it's chinese new year

hey dad
sorry about not having pictures, but like i told you guys a few weeks ago, the computers here are pretty terrible and wont read my camera. i can't send any pics via the internet, so you'll probably have to wait til i get transferred to get pics from me. i'll pray my next area has better computers. it looks like i'll probably be here til at least march, so just hold tight.

anyways, we had an ok week. it's chinese new year, which in malaysia is celebrated for weeks. on christmas day, chinese new year music was already being played. so lots of places have been closed. lots of people have a week off of work, so even if they arent chinese, they are going back to kampung or doing something which takes their time away from learning with the missionaries. so about half the investigators we thought would come to church didnt because of chinese new year. gong xi fa cai.

but we still managed to do pretty good. ah chai and shirley ended up getting baptized and confirmed after all. that was pretty sweet. ah chai lives at dorms in his medical college, and there was an outbreak of swine flu. so they put the place on quarantine and wouldnt let ah chai out. we got shirley interviewed on thursday, and she told us they'd have to delay the baptism, which had already been delayed like 3 weeks. i was pretty sad. but then friday night we got a call and found out the baptism was back on. so it happened, and ah chai gave an awesome testimony about how he prayed and found out the book of mormon was true. and then he told us that when he was under quarantine, he felt the holy ghost tell him that he needed to be baptized that weekend. he said he was able to escape through a bit of "deceiving" which i'm not sure exactly what that means, but hey, he got baptized. now we just have to work on getting his wife to class. she's the laziest church-goer i've taught. but i love them

anyways, this week we should have 6 people. a family named ramas and dickson. i probably told you about them already, but i can never remember what ive written in the past, so i'll tell their story again. elder wheelwright and i contacted into them when he was still here, but they didnt really want. so we never went back. then wheelwright went home, and elder simon and i happened to be in that area for contacting. and we contacted into them again. she found our message intriguing, and invited us to come back. but that was kind of close to christmas, so whenever we tried to call her after that, she kept giving excuses that she couldnt meet us, like she was back at kampung, just plain busy, or she would hang up on us. she seemed so good that first time, we didnt want to give up, but we had just about had it with her excuses. anyways, one pday, we had an appointment scheduled, and ramas was the backup plan. elder simon dropped our phone in some water during pday, and accidently left it in some other elder's bag in our zone. so for the day, we were without a phone. when our first appointment fell through, we went to call ramas, but didnt have a phone. so we decided to just go there. when we went there, we knocked on the door we met her at. it turned out to be her mom's house. her mom brought us to her house, but she went a good amount ahead of use while we were locking up our bicycles. when we approached, i heard her arguing with her mom about how she didnt want to meet us and she didnt have time. she was pretty angry. anyways, we walked up all smiley and were like hey ramas, hows it going? she told us she didnt have any time and didnt want to meet us. my mind was blank. i had no idea what to do. i looked at elder simon and he looked about the same as me. i new something had to be done or we would lose her. so the thought came to my head to ask her about how she felt last time when we taught her. normally people answer "good" and then still dont want to listen to us. she answered good, but you could see the look on her face change. i dont remember how the rest of the conversation went, but all of a sudden she invited us to have a drink. we agreed and she went to go make us some water. she came back out and invited us in and we met her husband. we had an awesome lesson and invited them to church. them they came. but if we had had our cell phone, we would have called them before we went over, and i am sure that she wouldve given us another excuse and we may never have gone over. also, if our appointment before had gone through, we wouldnt have gone to her house. things happened exactly the way they had to for this couple to receive the gospel, and now this saturday they will be baptized. they have already given us their neighbors as referrals too. pretty awesome people.

also, we have katty and her two kids, metron and belinda getting baptized. they are awesome. they have been working so hard to get us referrals, but the people that live near them are... let's just say not very prepared to receive the gospel. we contacted into katy's fam. they've had some big problems and bad things happen in their lives, but what they do notice is that they just feel happy when they meet with us and go to church. they were pretty much golden contacts, and are turning into a source of referrals, which is good. i'm super excited for them. they have an uncle, tingau and a friend, sanchez who should be baptized within the month.

also, the 6th person is ajong, a 25 year old cousin or some sort of relative of a member who recently moved in from kampung. he's doing well, and taking in the gospel well. luckily he has a good family to guide him and watch over him.

so the next few weeks have an unknown number of baptisms. we'll keep you updated, but we have some good people we're working with, and we keep finding new people all the time. so it's good.

our entire zone is on fire right now. we're projecting 25 baptisms or so in between 5 companionships for the month. so pretty good. our goal for each companionship per month is 3, so we're looking good. kuching is where it's at.

anyways, i'm all out of words. i'll write you more next week about the progress of other people we have (hopefully we'll be able to meet them after chinese new year)

thanks so much for listening to me dad. as an update, my application at byu is completed and pending decision, so i'll just be waiting now. thanks for your help with my application also, mom said there's an elder in the ward from west malaysia? what's this? what's his story and where in west malaysia is he from? please tell me all you know. but i'll write more next week. love you dad.

zac

hey mom. yep. the baptisms went through. i'll send you what i wrote to dad telling him about my week.

[edit]

so that's the update. we're way excited with things going here. why would desiree not go to church by herself? that's really sad. if you see her, you should encourage her to keep coming. does she still work at jo ann's with you? or did she change work places too? dont give up. keep trying with those people that you know, and there will be some that want to learn about the gospel.

well, i'm sorry it's been getting cold there. it got hot here for a few days, and then it got way rainy again. ive been forgetting to put my shoes on the fan, so i've had to go out with wet shoes the past couple days. i've been kind of cold lately too. stupid rain. but my bronchitis is gone. ive been healthy for a while now. the future is looking bright, but i really can believe how fast time goes. anyways, my brain hurts from staring at this computer screen, so i'll go. talk to you next week mom. love you.

love, zac