Kota Kinabalu

Jean Michel drew this picture for Nathan depicting his excitement in get to serve in East Malaysia.  He found the elephant  alphabet online drawn by a Malaysian Artist...he figured he could do the same!  I think it is a perfect rendering of Elder Watkins :)

Hey Everyone,

This is my first email from the far off and exotic land of Kota Kinabalu! Things here are pretty awesome. Everyone here speaks Malay and it is super awesome. We can see the ocean from our house and it’s not all brown ha-ha. There are us and a set of sisters, Sister Zafar from KL and Sister Rinet from Kuching they are both cool. If you remember Eder Wong, he is from here and so I am in his stomping ground and it’s pretty cool to be here. The people are super awesome and they love the Elders here a ton. I just replaced Elder Leavitt (his trainer from Butterworth) and they just baptized everyone they had on date so, now it’s back to the drawing board searching for referrals and searching for new people to teach and to put on dates.  I am super excited to find some cool people and set some awesome goals and hopefully destroy the sisters’ ha-ha… because they are super competitive and we are going to be number one.

It is still a busing area but, the buses are on time but, a lot smaller and no AC on them…it’s all 10 windows down going 50K/h ha-ha. The people here are pretty cool though yesterday we saw some of the members, we saw Sister Leslie who got baptized 3 months ago and Jacob and Maria who both got baptized two weeks ago. So we will just have to hit them up for some friend’s ha-ha. But, they are all super cool and speak some of the best Bahasa I have heard of my mission so far. They also speak a little bit different than the rest of Malaysia. Instead of Lah they use the word Bah (Sabah).  Apparently pearls are also really cheap here FYI. But, so far things here are sweet except our house sucks because it’s super dirty so I spent a lot of this morning just cleaning our home and my bathroom.... But, what to do.

So this last week we pretty much just saw members and people before I left. I found out Tuesday that I was leaving so we just saw recent converts and all my friends. We saw Sister Yanti and Dewi a couple times. They were super sad that I was leaving but, I am pretty lucky to be going back to KL again at the end of November for another one of those conferences so, we will go and see them again when we get there. But, they were super sad and cried and then I felt sad and almost cried but, then I didn't ha-ha… kept you in suspense that I may have cried. The members in KL were sad but, someone of them, Brother Siow *cough, ha-ha he always gave me crap why don't you just get out of here… you've been here too long, we don't want you… all joking and stuff the next week I was going ha-ha he is super funny.

In our finding efforts last week we found a sweet Tamil family that was pretty excited to learn so, Elder Carter and Elder Lewis will go see them this week.  But, not a whole lot happened besides seeing lots of members, RC, and friends before heading off. We had Wendy’s with The Brown’s one night and I had a frosty...... so good ha-ha. Then on Monday night the Ho Sisters took us to Swensen’s an ice cream place where I had a thing called an earthquake which is 8 scoops of ice cream and 8 toppings. It was super good. It was all American ice cream. I had Lime, Orange, and strawberry Sherbet, Banana split flavor, Old fashion Vanilla, Mango, Oreo, and Brownie.  It was super good I’ll send a picture of it. But, they truly wined and dined us.  Before we met them I went and bought a thing of Johnsonville Brawts and 3 Dr. Peppers from the Xpat store.  I had one that night and then for breakfast I had the brawts and a Dr. Pepper before I left on the plane. When I go back I’ll have to stock up again ha-ha.

I don't know what to say that is super interesting for you guys but, I am sure I’ll have some stories for you guys next week… hopefully because we go to KL for 2 days again... But, things are good and I am super excited to tear up this new area and work hard and find some sweet people to teach and baptize. 

Elder Watkins