I hope that I get to that level one day...

4. Generally, to find people to teach, we find YSA Chinese men and then teach an OTS (on the spot) lesson, so we sit down with them and teach them the Restoration, invite them to pray at home, and then set up a return appointment to meet with them again. We really try to meet with less-active families and part-member families, but we have not had a ton of luck, so we mostly talk to people on the street while we are biking to destinations, and then sit down with people at those destinations. It is pretty fun, it is really different. When I was in the US, whenever I went out with the Elders, we knocked doors, but here in Malaysia we don't really do that haha.

One thing that was pretty tough for me was that we met several Malay men that were really interested in learning about the Gospel, but we are legally not able to teach them. There was one man in the airport in KL who came up to us, begged us to give him a Book of Mormon, but we were not able to, and he was really sad. It was hard to deny someone access to the word of God, but I guess at the end of the day we just need to have hope that God has a plan for them. 

Spiritual Experiences

This week has been a great week full of really cool opportunities for growth. Since finding out that Elder Pack will be leaving and I will be staying here and training a new missionary, I have been thinking a lot about change and how it can lead to growth. Honestly, change is really hard. I think that it is human nature to want things to stay the same, and so when things suddenly become different, it is scary, but it is also exciting. I think that looking back on change, we realize how much growth it leads to, but in the moment it is really scary. When I saw that Elder Pack was leaving, I felt excited to meet my new companion, but also terrified, because Elder Pack and I together in Butterworth has pretty much been my whole mission. But, I think that God has bigger plans for me. Because God can see everything, He understands perfectly what we need in order to become the people that He wants us to be years and decades in the future. But, because we can't see that person in the future, sometimes change seems scary and unnecessary for us. Sorry that this is all coming out in jumbles...the morale of the story is to trust in God. We are very far from knowing everything, but we can trust that God does. And so, if He gives us change, we can trust that there is a reason behind it, even if we cannot see it right away. In Chinese, the word for "to improve" is 改进， which has the word "change" ( 改), in it, which I think is really cool. In order to improve, we have to change.

Isn't it amazing how Jesus Christ felt ALL of our pains and weaknesses, not just our sins? What serving a mission has made me realize is that Christ felt everything...he felt what it feels like to have kids that are missing out on Gospel blessings, what it feels like to talk to a hundred Buddhist men a day who all say that all religions are the same, and he felt the pain of having a tough calling in church. He felt EVERYTHING, so that he can help us through EVERYTHING. I love it!

I love you all so much! I am sorry that at times, change is really hard and it is scary. But I have hope that the Lord has a plan for everything, and even when we don't understand the plan, we can have faith that God does. He loves us more than we can imagine, and I love you all to pieces! Have a great week! I love you all so much!

Pictures:

1. Our Birthday feast!

2. Kek Lok Si from the bottom.

3. The big statue at the top of the temple.

4. Elder Pack seizing the opportunity to teach the Plan of Salvation to a statue :)

5. Elder Pack and I with our frozen yogurt!