Two on Date, Two Baptisms (on Feb. 18)

Hey Everyone!

This week went by SUPER fast! I can't believe it's Monday again! Elder Forsyth's workers permit hasn't come in yet, so he's still in Puchong! Maybe by next week, Elder Marsh will come in.  Elder Marsh is from California, and has been out 6 weeks longer than me. He's a pretty funny guy, really proper, and really laid back.  We're gonna change the laid-back part. But the rest, he's awesome! I can't wait. I'm going to apologize in advance for not sending more pictures of me. I didn't have any this week of me!

Monday... Let's see... We went shopping, and had an awesome lesson on how keeping the Law of Chastity has helped us in our lives with Keke, and then had a super good cake thing. It was pretty cool. We had to leave really quickly because the Siew's invited us over.  We had a mega sedap (delicious) Filipino dinner, and a nice lesson.

Tuesday, we brought Kok Cin to the Lim's for dinner. Sister Amy always makes super good food, so the dinner of course was a hit. Amazing. I'm gonna miss the food here when I go back. We had a lesson on prophets, the 10 commandments, and obedience. Kok Cin is such a great guy. He'll make a great member. I can already see him becoming branch president one day.

Earlier on Tuesday, we met with Shena at her new place. It's across the street from Sister Saffron's house.  EVERYONE there was staring at us.  Normally we have about 80% of the eyes in the area looking at us, but this time, it was literally 100%.  Shena is a really shy girl so she was pretty uncomfortable the entire time. It was hilarious. You get used to it after about 2 weeks. It was really funny, because she kept looking around while we taught.

Wednesday was fun! We met with Sister Jax and her niece, and had a good lesson on the Book of Mormon, then we stopped by Sister Saffron's!  Elder Forsyth drew a picture on the floor with a dry erase marker! That was cool. After that, we ran over to Sister Josie's before our lesson with Kok Cin, and taught her really quick. We rushed back to the church, where we taught Kok Cin about Jacob 5, because he had a lot of questions about the chapter. It's a really good chapter if you get the chance to read it.  It's 77 verses long, and it definitely takes the Spirit of revelation to understand what it's talking about at first.

Thursday was a slower day. We texted Kok Cin and asked him if he wanted to show us how to make some Chinese fried rice, and he was down.  We scheduled an appointment for Saturday, where he could show us how to cook it. Other than that, all we really did is call people and set appointments over Chinese New Year (Starting on the 28th), and contacted.

Friday, not a ton happened. The Bukit Jalil Soccer stadium is progressing really quickly.  That's all I remember from Friday. It was a pretty quick day. We had English class, and it was pretty funny to explain why Elder Forsyth was still here after he told everyone that he'd be gone. Some Indian girls that always come to English class as a family (they're all sisters) bought me a tie for my birthday, so that was awesome! I'll be wearing that next Friday.

Saturday, we finished studies, and ran over to the church and started making fried rice with Kok Cin! He's awesome! Such an awesome guy.  The fried rice was spectacular.  Now I can make some pretty killer fried rice!  It's super easy.  Once I go back to the USA I'll have some cooking skills. After we made the rice and ate it, we taught English, then the Chinese Elders baptized their investigator Lu Xi! She's awesome. She's actually from Mainland China, and was SUPER prepared. Everyone from China is mega prepared.  After the baptism, we taught Kok Cin the Law of Chastity, and he accepted it really well. Then I brought up baptism. In essence, I asked him that if his baptism were tomorrow, and we had taught him everything we needed to teach him, would he be baptized. He said that he totally would! I asked why, and he just said that going to church, praying, and reading improve his life a ton, and that he recognized the Spirit in the lesson that we had taught before. I just wanted to laugh and jump for joy when he said that! I was super excited. Anyway, he's planning on being baptized on the 18th after Chinese New Year!

Yesterday, we had church, visited the Relief Society President, Chee Mun, and went contacting up until 6:30, then met Sister Stephanie to go to her house for dinner.  Guess who she brought along? Kok Cin! Mega fellowshipping is being done in this branch! It's awesome!  We ended up teaching Kok Cin FOUR TIMES this week! That's absolutely insane.  He loves being with us. We're pretty much best friends now. He's gonna be SUCH A GOOD MEMBER. I wish you could all meet him. He's definitely one of the coolest, nicest people in Malaysia.

Oh, Sunday was my birthday too! I forgot to mention that... Anyway, Stephanie made me a cake! It was awesome! Solid chocolate. Luckily, I don't mind chocolate.  It was great to be sung to, and it was a good cake! Sister Stephanie is an awesome cook, and she says she doesn't use any recipes. I don't know if I believe her, because pretty much everything she cooks is really good, unless she tries to hide tomatoes under pizza or something.  She's awesome. It was a great birthday!

This morning, we got half studies approved, and hurried over to the train station, where we met Kok Cin. He took us to his office, and then to the place that supplies the furniture to the buildings that he designs (oh, he's an architect by the way), then took us to the China Town of Malaysia; Pasar Seni. It was awesome. I was trying to buy him a watch and belt, but he wouldn't let me. Stupid Chinese culture... I finally got him to accept us taking him to dinner tomorrow night. I'm gonna take him to a really nice place!

That was the week! Elder Forsyth might be in Singapore by next time I email! We'll see! It was an awesome week, and now January is almost over! Once Chinese New Year hits, the work is gonna slow down. Right now, we're blessed, while also not super blessed. Our two investigators we have right now (Kok Cin and Yuen) are both going to be baptized on the 18th, but they're also our only investigators.  That will hopefully change quickly!!! Have an awesome week! Love you all!

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins

Sister Saffron in her store

Elder Forsyth helping make a birthday dinner for me

Kok Cin

Elder Forsyth's drawing of Kok Cin

6 Months and Transfers

Hey Everyone!

WOW. It's already been 6 months since I left! I just have to do that 3 more times, and it's over! It goes by so fast, it's unbelievable!!!  Not only have I hit 6 months, but it's TRANSFER WEEK.  Elder Forsyth and I are BOTH staying in Puchong! This'll be transfer number 4 together! But he's just waiting in Puchong until he gets his worker's permit for Singapore, then he'll leave!  He might leave sometime next week or the week after!  Once he leaves Elder Marsh will come to Puchong with me! I served in Penang at the same time as Elder Marsh, so I know him pretty well, and he's a really cool guy.  I'm excited to serve with him!

Monday, I took a 3-hour nap after we emailed, and it was AWESOME. When we were getting ready to leave at night, I picked up my backpack, and the strap snapped!  We ran over to the mall and bought a new backpack for me!  I have a new pack now! It's a really nice one, and it was super cheap since I bought it in Malaysia. Other than that, not a ton happened last Monday.

Tuesday, we met with Yuen. He's really excited to be baptized, but wants to wait until after Chinese New Year, because he's going to be on vacation for pretty much the next two weeks.  That'll be awesome! We'll have at least one baptism next transfer! Maybe more!

Every day, if we have time that we don't know what to do with, we go to the outside edge of our area, where they're building a HUGE soccer stadium. When we went on Tuesday, the progress was unreal! They shifted into a higher gear. The stadium had so much of it built in a day, we could hardly believe it! I hope that the stadium is done by the time I leave Puchong! I’m sure it won't be. I wish it would be though. Then we could go contacting in the stadium while they played soccer. Or just go watch a game on a Monday.

Wednesday, we had an AWESOME lesson. A few years ago, missionaries came over to our house and taught us a lesson on faith. They had Jaron hold a tea bag, and lit it on fire and told him that if he didn't move, it wouldn't burn him.  Last Monday, I remembered the lesson, and bought tea bags.  Wednesday, we went over to Sister Saffron's work, and taught her the lesson on faith where you light the teabag on fire, and right before it got to her hand, she DROPPED it. She doesn't have any faith in us apparently. Anyway, it's supposed to float up in the air, but she got scared and dropped it. It was really funny. We've taught it 3 or 4 times since.  It was a lot of fun!

Thursday, we went over to Sister Stephanie's for dinner, and it was SEDAP (delicious)! We played an awesome game after, then had a really quick lesson with Kok Cin.  Kok Cin is doing awesome. He's such a great guy. He'll be baptized eventually. I don't know if he'll make February 18th, but I have the faith that if he does what we ask him to, he will! Hopefully he keeps keeping commitments.

Friday, we made a huge poster that said "What makes you happy?" in English and Chinese, then went around and had people write what made them happy on it.  We got answers from money to drinking coffee to family. It made talking with people a lot of fun! They really opened up when we did that, which was good. It was a lot of fun too.

Saturday, TONS of people showed up to our English class. The only problem is, they're all like 80 years old.  They're pretty staunch Buddhists. I don't think we'll be getting any baptisms out of them.  It was really funny to see them so excited to learn English! After English, we taught a guy named Lexy, but he lives in PJ, so we had to pass him to the Elders there. He's a really nice guy, and he's got some potential. We'll see what happens with that! That night, we went to Shawerma, and got a HUGE dinner. It cost 16 ringgit (4 dollars), and was HUGE. Food in Malaysia is so cheap... It was super good.

Sunday, President Simmons surprised us by coming to church! That was pretty crazy! We had a TON of people at church, so he was super impressed.  Then our branch president was talking about how we had 1 baptism last week, and 1 next week, then 2 more a few weeks after, and President Simmons was super impressed. Silently impressed of course.  It was really funny. He was just shocked that he hadn't heard much about all these baptisms.

After church, we taught Lexy one last time since he came to church.  After that, we had TONS of food, because it was a Linger Longer!  Everyone brought food for everyone to eat after church. We visited Ariz after for what was supposed to be the last time, but now Elder Forsyth is staying for a little longer.  We might see him one more time... Awkward. A lot of branch members are going to be really surprised that he's still here on Sunday. We went to Sister Saffron's and had a really good lesson with Kok Cin, plus a really good dinner. Other than that, not a ton happened.

This week was a ton of fun! I really enjoyed it. Elder Forsyth and I are excited to be together for a few more days, and we're ready for whatever comes our way. It's been great, and I can't wait for another awesome week!

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins

Ariz

Giant duck

At the mall going over a bridge

When People Eat Up the Gospel

Quick Week!

Hey Everyone!

I can't believe it's already Monday again! That was fast! A lot of stuff happened this week, and it flew by!

Monday, we went to a HUGE mall called Sunway Pyramid, and there were giant Lego things everywhere. I took a few pictures. I'll only send the best one.  It was really cool. We ate at this place with Sister Saffron and one of the Chinese Elders' investigators (Jo Yee). It was the best chicken I've ever eaten in my ENTIRE LIFE. It was way good. Elder Forsyth drew a really cool picture while we were waiting for our food to come out.  I’ll send a picture.  After that, we went over to Keke's and taught her boyfriend.  We also taught him and Nicholas how to tie ties. It was a ton of fun! It was really fast too.

Tuesday, not much happened. We met up with the Zone Leaders that night and started exchanges, so I got to hang out with Elder Orgill Tuesday night and all of Wednesday. Before that, we pretty much just visited some less actives.  It was a pretty chill day.

Wednesday, we had an awesome day of contacting. All day. But it was a ton of fun! Elder Orgill is a really fun guy, and he taught me a lot of new things I can do to get better at missionary work, so that was cool. That night we met with a guy named Cheer. That's really his name.  He wanted to improve his life, and he seemed to have real desire. When we picked Elder Forsyth back up, he let us know that Cheer has been an eternal investigator, and that he pretends like he wants to change, but then doesn't. He's too lazy. We set up a return appointment with him though, so we decided we'd see how things went from there.

Thursday... we prepared a few games for English Class on Friday so that people would really enjoy it and bring their friends!  That was fun to make. We drew pictures and wrote words on cards.  It’s basically a massive matching game of new words for them. That night, we met with my main man Kok Cin! He's awesome; super solid, genuine, great guy. He's really quiet, but really smart, and he wants to know if what we teach is true. We taught him a lot about baptism, and invited him to the baptism that happened Saturday! He was excited to be invited to go to it! That was great!

Friday, we went to Sister Saffron's in the afternoon, and decided to teach her a cool lesson. We told her we had prepared a scripture, and we wanted her to flip open to a random scripture, and that would be the one that we had prepared. She flipped open to a random one, we taught an entire lesson on the random scripture, and she was really surprised that we had prepared such a cool lesson! Haha! I don't think she realized that we were just teaching on the spot.  It ended up being a great lesson! Later that night, we taught a recent convert, Sister Erica. We gave her an awesome Book of Mormon reading chart that we're eventually going to give to everyone. Other than that, we taught English, and everyone loved it. We had a ton of new people, and they were eating up the games. It was great! Sister Saffron is a really competitive person. Haha!

Saturday was an AWESOME day! Well, for most of it. English class was good, and people really enjoyed it. Right before the baptism, Sister Stephanie thought it would be funny to make me eat a tomato. And it was. But tomatoes are literally my least favorite food EVER. I would rather eat pork blood soup or chicken feet or durian than a tomato. But I really have a lot of respect for Sister Stephanie since she's such an awesome person and helps us out so much.  After about 10 minutes of her trying to convince me to eat it, I finally did. After almost throwing up a few times, I finally stomached it. I think my mom has a video of it if anyone wants to see it. Literally the worst thing I've eaten in my life.

After eating that, we had a baptism to go to! The Chinese Elders' investigator, Jo Yee, got baptized! She's awesome!  The best part about her being baptized, is I was the one that found her! That's my first person that I've actually found that got baptized!  That was awesome! I only taught her twice, but I was really happy to see her. We found her when we were advertising for English Class. I gave her a flyer and told her we teach people about Jesus Christ. A few days later, she called the number on the flyer, which happened to be the Chinese Elders' number, and she ended up learning from them. It was an exciting day! Kok Cin came, and really enjoyed the baptism! It was good that he was able to come and watch!

Sunday, we met with Yuen after church. Yuen is an awesome guy. He actually was learning from the Elders over in Canada for about 4 months, and just wanted to talk with his parents before he was baptized, so he's planning on being baptized really soon in Malaysia!  That was a miracle! We might be able to get a baptism in a few weeks! He's learned everything, and had a baptismal interview. He just has to pick a day and he's good!

That night, we went to Sister Saffron's with Kok Cin and the Chinese Elders' investigator Sonia, and had a super good dinner. It was great. Other than that, not a lot happened Sunday.

This week FLEW by! I can't believe we only have one more week until the transfer is over! I'll be emailing a little bit later next week so that we don't have to wait so long for transfer news, but it will come eventually! Have an awesome week! Sorry the letter was a little short this week!

Love you all!

Elder Ben Mullins

Chillin'

Elder Forsyth's art

Giant Legos

Jo Yee's baptism

Stadium

Christmas