bye bye cinta!

You know that picture of the river on my blog?  Flying into Kuching looks just like that!  I’m SO not in the west anymore!  

TODAY is my sister’s birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SISTER!! I love you :)

And speaking of sisters…so one of the little boys in Acha's family can't say sister like the rest of the kids, so when we're leaving the house and they're all shouting, "Bye sister!" you hear a little voice yelling, "bye bye cinta!"  which means love in bahasa.  It kills me it's so cute.  So yes, I am Cinta Norton to him. 

MS was baptized in Penang last week!!  And his mom came to church the next day and for the baptism!  So awesome!  The work goes on.

Our Gawai houses visited count is now over 12...I think that equates to about 3 kg gained.  Sick. 

Asen is getting baptized next week!  And he brought a friend to church on Sunday.  Because his date was moved up, we had to speed up the lessons and get Word of Wisdom in time last weekend...thankfully he has no problems with it and things are still looking good for the 16th :)

We met an incredible family yesterday.  Last week we were faith finding at Waterfront and there was a boy about our age sitting in front of one of the shoppings carving some masks and stuff.  Rojous.  We talked to him and asked if we could come visit this week.  When we got there yesterday, they had prepared food for us and the whole family sat down in the living room and turned off the tv, then they pulled out a Book of Mormon!!  I think they think it's just a different version of the Bible.  One of the sisters is almost half way through with it.  We had an awesome lesson about what the book really was and where it came from and invited them to be baptized.  Rojous and Mollin (the sister) said yes and the others nodded their heads, but the dad didn't get it and said no need because he can't be baptized twice (he's already baptized into the RC church) and told us that his family will follow him.  He was so nice though, just doesn’t understand yet.  They're coming to church this Sunday and we're meeting with all of them again next week.  We felt so good about it when we walked into their house, so I'm still hopeful that it will go somewhere.

My companion is dying on Monday!  I can't believe it. Other than that all is good...except I’m missing Sister Song and Penang food and Jenny. I love it here though...I feel so comfortable! I love Ibans! The branch is about the same size as Penang’s, but the members help SO much, like a real branch!  And we have a beautiful new chapel that was just dedicated last month.  It’s like a church in the U.S.!  There’s so much work here too, we teach all day.  We just walk through the kampung and the people know us as “the sisters” and you can just walk from “house” to “house.”  I say “house” because they’re more like huts.  It’s crazy.  Some houses don’t even have electricity.  You sit on the wood/dirt floor around one light bulb (sometimes the floor feels like it will break under you because the houses are on stilts). I love it though!  And my bahasa is fine! No problems! I feel so comfortable around Asians.  White people actually make me slightly uncomfortable, so family, please...try not to be too white when I come home.  Really…dye your skin yellow and get rid of all the chairs and silverware in the house.  

I have to run now, but I love you all!  Hope you have a great week! 

Cinta Norton

hfi

Bako National Park - Yeah! P-Day!  It was beautiful!
(Previously posted but we had no idea it had a name.)