Joshua's Song of Singapore: Week 27: Butterworth, Malaysia

Ballad of Butterworth

Good morning everyone! I am so grateful for the opportunity to write to all of you! This week was definitely one of the hardest but most amazing weeks of my missions!

First, Christmas was really good, but I definitely missed you guys a TON! It didn't really feel like Christmas since we just had a normal day of sweating on bicycles and going around talking to people, but it was a really good day nonetheless! We got to meet with Jom Liu, one of the people who is preparing for baptism (from China!), and he is doing really great! We asked him if he wanted to live with his wife forever, to which he responded "I think no". We were kinda surprised, but then we realized it was just probably a language error haha.

On Wednesday morning, we took a bus to Sitiawan for exchanges. We tried to bring our bicycles, but the guard would not let us take them to the bus, so we ended up having to leave them behind. When we got to Sitiawan, we met with the two elders there (Elder Carter and Elder Taylor), and started exchanges. Sitiawan was really fun...it is a lot like Butterworth. Plus, Elder Taylor is SO cool! He did one year of school at BYU, and he studied Neuroscience! And plus, his Chinese is so amazing...it was so fun to just talk to someone constantly in Chinese and learn all of these crazy words and just have a really good time. On Thursday, we came back to Butterworth.

On Friday, poor Elder Anglin woke up feeling really sick. So, we went out and worked for a little bit, but then we came back home so he could rest. I read some of the Book of Mormon in Chinese while he rested, and then we played a weird version of Monopoly and watched a video about Christmas. By Saturday, he was feeling better, so we went out and had a pretty regular rest of the week. This Sunday was the last Sunday of 3 hour church, which is crazy!

I can't think of any stories that are too crazy from the week (no dogs chasing us, no giant lizards on the road, etc.), but if I think of anything I will be sure to let you all know.

I love you all so much! I hope that you had a wonderful Christmas! I miss you all a lot (especially many on Christmas), but I am grateful to be here in Butterworth helping God's children. Have a wonderful new year, and please remember how much I love you all!

Sincerely,

Elder Weatherford

P.S. I haven't heard anything about transfers yet, but if something happens, I will let you know :)

Spiritual Experiences

This week, we had a pretty cool experience. We were biking and we saw this one guy near a petrol station, and so we biked over and started to talk to him. He wasn't interested in talking, but as we were about to leave, this nice Indian man named Jeevan came over and started to talk to us. He said that he had never been to church, but he believes in Jesus Christ. I'm not quite sure how he knew we were Christian (since our nametags are in Chinese), but we were able to meet with him, and learn more about him. It was cool to see how God had put him in our path.

Missions are crazy, and they are hard, but they are so worth it when wonderful things like this happen. I love you all!