Elder Ben Mullins: Beachin'and Preachin'

Hey Everyone!

This week was INSANE! It went by so fast. I can't believe it. The place we email at was closed yesterday, so we didn't have anywhere to email from. We ran by the church and each of us sent an email saying we'd email today, and now we're emailing! The week went by super-fast though, and my Malay is slowly coming. It's fun to learn, and it's a really interesting language, because it makes a lot of sense. The way they put words together to make more complex words is really cool.

Monday was pretty chill. We just chilled and watched approved movies for most of P Day. Elder Thompson had a video of him back in high school, and it was insane. He was on a rope swing over a lake. He swung into the water and dropped off the swing, but his food got tangled in the rope. He fell super-fast and face planted. When he came out of the water, HE WAS MISSING TWO TOES. Literally. Two of his toes got ripped off. So now he only has 8! It was pretty awesome. That happened a long time ago, so his toes are all healed up now, but he's definitely missing two toes. That night, we had a few family home evenings. It was a great night.

Tuesday, we had a million appointments. We met with Sylvester. He's super awesome, and super solid. He just needs to quit smoking, and he'll get dunked. He's got great desire, and he's pretty smart. He was telling me I need to work out more to fully follow the Word of Wisdom. He didn't think that I worked out enough so satisfy the Word of Wisdom. After him, we met with Ko one last time before he went back to Sibu. It was a good lesson though! He ate it up! Since he moved he's not our investigator... Oh well. After him, we met with Alystar. Alystar is hilarious. He's actually getting baptized this Saturday! He wants me to baptize him! So that'll be cool! I felt kind of bad, since I had only taught him about 4 times, but I guess it was his choice. We stopped by a family that we had found when I first got here. They forgot we had an appointment, so we just talked for a bit, then we had to leave. We went over to a super awesome member's house! Brother Junis. He's awesome! Apparently, he's one of the best cooks in the branch. The food there was pretty good, but it was fish--so just ok. Next time for sure...

Wednesday was good, but all of our appointments fell through and also our backup plans. We still had a lot of fun! We sat down and learned a ton of Malay (it helped a lot), and then we visited some inactives. They had a chicken. Oh, before I go on… in East Malaysia, they have literal chicken fights. They stick knives on the chicken's feet, and then they fight each other, and the last one standing wins. Anyway. The chicken was a fighting chicken. Pretty aggressive. And Telajan, the inactive member, was kicking at it making it dodge his foot and stuff. TRAINING A CHICKEN. Pretty awesome. Malaysia is great.

Thursday... I can't really remember. We met with Moses and Jatasia, and it was pretty fun. They always have a million little kids running around their house, so it's really fun. I can't remember what else happened...

Friday, we taught Serrina! Her dad is a member, but she wasn't baptized when she was 8, so she's an investigator now! She's 12 years old, so it'll be a pretty easy baptism. She's a really nice girl; super quiet though. After her, we went over to Alystar's and practiced the baptismal interview questions. Alystar is hilarious. The way he speaks is just really funny. He's great. We played Uno with him and his sisters. At night, we had English class, and taught a bunch of slang. Slang is definitely the most fun thing to teach for English class. The locals love it, we love it... It's just a lot of fun.

Saturday was a lot of fun. We met with Alystar one more time to make sure he was solid on his interview questions, helped out some of the youth with their math homework, taught Ellaine (potentially baptized in 2 weeks), and the other elders had a baptism, so we went and watched the baptism. It was a lot of fun. Then after, we snagged KFC. It was lots of fun. OH! Annnnd earlier that day, we were visiting people's houses, and all the little kids had chicken pox! We saw like 4 little kids with chicken pox. Anyway, I was glad I wasn't gonna get them.

Sunday was super quick. After church, Alystar had his baptismal interview, which he passed with flying colors, then we met with Brother Wong and his family. They were talking about a TV show that's super popular in Malaysia, and Elder Mickelson said, "isn't that show supposed to be really funny?" in Malay. So "lucu" means funny in Malay, but Elder Mickelson said "lucah", which means pornographic or obscene. Awkward mistake. Pretty funny. Everyone was laughing, so it was all good. We did a lot of stuff for the rest of the day, then went back home and slept. BUT. In the middle of the night, I woke up to rain. It wasn't just a little bit of rain though. It was a TON. Deafeningly loud. I couldn't go back to sleep. I wanted to stand up and go outside and see how hard it was raining, but I didn't want to get out of bed... So I didn't. It was a ton of rain though.

Yesterday was one of the best P Day's I've ever had. Possibly the best. It was a TON of fun. We went to the place we normally email at, but it was closed because there was some holiday going on so we couldn't email. That's the only place to email. Small town. We waited for a long time, and couldn't find anywhere else to email, so we just camped out at the church while we waited for a senior couple that was down here for humanitarian stuff over in Brunei. The Wiser's normally stay on the other side of East Malaysia. They eventually picked us up and took us over to a national park that was nearby. We hiked through the jungle for a really long time, and it was super awesome. We saw either a baby crocodile, or a massive biawak (couldn't really tell) that was down on the beach when we were at an observation place. It was pretty cool. When we had to turn around, we took the beach back. It was awesome.! There were tons of super cool things on the beach…really cool walls and rocks and crabs EVERYWHERE. It was a ton of fun. And super-hot. I got a little burnt. That's ok though, because it was tons of fun.

That was my week! Lots of fun, adventure, and TONS of rain. A lot. The rain makes it more fun though. I hope you all have an awesome week! We're heading over to Miri today for exchanges! That's a 4-5 hour bus ride one way... That'll be awesome. We'll stay there for a day, and head back Thursday morning. It'll be great though! I hope I learn a lot! Thanks for everything you all do! And thanks for the emails! I hope you have an awesome week!

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins