PLEASANT TIMES IN BORNEO

ELLEN NEAR THE POST OFFICE IN KK

We are enjoying a very pleasant winter here however it does not feel much like Christmas at all. We have a little fake tree up and some music playing but it is a real stretch for us to feel Christmas yet. But we will keep trying.

You know you have been serving a mission in Borneo for almost 9 months when:

1. You can't see out the front window of a taxi:

2. When the two choices at the local restaurant are "chopped chicken and rice" and "chopped chicken and rice."

3. When someone on the phone says,"Bill is it?"

4. When someone on the phone says," hello?" and you say hello and they say hello and you say hello and so on.

5  When driving on the left side feels right and you see a movie from America showing cars on the right side and it freaks you out and you say they are the wrong side.

6. When it is 85 degrees every day, day in day out.

7. When the days are always 12 hours long, and the sun is up around 6 am and down around 6 pm or so everyday.

8. When there is no daylight savings time.

9. When you are a foot or two taller  than anybody else every where you go you are not tall really.

10. When you see monkeys so often that it is no big deal any more.

11. When you can go swimming any day of the year.

12. When the manager of the apartment complex shows you pictures of a 30 foot python that was swimming in your pool one night.

13.When everything in the culture that used to shock you doesn't.

14. When you are surprised to see a river with clear water and not brown.

15.When you see an alligator swimming in front of your dining table at a local restaurant.

16. When you realize that you will be shocked to sit on pews instead of plastic chairs in church again.

17. When the young men in the branch volunteer to do the dishes after the branch's dinner.

18. When you realize you are use to a different pace and enjoy it.

19. When you remember you are on the frontier edge of the church's growth and these members are truly pioneers, the founding fathers and mothers of the church here that will be the future leaders.

20. When you remember you will not be able to divide prices by thirds when you get home to realize the true cost .

Here is a link to a song called GoD and DoG. It was played at our zone conference by our mission President. I really liked it and thought you might also.  http://www.GoDandDoG.org/index.html

We leave for Lahad Datu  on Tuesday for 4 days to organize the 18 water projects there and get them started. We will get contracts and agreements signed and all the details worked out so it goes smoothly. The next week we head for Kuching to do the same, also Bintulu. Then Christmas week here. The last week of the year we will be in Singapore for our visa run.

Ellen here.  It is interesting to see Bill's perspective on things here in Malaysia.  Today, I spent 2 hours entering family names into new.familysearch.org for a sister who is going to the temple in Manila, Philippines, next week.  She is going with her husband and four children for the first time.  She has been working on her genealogy---4 generations---for some time and I helped her enter the names in preparation for their trip.  She is from a kampung up north near Kudat where her family had lived for generations.  There were no written records kept so most of the information she had was from the memory of elderly family members.  What is interesting is that she was even able to get 4 generations.  That is back over 150 years!

We had a great zone conference last week.  It was nice to be able to be there as we missed the last one while we were traveling.  Of the 4 senior couples here in Sabah we will be the only ones here after February---one couple just went home and the other 2 will go home by the end of February.  Are any of you couples ready to turn in your papers to serve a mission, yet?    You would love it!