Badmitton in Ipoh

This is Elder Forsyth after playing the NUMBER ONE badmitton player in the world. He's sweaty, but he's still smiling!

Celebrating the EIGHTH day of Chinese New Year

GUNG HAY FAT CHOY

Playing badmitton against the #1 player in the world

Elder Forsyth (R) after getting schooled in the art of badmitton

The 2 Malay Elders I was on exchanges with...
Elder Maughn (left), ME, & Elder Cazier (right)

So, while Elder Winham was at his district meeting in Singapore, I got to go spend a few days in Ipoh. There were 2 Malay Elders and me, the Chinese Elder. So we did a lot of tracting with mainly me talking because there are a lot of Chinese in Ipoh and at that moment I was the only Mandaring speaking missionary in all of West Malaysia. I got to do a lot of talking and teaching, During my two day stay, I taught 2 lessons by myself and mainly invited a lot of people to the New Year's Party at the church. On the second day, we were invited to play badmitton with some members. I was like "Pshh!! Badmitton is lame..." Nah! Not when your playing with Lee Cheng Weigh! (#1 badmitton player in the world), I was playing with 6 teenage boys that seem to have been playing since birth. They were nuts! I was never more sore and sweaty my entire life. It didn't matter how hard I tried, these guys were going easy on me and destroying me. During one play, my opponent beamed one and got me right in the forehead. Well uh, they thought that was pretty funny ha ha. I played some one-on-one against each one of them, and played some doubles, but my two companions didn't feel up to par to play on that level. I almost rolled both my ankles multiple times because I was diving and moving so fast. My shoulder still kills just from swinging so fast and hard. Badmitton is my new favorite sport. Most intense and tiring I've ever played (must play with native asians, your results may vary.) Ha ha that night we were treated to Pizza Hut.

Something funny about our companionship. Elder Whinham is the DL, and there TWO in our district, him and I. Haha Its pretty funny every week when we have a district meeting. We were asked to make it formal and legit, so Elder Whinham and I go to the church, we announce who's presiding (Elder Whinham), news, the two of us sing an opening and closing hymn, prayers... its pretty funny.

Chinese New Year FINALLY ended on February 17th! JEEZ! All we could do is spend time with members, but we got a lot of investigators to the New Year's Party. We have about 20 investigators now. And in answer to your question, YES, they do celebrate Valentine's Day here, but people go nuts here. They just start kissing people in restaurants, on busses, out in public, etc. So most of the time I say something along the lines of "Brothers and sisters, what are you doing?" That really catches them by surprise and they stop.

My companion (Elder Whinham) and I get along great! After a few weeks I've started to really get to know him, and also the things that bugged me about him started to surface, but I've really set a new goal to love my companion, and keep the commandment I've neglected. Service is the key to life! Every day or every chance I get I do something for him, from ironing all his clothes to making him food, to anything! I never had a testimony of this type of service. I always thought it was very menial, and degrading, but it always surprised me how in the scriptures, all Christ did was serve. I have finished the Old Testament and am now in the New Testemant. I love it. The Bible is probably my favorite book besides Naruto :D ha ha But as I have been doing this service all I feel is love for my companion, and nothing bugs me about him, which is good cause I've seen the difference between this companionship and my companionship at the MTC. It could have been so much better if I learned this lesson sooner, but you do what you can i guess. Also with so few Chinese Elders, most likely another time in my mission I'll be companions again with my MTC comps, so im excited for a second chance to make things right, and have a great friendship with them.

Getting my feet wet...

We had splits again. An Elder from Panang came down and I took him around Sitiawan. I learned from splits that the missionaries in Panang don't contact... hardly at all. They spend all their time with members. We do this as well, but our branch is very small; probably 30-35 active. Services are in Chinese or English, though we do have Malay people that speak only Malay, but they are still faithfull to come. Most people here speak Malay/Chinese/English pretty good, but they don't really seem to be fluent in any one language, just fluent in a combination of languages. So we visit members often and ask for referals every time, but we (street) contact. We are contacting machines, which helps me see why I am in this area and with my companion. If you have the right eyes you can see a purpose and a laid out path that prepares for the future. My teacher in the MTC (the blonde one) taught us every day to talk with EVERYONE! That's what I believe missionary work to be, so I speak with everyone, it is a bit more difficult with so many Muslims but thats ok. I got some muslim contacting approaches down! We cant teach them at all, so we just ask them for referrals of Christian people that live near by. Today for P-day we went to Pankor Island which is a tourist trap. It was really awesome, it had an awesome chinese temple, and was fun to walk around! We stood in the ocean knee high. It really killed my companion because he's a swimmer and the only job he knows is lifeguarding. Well, here's a picture of me getting my feet wet. Hopefully, soon, I'll be able to get a new convert wet... more than their feet, though.