occasionally i get a fever

hey mom. yeah i'm feeling better. i dont know what is wrong with me. i've been having lots of problems with my lungs since i've been here in malaysia. i just always have a cough and am coughing stuff up like i did when i had bronchitis back in the day. occasionally i get a fever. but besides that i've been doing well. i feel much better now, and can go out a teach these people a lesson or two... with my fists! just kidding. i will tell you that i've been going out all the time when it's raining and the sun is still shining. accursed hujan panas. it's pretty good you remembered that.
 
 but yeah, i told dad, but when it comes to my suits, we just store them at church. i dont have to wear them outside, so it's quite nice actually. everyone thinks i'm all handsome now. so hopefully that tactic will work when i get back to america. just wear my suit and people will think i'm handsome. as for conference, i'll hear it this upcoming sunday. i'm excited. it's pretty cool to be able to tell our investigators that they can hear from a living prophet. they normally think that is pretty cool. get's them all kinds of excited so hopefully we can get a good amount of investigators at church. this last week we had 11, wihch is the best i've had in kuching. that's exciting.
 
so actually, dad wrote me an email saying that i guess he may not have received some of the emails i've sent him. i'm afraid the last one i sent may also get lost, so i'm going to copy it and send it to you as well. i hope you don't mind, but it will give you the scoop on my week. here it is.
 
"hey dad. things are going well here. but what the heck? why doesn't anyone tell me anything. "I am sure that you've heard by now about Nano and Dawn's good news.  If they haven't told you yet, then I'll wait until next week." no one told me the good news. i read in nyssa's letter that even she found out. and she's getting a package for halloween of all holidays. don't you love me?
 
but with that said, we actually had a really awesome week here in kuching. and the good news about the suits is that we just store our suits at the church. when we get to church we change into them, and when we are going home we change out of them. so it is actually pretty nice. everyone thinks we look really good. and i guess it's kind of the way ibans do things that they dress really nicely when they are looking for a wife, so ive been asked a few times if i'm wearing a suit all of a sudden because i'm looking for a wife. they really like the idea of a white guy coming back and marrying an iban, and they get pretty sad when i tell them i'm gonna marry an american. but that's the way life goes i guess.
 
anyways, our baptism worked out and it was a miracle. the person we baptized is labang, and he's the brother of some recent converts. he has a crazy work schedule at kfc, and was scheduled to work the entire week from 6am to 12am. (think about that next time you feel your schedule is tough.) so this would have messed up his day for baptism and coming to church. he asked the boss to switch his schedule so he could have saturday evening off to get baptized and sunday morning off to be able to go to church. his boss said no. but we kept praying and his sister who also works at kfc went to talk to the boss on the thursday before the baptism, and the boss suddenly let him switch and everything worked out perfectly for the baptism. it was awesome. the only problem was that wheelwright and i forgot to take pictures. we're pretty dumb. but there's always another day.
 
and we found out that two of the families we are working with are really solid. we've got mulin's family. he had previously been smoking 2-3 packs a day (40-60 cigarrettes) and he just wants to be baptized so much he quit cold turkey and hasnt smoked for a week. we asked him how he does it, and he said he just keeps praying all day. he said that if you really believe you can stop, you just stop. he also told us he talked to his boss well in advance to make sure he gets the day of his baptism off work. he's really excited about getting baptized, expecially since his family will all be baptized with him.
 
we met with norina again as well. she is awesome. but we realized we are pretty crappy missionaries. well, when we were given her as a referral, we already knew her husband had just barely passed away. so we planned to talk about some aspects of the plan of salvation to help her. somehow we only reached the resurrection, and then it just happened that we moved on to joseph smith after that and continued. anyways, last time we met, we finished the plan of salvation. she had one question. she wanted to know how she could help her husband go to heaven. so we taught her about the temple a little bit and explained about baptisms for the dead and how her husband is learning in the spirit world. she told us that this lesson was what she had been waiting to hear. i said we are crappy missionaries because i dont know why we didnt help her to know that earlier in our teaching with her. but, luckily for us, everything worked out for the best and norina is really solid. she is really determined now to get baptized and keep coming to church so she can help her husband, and so she can be with her family forever. things are good.
 
also, we've been working for a few weeks with this guy named ruzh. he's indonesian and he's a referral from bella (who was baptized a few weeks ago) and her husband louis. we've taught him for a few weeks, and he's awesome. really solid. understands what we teach him really well and wants to follow. he had some trouble with work for a while, but on sunday he came to church! it was pretty sweet. luckily for him church moved almost right next door to him, so he can just walk to church. so he's just started progressing really well and hopefully not too much longer he'll be baptized.
 
we also had more success with a family that lives next door to some long time members. it's a lady and her daughter. they are pretty good and really seem to like to have us over. the lady seems fairly serious, but just the other day she started poking some fun at me (which really helps to show when people are opening up) the name i go by here in malaysia is bukit, which means hill. anyways, i guess in this lady's home town bukit is a girl's name. so she gave me a pretty hard time about that. but it was all in good fun. this family also lives next to the church and were there on sunday. the members seemed to fellowship them pretty well, so we're excited. anyways, that was my week, so i guess i'll let you go. i'm glad work is keeping you busy and that the french club is growing. good luck with getting the kids to the paris, and good luck with home teaching."
 
anyways, it's true that i gotta go. thanks for writing to me mom. i love you. talk to you next week.
 
love, zac
 
ps no baptisms this week, but next week should have some. i'll keep you informed.


i'll right dad. so i have to apologize. the part about asking if you loved me was supposed to be a joke. it's hard to convey humor over email. but to make matters worse, nano just barely email me the news. so i feel bad. please dont hate me. i love you and talk to you next week.