Long-overdue update!

Elder Johnson Moody (Elder Forsyth's new companion)

As I (Elder Forsyth's mother) have need to repent from my lack of diligence in keeping up with Elder Forsyth's mission blog... for this entry I will give a summation of events since the last post.

Several months ago Elder Forsyth was transferred from Sitiawan (West Malaysia) to Miri, Sarawak, East Malaysia. Miri is located on the South China Sea on the island of Borneo.

He loves his new companion, Elder Johnson Moody (from Las Vegas, NV). He writes of his new companion...

"Elder Moody has taught me how to have fun on my mission, with obedience mind you.. In Sitiawan, I was super bored and had no one to talk to... was not having fun there. The work was good and I was happy. But I wasn't having fun. Elder Moody knows how to do missionary work while having a great time. So its awesome!"

There are some definite differences between his experiences in East Malaysia from his last transfer. For instance... in West Malaysia, he and his companion were constantly being stopped on the side of the road (and sometimes driven off the side) so that people could take their pictures with this tall blonde American. He didn't complain though because "a contact is a contact". In EAST Malaysia, however, despite the fact that he is still tall and blonde, and his companion is what Elder Forsyth lovingly refers to as a "ginger"... the reasons they get honked at and driven off the side of the road are not as kindly in nature as in West Malaysia. In the East there are some other Christian denominations that don't take too kindly to the Elders' proselyting, and the missionaries often find themselves the target of some pretty bad language and insults.

The work in Miri, however, is progressing. They have been busy teaching a number of people...

From a recent email, Elder Forsyth writes:

"So things have been really good. Were going to have a baptism next week. Elder Moody is going to baptize Charles. He's 9. His mom is inactive and his dad is a non member. But he goes to church with his grandma Sis Chai, who is awesome! She is really cool, we visit her a lot. We would have 2 baptisms this weekend with Roy age 32ish? He had trouble quitting smoking at first, but has now been 4 days completely clean, so the following Saturday he'll be be baptized."

His most recent email gave us an update on the baptism...

"Our area has slowed down a lot. The Philips family are on the verge of being dropped; they're avoiding us, but were going to go try to figure out whats up tomorrow. So after spending the whole afternoon getting ready for the baptism, and filling the font twice, the first time the water came out brownish green. So we drained that out, then got the fire hose that's located at the center of the church and ran it to the font and filled the font up with that water. It was much cleaner. After all this we get a call that Charles is sick and cant be baptized today. So the baptism didnt go through last saturday because it rained and Charles was outside long enough for his head to get wet, so he got "the MUM". Its the feared sickness that every native is terrified of. If you get the Mum you cant do anything for days, and you're immediately sick and could die if you eat the wrong things or take a shower afterward. Its just their superstitions, but since he went outside and got his hair wet, his parents freaked out and cancelled the baptism. But this week on saturday, he is being baptised, if we can keep him out of the rain... along with Roy, a 32 year old guy, that is awesome. He's unmarried and just this bachelor dude, but he's cool, and cuts our hair for free. I give Roy "hard core" props for quitting smoking practically cold turkey. I think its easier to quit smoking here than other places though. The cigarettes are way cheap and are really poorly made, so I'm pretty sure they aren't as addictive. They do make you stink way bad though. But thats whats going on right now.

We did find a new family the Wongs, who were very welcoming and were excited to talk with us. We just went through a very discouraging 3-4 hours of contacting with nothing to show for it but a watch tan line and sweat-drenched clothes. We were riding back home when Elder Moody said, "Let's go down this street, just for the purpose of scouting out future contacting locations." As we got to the end of the street a dog with a muzzle on its mouth came out from the house and into the street to come to try to bark at us. I thought it was hilarious, so I stopped to take a picture of this dog with the muzzle. As I was doing this a girl runs out about 15 years old to get her dog. As she left the house she saw the two weird looking white guys and yelled into the house in Chinese that 2 red haired foreigners are outside. As she was about half way across the yard we asked her in Chinese, "You never seen a red haired guy before?" She literally screamed and ran back in the house. Elder Moody and I started laughing and the dad came out laughing and came to get the dog. We talked with him. He is married and has 5 kids. They were getting ready for dinner and it was getting late, so we talked with him and got to meet all of his family. They all came out and were all really funny, especially the girl that screamed. They're all Christians, but not active in their church. We have an appointment to meet with them later this week to teach them, so we're really excited."

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.