Look who started school! This is Molly's 2nd year of preschool, so she attends MWF. Jax just started his first year today. He attends TTh. Both came home very excited. Molly has 4 boys in her class that are in her Sunbeam class. Jax has a little girl in his class that is also in his nursery class. I think it's going to be a great school year for both!
So, we've been busy! Before our week and a half trip to Utah, Molly started AYSO soccer. She of course is the skinny girl with the purple soccer ball. She cried for a second the first practice until Matt went with her onto the field and for the first part of practice. She now LOVES it! She really is the fastest one on her team, and a little bit too aggressive. I love it:) Jax always asks when he gets to play, and we remind him that once he turns 4 in March, we're signing him up for baseball (t-ball). He's excited b/c Matt bought him a t-ball set and they practice all the time. At first he couldn't hit the ball for the life of him. Matt was frustrated b/c he has always assumed his son would be good at baseball like him. Well, thanks to me, I realized the problem. Matt was trying to teach him how to bat right handed. I figured we'll try left handed b/c, well, I'm left handed. Bingo! The kids hits it over our fence every time:) Matt couldn't be more thrilled. He always dreamed of having a tall left-handed pitching son, and he just might have gotten one. 
Last week was holiday week in Malaysia. Everything was closed most of the week, as Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were national holidays. Most businesses closed on Monday and Friday also. So everyone had a week's vacation. Kate asked if we would like to take a day and go with her to her hometown of Labuan. We thought that it would be a nice change of pace for us and a chance to visit a new and different place. Kate was born and reared in Labuan which is an island off of the coast of our island of Borneo. It is part of Malaysia, but is a province and not a state. The only way to reach it is by ferry or speedboat, which we used because of the time factor. This picture is one of the home of the richest resident on Labuan. He is Chinese, of course and his business is trading.
This is a picture of E. Larson, Kate, and her little niece who spent the day with us. We drove for three hours to a small town on the coast to catch the ferry to Labuan. We decided to leave our car and take the speedboat to the island. It cost us 6 rm to park our car for the day. That's $2!!!! The speedboat ride was choppy going over but very nice coming back later in the day. One of Kate's brother pick us up at the boat terminal and we went to have lunch with her family at a small kedai(restaurant). BUT they had sold out of food when we arrived--because of the holiday everyone was eating out!! Kate is one of 8 children. She has 7 older brothers. This is a picture of Kate, her niece, and E. Larson a lovely waterfront park. Everything is waterfront in Labuan.
This is another one of the many gorgeous trees in Malaysia. This one was located in the park also.
We visited a wonderful WWII cemetery there. Kate says that the natives are very proud of this site because Queen Elizabeth visited here and dedicated the monument to the local,English and Australian dead who fought the Japanese. It was a beautifully done and inspirational site. E. Larson really enjoyed it. Every marker had a totally different epitaph. It really was quite moving. The UN keeps up the grounds and landscaping.
Since we had no food with Kate's family, she took us to a beautiful hotel dining room for lunch. This hotel used to be a vacation home for some rich Saudi prince. It was turned into a resort hotel. The grounds and place are fabulous!!
Wow! It finally happened. Ben started Preschool today. My baby is a big boy now. He was beyond thrilled to go today. Marty and I walked him up the street to embark on a new adventure: formal learning! Here are the pictures honoring his big day. Notice that he rode his scooter to school. He even willingly wore his helmet; that's how excited he was!
We are always so happy to spend time with our full time missionaries. The sisters right now are going with us as translators to teach our lessons to the recent converts. Once the missionaries baptize someone, they have 8 lessons that they have to teach the new convert!! When they finish their eight lesson, then it's our turn to reteach the same eight lessons. We really love doing this because it takes us into the homes of the new converts. This first picture is of Fiona and her mom and two children. She and her Chinese husband have recently divorced and she is the sole breadwinner. She is also going to school at night to get her certificate in cosmetology. She stays tired and stressed but wants the gospel in her life. She made us a sweet pasta salad and bought a cake that she really couldn't afford. She did this for E. Larson and me because she wanted to serve us Western foods!!! Most families eat on the floor because they either don't have tables or they don't have room for them in their little homes.
I did not realize that Fiona was taking our picture as we were taking her's!! Notice her little girl pretending to take pictures. She played all evening with this old camera.
We like to invite certain families over to swim in the pool and just visit with a smaller group at a time. We had invited Sis. Helen and her family and also Leslie, her brothers, and her mom. Leslie and her brothers came in a taxi. Leslie is one of our YSAs. She lives with her mom and brothers. Their dad works in KL because he can have a better job there. He only comes home twice a year. Well no one wanted to swim at night, so we just ate Pizza Hut and played games. Everyone laughed and had a good time.
This is Kate and Sis. Helen competing in the "magic carpet ride". These two sweet sisters laughed so much that they just fell over on the floor!! Kate said she had laughed more in one night than she had her whole life.
We finally had the opportunity to repay some favors to Kate for all of her goodness to us!! She had to have surgery on her right eye not too long after E. Larson got out of the hospital. We were able to take care of her a few days while she recuperated. Beside her is Sis. Jensen, who spent the night with us while her companion, Sis. Hite, had a visa run to Singapore. Poor E. Larson suddenly had lots of sisters to contend with!! He was able to give Kate a blessing and help her. She had just gotten back from a trip to China where she still has lots of extended family. E. Larson has always wanted to go to China, so she wants to take us for a week!! I really think that we're going to do this as soon as the mission is over. WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM CHINA????
We have not been traveling in a long time because our projects have all reached the point that it is not required that we do so. We have been spending more time on our "shadow leadership " part of our mission. We spend more time with the young elders and sisters helping them with their investigators and trying to contact the inactives. This family pictured here is a family that the sisters were teaching. We met them at church one evening to hold a FHE with them. They were so nice and a rare group because it was the father, mother, and children. We had a fun time and they seemed to really enjoy themselves. The sisters did a great job of teaching them. We were just thrilled to be part of it. Unfortunately the family has not been back to church. The father works at Sutera Harbor Golf Club and that means Sunday work for him. The mom works full time also. Hopefully their interest can be rekindled.
In KK there are 35,000 automobiles in the downtown area every day. There are only 7,000 parking spaces. Many people double park, park in highway lanes, or wherever they can find a space to squeeze into. Most parking spaces have numbers written on them--a few do not. If their is a number on them, this means that you have to pay. There are not meters to put money into. There are meter-maids who check and put tickets on your car for payment. Keep in mind that the daily average temperature is about 86 degrees. This is a picture of a meter maid in KK. They all look like this. They are wrapped and layered from head to toe--even gloves on the hands!!!!! This sweet gal was so nice and polite to pose for a picture with E. Larson. When you receive a ticket, you just have to keep looking for a meter maid to pay her. We always pay our tickets, sometimes it takes a few days until we can see a meter maid to pay. We have an Adopt-A-Highway project here with the branch in KK. The only one that I know in Malaysia!!! We clean the stretch of highway in front of our church building. We do this service every 3 months. The biggest trash that we collect on these days are parking tickets!!!! We probably collect 100 plus tickets each time we clean the highway!!!!
This was my project for about three days when my projects were really slow. I found this in one of the drawers in the living room and decided to start this with our little neighbor, Rebecca. Her mother left her with me one day and I thought that it would be a good project for us. She lost interest very quickly, but I could not stop until I finished!! It was relaxing and fun to do.
One evening E. Larson and I were out visiting members of the branch. We needed to go see the Harun family because Adrian(the son) was getting ready to go on his mission and he was having a difficult time. As we were headed upstairs in this large flat, I immediately noticed one of our LDS Charities wheelchairs. They are easy for us to recognize because of the color and the logo on the back. I told E. Larson to look at this young man and of course, he wanted to go over and speak. He gave them our card and explained that we represent the organization that provided this wheelchair. This is a Muslim family and they were so appreciative. Everyone in the family came out of their flat to shake our hands and invited us to eat with them. This was during the month of Ramadan and after certain prayers every night, they break their fast. They fast from before daybreak until after dark every day in the month of August. There is a specific time in each state and/or zone for the fast to end each day. It ends when the prayers from the loudspeakers are finished. These loudspeakers are in the mosques. Then they dive into their food. This family was just starting to eat and invited us to join them. They had never seen us before!! 