Good Morning, West Malaysia!

Hello Friends, Family, and Poisonous Reptiles:

This past week has been a good one. We've had the chance to be in our area for most of this past week...but we also had sick elders for most of that time as well, so that put a little bit of a cramp in our style. Whatevs. In other news, we got to go to a big Chinese wedding this past Saturday and eat to our hearts' desires! It was fun, and I've discovered a new tradition that I'm hoping to bring back to America (I've already got a couple up my sleeves that I won't tell you about yet, since that would spoil the surprise :) )--Anywho, there comes a time during the normal Chinese wedding when the bride, groom, and their immediate family go to each table and everyone raises their glasses for a toast. They then shout a word in Cantonese as loud and long as they possibly can--a sanctioned shouting match. Super great stuff :) Following that they say another word, and then drain their glasses. It's pretty much the greatest. It will be inaugurated at my wedding and will then proceed to every other Mitchell wedding to follow thereafter. So there :)

I've had a chance to read some more from the war chapters this past week. They really are full of so many great and wonderful spiritual insights! They help me to understand that even when we're in the midst of turmoil and trial (like the Nephites in the middle of a cataclysmic war), we can still rely on the peace the Gospel brings. Jesus Christ truly is the Prince of Peace, and He stands with open arms to welcome us, to embrace us, to enable us to return to the presence of our Heavenly Father. It's so wonderful! He's so wonderful! The Gospel we preach is true! :)

I hope that you have a marvelous day and week.

Love ya lots,

Mai Zhanglao :)

Liang Zhi Laohu Pao de Kuai

Hiya Folks!

This past week has included adventures to the beautiful city of Melaka as we went on exchanges with the elders there. It was super kool! I sure do like Melaka, and hope that I'll get to visit it a few more times whilst I'm posted here in JB. In addition to that, we had the mission president come and do interviews with us this past week--it's always such an uplifting and good experience when I have a reporting session with him. I sure do love our mission president, and I have a firm testimony of righteous priesthood men called of God to be our leaders. He sure is one.

This week is going to have a lot of adventures in store as well--we get to go on exchanges with the assistants, as well as with some Bahasa elders in JB, and then there's MLC on top of all that. Suffice it to say, the Chinese elders aren't going to be in their own area for a long amount of time this week, but hopefully this is the only such stacked week that we'll have for a long time. 

In other news, I had the chance to study from Alma 47 this past week. It was so COOL! Essentially, it tells the story of Amalickiah taking over the Lamanite kingdom. There are three 'tragedies' located within the chapter: The tragedy of Lehonti; the tragedy of the king's servants; and the tragedy of the queen. Lehonti and his army of rebels are "fixed in their minds with a determined resolution" to never falter from their principles...and then Amalickiah convinces them to 'come down'. And then they compound the problem by following Amalickiah's counsel, ultimately resulting in Lehonti's assassination and the assimilation of his army into Amalickiah's forces.

Amalickiah brings his triumphant army back to the capitol, and his servants go out to greet the Lamanite king and bring these 'glad tidings'--in other words, stabbing the king to death. Instead of standing to fight for him, the king's servants flee and are pursued by the Lamanite armies. 

The queen hears about all of these goings-on and INVITES Amalickiah into her quarters. He flat-out lies to her and manages to convince her to become the wife of a scumball--and there ya have it, Amalickiah's officially the king of the jungle.

As I mentioned earlier, there are three tragedies in this story, but one of them has a happy ending. The servants of the murdered king manage to make it to the land of the Nephites and live with the peaceful Ammonites--eventually these servants will help the Nephite armies in their eventual war with the Lamanites.

In all three tragedies, people made mistakes--they faltered from things that they knew to be right. Lehonti left the saftefy of the high ground. The servants fled from their duty. The queen invited the bad guy into her living quarters. What can be learned from all of these things?

1. We have to STAND for what we know to be right! We can't come down from our strongholds! We can't go around fleeing from what we know is right--to stand and defend those that we love and care about. We can't go inviting wickedness into our living quarters/lives.

2. We all make mistakes. None of us are perfect. We're all going to mess up every now and then. But instead of being like Lehonti and the queen--who continued to associate with Amalickiah/Satan after they'd been defeated once--we should look to the example of the servants, who fled to the safety of the righteous. We'll all make mistakes, but there is always going to be healing out there, in the outstretched arms of our Captain and King, Jesus Christ.

In essence, we have to build ourselves on that Everlasting Rock, even our Savior and Redeemer (see Helaman 5:12). We have to stand for our standards, we have to defend what we know to be right, we have to be willing to reject wickedness--but if and when we do make mistakes, we have to ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS remember that it's never too late! Although we may have come down from our mountain for a moment, we can't forget that the ultimate victory, in the end of days, isn't going to be with Satan. It will be with our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ, Both of whom are willing to forgive our sins and empower us to rise above the natural man. Stand for what is right, and when we falter, we must stand back up, relying upon the arms of Him who is mighty to save.

I love you all, and hope you have a fantastic week!

Mai Zhanglao

There is Power, Power, Wonder-Working Power

Well, folks, it has been a couple weeks since the last great and grand update, so here be another one. :) JB is going great--it's certainly the most sketch of my areas, but that's okee-dokee. Today, I wanted to share a quick thought with you from my Personal Study yesterday: I was reading Alma 43, right at the beginning of the war chapters (my favorite part of the Book of Mormon! :) ). As I was reading, I noticed something cool in Alma 43:38. It mentions that every now and then a Nephite soldier would fall due to the "loss of blood". They were shielded and protected, but every once in a while during this great war that was raging they would fall because they'd lost too much blood.

I racked my brains, trying to figure out a good way to apply the scripture to me personally. This chapter has so many great parallels to the spiritual war that we find ourselves in at this time. The thought leapt to my mind of Exodus12:13--"And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt." 

What can kill us spiritually? What can separate us from the presence of God? A loss of blood--but whose blood? This is just the ramblings of a redhead, but it brought me comfort as I thought about it. The precious blood of our Savior and Redeemer, even Jesus Christ, was shed for each and every one of us. It was commemorated by the ancient Israelites as they smeared lamb's blood over the lintels and doorposts of Goshen; it is remembered by modern-day descendants of Abraham as we partake of the Sacrament and renew our covenants with God. The ATONEMENT--the heart and core of the message of the Gospel. When we suffer from a "loss of blood"--in other words, when we are without the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ in our lives, when we literally have a loss of His blood to atone for our unrepented sins--then we become spiritually wounded. Then we face the terrible possibility of separation from our Father and from our Elder Brother.

But the marvelous Plan of Salvation has been laid, from before the foundations of the world, to ensure that if and when we sin, that atoning blood will wash us clean. It is our choice--we must exhibit faith (in other words, an abiding belief and action to back up that belief) and repent of our wrongdoings, and then, in the words of Amulek, "immediately shall the great plan of redemption be brought about unto [us]" (Alma 34:31; emphasis added). 

I invite and encourage each of us to remember to always apply that atoning blood in our lives. Let us not take the Atonement for granted. Let it not only heal us, but let it ENABLE us to become more and more like its Author, even our Captain, and King--Jesus Christ, the Great Jehovah of the Old Testament, the Savior and Redeemer of the New.

I love you all and hope that you have a marvelous week! Keep on keeping on!

Mai Zhanglao

Into the West (Malaysia, That Is)

To all friends, family, poisonous reptiles:

Well, this here be the last dispatch from Kuching. I got the call this morning--I'm off to West Malaysia! Johor Bahru, to be precise :) I'm really excited for it, but I'm sad to say good-bye to all of the people that I love so much here in Kuching. The past six months have FLOWN by! I can't believe how fast it's been! I could stay here for the rest of my mission and not feel bad about it; but the Lord would like me to go elsewhere for now. I'm so excited to see what JB's got in store.
This past week the Lord taught me a really cool lesson that I'd like to share with you:

One Wednesday afternoon, as me and Elder Chong are biking along, I notice that there's something shining on my tire. We pull over, and it's a thumbtack in my tire! Nice, silver, and stuck quite fast. We tried to take it out, but the protesting squeak as air started to rush out of the tire prompted us to just leave it where it was. With the tack still in the tire, we pedaled our way to an appointment about 30 minutes away. The tire held air till there, and for another 30 minutes afterwards before it started to leak again. The tack was what was holding the air in the tire; if we'd taken it out, we would've had a flat tire on our hands.

As I sat later, pondering on that experience, I got the distinct impression that God was trying to teach me something with it. Here's the answer that I feel I was supposed to receive: Although that occurence was a miracle (it really was! :) ), I was meant to learn that good will always be good, and bad will always be bad. One of my favorite scriptures in Moroni 7:13, and its principle was demonstrated with this experience. Although the thumbtack was nice, shiny, and acted as a really pretty bike tire ornament for a while, it was still a THUMBTACK. Its identity never changed. Although God blessed that bike with the miracle of keeping from going flat for a little while, the tack was still the cause of a flat tire. The tack was still something detrimental to the bike.

No matter how appealing sin may look, no matter what "upfront benefits" it promises, no matter how attractive or nice evil's appearance may be--it will always be just that, evil. Wicked. Bad. On the flip side, no matter how dull or dim or unattractive or boring or strange good may be, no matter how old it is, no matter who it's coming from--good will always be just that, good. Happiness. Righteousness. Clarity of conscience. Peace of mind.
I know that we have a Savior--even Jesus Christ, the Son of God--who is the Fountain of all righteousness, the Author of all good things. I know that He lives and that He loves us, and that He is our greatest Ally, our best Friend, our Elder Brother, our Captain, our King.

I love you all, and hope you have a magnificent week! Catch ya later from the wilds of JB! :)

Sincerely,
Mai Zhanglao

Selamat Hari Rayah!

Today marks the first day of Hari Rayah--in other words, the month of Ramadan (the month of fasting in the Islamic religion) has come to an end, and everyone's going to be throwing parties like crazy. Selamat Hari Rayah! (For those of you Bahasa speakers, I apologize if I spelled it wrong).

Well, folks, this week's been good. And crazy. And fast. And everything. Earlier this past week we had a lesson very similar to Ammon's first lesson with King Lamoni. If you recall, King Lamoni was quite impressed with the strapping young Nephite missionary before him, and so he offered Ammon his daughters as wives. 

Yeah, so we went to this house. The guy there was really nice, but he mentioned something about his daughters entertaining us and then he disappeared. We had a nice, rather awkward conversation with his daughter as we were waiting for him to return. We waited for a long time, and stretched out the conversation to an uncomfortable length. Finally we asked if we could talk to her dad, and she went to go get him...but instead came back with her younger sister. Fun stuff. We were much quicker to the draw on Round 2--this girl, who was only 14, was asked within the first five minutes of our conversation to go get her dad, because we'd like to talk to him. He finally showed up and we told him we'd be back another day.

Just another awkward experience in the lives of the Kuching Chinese elders.

In other news, I've had a chance to study more and more about the Christlike attribute of patience. I've realized that it's something that I really lack, and that it's something I really need. As I've been studying more and more about it, I've come to realize that the Lord is SO patient with all of us. All of our faults, all of our weaknesses, all of our misguided desires--He's so loving and so patient with us. Why? Because He loves us. He died for us. He gave everything for us, and He isn't going to let that sacrifice go to waste. He's going to wait on us and be patient with us as long as the laws of justice and mercy allow; He's going to be our friend in the good and the bad times. I'm truly grateful for my Savior Jesus Christ, and for the fact that He truly is so patient with me.

I love you all so very much, and hope that you have a tremendously great and grand week! Keep on keepin' on lah! :)

Sincerely,

Mai Zhanglao

Hashtagging Our Way to Fame and Glory

Friends, family, and associates,

To be quite honest with y'all, there's not really any good reason why this particular post is named the way it is. Frankly, I reckon I was just looking for an excuse to use "hashtag" as a verb. There ya go :)

Today's not going to be a super long or in-depth letter, but there is one quick experience I'd like to share. Lately me and my companion have striven to be in the right place at the right time. Yesterday, after a small planning session, we were on our way to a dinner appointment. There was a lady walking along the side of the road up ahead of us; I thought that we should go talk to her. As we were about to pull over to start talking to her, she approached us and starting talking to us. We had a great conversation--she was a very brilliant woman with a very firm belief in Christ. She shared with us about the recent deaths of her parents and two siblings. I didn't really know what to say, but I could feel how strongly she believed in Jesus Christ, and I could feel His love for her. In very simple and brief words, I explained that I too had lost a sibling and that I knew that God has a plan for all of us. I don't know what that plan is, nor do I know why sometimes it has to have such hard and hurtful things inside of it, but I do know that there is a plan, and that no matter what church we're a member of, Christ died for all of us. She was tearing up as she talked about her family, and I started getting a little choked-up when I shared my bit. There was a special spirit there, and I'm so glad that the Lord gave us the opportunity to have that experience.

That's something that I've really started coming to understand this past week: The fact that no matter who we are, or what church or religion we affiliate with, or where we're from, or who our family is, Jesus Christ died for us. He died for me. He died for YOU, whoever you might be or wherever you might be from. Whether or not someone has accepted the fulness of the Gospel, or partaken of the ordinances of salvation, or read the Book of Mormon--He loves them all. He loves us all. I know that that's true :)

Have a wonderful week, errbody! Keep on keepin' on! I love you all and hope that you are able to feel of our Savior's love this upcoming week :)

Doubt not, but be believing,

Mai Zhanglao :)

Some Things I Learned from a Buddhist Monk

To All Who May Be Concerned:

At long last the drought has ended and I'm writing another blogpost. I suppose some of you might be disappointed at this point, but oh well. You can skim read, if you so choose :)

The past few weeks have been great and grand. We just had transfers this past week, and there have been some new faces here in Kuching, as well as some old ones leaving. Change has never been my strong suit, but it's really great to have a new burst of missionary excitement here. It certainly helps keep the work moving forward :)

So last Thursday night (or maybe it was Friday night? Time kind of blurs these days :) ), we were at an Indian restaurant. (Fun fact/Sidenote: My mission has helped me develop a great love for most types of Indian food. I'm a big roti fan myself, and you can never go wrong with some good ole murtabak ayam :) ). As we were finishing up in there, a large party of Buddhists entered the room. In their midst were two legit monks--dressed up in authentic garb, fresh from Nepal/Tibet. I had the chance to talk to one of them. He taught me a couple of things about MEDITATION.

It's something that I've never really thought about before, but since he shared what he did with me, it's been on my mind a lot lately. Essentially (if I understood him correctly), meditation is focusing on one object and letting go of all external cares and worries. It's about finding inner peace and happiness despite the surroundings beyond you. He also stated something quite profound, "Meditation is acting with awareness." 

Acting with awareness; focusing on one object and letting go of all other worries and cares; finding inner peace and happiness--all of this sounds something similar to the Gospel quest we've all commenced at baptism. Although I do not agree with every single teaching the monk proposed, I believe that he has found a pearl of great price, and I hope to be able to use what light he has to increase my own testimony and connection with the Savior. Using our agency righteously (aka acting with awareness), we are able to focus our desires and our lives on one object (aka Jesus Christ and His infinite Atonement), finding the inner peace and happiness we need.
This past week I've had a chance to see what happens when people are acting with such awareness, when they are doing all they can to build their testimonies and their connections with heaven. I've also been able to see what happens when people act without thinking at all. It is tragic, but it can be learned from as well. The Lord would have us grow from our sorrows. The Lord would have us learn from those lessons in life that aren't always the happiest or the brightest. The Lord would not leave us alone in them, either--if we aren't afraid to keep holding onto Him, even and especially when He's all we've got to hold onto, then He certainly won't be afraid to hold on even tighter.
I dunno if this makes any sense, but I do have a burning testimony that the Lord loves each and every one of us. The adversary of agency, even the fallen son of the morning, is a very real being, and his power is great, but every time I'm reminded of him and all the rotten things he has caused in this world, I'm reminded of an example my dad gave to me when I was younger and still struggling to find my own personal testimony: "Light and darkness cannot coexist. If you turn on a lightswitch, the darkness in the room must flee. It can't stay. They can't coexist. You just have to turn on the light."

I sure do love Buddhist monks, and if I wasn't already converted to the fulness of the Gospel, I might consider studying in greater depth all of their teachings. For now, though, I'm going to focus on becoming better at meditating--at acting with awareness, focusing on things that matter most, and finding that inner peace and happiness that God would have all of us possess (see 2 Nephi 2:25).

I love you all, and hope you have a marvelous day and week! Keep on keepin' on! :)

Mai Zhanglao

Service project with a machete