Elder Ben Mullins: October 2016

Hey Everyone!

I can now say that I'm a certified ostrich jockey. Whatever that implies. Anyway, this week was super-fast. I can't believe it's Monday again. Last Monday, we woke up early and went with the Pattersons (senior couple missionaries) to a place called Batu Caves, then after, an ostrich farm. Who knew they had ostrich farms? Anyway, Batu Caves was awesome. There were a bunch of Hindu temples and shrines and a giant cave. Monkeys were everywhere. The best thing about it was I got reunited with Elder Allred! Elder Allred got transferred to PJ last week because he couldn't ride his bike anymore because of some medical problems. So we got to hang out! Elder Allred is the coolest missionary ever. We're definitely gonna hang out when I get back from my mission. Anyway, we hiked up a million stairs to the cave, explored, then went to the ostrich farm. I fed ostriches, and even got to RIDE them. HOW COOL IS THAT? I rode an ostrich. It was super awesome.

On the way home, we had a lot of fun. Elder Patterson (Elder P) doesn't like slowing down when we go through toll gates. There are these things here called smart tags, and they scan pretty quickly as you pass beneath the toll booth. The gates lift up fast enough that you can drive through. Sister P always gets really mad at him because she thinks they're gonna hit the gate. But we went through 4 or 5 toll gates on the way, and nothing happened. On the way home we went through two or three of them. Sister P, of course, says, "You're gonna hit one one of these times! You have to slow down!!!" and we all just laughed. We went through another one, and guess what happened? We totally slammed into the gate. It popped open and swung around, and guess what Elder P did? Just kept driving. We were all crying because we were laughing so hard. Elder P and Sister P were just arguing in the front. Sister P is saying, "I KNEW IT WOULD HAPPEN! BOYS, STOP LAUGHING! YOU'RE JUST ENCOURAGING HIM!" all while Elder P was saying, "Honey, the gate was being stupid! It payed, it just didn't lift up fast enough!" So we were all dying. It was super funny.

Tuesday we had to pay 3 water bills, because they hadn't paid the bill the last 3 months. I told Elder Forsyth we needed to do it. The Chinese Elders tried the day before, but they were closed. We had to travel for around 45 minutes to get to the place to pay our bill. We spent a big chunk of time looking for the place and getting there, then we couldn't find a bus stop, so we walked a few kilometers back. Later that night, we had an awesome dinner given to us by Sister Peggy and her family. It was super good garlic pork and some really good chicken. Then we taught them about the Book of Mormon. After that, we went around finding lots more people.

Wednesday, we dropped off a Tagalog Book of Mormon for Ariz while he was at work. I've never seen someone so happy to get a Book of Mormon. He was way pumped. He's been reading it a lot recently! He was too busy to be taught that day at work, so we visited him later in the week.

On the way home, we saw this little kitten. It was freaking out at something down a gutter. I think it might've been a rat. Anyway, it would poke its head down this little hole and meow 3 or 4 times, pop its head out of the hole, meow at Elder Forsyth and me 2 or 3 times, and then look back in and repeat. Sometimes it'd stick its paw in the hole too. The hole was barely big enough for it to squeeze its head in. It was probably a 6 foot drop down to the bottom of the gutter. This cat puts its head in one more time, puts its paw in, then puts in another paw, and it started to slip down! Elder Forsyth and I start moving toward it to save it, but then its whole body slipped through. We tried looking down into the gutter to see if it was ok, but we couldn't see it, and we couldn't hear it. I don't know what happened to the cat. But it was super funny.

Thursday, we got some awesome new investigators! We met with a referral from Sister Shena named Rewin, and she's interested in learning more. We also met with a lady named Rayne, and she's EXTREMELY prepared! I'll talk more about them when we teach them a bit more. But I'm excited to teach them!

After we taught them, we went to KL to go on exchanges with the zone leaders! Elder Forsyth stayed there, and Elder Orgill and I made the hour long journey back to Puchong. I learned a ton of stuff from him just that night. He was pretty cool.

Friday, Elder Orgill interviewed George for baptism one last time, and he's gonna get baptized on Saturday! We're looking forward to that! It'll be awesome! My first baptism! He's totally prepared! George is such a great guy, and will make an awesome member! After the interview, we went back to Ariz and taught him, then after that, he gave us a referral, but she wasn't interested. Bummer.

After learning a million new things from Elder Orgill, including how to speak Malay, we went back to KL to switch companions back. Elder Forsyth and I both learned lots, and we've been doing even better since the exchanges. On the way back from exchanges, we contacted for the hour long train ride. We talked with a ton of people, but there was one that really stood out. We were walking toward him, and all of a sudden, I just knew him. It was super weird. I knew his personality, I knew who he was, and the weirdest thing ever was I felt like I knew his name. I just had the name Winson pop into my head. I was going to say to him, "I bet I can guess your name", but Elder Forsyth cut me off right as I was about to speak, and asked him how he was doing. He said he was doing well. He asked him what is name was. Guess what his name was?!?!? WINSON! My jaw dropped, and after a second of shock, I asked him if we had talked with him before. He said he'd seen us before, but never talked to us. So I was saying in my mind, "I HAVE to get this guy's number." But he wasn't interested. But he DID promise that if he ever saw us again, he would set up an appointment to learn, so that was really awesome. It was like I had a vision. Craziest experience of my mission. I don't know why God thought I should know his name, but I know that God gives us revelation for a reason! So someday... One day he'll meet with us!

Saturday, we went contacting for pretty much all day, and we did it pretty boldly. It was super awesome, but nobody was interested. We stayed positive anyway. So it was good. We got to teach English Class at least, so that was fun. The district had a dance for the youth, so they had fun at that, but it kinda left the missionaries without anyone to help teach. That's ok, because all of our lessons cancelled anyway!

Sunday was awesome! Church is the bomb. We taught 5 lessons after church between the two sets of Elders, then finished our studies right before dinner. We went to a dinner appointment, and had some of the Chinese Elders' investigators there to teach. We knew there would be a language barrier, but the Chinese Elders had another appointment somewhere else. So we ate dinner for an hour, because some reason, the members think you have to introduce the gospel really slowly and ease into it. Finally, we got the topic onto church, and started teaching. The crazy thing was, as we taught them, they all understood. They could all hardly speak English, but somehow, they understood! It was awesome! Now the Chinese Elders' investigators are on date for baptism! So that's awesome. Too bad they aren't our investigators.

My week was super awesome! I'm loving life in Puchong, and I have at least 1 more P Day in Puchong! Hopefully I have 13 more though! That's the goal! Thanks for supporting me in being a missionary! You're all awesome! I hope your week is great!

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins

Elder Allred

Hindu statue

stalactite

Batu Caves

Crazy looking monkey

I'm standing on Ostrich Eggs

I'm an ostrich jockey

At the ostrich farm

Elder Forysth found a critter

I love this! Why you no tip?

Elder Orgill

Sister Shena and I match today

Super Forsyth--He was a super hero in primary today

Hey Everyone!

It's already been another week... I can't believe it! It's gone by so fast! We only have two weeks left in the transfer! Elder Forsyth has been making me memorize where everything is, where all the members live, and how to get around. Bus numbers are really hard to remember, but train stations are really easy. Hopefully I remember those before the end of the transfer!

Monday was P Day! We went on a hike really early with some members. It was a 4 km hike through the jungle, so it was super awesome; lots of bugs and weird looking trees. We got some coconut juice after, and then just sat around and slept the rest of the day until we had to go shopping. That night Elder Forsyth and I taught this lady that was a referral from one of our AWESOME members, Sister Saffron. Sister Saffron is basically the mom of every single missionary that's ever going to serve in Puchong. She's great! The lady's name was Keke. She thought I looked like Harry Potter some reason…no idea why. She and her little boy were calling me Harry Potter all night! There was a really bad language barrier, so we had a hard time teaching, but she's totally going to be baptized. It’s disappointing that we need to pass them to the Chinese Elders. Lucky them, they get two baptisms! Oh well, it's all for the same church! It's just really fun to teach people who are genuinely interested.

Tuesday Elder Jones went to Singapore, because he had to go on a visa run, and President Simmons decided he should go on it a couple weeks early. We were with Elder McCusker all day, and it was great! We were walking along the street, and this group of 5 Chinese kids walked by us and we started talking with them! I can't even remember how, but we bent our conversation around to church, and asked them if they wanted to hear something for 15 minutes. One said yes, so they all said yes. I love peer pressure... Anyway, we sat down at this Nasi Kandar (a restaurant) and taught them the first vision. At first, they were like any group of 15 year olds. They were talking and snickering as we taught, but then we started quoting the first vision, and they all went SILENT! They were all enamored with what we were saying, and they all felt the Spirit. There was one kid (the back right in the picture I'm sending) that looked like he was about to cry. So that was awesome. Then we gave our number to all of them and told them to call us if they were interested in learning how they can change their lives. They wouldn't give us their numbers (for obvious reasons), but they were really nice.

I can't really remember what we did Wednesday, but we were with Elder McCusker again. Oh! I remember! We went contacting at a university and got a lot of potentials. I didn't bring my planner, so I can't remember what we did besides that. Elder Jones got back that night, and we learned that he made it through immigrations, but Elder Rich and Hogan, who have been here 6 weeks longer than me, got permanently blacklisted out of Malaysia. The officials are starting to figure out what missionaries look like when they're not dressed up. The Elders have to serve 19 and a half months in Singapore or get reassigned to another mission. President Simmons is thinking about opening an English area in East Malaysia, so maybe they'll get sent there to open that area. If anyone could open an area in East, it'd be Elder Rich.

Thursday... Let's see. Oh, we taught 5 lessons on Thursday! Which is insane, because normally in a week we teach around 10-13 lessons. That was super exciting! We met with 3 less actives and 2 new investigators. My favorite less active, Ariz, was super fun to teach. Ariz is seriously the nicest, shortest, funniest Filipino you'll ever meet. After an awesome lesson answering all of his questions on the Book of Mormon (we challenged him to read every day last week, and he's already read nearly 20 chapters). We talked about his life in the Philippines and he told us that if we ever went there, he'd be our tour guide. I won't need a tour guide next time I go…if I ever go. I'll have my favorite less active there to show me around! And by then, he won't be less active! Hopefully he comes to church soon. He just has to get work off.

After we taught Ariz, the YSA of the branch were having an activity, so we just hung around with them and talked while we ate all their leftover food. They had some super good chicken. There's a guy named Darry that's about to head out to BYU Hawaii, so I took a picture with him and a girl named Bo Yee before he left. Bo Yee is hilarious. She's always super excited and laughs at basically anything anyone says. She is dating probably my favorite member of Puchong branch, Bryant. Bryant has the funniest way of talking ever. He talks word to word, and phrases things really strangely. He also says "how to say" a ton! Apparently people say that a lot in Chinese, so when he switches over to English, he says it a lot too.

I can't remember what happened Friday. We taught one more new investigator. Her name is Chelsea. She'll be baptized as soon as she gets the courage to ask her parents if they're ok with her getting baptized. She's super willing to learn, and is really interested, but just like everyone else in Malaysia, they're Buddhist, and their parents are very important to them. The second part is good, but they just follow their parents. They don't even know what Buddhism is or what they even believe. We get some people that say they believe in God, other people that say they don't believe in a God, but instead they believe in Karma or 'themselves', whatever that means. So we'll see what happens there!

Saturday, we watched General Conference! It was great! Out of all of General Conference talks I liked Elder Anderson, Bednar, and Oaks' talks the most! It was really good! I can't wait to go back over all the talks and read through them again. I really liked Elder Anderson's analogy with how the members are like puzzle pieces. In order to place other pieces, they have to connect onto our piece. So as a missionary, I came up with something that kind of expands the analogy. In lessons we teach to members, I would tell them that we can choose how big our puzzle piece is. We can make it so our piece is only big enough to have one other piece connect to it, or we can make it so our piece is big enough to have 50 people connect to it! If we bring friends to church, and invite them to talk with missionaries, our piece grows. So make sure you're always talking about church!

We had a few appointments fall through, so we had from 3 to 6 to fill. Elder Forsyth decided that it would be up to me to know what to do. He just said to me, "follow the Spirit. I know where it's telling me to go, and I want to see if it's telling you to go there." I wasn't feeling any specific place I needed to go to, but Elder Forsyth had a specific place to go to. So I decided to just say a prayer, and put my trust in God that he'd show me where I had to go. We stepped out the door and just started walking. I felt great about where we were walking, so we kept walking…and walking. We got on the LRT and talked to people. We went as far as we could go while staying in our area. We talked with this girl that was super interested, but she lived outside our area, so we passed her to another companionship. Then I felt like we should go back a station, so we got on the other way and found a guy that I was trying to call to set up an appointment with, but his phone broken, so he didn't have a phone! We set up an appointment, and Bryant is going to bring him to it. So that was awesome. Then we contacted at IMU for a little bit. That night, Elder Forsyth told me he felt like we needed to go to IMU too. So we were headed to the same place! The Spirit is real!

Elder Forsyth decided we needed to get dinner before we went to member's houses, so we got some food, and he got a super weird drink that was really colorful. I took a picture and sent it! We then went to the Siew's, where we got a second dinner (mashed potatoes and gravy with steak), then to the Lim's, where we got a third dinner (traditional Chinese stuff). So three dinners in one night! Not too bad!

Sunday was good! We finished conference! Rama came, which is a miracle. I forgot to say last week, but Rama came to church, then cancelled our lesson on Wednesday, because he had a job interview! He's been looking for a job for 3 months, and we kept promising that if he made time to go to church, he'd get a job. Guess who got a job the Wednesday after he went to church? So Rama is really happy, and we had to push his baptismal date back two weeks since he can't meet with us as often. He's pretty set on being baptized I think! So that's super great! George is being baptized in two weeks! We visited some members and had two dinners, and had great lessons on prophets and the restoration after.

It's great here in Malaysia! We saw some guy with a flamethrower the other day as well, and it was super loud. They were destroying something in the stairwell. I'm not really sure, but I think it was a giant bug. Anyway, there was smoke everywhere. I guess we'll never know what they were doing. Elder Forsyth and I opened the door to the stairwell, and you couldn't even see 2 feet into the stairwell, and smoke was pouring out. Pretty interesting! My mission is awesome! Every day there's something new that I never thought I'd experience or see! Elder Allred, my favorite missionary in the mission, is in PJ now! Right next to us! So hopefully we'll be able to hang out a bit! Hopefully I'm companions with him sometime! Missions are awesome! Have an awesome week everyone!

Love you all!

Elder Mullins