The Cockroach and The Flies

So the title of this week's email is certainly not the most appealing, but it sure does provide a fun story (or at least I think it does). Are you ready? Good, here we go:

So once upon a time we were on exchanges last Friday night in the wonderful, historic town of Melaka. I had a bed of pillows on the floor, and was just about to sleep when I felt something crawling along my foot. Here in Malaysia we have lots of geckos all over the place--we lovingly call them cicaks, and I thought it was just a cicak crawling on me. I flicked my foot and felt whatever it was fly off. Murmuring under my breath about how "wonderful" cicaks are, I grabbed my watch and turned on the little light on it to see where the little devil had gone to. The light brought to my view not a cicak, but a cockroach! It had been crawling all over my foot! Aaaaaaaaaaah! Yuck! The other elder by me also saw it. I didn't have glasses on or contacts in, so I was essentially half-blind for this whole story. The cockroach darted underneath one of the pillows that made up my bed; I flipped that pillow aside, and he darted underneath the next one. We played this game till all the pillows were flipped over; he then started crawling through the beds. Me and the other elder awake at this point--having lots of adrenaline pent-up inside of us, and fighting the urge to scream like little girls over the whole thing--chased after it, and finally found it nestled beside the sandals of my sleeping comp. The other elder grabbed some roach spray and managed to strike at the roach once, but then it skittered away. We spent the next ten minutes looking for it, but to no avail. Hopefully he crawled somewhere and died :)

Anywho, that was quite the highlight from our trip to Melaka this time :) What else happened this week? Well, my shower is infested with this little fruit fly things. It probably doesn't say to much about the overall cleanliness of our shower, but we certainly do try to keep it looking nice. Nevertheless, this little colony of flies manages to live on, and every time you get into the shower they get stirred up and are flying all over the place. As they do this, it gets a little distracting, and you can't help but focus on them and utterly destroying them. It's helped provide a spiritual insight, though--Satan likes to fly around us and get us stirred up too. He provides lots of different little ways to attack and annoy and disturb us. But when we focus on the things that matter most--in this example's case, actually getting the shower done and out of the way--we find ourselves happier, more effective, and more open to revelation (some of the best revelation comes in the shower!). Although the example is a little strange, I know that the principle is true. As we put our minds into focusing on the things that matter most, all of the other little distractions melt away. As we strive to come closer to Christ, we see all of our little sins and mistakes and weaknesses fading away--because He can heal them, take them away, make them strengths. I love our Savior, and I know that He lives and that He wants to help us. I love you all! Have an amazingly great day! :)

Sincerely,

Elder Mitchell

p.s. Our branch had a big BBQ this past week--go Team JB! :) 

p.p.s. What would life be without the random pillows you find on the side of the street? :)