Projects and a Little Culture

Hello everyone -- We have had another marvelous and busy week here in KK.  We are busy trying to complete some projects before we leave and also trying to write closing reports on projects that have been finished for quite awhile.

Sometimes I get a real kick out of the cultural differences here.  I have found that no matter what nationality or race you are, we as human beings have more that unites us than differences to separate us.  Listen to a baby crying.  Can you tell what nationality the baby is just by its cry?  Watch children playing on a playground or in a park.  If all you could hear was the sound of their laughter, would you immediately know what race they were?  We all have the same heavenly father and heavenly mother.  We all have divine potential.  God loves us all.  Our challenge is to learn to love everyone.  Regardless.  Malaysians love to take known brand names and tweak them abit.  An example:

Not the IHOP we are familiar with but so close, so very close.  They have great food by the way.  And it seems that no matter where you go here so will see this sign also:

I guess Malaysians also love to spit because the "no spitting" sign is everywhere, it is in every restaurant, every fast food place, every gas station, just everywhere.  I also like the "keep clean" underneath this one.  Good advice for all of us as we go through life:  Don't spit and Keep clean.  Maybe we would have a better chance of keeping clean if people weren't continually spitting around us.

The grass, lawns not smoking, here in Malaysia is just what will grow best for Malaysia.  It is nothing like our soft green Kentucky blue grass.  It doesn't grow very thick and it isn't lush.  Very few yards have grass.  But they have grass that grows along the roadsides and in the traffic medians.  No one in Malaysia owns a lawn mower.  They hire people to walk along all the roadsides and parks and cut the grass with weed whackers.  Usually the people are covered from head to toe with a mask and goggles over their faces, long sleeved heavy shirts, heavy pants with chaps like things over the pants.  I don't know how they stand it in this heat dressed as they are.  But there are literally hundreds of them who walk around all day long whacking grass and weeds.  This is an example of a weed/grass whacking guy who was taking care of the "lawn" at Cheshire Home where we have a wheel chair project.

This guy wasn't covered as much as the guys along the roadsides.  You can see the grass isn't like our grass, but it would take a long time to whack grass.

This week we also had the opportunity of meeting with the Asia Area Medical doctor.  He is Dr. Bertin from North Salt Lake.  He and his wife were here for a couple of days to check out the hospitals in KK and the pharmacies to make sure they were ok for us to visit.  Lucky for us he found them to be ok.

Sis. Bertin, Elder Read and Dr. Bertin

The YSA's continue to be a lot of fun for us to work with.  Every Monday night we all get together for a lesson and a game or activity.  

This is a fun game that they like to play alot.  Two teams face each other.  On the table at the end of the line is a small object of some kind.  Doesn't matter what.  The teams must all turn and look at the table.  A person at the other end of the line tosses a coin for the first people in each line to see.  When it comes up heads, they squeeze the hand of the person next to them and the squeeze continues on down the line til one team grabs the object.  It is lots of fun to play and it gets them holding hands.  And squeezing too.  Maybe one day they will learn how to play the holding hand/squeezing hand game for real and actually go on dates and get married.

We asked the primaries in each branch to help us today to put together hygiene kits for the deaf society.  It is one of the projects we hope to have all wrapped up before we leave.  Here they are helping us:

This is the primary from KK2 branch.  We all wore the "Mormon Helping Hands" vests.  The kids thought that was an added bonus to get to wear the vest.  The older primary kids would put an item in the smaller kids zip lock bag.  They are all so cute.

This is the primary from KK1.  They were so fun to work with today.  Malaysians really have beautiful children.  Love them all.  Hopefully this project for the deaf will be wrapped up with our closing ceremony on Aug. 3.  Now, if we could only get the blind project to get on track.  

Hope you are all doing great and enjoying your summer.  Take a trip this summer.  Why not trip on over to Borneo and pay us a visit.  We would love to see you 'cause we love you all.  Drop us a line please.  It will make our day.   Love to All   E/S Read