Malaysia- Day 4

Here are some pictures I took a few minutes ago. The sunrise was beautiful this morning. You can see the Penang bridge behind the kids. My parents have a great view from their balcony. We are still trying to adjust to the time change. Josh only slept one hour yesterday during church and that was it, so at 4:30pm he was ready for bed. I wanted to keep him up but he was so cranky I knew that wouldn't be happening. He slept until 1:30am and then he was up until 2:30am and slept for another 2 hours, so up at 4:30am. I put him down again at 6am and he woke up at 7:30am and now is up for the day. Ben and Emma went to bed at 8:15pm and woke up at 5:15am, so they are getting back to normal. If they could sleep an extra hour though, that would be just fine with me!


Yesterday we went to the Penang LDS Branch. The people were so warm and friendly. It was so interesting, feeling the same spirit we feel at our home ward in a place so different from what we are used to. My parents told us many of the members' life stories, some very sad and tragic, and yet you would have no clue they had been through so much just looking at them. We stayed after church and had choir practice. Next week is their District Conference in Ipoh and the Penang Branch was asked to have a choir sing so my dad headed it up. They are singing "Love is Spoken Here." When the women started singing their part I could hear a strange high voice singing behind me. I turned around to see what it was and it was an older guy singing the part in his falsetto voice. It actually sounded pretty good. He was doing it as a joke and making other guys around him laugh. Whitney and I started singing the men's part with deep voices and they got a kick out of that. Here are some pictures taken just outside the meetinghouse. The Malay woman with us is named Katelyn. My parents give her a ride to church every Sunday. She is 34 and speaks amazing English (and Malay, Mandarin, French, and I think one other language.) She also studied law and she teaches an Enrichment program for gifted children (4-7 years of age.) She studied in Australia for awhile and if you listen to her speak you can hear a hint of an Australian accent. Anyway, I really like her and think she is wonderful.

Josh is getting used to being passed around to complete strangers. Everyone would love to hold Emma and Ben too, but they are a little more cautious and reserved. They are fine giving handshakes or waving 'hi', but that's about it. This first pic was taken on Saturday at the Sunshine Market. We had some really good apple and orange drinks (reminds me of an orange julius.) Right when we walked in everyone was staring and this old man walked up to Josh and held his hands out, and Josh went to him. It was really cute watching this elderly man and his granddaughter play with Josh. The last pic is of the Elders' Quorum president, Danny Ching, playing with Josh. He took him for probably half of church and seemed to have more energy than most children I know. He was great with him and said he will definitely be playing with him again when we see him next Sunday.