Humanitarian, Grandkids, Missionaries and Kota Kinabalu

 

Last week we traveled to Kota Kinabalu to cover two humanitarian projects that were finalized with our partners in East Malaysia. Kota Kinabalu is in Sabah which is on the Island of Borneo. We live on the Malay Peninsula in Kuala Lumpur. The project in these pictures is with Cheshire Home which is an organization that serves the handicapped members of society. In this project we will remodel some of their buildings to better serve the residents and update an old playground for the daycare that is on-site.

Project HOPE is a joint project between the Church and the local Rotary Club. This project is providing medical equipment to remote hospitals and clinics that are in need of new or upgraded equipment. The picture on the left illustrates a device that is used to help children who have a genetic defect that causes their cranium to be smaller than normal, the growth of the brain is then restricted which, in turn, causes various complications. This device attaches to the skull at various points and, after cutting the bone, the device is used to enlarge the skull over a 6-week period to accommodate normal growth of the brain. The device on the right is a simple sonogram device that works with an Ipad. The project is providing many types of needed equipment to hundreds of medical facilities in East Malaysia.

The sister on the left is Kelly. She is interviewing Dr. Anbarusa about the Project HOPE equipment mentioned above. Kelly is a local member of the Church who has been called as the Communications Specialist in her district. We are training her to do the type of work we do. She will write the article about this project and we will provide on-the-job training. She will continue the communications work in East Malaysia after we go back to Indonesia.

One of our true joys are the facetime calls we have with our children and grandchildren. Three year-old Ted is on the left and five year-old Bo is on the right. We have 13 grandchildren and we are truly grateful for the technology that allows us to see them and talk to them frequently. The thing that is a true sacrifice for us on this mission is being far from our family. 

It was zone conference for the East Malaysia zone and we have a very large apartment (4 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms) so we got to host 6 missionaries for 3 days. They thought staying with the Lambsons was so cool because they got to eat spaghetti and grilled cheese sandwiches and workout in our gym. We enjoyed them sooo much. They bring a ton of positive spirit and enthusiasm into our lives. Some of you may recognize the Elder taking the selfie, he is Elder Stosich from our stake back home in Alpine.

I took this picture from an observation deck above the city of Kota Kinabalu. Its a beautiful little city on the coast. Life is a bite slower paced than where we live in Kuala Lumpur.

When we travel to a new place we like to try the local dishes. This is Laksa from Yee Fong Laksa restaurant in Kota Kinabalu. It is a spicy dish of noodles, seafood and chicken in a coconut based broth. It was really good and cost about $2.00 per bowl.
I took this photo standing outside the Laksa resto. You can see Sister Lambson at our table in the middle.
Chinese New Year is really big here in KL and goes on for 15 days. That thing across the pond from me is a statue of a rabbit made from gold coins (styrofoam coins painted gold). This is the year of the rabbit in case you didn't know. Near the statue is an interesting sign that says this is The Biggest Gold Coin Rabbit Statue in Malaysia, which begs the question, "how many big gold coin rabbit statues are there in Malaysia?" This is the only one we saw. Chinese New Year is a time for fireworks, decorations and food. I will post a few pictures of us with the other senior missionaries and some of the decorations below.























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