Almost fun

hello everyone!

so this week has been pretty normal for missionary work. we have met with franklin & chen a couple more times and i have really gained a testimony of bringing a member with us to teach. not only is the language a non-issue anymore, but they can see that a person like them, a normal person living in the same place, who used to be a member of the same church, also believes what the two crazy white guys believe haha. our member basically taught the lesson he came to. it was great. they will be out of town this next week, but both committed to find time to really read the Book of Mormon. they both have great potential and if they are baptized, they will be a great young strength to the branch. so i have high hopes haha.

this week is transfers! and E Reid is very surprisingly moving to KL. my new companion is another native too! he is originally from KL, so my language skills will increase even more haha. ive heard he is an awesome guy so im pretty excited. not sure why reid is being transferred, but he is excited to go to KL. our next zone conference is in March, so i may see him and other pals then. i thought this transfer would be a small one, cuz we will have to have to another big one when the new guys come in next month. but oh well. nobody can ever predict transfers haha, thats why i dont bother trying to guess.

also, today we tried to go on a kind of jungle trek thats far from Kuching, with monkies and the biggest flower in the world, but when we got to the place, the boats to go to the island (Bako) were stuck cuz of low tide.... so we took an hour bus for nothing... we'll try another week though. it sounds super sweet, complete with gangs of monkies that like to steal your stuff! i was hoping to have sweet pictures to send from that, but nope haha.

cant say im sorry to hear about your excess of snow...we are extremely in lack of the white stuff. many people wish it would snow here in malaysia haha, but they dont understand what the coldness feels like haha. they would just die haha.

super exciting to hear about all the missionaries going out! tell them to email me so they can be experts at the MTC haha. (paul and jason) where is leroy going? i always hear that he IS going, but i dont remember where... haha

so for chinese new year we visited a few houses of friends of our members. its pretty crazy. like all the shops are owned by chinese people, so almost all are closed haha. like all of them. its definitely a bigger deal tan christmas, and there have been many fireworks. i have a few videos of standing at the launch site of like mini 4th July caliber rockets. pretty intense when its 20 ft away haha.

im using a members comp and its being pretty slow.. so i cant send the one picture i wanted to send. i found a little slice of MN in my area. its a little lake in the middle of a housing division, looks just like home haha.

i should have an interesting email next week with a new comp and stuff. but this is all i have to report this week.

Love
Elder Giblette

PS im glad my grub eating has made burnsville ward youth squirm haha

Pictures!

grew my hair out again. actually its my member's wig. 

haha but it looks pretty much just like my hair

ahhh, how would you like some corn candy? 

ive never had it but we can only imagine how it tastes

year mark celebratory pringles n sparkling apple juice

classic insert your face into a cat picture. at the cat museum

puss in boots thing i thought mom would like :)

Bonus Time!

ok! so i now have a chance to redeem myself here. we're eating dinner with our branch pres and they let me use their comp for emailing :) so this past week has been good as i said. ok that should be good enough...

haha just kidding. the two new people we taught this week are two youngsters (20, 19; boy and girl; co-habitating) who are curretnly in dental assistant training. they are super nice and smart. there are a couple colleges in our area, so the little success we ahve is always with young people. but ya they areFranklin and Chen. hopefully i will have more good news next week about them.

so for my year mark we just had a normal day. but at the end we were at a grocery store and i got a sparkling apple juice. my comp bought a couple tubes of pringles, so that night we just ate and drank that haha. yes we finished both the tubes at one time haha. poor choice but ok to mark my year. 

the weather here is the same as always. sometimes it kind of rains on n off all day, sometimes no rain. haha pretty average. when it rains it doesnt rain very hard, nothing more than the usual MN rain. We're in the rainy season, but maybe Kuching isnt very rainy. 

tough to hear about the gunderson kid, but of course good to hear he's recovering. I cant believe jordan is home. I think for me, in thinking about going home, i'll feel like its not real until i reach the house. like even seeing you guys at the airport wont make it real haha. maybe not until i'm laying down in my own bed. (but i probly wont even do that cuz haydens there now.. haha) ya tell him to email me! i've figured that he wasnt allowed on his mission. or maybe he hates me... hahah

crazy story with that elder and Bro Davis! ya i obviously dont see anything like that happening to me, but ya certainly i have no idea the affects i am having on the future. awesome to think about. Ya so Tina was that member who was our "mom" :) she will be going to the Indonesian mission I believe, cuz she cant speak any english haha. but ya i think she'll just be a normal sister missionary. super exciting. also the news about most of my recent converts from Tawau is good too. I cant call them, but ive sent a few letters, and i email one the members from there. 

ive definitely thought about my first actions on returning haha. not that it distracts, but we all think about it alot haha. but i think the first thing i wanna do is go on a long drive with kellen and try to hear all the music ive been missing out on. that sounds like the greatest thing to me most days haha.

So "kuching" in malay means cat, and accordingly, this city has probly the most comprehensive museum on cats in the world. Is literally called "The Cat Museum" and its pretty fantastic. its got everything from the anatomy of a cat to popular ads that involve cats to trying to explain why cats do the things they do. but ya its dinner time now. i hope this round two makes up for my shortness earlier :)

Elder Giblette