Life Is So Precious (Week 28)

Me happy for some dim sum in Singapore during
zone conference last week. Delicious!

I just wanted to start off by saying how precious life really is. An Elder in our mission was riding his bike on Friday night and a car hit him.  He passed away last night. Keep his family in your prayers. I can't believe this. We were good friends and he was a great missionary.  I feel at a loss for words right now and have learned to just never take anything for granted.

[ He also told us it was on the highway. He was crossing the highway and a car T boned him and did not even see him. His companion immediately did CPR. The article in KSL said that he donated his organs to the people of Malaysia, the people that he came to love so much. Clark and I found ourselves physically grieving over a Child of God that we have never even met! So he passed away 2 days after being hit. C.J. told us that they were told that the doctors thought he would make it. He is from Roy and began his mission in October 2012. ]

This past week has been very crazy since I emailed home on Wednesday. You already heard about Zone Conference and everything. This past week I got to do my first baptismal interview! It was an awesome experience!  During the interview I felt the spirit so strong.  I was able to ask questions that the spirit prompted me to ask.  

This past week we were able to place another 12 Book of Mormons!  It’s crazy! We placed them in Hindi, Malay, English, Chinese, Tamil, Igbo, and Urdu! I freaking love this mission so much! Haha! I just love being a missionary!! We weren't really able to do a ton of missionary work this past week.  We did go do service and painted a handicap home. It was a good experience. We were taking a taxi back to the train station after. The taxi driver we got was drunk. He had beer cans everywhere.  So we told him to let us out, but he didn’t respond! So Elder Robinson pulled out his camera to take a picture. The guy slammed on the brakes and called us all four letter words.  He told us he was going to kill us and got out a crowbar.  So we had to go back to the handicap home and try not to get killed! So that was -- no fun!

Hey Dad, So last week I told you we were able to place 22 Book of Mormons! It was great! We have had some follow up appointments but a lot of them are hard to get a hold of and are busy with work and school.  But, the seed has been planted. Ya, I love being a missionary! The teaching is going well.  Every lesson we teach here in the Puchong area is in English.  There is not very many people here that speak Malay, only English. Zone conference was awesome! I was able to see a lot of friends so that was fun! Nope, it was the same as usual even though I’m District Leader.   I love you so much Dad, keep doing good with everything!

My first baptismal interview, with a woman named Helen

Hey Mom, Yes...it is another Monday morning as a missionary in Malaysia! The shirt was perfect send me 9 more just like. The honey mustard wheat thins are amazing!! I can’t find wheat thins here. So those are awesome!! Jerky is great, but you can surprise me with any kind of treats!!  Just send them to the Singapore mission home. Try to send it soon because the Zone Leaders will be there to get packages on September 11th. So it needs to be there before that day in Singapore!  I love you so much and thanks for everything you do! I'm going to be sending a letter home soon. Oh ya, I'm learning some Burmese now!! Go look that up and listen to how it sounds!

Fun times with Elder Robison on our P-Day

Hey Maddie, Happy Birthday on Saturday!! So I guess 2 days ago. Well actually, 1 day ago for you!  No, I didn’t hear about it [concert]. I was only in Singapore for 2 days. It will be good for you to start school. Make sure you work hard so you can go to college! I love and miss you!

Hey Lydia, that is good that you now have lunch with friends and that you got to have peaches!! I really want to eat some normal fruit! Here it’s just strange fruits that you get to eat! I love you so much and don’t worry about volleyball tryouts! You will do great. I know you will! I miss you!

Some members gave us some yummy bacon and some
hash browns from Idaho -- no less! This is what we cooked up!

Hey Hannah, It’s about time you will be the big dog at school! Then when I come home you will be the little dog once again! Haha! Tell your new teacher that he should be a seminary teacher if he went to BYU!! Keep doing good Hannah!! I love you so much and good luck in softball this week!  I miss you!

Hey Brooklyn, I’m so excited for you that school starts tomorrow! I love and miss you! Have fun with all your new friends and your first soccer game!!! I miss you Brooklyn!! I miss driving in the car with you and singing songs loud with the windows down!

Love, Elder Stahle

Biawak, a giant lizard

Malay Book of Mormon arrived! (Week 27)

I’m still in Malaysia at the airport. I’m on an iPad, so I will email the family on Wednesday when we get back from Singapore. Love you!!!!! [sent on Monday, August 19th, his normal P-Day]

Visit to a school

Book of Mormon, written in Malay

Here we are at Zone Conference in Singapore with the
new Malay Book of Mormon

Another visit to a mosqu

Stuck in the elevator!

Well, we just got back from Singapore and it was a great Zone Conference!  This past week was the craziest week of my life!! So we were about to leave the house to go to District meeting when we got a knock at our door. We go answer it and it is 5 packages from SLC from the church. They were full of Book of Mormon's!  So we open up all the boxes and inside is the Malay Book of Mormon!!!! It has finally come!  Salt Lake messed up and sent all the boxes to our house. So this past week we were able to place 2 of them, in Malay! So, we are the first missionaries ever, to place the Malay Book of Mormon!!!!!!! And get this! We placed 22 Book of Mormon's this past week! That is a Singapore Mission record, possibly. We handed 13 out at an English school and then 9 throughout the week so it was awesome!  We gave 2 Malay Book of Mormons to our gate guards and now they are way nice. They read Hindi better than they do Malay. So, we were trying to find some Hindi Book of Mormons at our house but we couldn't find any. We went to the church and I was walking out of the chapel and there was a bookshelf with couple of books on it. It had 2 weird looking script written on them and I picked them up and it was 2 Hindi Book of Mormons!!!! It had to have been a blessing from God. Who knows how long they were sitting there on that bookshelf!

Us looking down on the members, as we are stuck in
the elevator

I loved Singapore!! I love that country so much. It is run so well and it is amazing. I think I can handle the heat now! Ya, I got my package and I love everything in it.  It takes 1 hour to fly to Singapore from KL but, flying back today the plane got to Singapore like 45 minutes late. We were able to meet quite a bit new people which was really nice since and it gave us an opportunity to teach a lot. Family Home Evening was really good! JoJo said that he really enjoyed it!  He liked how it felt like a family.

When we were leaving church we got in the elevator.  As we were going down it was going fast and then just broke! We were about 1/4 of the way down to the ground floor.  It said we were on ground floor but there was only like 14 inch gap from the ground to the opening of the door. Luckily, a lot of the church members were leaving when we were. It took the security guys like 20 minutes to get the doors open and get us down to ground floor. It was so bad!!  I got really funny pics from it! It was so dang hot in the elevator!  

So Beh, who was a recent convert that I was able to be apart of baptizing, is going to Taiwan next week and he is going to go to the temple to do baptisms!  He is thinking about going on a mission and getting his Patriarchal Blessing soon!! I have seen so many cool miracles on my mission! I love it out here!  Who knows... if he goes on a mission how many people he will bring to the gospel. Just because he decided he wanted to learn!!  A single seed can turn into 100 so fast!

I haven't had time to try on my new shirt. I will let you know on Monday how it fits. I miss going to softball tournaments and practices and just like driving in general to everywhere! That is so crazy that they baptized a whole church! Dang it sounds like you have all been very busy!! That is so crazy that the girls start school next week already. And Brooklyn is starting school too!  It sounds like the Braves and Rangers are kicking butt. Do you think the Braves could go to the world series this year? I love and miss you Dad, I can't wait for you and Mom to come here!!

C.J.'s 2013 MTC group: Zone Conference in Singapore
with the new Malay Book of Mormon

Hey Mom, I’m doing fine this past week. It has been pretty good.  We did find a bakery and we found these one chicken burgers. They are amazing!! So we ordered 20 of them and they asked us if they were for a party or a function. Haha! We said nope just for us at home!! Hahha!! They all about died when they heard that!  We taught the Deacons quorum class because Brother Teh had to go early.  So it was a really good class and it was fun! I have been trying to send pics today and it is taking 20 mins to upload each picture! We are going to try to find a new place to email on Monday. Hopefully they have faster internet. That is so funny about Maddie getting her wisdom teeth out! Did she swell up pretty bad? You can surprise me next time with treats and I haven't had the popcorn yet. They do have popcorn here but it tastes nasty. Thanks, I love you so much Mom and I miss you!

Hey Maddie, That is funny that you got your wisdom teeth out and now you know how I felt. Haha! Nope, nothing very rad happened this last week...other than we passed out 22 Book of Mormons!! Singapore mission record possibly! I love you and feel better! I miss you and hopefully school is good for you. And Happy Birthday!

Elder Stahle with his former companion, Elder Robinson

Hey Lydia, It’s so crazy that school is already starting again for you girls! I can promise you that it has been a lot longer than 2 days. Believe me, I have lived everyday and it has been about 95 days since you have been out of school!  Nice you won more spandex at volleyball camp!! haha. I know you'll make the team! You’re way good!  I hope you have a good first day of school next week.  I miss you and love you!

Our 20 yummy chicken burgers

Prime Ministers office

Hey Hannah, Have you still been pitching a lot?  That should be fun that you get to start school again and you get to go to school with Brooklyn! That is awesome that you are doing so well with volleyball too! I love and miss you Hannah!

Hey Brooklyn, I can't believe you start school soon!! I'm kind of sad that I won’t get to see you go to your first day of kindergarten! That is so cool that you got to play with 2 dogs at the softball tournament! Ya, I am having a really good time with other missionaries. They are nice to me. That should be so fun that you have soccer practice soon! I love and miss you Brooklyn!!!

Love, Elder Stahle

My First FHE, Puchong (6 months)

This past week has been a pretty good week filled with a lot of different miracles and cool things!  I got to have my first Family Home Evening here in Malaysia! It was really good! We are actually going over again tonight. This time we are taking an investigator named Jo Jo. He is a refugee from Myanmar. This past week also we were able to place 8 Book of Mormon's! That is the most we have ever placed in 1 week!  We had over half of our districts numbers for handing them out! Elder Misa and I we work really well together.  It makes it very fun and enjoyable!  We went to Batu Caves again this last P-Day.  Elder Misa bought so many bananas and the monkeys loved him!! (Haha) It was so awesome!

This guy I met that I could speak Malay with!

This week was pretty productive and we were able to actually find a lot of new people. A few had actually met with missionaries in the past.  They wanted to start to learn again, so that was awesome! We have a lot of appointments set up for this next week to meet up with a lot of them. Elder Misa and I found this bakery here and we are addicted to the chicken burgers. They are so good!! We went a few days ago and took the whole tray of 8 that they brought out. We just put them in the fridge and as of last night they are all gone (Haha)! I don't know why but eating here in Puchong is a lot harder. When I was in Klang I could find food so easy.  Here, it is just like KFC, McDonalds and Wendys! I miss Klang food a lot!

We have been working a lot this past week on the records. We have been going through all the people who have been taught recently and calling people. A lot of things have changed since I've become District Leader.  I have to do all the trainings in district meetings on Tuesday’s and conduct those meetings on Thursday’s.  I have to call everyone in my district and see how the week is going also.  On Sunday nights from 8:30-11:00 PM, I do reporting with everyone in the District and the Zone Leaders. So it is a lot more stuff than I was doing before.  I like doing it a lot!  Being a trainer is really fun!  Elder Misa and I we get along so well.  The other missionaries all know about the mess here in Puchong with the records.  The other thing is that the missionaries who used to be here didn't order any Book of Mormon's.  They said they never hand them out. So now I have to wait 6 weeks to get the shipment from Salt Lake (insert sad face here).  

All us missionaries had to go to a concert this week

We fly to Singapore next Monday.  Then we fly back to KL on Wednesday. We really do have the best mission on earth!!  How many other missions can say that they fly so often to go to Zone Conference and how their Mission President lives 6 hours away!!  It has been good having other missionaries. Although we are pretty far from all of them. About an hour and a half! The new city its alright.  I miss Klang a lot!  I really want pork!!  It’s so hard to find here.

We had a cool story this week! So we were walking home after teaching an appointment to go finish studies for the day.  I had this feeling to turn around. So I did and there was this Nigerian man running at us and yelling. “Elders!!!”  We started talking to him and he said he was baptized in 1992.  He has been living here in Malaysia for the past 2 years. He has been looking for the church here and missionaries. So we were able to give him a Book of Mormon and got his number. He was on the phone with his girlfriend from Australia. He gave me the phone because she wanted to talk to me.  She told me how happy and proud she was that he found the missionaries!  She was crying and said, "Thank you for being outside when you were! He really needs to go to church". So that was an awesome experience! It’s so awesome the people we get to meet!  

Dad, that is so sweet about the Braves. They are doing so good!  I love you so much Dad. Keep being a boss at home!

Concert

Hey Mom, Yeah, we are still working on getting the area whipped in shape!  Tell everyone back home that I love them and I'm grateful for the support that the ward gives me back home!  The people here are a lot of Chinese who are Buddhists. So it's difficult because they don't really care to talk to us! My first District meeting was actually pretty good!  Sounds like I'm going to be doing my first baptismal interview next week!  I report the whole District and then I total them all up. Then call the Zone Leaders and they report to the AP's (Assistants to the President). It's not much different here in Puchong. It’s just a lot of the same work everyday! Being a missionary!! (haha)  I love it! Ya, I will get the package next week when I'm in Singapore. I am so hungry right now and I don't know what I'm going to eat!!  When I come home I want and need a ton of BBQ!!  Here they have nothing! I love you Mom!  I miss you!! I can't believe tomorrow is my 6 month mark!

Hey Maddie, I love my Mission President!  Yeah, there is always cool things that happen every week! But, the family will just have to see my journal when I get home!  I love and miss you keep doing good!

Hey Lydia, They have to gun it to get you up out of the water!! (haha) They can't start slow! I get teased by a super nice pool everyday I leave my apartment!! I will have to send you pictures next week!  It sounds like all you girls and the family are having a way good time and fun summer!  I can't believe that when I come home you will be in 9th grade! I love and miss you Lydia! You're awesome!! Keep doing good!

Hey Hannah, That’s funny that you bought Trina a toothbrush!!  I bet she hates it (haha)!  It sounds like you had fun with Luis in Bear Lake. That’s awesome [that you can now waterski]! I love you and miss you Hannah. Keep doing good!

Hey Brooklyn, Yeah, it is really hot here! And yes, I need sunglasses here. You are right. It’s always sunny. Keep brushing Trina's teeth!! She needs it! I love you so much Brooklyn! What are you going to send to me?? I miss you Brooklyn! Keep doing good at home!!

Love, Elder Stahle

Puchong, Malaysia (Week 25)

This week has been very stressful I'm not going to lie. I went to Singapore on Thursday morning and got my new companion. Elder Misa'alefua. He is from California. He is way cool!! He plays football and he has a few cousins in the NFL. Our new area it isn't too bad.  There wasn’t very good records with people being taught. So it is super hard to try to find out who everyone is and everything! There are some people who they taught a few times but never made a record.

Elder Stahle & Elder Misa'alefua, his new companion

The buses here I don't know yet. We don’t know what buses to take to get to certain places.  Our new apartment is okay. It was really sad for me to leave Klang! I love the people and will miss them!  I'm not going to lie. When I had to say bye to VJ, that was really hard for me because I have a really special connection with him.  He is the first person I have ever baptized. I hope I can keep in contact with him in the future!

We bused back from Singapore to KL on Friday night. When I was going through the border in Johor Baru coming into Malaysia, they were questioning me a lot and asking a lot of questions for about 15 minutes. They kept talking to each other in Malay, but obviously they didn't know I could understand what they were saying. They almost didn't let me into Malaysia. They were about to black chop me out! The guy was looking at my passport for like 5 minutes just flipping through all my pages and looking at stamps. He finally stammerer me through! So who knows...maybe when we go to Singapore in 2 weeks they may chop me out. So I won’t be allowed in Malaysia! Elder Dailey when he was busing back from his doctor appointment back to KL his bus hit a parked semi on the side of the road and totaled the bus. Luckily everyone was okay!

I got told this week that I look like Prince William and also the kid from the Sound of Music who sings "You are 16 going on 17"! So it’s pretty funny!  

I can't believe how hot it is back home in Utah lately.  That's crazy! Sounds like the Rangers are doing way good!  The weather here in Puchong is about the same as Klang. It seems a little hotter because we aren't by the ocean anymore to get the ocean breeze.  Church here was very different than Klang. The members here pretty much run the whole thing. So we didn't have to teach any classes or do anything. There is about 80 people who come every week to Puchong Branch. There are 8 missionaries in my district including me and my companion. Did you send my package to Singapore?  I was only able to get half my pants resized so I will need to now find a new person here in Puchong! Tell Grandma Stahle Happy Birthday from me and that I love her and that I miss her so much!  I love and miss you Dad!

The sister missionaries in my district are all Malay speakers, but one of the new sisters is called English speaking so all of us Malay speakers will have to train them. We are told that by December of this year there will be 50 people training at once!!!!  Yes.  The mission is at about 120 right now and by the end of the year there will be 176.

Hey Mom, you guys went to Melody's baby shower? Haha. That is awesome! Mike is so funny! I love Mike! The little hot pocket things are called curry puffs!!  I love them!  Yes, there is so much curry here! It is kind of crazy how much there is! Puchong is really cool!  

He flew to Singapore to pick up his new companion,
and this is their bus ride back to Malaysia

Cramped into a little taxi

The members here are awesome and help with appointments, which will be good!  I need to get to know all of the members!  Awesome to hear -- thanks for sending that package!  I love you so much and thank you for all you do for me!

Hey Maddie, It's going really good here! I love it!  Whitewashing an area is really hard and frustrating! Ya, I love Melody and Mike! They are so cool.  I love you and I miss you! Keep doing good reading and praying!

Hey Lydia, It sounds like you are just having way fun this summer!  I can't believe Summer is already over for you girls!! Melody and Mike are awesome!! I miss Italian food so much!!!! I love and miss you!

Hey Hannah, How’s your softball team? I love and miss you Hannah! I hope you have a good last few weeks of summer!

Hey Brooklyn, Wow! You get to go swimming a lot now! I love you so much Brooklyn! I can't believe you start school in 1 month! I miss you!

Love you all,

Elder Stahle