First days in Miri

Well it has been a crazy first week to the mission. It is super hot and humid out here haha, but welcome to Malaysia, right?! My first area is called Miri, it's on Borneo, or East Malaysia. I found out very quickly that our house was the nicest house in the mission, which is cool, but every house after that will be a step down. We don't spend much time there after 11:00am. As far as investigators go, it has been a good week. When I first got here, we had 5 investigators on date for baptism, and now we have 14 or 15. We have been working hard, and have been blessed with the ability to find others to teach. I attached some videos and pictures of takral (Sp), which is the soccer/volleyball looking game. We were contacting at Kompong, and came across these guys, and I asked if I could play and they were like "Of course", thinking I was going to be terrible! But I did ok lol. The people here are so friendly, we go into these very humble homes and they give us the little food and drink that they have, it's such a great feeling. My trainer is Elder Steadman, he is from Utah and the kid is a STUD! He's awesome. I had the opportunity to give a blessing one of the first nights we went out, and we ended up teaching that lady and her family. They will be on date for baptism soon! I was having a little bit of a rough time with missing family and friends, and I opened my luggage and saw a little note in there from my dad, and it simply said "I love you, boy!" That was the coolest thing ever, and it came at such a great time. Dad, you're the best. I hope you all know that I love you and I miss you dearly, and I could definitely ALWAYS use your prayers for peace and guidance here haha. Thank you so much for all of your support and your help, it has been a tremendous blessing.

STAY UP

Elder Tillman

4/4/12

Yello! I am in the airport right now, waiting to fly out to Miri. My companion's name is Elder Steadman, and he is way freakin cool! I like him a lot. Apparently we have the nicest house in the mission, and a really good area. We are one of the few areas that actually have a real church building, so that's way cool. It was crazy saying goodbye to everyone I was in the MTC wiht, but it was time for all of us to go. I'm sorry I never got another chance to call after LAX, but in a month we will be able to talk again. I will probably be buying one of the elder's bikes, for like 4 or 500 ringgit ($200). My area is all biking, not really any other transportation. Although we have a super nice house, Miri is just barely above the poorest area in the mission (Bintulu). Elder Tyler and Elder Smith are both going to Bintulu, so that will be cool for them. We are 15 hours ahead of Arizona, so it is 10:00am here on Friday morning. I actually haven't had any jet lag since the first night, so I am doing very well. I will send some pictures probably next week, because we got to go contacting around singapore, and ended up at the skyline around dusk and at night. We got to go to the "Merlion" which is the super popular statue you see whenever you look at pictures of Singapore. Super cool. We have a family on date for baptism, and a couple others that we are teaching. We have a senior couple in our area, supposedly one pf the best couples, and we have 2 other elders that live with us, and a pair of sisters in our area too. So life is good! I hope everything is really good back home, don't worry about me at all, I am in the Lord's hands, and trust those hands completely! I'm not sure I have much else to talk about just yet, but I will for sure be talking to you next week on Wednesday. I love and miss you guys, and hope life is great! Thank you all who sent a letter to the mission office, that was way sweet to have! You're the best, and I will give you my actual address when I get there.

STAY UP

Elder Tillman