DECEMBER ON BORNEO!!!!

Christmas would not be complete without feeding our wonderful missionaries. I promised them that we would have lasagna, just as soon as I could find a store that sold lasagna noodles. After weeks of searching, I finally found some in an expensive store downtown. So we had a wonderful meal, even if I do say so myself!! I even baked chocolate and coconut cream pies for dessert. YUM!!!! This is Sisters Wong and Gopinath. Sister Wong goes back home to Southern California on January 2. We will really miss her. She is such a delight.

Sorry that this picture is so blurred but I didn't know how to delete it from the blog once I placed it there. We ate our Christmas dinner outside at church. It really was delicious. Kate, our Relief Society president was in charge of the whole Christmas evening at church. She can do anything!!!! Our sisters love to have their pictures made. After the meal was finished, we had awesome fireworks. One of our Branch Presidents bought them and his counselor, who is Chinese, loves to shoot them off!!! The kids were so excited and it really was fun.

The YM/YW performed the Christmas Story as told in Luke 2. They made their own costumes and they LOVE to perform. So simple and so from the heart. Sister Dorcas, who has on the Santa hat, is a counselor in YWs. She bought the fabric for the costumes and helped sing the carols with the youth. Dorcas used to sing professionally and has a lovely voice. She is amazing.

Also on the program, we had a "tree" decorating contest and guess who the "trees" were!! That's right--Our Wonderful Elders!!! We emailed their parents these pictures on Christmas Day. The members of the branches just loved doing this. I picked one adult member, one youth, and one primary child to decorate "the trees". Our branch members are so youthful in their laughter and enjoyment.

These are our primary children with Sister Kolinting, singing "Joy to the World". They love to sing, too.

The Relief Society sisters sang a medley of three songs. Chelsey, the little girl in front, sang the first verse solo. She was so excited and her mom bought her a new dress just for the occasion!! Her mother is Caroline, standing right behind her in the pink blouse. Caroline just went to the temple for the first time in November. She is Branch President Francis's daughter.

This is Sister Margaret. We have wanted to meet her for many months, but did not know how to contact her. She is inactive, hasn't been to church for five years. Her son, Ian, is active and lives in Hawaii where he attends BYUH. He is married and has three children. Sister Margaret has six children--five boys and a daughter. All of her boys are members of the church, her daughter is not a member. Her husband is a lawyer here and she has her own reflexology business. She used to be a nurse many years ago. We went to her business to introduce ourselves. She treated us to lunch and we had a nice discussion with her about her activity in church. She was receptive but not ready to decide. She is a lovely lady. We told her that we're going to look up Ian and his family when we go to Hawaii and giver him this picture of his mom and us.

The best thing we did in December was to go to Sandakan for some wheelchair assessment training and distribution of wheelchairs. These are some of the nursing students who volunteered to help with the wheelchair assessments. The 70 wheelchairs that were in Sandakan were part of the almost 600 that were donated to Cheshire Homes in KK. Only three people in Sandakan had had the assessment training, so we needed these volunteers to train. They had "on the job training". They're smart and caught on really quickly.

This is E/S Lee with one of our wheelchair recipients. They are relatively new missionaries in Sandakan. I think that they have been there about 4 months. E. Lee is now the Branch President. S. Lee is the R. Society president. They are from Kuala Lumpur. They are young for "senior" missionaries. They quit their jobs to serve a mission now while their health is good. S. Lee said that the Lord had blessed them to be able to do this. They're doing a great job. They were especially helpful to us at this wheelchair give away because the speak many different Chinese dialects. This was so helpful because some of the recipients were Chinese who did not speak Bahasa Malay. E. Lee translated for the students who were doing the assessing.

They also picked us up at the airport and showed us some of Sandakan. We stayed in a beautiful older Chinese hotel.

This was part of the closing ceremony with the wheelchair recipients. The Muslim lady to the right of E. Larson was our government official guest. She spoke and officially thanked LDS Charities for the gifts of the wheelchairs. It is such a blessing in our lives to be a small part of Heavenly Father's Kingdom here, to help bless His children on this remote island, Borneo. Who else but the Lord's Church would find and give them this wonderful gift to help them live a better life???

Trying to teach the student nurses some of the assessment for this sweet, elderly lady.

E. Larson helping this sweet lady with a new chair and a cane!!!

This is Sister Liew. We just finished teaching her granddaughter, Veronica. We teach new converts eight lessons just as soon as the missionaries have finished teaching them their parts. We taught Veronica in Sister Liew's home--that's where Veronica lives. S. Liew has nine children and numerous grandchildren. Ten of her family live with her!!! She is always exhausted and busy!!!! We took her to lunch one day. We told her that we would only take her and no one else. We just wanted her to have time by herself, at least for a few hours for one day!! She is a good and faithful member of the church. She wants to serve a mission, but doesn't see how she can. I always encourage her. Notice all of the Christmas decorations in the restaurants with our Muslim friends!!

This is Kate and her friends at her birthday party. Her three best friends are here with her. They have been friends since primary school. The gal in the gray t-shirt is Angeline who lives in Australia now. She has the cutest little baby boy named Liam. These gals are all Chinese. We have had Angeline and Liam over to our apartment with Kate. I also invited them to the church Christmas party and dinner, but she couldn't come because she was moving into a new apartment that week. This will be their second home. The restaurant is a vegetarian restaurant. The food was delicious and I love Kate's friends--just like I love Kate. When I leave Borneo, part of my heart will remain with her. She is like our "adopted " daughter. I sometimes feel that we were sent here to meet and help her during this time in her life.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KATIE-BUG!!!!!

We love our family more every day and look forward to seeing everyone...God bless all who serve Him everywhere!!!

DAD & MOM

Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas from HB, CA

Just to prove that The Olmsteads are alive, I thought I'd share with you both Molly's and Jaxon's Christmas Preschool performance. All I have to say is this... the videos totally show both kids' personalities. You'll know what I mean when you watch them:) Make sure you have the sound on on your computer. Sorry for my terrible singing in the background.

We moved about 2 weeks ago, Crazy! I will never move during December again. My poor kids were wondering if we were ever going to decorate for Christmas. Well, we have the tree, it's decorated, and the stockings are hung by the chimney with some care (b/c Jaxon helped me put them up).

I hope that you all are able to enjoy this magical season. The kids and I cruise around listening to Christmas music all day, every day (our favorites are Josh Groban, Manheim Steamroller, and Sarah MacLaughlin. Josh Groban puts me to tears everyday:) I love the spirit that this season brings, and how it helps most people think about what's most important. I am so grateful for the special birth of our Savior. I am grateful for the love and peace he gives to me and my family (y'all included). The Olmsteads wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New year filled with love and laughter!

Enjoy the goodies below. Matt and I crack up and grin from ear to ear each time we see them!

Jaxon Singing Rudolph: (click on link below)

http://youtu.be/icsz0l-sqN0

Molly singing Rudolph:(click on link below)

http://youtu.be/c0z57UmXWQg

Tawau and Headlines

Dad and I had to go to Tawau this month to check on two projects--one a vision project and the other a water project. I like going to Tawau to see our friends in the Rotary Club. They are so very nice and funny. This top picture is of the Rotarians and the members of a local kampung in Tawau. We are doing a fresh water project for this village of about 4500 people. They have a really good supply of water in springs in the village, but do not have a way to get it to their house. LDS Charities and Rotary are building a dam, running pipes to storage tanks, and then to each of the houses in the village. We had to go get signatures for contracts from the village chief and the lady who owns the property where the tanks will be. The lady was so nice and polite. She had torn her rotator(sp) cuff and her muscle was bulging in her arm. I asked if she had seen a doctor and she said that she was not going to see a doctor, but would wait for village medicine. She signed the contract with her finger print!! (she doesn't know how to write)

The next day we went to see Dr. Adjit, who is our partner for a vision project. We supplied him with some very nice portable optical equipment so that he can take it to the villages for eye exams. Since he works for a government hospital, we had to decide exactly who to turn this equipment over to. The wonderful Rotarians there helped make our decision for us. One of them has an empty shoplot, and the Rotary Club is going to turn it into a free dental and vision clinic to operate on weekends!!! Dr Adjit and the dentist in the club can do free work in their off time.

While we were waiting to see Dr. Adjit, we spent time with Sister Gordhamer in the Waiting room. They had been there all day with the family pictured here. The young girl sitting beside Sister Gordhamer was completely blind. Elder Gordhamer took her to see Dr. Adjit who eventually operated on her eyes. Now she sees and was getting her free LDS Charities eyeglasses from the doctor this day. The lady in the blue is her mom and she is pregnant with her tenth child!!!!! They are a lovely, active LDS family!!! They are so thankful for the Gordhamers, Dr. Adjit, LDS Charities, and your Dad for his help with Dr. Adjit!!

These are members of the Red Crescent Society. We call it the Red Cross. The man on Dad's right picked us up at the airport and brought us to this meeting. Tawau is receiving 60 of the wheelchairs that were given to Cheshire Homes in KK. The man on the far right was in KK for the wheelchair assessment training. Remember Dad and E. Brown nicknamed him "Chubby Checker". Bless his heart--he could not remember enough to help train those in Tawau who needed this training. So now they want us to go back to Tawau in February and give this training there!!! Mr Pang called the news media while we were there and had them interview us. Our picture was in the Borneo Post the next day--telling about us bringing wheelchairs and the necessary training that now accompanies our wheelchairs.

Before our meeting with the kampung concerning fresh water, E. Larson and I went to get a quick bite in a little kedai near the hotel where we were staying. As we sat down, the man standing beside Dad went to the register and picked up a newspaper. He started opening it up and kept looking at us. I motioned to him that was us in the paper. He came to the table, pulled up a chair, and started talking to us. He speaks good English. We explained about the article on the paper and about our work. He is Malay and the manager of the Kedai. Or meal was delicious and cost us less than $3.

Our last evening in Tawau, we went to eat with the Gordhamers. In fact, we ate with them both nights that we were there. We went to the same place both nights. DON'T MESS WITH A GOOD THING!!!!! The food was delicious both times. The second night there was a large group of Chinese behind us. They ordered lots of food. This is half of a fish that they ordered. The whole fish costs a thousand ringgits!!!! That $333!!!! So one half of that fish was about $167!!!! Look yummy.

All of their seafood is fresh--you just go pick out of the tanks what you want. Sister Gordhamer is holding up a local lobster. The Gordhamers are going home in January and we're really going to miss them. They are from Minnesota and have been on their mission for two years. The rest of us are just 1 1/2 years. They have 7 children and lots of grandchildren. They are such a funny couple!!!

Our visit to Tawau turned out to be very successful and it was good to return to KK. I took this picture of Mt. Kinabalu from the plane window. Beautiful--HUH??? God is Great and God is Good!!! I'm so thankful for all of my blessings---to meet such lovely people, be able to help in some small way, and be surrounded by a beautiful earth!!!! YEA!!!

Love

MOM