Hello everyone!

HOLY COW. This place is crazy awesome. It's crazy, I've said this to a few already, but this place is like one you see in a national geographic magazine.  SO its very humid, and yeah my pants just kinda stick to my legs consistantly, its such a crappy feeling. 

Food, Food here is different. I ate chicken butt the other night with rice and this belacan which is literally mashed up shrimp that has been outside cooking in the sun all day. ( I didn't know thats what this was until after I ate it) but it was good! The grossest part of thinking about it was that it looked like dirt. It was weird. First night I was here in Bintulu, we went and ate at this restaurant, with most meats, they leave all the bones in it, thats the first thing you notice if you dont know that previously. 

So Bintulu has a unique situation. The church here has over 900 members, but only like 40 mostly consistant members. The church here is crumbling to dust, its sad. The missionaries are literally what are holding it up. There's two branches here, A malay and a chinese branch. The malay one is really struggling so me and my good Companion ( he's a genius) are going to bring it back and get the church to be self-sufficient. He has made a plan over the last few months and I think it really can work. It already has started to. 

Oh so have you heard of Durian? It's pretty much a thorned coconut that, when ripe, will just drop from the trees. So every once in a while you'll hear of a durian fatality. 

SO now cars, almost everyone has either a Ford Ranger, toyota Hilux, or a Mitsubishi titian. And they're all super pimped out in the sense that they're all used for jungle trekking. Theresw so many. 

We're in this internet cafe right now and theres so many people hahaha mainly little kids an d 40 year old men, they're all playing either starcraft, diablo, some malaysian call of duty, or watching music videos. They all use this american slang which is actually just weird sayings they hear from movies haha its funny. This internet cafe (all computers have their own exterior speakers) is just fillled with the sounds of gunshots, explosions and alien noises haha.  They like (well most of them) Americans.  We will be riding our bikes down the street and there will be two dudes on a moped and theyll always say hello because its like a huge priveldge to talk to the orang putih (literally white people) which is what they call us haha its so funny, When we visit someone, most of the time I can't catch all that they say, especially the kids, but when the kids talk to me I heard pretty much "whats up white person!" Its not like a sassy thing but its just funny haha.

There are cats. EVERYWHERE. Not like big cats (most of them die early..:() but like all of these kittens... it like amazing but its kinda sad at the same time. Its sad because most of them dont have tails or have tails that are seriously broken because when their young, the kids (back to the kacaoing) will pick them up by their tails and swing them around their heads until the tails either break or are super broken. Its sad, but they're still so cute haha if you leave the door open for too long, like, three cats will walk in. at some members houses, you like run in because there's cats just waiting to come in haha

The first appointment we went to, it was for this less active family, everytime a new elder comes in, this family will make them sing a hymn haha so therefore, I did. I sang the shortest one in the indonesian hymnbook which is love one another haha, it's been cool because in that lesson and all the other ones i have been able to contribute little parts and the people know what I'm saying. It's awesome! Also I gave my talk on sunday! That was scary. But apparently the missionaries give talks almost every week because the people assigned dont even come so yeah theres that. Ill get over that fear soon!

 I will post some pictures today!

I'll write more next week! Love you all!

Elder Hanks