Miracles in Puchong

Wow! I absolutely LOVE Puchong! Puchong is just a small part of KL. KL is a state, as well as a city. So we're just outside of KL (Kuala Lumpur) in subsection (I think is what it's called?) named Puchong. KL is a huuuuge city, so I'm not really sure how they divide it. I spent the first half of the week in Penang, then moved to Puchong on Wednesday!

So for my last P Day in Penang, we just said goodbye to some people and relaxed.  Tuesday was probably the craziest day of my mission. We were doing personal study when a random guy called, and we set up an appointment. We were way surprised that he called, because it was just out of the blue. We didn't even know how he got our number. We were way excited that he scheduled an appointment with us! We went and taught a less active named Peter. Little did we know that he had converted to some other religion, and he was mega anti-Mormon. When Elder Ng talks to people who say that Joseph Smith wasn't a prophet, he gets mad. Like. REALLY mad.  He was arguing a TON with Peter.  They were having a super-heated debate over the table in this restaurant/fast food place called Nasi Kandar (basically the McDonalds of India).  There were a lot of people around, so after a while, I said that we had another appointment.  Talking to Peter was a waste of time.  We said a closing prayer, then stood up and left. Preeeetty awkward. After that we decided we should let Elder Ng cool down a bit, so we just chilled at a restaurant in Komtar for about 15 minutes. We decided to contact a little before heading to our appointment with the random guy that called. I talked to the first person I saw, got his number, and then the Nepalese guards came and kicked us out of the mall.  We got kicked out of ANOTHER mall!! Elder Ng was disappointed again. We decided we'd call the guy and make sure that we still had an appointment. Elder Massie called him and confirmed the appointment, then right before Elder Massie pulled the phone away from his ear to hang up, the guy said in a quiet voice, "I love you." So Elder Massie was like,, "What in the world? Do you think that guy knows we're missionaries?" Elder Ng took the phone away from Elder Massie and called the guy back. Apparently the guy called the wrong number and didn't realize we were missionaries... I thiiiiink he was trying to hook up with Elder Massie. Soooooo it was a blessing that we had the thought to confirm our appointment. After that, we were going to ride our bikes over to Gurney (another mall) and contact since our appointment was cancelled. We went to grab our bikes. Elder Massie had the key, so he unlocked the bikes, pulled the lock off, and held it up. The lock had been cut. Elder Massie said, "We're missing a bike." Some STOLE Elder Ng's bike! So Elder Ng's day went from bad to worse… to even worse. I felt so bad for him. He got a taxi ride home, and we rode our bikes (splitting up in our mission is allowed, because transportation is such a problem here). I asked President Simmons, and he said it was okay. We didn't break any rules. I can't remember anything else that happened on Monday, but it was a craaazy day!

Wednesday, I said goodbye to all the Elders, went to the airport, and flew to KL. I paid 70 ringgit for a taxi ride to Puchong (that's a ton of money for a missionary), then had to find the apartment. I didn't have a phone, and all I knew is it was in a building called Skypod. SO. I started looking while we were driving. When we got into Puchong I saw a giant building with ‘Skypod’ written really big across the top, so I got dropped off there! That was awesome! Then I couldn't find the elevators. Turned out I had to go allllll the way around the building to the side. After finding that (I talked to a Jehovah's Witness on my way around the building), I went up, and realized I didn't know which room was ours. I only knew which floor.  I looked around for a bit, and found a room with this HUGE pencil sketch of Jesus on it. Luckily, it was easy to tell it was the missionaries' place. I was super glad I found it. I had to go through this little door on the side (they call it a slave door here?) because they weren't home yet, and the front door was locked. I looked around the house and found that they had hung a giant American flag on their balcony.  They have this box they call the Kolob Portal. One of the members in the branch is OBSESSED with facsimiles, so he gave them the idea for the Kolob portal.  The apartment is awesome. We taught a guy named Rama at night, but for the rest of the day, we pretty much just contacted.

Thursday we had a miracle! We contacted all day, and right before we were going to go to a less active member's house, we decided we'd talk to the next person we saw. A Chinese looking guy walked past, we talked to him, and he asked if he could join our church! So we said SURE! After, we invited him to church (his name is Roman), we learned that he was from Kazakhstan. He speaks Russian. His parents are from South Korea. This dude is DIVERSE. He's really cool though.

I just realized I need to introduce my new companion! Elder Forsyth! He pronounces it like the number four, then scythe. Forsyth. He's WAY good at drawing, but he only draws women. I have no idea why. He just doesn't like drawing men. He's a little strange, but he likes really good music! He can speak a bit of Tamil. Tamil is the funniest sounding language you'll ever hear. When Indian girls hear a white person speak it, they LOVE the person that spoke it. Elder Forsyth starts conversations by speaking Tamil ALL THE TIME. It's so funny. He's really cool. I think we'll get along really well. He's been out 4 and a half months, and has been in this area the entire time! So he'll spend the first 1/4 of his mission here. He wears fake glasses because he thinks they look cool. It's hilarious.

The other Elders in the apartment are Elder Jones and Elder Mccusker. Elder Mccusker got in the field the same day as me, but he went to the MTC 6 weeks before me so he's a full transfer ahead of me.

Friday, we met a less active member named Winson.  Winson's parents are super anti-Christian.  The missionaries for the past few transfers kept telling Elder Forsyth that he shouldn't waste his time visiting him, but we decided we'd go! When we got there, his dad didn't recognize that we were missionaries, so he invited us in.  Winson brought us up to his room and we had a good talk.  It was great! He said for the past 3 days, he felt like he should go back to church, so he prayed and promised God he would go to church, then we showed up and invited him! H e went to church Sunday! It was great! He's a wayyyy funny guy. He told us he's scared of sunlight and hates Malaysia. He's way weird. I love him. After that, I bought a lighter, and Elder Forsyth bought a map. The lighter was 1 ringgit (25 US cents). So cheap!  That night, Elder Forsyth showed me how to modify the lighter.  We got a two foot flame going and used all the gas in like 30 seconds. It was totally worth it.  It wasn't too dangerous, but I won't do it again.

Saturday, we were walking to the church to print off English class fliers, and these two Liberian guys stopped us.  They told us they want to learn more about Jesus, and they'd get us students to teach as well.  They gave us their numbers. WHAT???   That was insane. I was freaking out. We'll see what happens with that!  We advertised our English class and got 7 or 8 prospective investigators.  From there we contacted for a while on the train called LRT.  It's the main public transport system in KL. We jumped on the first LRT, and there were literally only 3 Chinese people on the train. The rest were Malay (also Muslim). We're not allowed to teach Muslims. We talked to the 3 Chinese people, got off the LRT, and jumped onto the next one. It was pretty much the same thing. After all of this unsuccess, we went home. As we were leaving the LRT station, we saw a girl on a bench and talked with her. She said she would come to church! So that was great!

Sunday was a day of seeing how the Lord blesses missionaries. Puchong has been struggling with getting good numbers for about 3 transfers. This Sunday our numbers were really good for any area! Between the two companionships, we had 11 investigators at church! That's CRAZY! We also put 3 people on date for baptism and got 3 new investigators.  All around, it was an AWESOME week. We called the ZL's at night to report, and they said, "What happened to Puchong?!?!? You guys haven't even been close to this in forever, and now you're beating almost every area in KL!" We've been extremely blessed, and I hope we continue to be blessed!

The members here are awesome! Bryant is a great guy. He calls the missionaries and asks if he can come contacting with us. Who does that??? That's the worst part of missionary work! He's super awesome. There's also a lady that is going to make us bread every week because I told her I like bread! So I'm way excited to be here. From a missionary prospective Puchong is a way better area than Penang, because contacting is way easier, the branch is just about big enough to be a ward, the members are way awesome, and the work is picking up. Even though Penang was doing super well, I'm really happy to be in Puchong.

Just something random - Hymn 322, come all ye Sons of God, has become my motto--the first line of the 3rd verse.  We sing that a lot in the mornings. Another random thing - Indian food is suuuper good. I actually really REALLY like it. It's super cheap, they serve bread, and it all tastes amazing. Indian food is still the best!

I love you all and the support you give to me! I love being a missionary, and I know that the church is true! I wish I could send pictures, but nobody here has an adapter! I'll buy one and send a bunch next week! Have a nice week!

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins

Transfers Already!

Hey everyone!

I can't believe it, but it's already Monday again! And not only is it Monday, but it's transfers too! I can't believe it!

This week we did tons of work, and didn't see much success until Sunday.  It was all totally worth it, but it felt like nothing was happening throughout the week. Some notable things that happened this week or are going to happen soon: I finished filling out 6 weeks of plans in my planner, I got a new planner (Sister Larkin decorated a planner for everyone in our district with pictures and stuff from LDS magazines like the Liahona) that has a guy on the front that looks a lot like me if I did my hair funny, walked up over 1000 stairs (more on that later), got a sweet Tom and Jerry tie, met lots of insane people, got second place in an escape room, dropped an investigator, and lots more! And Elder Ng is going to print a 750-page book. So that's gonna be awesome. I hope he breaks a printer. That'd be awesome. Before I forget, I spray painted my bike last week so nobody would steal it!  Aot of people would tell me how awesome my bike is so I didn't want it to get stolen.

Monday we did an escape room. That's where you solve a bunch of puzzles and go into the next room and solve more until you get out. We got the second fastest time of all time! So that's awesome! One of the puzzles, we had to open a drawer that was locked magnetically, and we couldn't figure it out, but then Elder Massie just unscrewed the handle, and the door popped open.  We took a roundabout way of solving it, but we DID solve it. So that was awesome. Then we watched some Prince of Egypt until night, then just contacted.

Tuesday, we got Elder Massie a bike, and got all of our bikes fixed! It took FOREVER. We biked down to Bayan Baru, which is a killer ride--tons of huge hills. I got a flat tire, but we fixed it! Then we got some way good mixed rice after. After that we were going to bike to Gurney (that's like an hour long bike ride), but Elder Ng decided to pop his tire, so we walked 3 km to the nearest bike shop, then walked 3 more to the Soon's.  The Soon's were wayyyyy sad the first time I met with them at the beginning of the transfer. They had a hard time being happy and seeing anything positive in their lives. Just a day or two before we went bacl, the Sisters gave them a Book of Mormon reading chart so they could keep track of their reading.  This would help them remember to read every day. Every time I've gone back and visited them, they've been happier and happier. This time, they were way happy! It was awesome! Brother Soon told us the first time we met, that he couldn't feel the Spirit that well at all, ever. On Tuesday, he was telling us about how strong the Spirit comes when he sings How Great Thou Art, and then Elder Ng and I sang it, and he was so happy. It was crazy. After we sang it, he pulled out a song he wrote, and told us that we need to write music for his words. Haha! So Elder Ng is taking that project up. Brother Soon is awesome and Sister Soon is too.  We had a short lesson and they made me try Durian fruit.  It was just as bad this time as it was the first time. I tried really hard to swallow it. I nearly threw up once, but kept chewing, and then the second time I nearly threw up, I decided I could spit it out. I'll swallow it someday... I wanna have everyone try some. It seriously tastes like rotten chicken…well, what I'd imagine rotten chicken tastes like.  Most of the locals love it!

Wednesday was pretty good! We got a phone call at 6 AM, an hour before we have to wake up. Elder Ng answered it, then hung up after about 5 seconds of silence. So we went back to sleep. It was just a prank call... or so we thought. Later, while we were studying (around 9), we got a call, and Elder Ng said the normal "Hi, this is Elder Ng." After he said that, all of us could hear through the phone "I'M SOOOO HAPPYYYYY!!!" We all started laughing really hard. Elder Ng asked him why he was so happy, and it was because he was told that he could go to church this week! So that was awesome! Brother Diong is less active, but it's because he can't get a ride to church.  That phone call we got at 6 AM was brother Diong, and there was just a slight pause before he kept talking, and by then, Elder Ng had hung up the phone.  It was funny when we realized that.  Later, we met with Fredrick, an investigator that we contacted last week. He told us that he thought we were looking for investors, and that's why he was so interested to talk to us.  Haha! He didn't understand what "We share a message about Jesus Christ" meant I guess.  He's still a really good guy! We knew we'd have to help him understand that he could be forgiven, otherwise, we'd have to drop him.  We met with him, and he wasn't hearing it. He didn't see a need for God, but he totally did at the same time. I've never seen so much potential in someone. He was wrestling with himself. When the scriptures say wrestling, I now know what they mean. I could see it in his eyes! It was crazy. I wish he could've felt the Spirit just a little more, but he was just too reluctant to believe.  If the missionaries talk to him in about 6 months, I think it'll be the right time.  Apparently he makes about 200-400 USD a day from gambling, so he says he doesn't need God when he's so good at gambling. He's a really intelligent guy, and he actually beats the system. That's how he always makes money. I can't wait to hear if anything happens with him in 6 months.

Thursday, Brother Diong called us at 9:00 again and told us that he was super excited to come to church. The best thing about Brother Diong is he doesn't have any teeth, and looks like he's pregnant--normal sized dude except for his stomach. I got a picture with him. We visited Brother Kim Seng that night, and it was awesome. He's the one who lives with his sister, and his sister doesn't have arms or legs. Well, she has one arm.  They're so nice. Brother Kim Seng always tells the missionaries this. "Two zero one four, couldn't stand up, two zero one six," then he stands up out of his chair, "can stand up." Then he sits down and stands up like 3 times after that. He couldn't stand up back in the day, but now he's strong and can do it!  It's fun to talk with him. He always gives us 100 plus, which is the Gatorade of Asia. I always feel bad, because he's so poor, but he forces us too!  His sister brought in a mooncake and gave it to us.  We told her we weren't gonna eat it later, but she literally yelled at us for 5 minutes until we finally cut it and ate a piece. It was hilarious. Just imagine this old Chinese lady that speaks Hokkien (some Chinese dialect that makes them sound like they're always mad) scolding you for not taking the mooncake.  It's almost the mid-autumn festival, so EVERYONE has mooncake, and it's disgusting. They put this dried egg yolk in the middle that's nasty, and the actual mooncake isn't good either. I don't know why people buy them. Brother Kim Seng and his sister love it though. When we were leaving, their neighbor had her door open, and was staring at us. She was sitting on the ground, and kept yelling the same word over and over and over at us. So Elder Ng is freaking out a little, and he's like, "go go go GO GO GO", so we all start freaking out, because we think she's yelling something freaky at us in Chinese.  We biked off as fast as we could. Elder Ng didn't know what she was saying, but we've all come to agree that she was probably putting a curse on us or something. Thank goodness for Heavenly Father

Friday I went on exchanges with Elder Allred! It was great! We found like 5 PI's (potential investigators) in an hour and a half (it normally takes like 4 or 5 hours to find that many), and we got a lot of stuff done between! So that was great. We taught some lessons and stuff. But when we got home, after biking really hard for about 5 km, I said, "Wanna take the stairs?"—remember we live on the 22nd floor.  In Malaysia, the 1st floor is actually the 2nd floor, because they have a 'ground floor'. So he pauses for a second, then says, "Sure. Why not?"  We were dripping with sweat already, and hiked 22 flights. When we got there, we were like, "We've already hiked 22 flights, and our building is only 27 flights. Wanna just go to the top?" So we hiked to the top. Then we took a picture at the top. It was awesome. We also ate at this restaurant called Spades Burger, and it was super good. We visited the Pakistani family, and it was awesome. They're really nice. We met this lady named MJ, and she was kind of interesting. She told us she was kicked out of Turkey for being Christian.  Then she told us that she now believes in a little bit of every religion, and the cosmos controls everything and other stuff.  She said she wanted us to teach her, and she's going to bring a friend that we can teach too. We didn't even ask her if we could teach her or if she'd bring a friend. So that's pretty awesome! She was telling us about this movie, and she got way into it.  By the end, she was like, "AND IT'S ALL BASED ON A TRUE STORY!!!" She was really excited it was all about a true story. So that was funny. Then she told us she liked our ties. We were both wearing our Tom and Jerry ties.  We got a lot of compliments. No big deal.

Saturday, we celebrated the mid-autumn festival!  That was fun! Brother Tian Muh and his dad set it all up, and they're awesome! They make me feel like I'm in a normal ward, but it's a branch., and it's not normal.  We did some really fun games, and we actually got  5 PI's that are way solid. So that's awesome. Everyone brought their friends.  We were so excited! We worked hard all week, and weren't seeing much success until the celebration, so that was cool. Then it got even better on Sunday! But before I go to Sunday, we put Koay on date! He's a super weird dude that somehow got a job at a hospital as a nurse with literally no qualifications. I guess it's going really well for him! So that's good!

Yesterday at church was AWESOME. We had a lot of less actives we talked come to church! It was great! I didn't think any of them would come! And the Lim’s are officially active again! So that's AWESOME. Super exciting.  We had a ton of investigators come to church!  It was awesome to see that all of our work paid off! I was way excited.  We taught Celia, and she's cut down from 3 cups of coffee to 1 cup! So that's great! She just has to get that last cup gone, and she can be BAPTIZED!!! So that's awesome. October 8th, I think we're gonna have 5 people get baptized.  When I say Penang is on the verge of exploding, it really is! We just have to wait. Our entire zone has only gotten 6 baptisms this year.  We're about to get 5 in one week, then another 3 by the end of the transfer hopefully!

My mission is going by so fast! I can't believe how fast it goes! Every week just goes faster and faster! I love you all! Have an awesome week!

PS:  I'm going to KL South area! I'm not entirely sure where that is, but I'm super excited! KL is a great place, and I get to walk!!! yessssssssssss. Penang has been great!

PSS:  Myy new companion will be Elder Forsyth. Elder Ng says he's really cool. I'll meet him on Wednesday! I'm going to a place called Puchong! It's in southern KL. (Kuala Lampur)

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins

New Planner Sister Larkin drew on

Elder Marsh and Elder Mullins

Elder Mullins and Elder Allred with their Tom and Jerry ties

Elder Allred, ??, Elder Mullins

Elder Ng and Elder Mullins--not sure what they are doing.  A cultural bow?

A Transformer in the middle of the city

Biking

 Ben has met a friend in Penang, Jeremiah Yeap, who is a Young Single Adult.  He messaged me and sent me some photos of Ben.  He has really come to love him.  He said he is like the brother he never had.  He sent this to me this morning and said it was Elder Mullins' last meal in Penang. 

Last meal in Penang

Jeremiah said he was pushing Ben to eat lots of meat

Jeremiah Yeaps and Elder Mullins

Brother Diong

An Escape Room the Elders got to do on P-Day