From: Braydon Carter <braydon.carter@myldsmail.net>
Date: Sun, Oct 28, 2018 at 9:10 PM
Subject: No Monkeying around 10/29/2018
Hello everyone!
I hope everyone had a super good week! I keep hearing some pretty awesome stories from back home about how everyone is just loving life and having a good time! Halloween is coming up!! Ahh all of you eat some good candy for me and go to some good haunted houses!
I have to mention just because I think it's cool. As I am writing this email I am currently sitting on a bus heading to KL [Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia] where we will have zone conference. I'm actually way excited. We are going to be staying with our zone leaders and doing some splits with them which will be way, way fun. Then, we will come back Wednesday, be here in Sitiawan for 2 days, then head out to Ipoh for our District conference! It's an exciting week! I'll have a lot of pictures and stories to share next Monday, so stay tuned!! :)
To start off my email, I have some awesome pictures to send home. For those of you that have followed my previous humanitarian and travel adventures, you would know that I am super into monkeys. I'm not 100% why, but I think I connect with them on a special level. Anyways, for the first 6-7 weeks that my companion and I have been here, we haven't done anything super exciting on P-Days. We will often just do all of our chores, go shopping, and eat a nice lunch. Which is still super nice and helps us remember to have some fun and be ourselves. But we wanted to do something a little bigger and better. Get to do something really cool that we wouldn't normally do at home. And this week we did the perfect thing. WE WENT TO A MONKEY FARM! Yes a monkey farm. Let me explain. I'm not 100% sure why the monkeys are in this certain spot, but they literally just have a "park" you can go to [Mangrove Park], and there is a ton of monkeys. It's not really controlled by anyone, you don't have to pay to get in, you just pull off in this parking lot, there is basically just a forest and a whole lot of monkeys it's just their home. Now I have to be honest, I was kind of scared getting out of the car. The member that took us isn't in love with monkeys, and he kind of made it seem like the monkeys were really mean here. So I was nervous they would hurt me. But I quickly found out that these monkeys are super fun and playful and won't hurt you as long as you aren't stupid. So I did what I've always done, I sat in the middle of a bunch of monkeys and started to feed them. I think I really shocked my companion and the member, but I was in heaven. Here are some cool photos!
Also this week my companion and I found something super funny/ awesome. Remember from last week's email about how we ran into that member who gave us referrals? Well, we decided that we needed to go visit some of them and see what we could do. It just happens to be that they all lived in a city called Ayer Tawar. Believe it or not, it's even smaller than Sitiawan and it's a pretty good distance away. So we decided to go, which was a 5 Km bike ride that took us about 30 minutes. It was way good exercise. I think I'm gonna get into mountain biking when I get home. Here's a map screen shot to show the distance :)
So anyways while we were there, we were looking at the map and noticed a little place called Disneyland. We both smirked and thought, "no way". So as we were out looking for those referrals we thought we would go take a look. Turns out they have a Disneyland park. Here is a selfie in front of their Disney Castle:
Now for my spiritual note this week I have to share that I don't think I have ever felt so much joy in my life as I do right now. That doesn't mean I didn't have joy at home, or that those around me didn't make me happy. But it's because I have learned something life changing that I hope to keep with me forever. That's relying on Christ. As I mentioned in last week's email, it's been hard to find new people here and we face a lot of rejection at times. But I've learned as you just give it all to Christ and rely on Him the happiness you will have is incredible. I'm not sure if many of you are keeping track but just this last week I hit my 4 months as a missionary. WHAT?? That just seems so unreal to me. Time is flying by. I just said goodbye yesterday. And I have discovered more and more it's because I have truly found purpose of life, and how to always make the best out of everyday. There's literately never a dull moment. And it's all because I have little by little just gave it all to God. I often beg to Him and prayer. I set goals, I always strive to be better, and when times get hard, I just go harder. I think very often we say that we are part of a religion, or that we believe in something. But for my self I have found out it's not something you are a part of but who you are. As I've recognized this great truth and really recognized I am a son of a Living God, and I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ it has change my life. And because of that I find success and happiness in every part of missionary work, and as a result we see little by little more success. As we learn to be happy and really focus on the positives of who we are and what we are doing. Little by little we see miracles. I know for my companion and I we got closer together as a companionship, we became closer with our members, helped those we were teaching even more, and found some awesome people to teach the gospel.
So my challenge for you this week is to rely on Christ. Truly rely on Him. For everything. For your sorrows, sins, mistakes, but also recognize the happiness, glory, and salvation we have through Him. I know the more I have relied on Him, the more happy I become! I love you all so so much. You are all a blessing in my life! Like always, your prayers and love are felt.
我非常感谢有这传教机会。我越来越学习很多。我知道透过依靠神跟祂的儿子耶稣基督的赎罪真的会祝福我们的生活。我非常感谢有这个福音在我的生活中。我也知道，神赐给我们福音来祝福我们。祂真的是我们在天上的父。祂为了帮助我们赐给我们福音。我答应你们，当你越用这个福音，你越看很多快乐和祝福。我爱你们。 我谢谢你们为我祈祷。
Love,
Elder Carter
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