Elder Ben Mullins: Zone Conference in Singapore

Hey Everyone!

This week went by FAST! So much happened in such little time, it seemed like the first five days were just one big day, because I was in SINGAPORE! It was awesome! Singapore is such a nice place, and it doesn't smell bad everywhere. It's AWESOME. I guess I'll do a day by day analysis of what happened.

Monday, we emailed, then I left everyone and jumped in a cab to Singapore! I was the only one going on Monday, because my visa expired Monday. Everyone else had to wait till Wednesday. On the way to the airport, I looked down at my feet, and there were roaches EVERYWHERE; crawling up my pant legs and over my shoes. The cab was infested with them. I sat in the back of a small taxi with cockroaches crawling all over me. It was awesome. I'd just shake them off every now and then, then they'd stay off for a bit. That's Malaysia for you! I got to the airport, walked around for a bit, went through security, got some food, then walked around the airport more by myself. It feels amazing to not be attached to a companion! I didn't realize how much I had gotten used to it! It was nice to go wherever I wanted and not have to have anyone follow. After about an hour and a half, I went to board the plane, and met my companion that would be my companion in Singapore: Elder Gara! He's awesome! He's from Sarawok (East Malaysia), and he's Chinese Iban, so he can speak a million different languages; Chinese, Iban, Malay, English, Sign language (American and Malaysian), and Tagalog. He's awesome. He learned English and sign language on his mission. He actually wanted to teach a person so badly, that he learned sign language from them, and then ended up baptizing them! He's a super smart guy, and he's really funny too. We got to Singapore, picked up mail, and then went to the Merlion statue! It's awesome! I'll send pictures of the statue. It's a mermaid lion statue that shoots out water. Then we saw a really cool building just across the bay. It's 3 really tall buildings with a giant ship on top. I'll send a picture of that one too! Ipoh zone was having their zone conference there too, so I got to see Elder Ng and Fogth Monday through Wednesday too! That was fun.

Tuesday, we went to the doctor for Elder Gara (he hurt his wrist a few months ago, and was just getting the OK to start biking again), and that took a while. After that, we went to the botanic gardens! It was awesome. There were so many weird looking plants and a ton of really cool flowers and stuff. I enjoyed it a lot. We found an awesome snail on the way to it too. It was HUGE. At night, we stole pizza from Ipoh's zone conference, and it was amazing. I haven't had that much cheese in a long time. I miss pizza a lot... so it was awesome to get some pizza!

Wednesday... Let's see. I went to a tie shop in Singapore that's famous in the missionary world of Singapore mission. It was ok, but all the missionaries that had come the week before had taken all the good ties. I DID find one that was pretty alright, but other than that, I wasn't super impressed with the ties. Elder Ng bought me one in Penang, but accidentally left it, so in 3 months, I should have the tie Elder Ng bought me. Elder Forsyth flew in later in the day, so I was companions with my companion for the last few hours of the day. It was good to be with him again. He's a lot of fun to be with.

Thursday was a really fast day, but I was expecting it to be really long. We had zone conference meetings from 9 AM until 9 PM. We had a Thanksgiving lunch though, and it was AMAZING. I forgot what turkey tasted like! All this Asian food is changing my taste buds. The turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, and rolls were probably the best thing I've eaten in the last 4 and a half months. SEDAP! That's delicious in Malay. In our second session of meetings, to close right before dinner, they said they were going to play a little music video of "Savior, Redeemer of My Soul", and they projected the video onto a screen in the chapel. Guess who I saw on the screen? KAYSON BROWN. And guess whose music video it was? Lyceum Philharmonic's! And guess who was in the video? ME! I told Elder Forsyth, then some other Elders overheard, and started asking me questions. Once the video was over, we had our break, and I asked President Simmons if he saw me in the video. He went back and paused it right where I was and pointed me out to everyone. It was really funny. He and his wife were really surprised that I was in the video! Somebody has to tell Kayson that even our music videos are making it to Singapore! After that, we had another pizza dinner that was super good, but I was too full from the Thanksgiving lunch to eat much pizza.

Friday was good. Elder Forsyth had to leave for his flight earlier than me, so I was companions with Elder Gara again. Elder Rogers wanted to go to China town in Singapore, and we didn't have anything else to do, so we just tagged along with him and his companion. We hung out in China town for a few hours before heading to the airport! At the airport, we grabbed some Subway, then sat in FREE massage chairs (the Singapore airport is super nice) and talked. It was a lot of fun! Once we got to Malaysia, we went through customs. They weren't too happy that I had just been hanging out in Malaysia for 4 months, and asked me a million questions, but finally let me through. Customs is always a little bit scary to go through, because if you're stamped out of Malaysia, you're probably going to get stamped out of Singapore, and then they have to reassign you to a new mission. Please pray that never happens to me! We ended up taking separate ways (Elder Gara took the train, because it went right to his area, and I took a taxi). In the KL area, there are two malls with the names "IOI". There's IOI Mall in Puchong, near to my area, and there's IOI City Mall, down in Putrajaya, about a 45-minute drive from my area. I bought a fixed price taxi to IOI Mall, so I paid a fixed price, and they drove me there. The taxi driver took me to IOI City Mall (aka the wrong mall). I told him that he took me to the wrong mall, and that I had to go to IOI Mall. He was not happy. He kept yelling that this WAS IOI Mall and I needed to get out of the taxi. Finally I asked him what the full name of this mall was, and of course, he said IOI City Mall. Then I told him to look at the ticket I bought, and what mall name was on it. And it said IOI Mall. So FINALLY, after about 5 minutes of arguing, we made the looooong drive to IOI mall. I was in the taxi for about 3 hours, and it should've only taken 50 minutes. There was tons of traffic and it was raining, so it took forever. I got to the right mall eventually, went home, nobody was there, and I didn't have a phone. Then I realized English class was starting in 30 minutes. I pulled out a white shirt, ironed it, and then started walking to the church. I made it, and everyone asked me why I took so long to get there, and then we taught English! It was a crazy day.

Saturday... Oh, we helped Sister Bowee move, then taught English again. We had a movie night, so we set up for that. We pulled out speakers and a projector, moved all the chairs, and got food; pretty much everything we could find. Then we went out and talked with people for a while, came back, had Christmas Carol practicing with the branch choir, and then had movie night! We had a lot of investigators and branch members there. We watched Prince of Egypt. It was a lot of fun! I was exhausted, so I think I might've fallen asleep. I'm not really sure. It was an awesome day.

Sunday went by really fast. After church, Keke and Nicholas had their interviews for baptism, and both of them passed!!! WOOHOO!!! They're going to be baptized on Saturday! I'm pumped for that! I'll be baptizing Nicholas, and Keke will be baptized by Elder Forsyth. It's going be awesome. After that, we visited less actives, then had a Thanksgiving party at sister Saffron's, where we had the most amazing Chinese food I've ever had. It was amazing. SO GOOD. That was awesome. We just got all of our investigators fellowshipped hardcore, so that was awesome.

This week went by super fast! The transfer ends next week! That went by super fast too! I think Elder Forsyth is going to go to Penang, and the rest of us will stay in Puchong! That's my guess! I hope you all have an awesome week! Thanks for everything you do for me!

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins