Elder Ben Mullins: Sungai, Planning to Baptize WEEKLY!

Hey Everyone!

This week was GREAT! I think it was the fastest week of my entire mission! I can't BELIEVE it's Monday again! Wow! The first thing I noticed about Sungai Plan (my new area), the further into the jungle you get, the less English translation on signs and stuff. There's no English out here. Literally everyone speaks Malay. Well, some people don't even speak Malay. They speak Iban, a tribal language. It's super different out here. We're surrounded by jungle, and it rains every day. Some days, it doesn't rain much, other days, it DUMPS. The bad days in West Malaysia are the slightly more than normal days in East Malaysia. Really different here. Right now, everyone is making something called Belacan. It's basically shrimp that they grind up into a paste, then dry it in the sun. It smells awful, tastes even worse, and it's EVERYWHERE. But it's ok. The smell should go away soon.

Monday, we went and had lunch with Elliott, a recent convert from PJ that I found up in Penang when I was there. He's doing great, and he was a ton of fun to talk with. After that, we picked up some Book of Mormon's over at the PJ chapel, then grabbed the mail from the Sisters that picked it up in Singapore. After that, we got haircuts and went bowling with Steve and Jully! It was pretty fun! Elder Marsh and I went home and made some fried rice (which was pretty good), then went out contacting the rest of the night as far as I can remember.

Tuesday was PACKED. We had our final district meeting, then ran over to Sister Stephanie's for lunch with her and her nephew and daughter, then hurried back to the church to get another lunch with Clarence. All of that happened super quick. We stopped by the store so Elder Marsh could pick up some last second stuff that he forgot to get on Monday, then hurried back to the church to teach Jax. We had a super quick lesson on conference, because we had to go to the church to get a ride from Saffron for dinner. We got to the church in time, and Sister Saffron was right in front of the church so we could leave right on time, buuuut Kok Cin was coming along, and there was a lot of traffic, so he was a little late. We just talked while we waited for him. Once he got there, we ate at a place called My Burger Lab. It has American burgers, which don't really exist in Malaysia. So that was super good! After, I said bye to Saffron and Kok Cin, and we headed home. It was an awesome day!

Wednesday, I woke up and finished packing, then left at 8:00 for the airport! My flight left at 10:50 or something like that. I flew by myself from KL to Kuching (biggest city in East Malaysia), then with another elder named Elder Read from Kuching to Bintulu! We made it at about 5:30. Elder Mickelson, my new companion, picked me up, and Elder Thompson was there for Elder Read. Elder Mickelson is a pretty tall guy, super chill, and really fun. He's great at teaching me Malay, and as far as I can tell, he's good at teaching the gospel. Ha ha! I can't understand it all, but I'm getting there fast! We rode to the house in a taxi, then snagged some food from the store for the week.

Thursday, I started learning Malay! I learned quite a bit about how the language works, and it's pretty simple. You just have to memorize the roots, then the rest comes pretty quickly. I can already start to understand the Book of Mormon since I can read it as slowly as I want, but listening is a little bit harder. I'm getting there though! I can understand some conversations, can say a prayer, can bear my testimony, and can do some small talk. Ha ha, it's great! It's coming really fast! The gift of tongues is real!

After studies, we grabbed the equivalent of a bus (it was just a van) and rode over to Bandar Bintulu (the city) to grab some stuff. It cost just as much to ship my bike over from Penang as it did to buy a new bike, so I had to get a new bike. We grabbed that for pretty cheap, then found another van to take us back. It took forever to find one, but we got one after a while. We got back to the house, snagged some dinner, and then hurried over to our area (our house is outside of our area). My area is the smallest area in the mission! It takes like 10 minutes to walk across it. The reason it's so small is because it's literally 100% apartment complexes. TONS of people live in our area, but it's all in such a small space. When we got to the area, we started visiting a ton of people. I'm having a hard time remembering all the names and who is who, but right now, our area has 12 investigators on date, lots of progressing and others, and we got 8 new investigators since Thursday. The thing is, everyone here has families of 10 or 15. SO. When you get a family, it messes up your numbers big time. But it's pretty awesome! We have a ton of people to teach, and we don't have to bike very much!

One person that stuck out to me was named Lawrence, but he goes by Boy. That's English. Everyone calls him Boy. No idea why. He's a chubby Iban kid that LOVES soccer and tries really hard to practice his English, but it's terrible. He's 10 years old I think. He's awesome and a super nice kid. OH! Iban is a tribe here. The Ibans make up about 98% of the Sungai Plan population, so everyone here is Iban. They have a super awesome culture that I like a lot! It's a ton of fun to get to learn about it all! For most of the lessons we taught, I just sat there and listened and tried to pick out words I knew. I didn't know anything on Thursday about Malay. Well, close to nothing.

Friday was a super-fast day. We met with a guy named Moses (it's a common name here) that was really cool. He spoke a little English, so he tried to use some with me. That was nice! At their house, they had this hammock-like thing that was attached to springs that were attached to the ceiling, and they'd stick their baby in it and just bounce it in the air. It looked like a ton of fun. If I could have an industrial sized one of those, I'd take it for sure. Elder Mickelson shared something with them, then we left. We met with an investigator named Alystar. He's 12 I think. He's the only member of his family who isn't a member, and we'll be changing that soon! He's a great kid. He always pulls his shorts up to his chest and runs around with them like that. All the little kids do that. Their shorts always come up to their chest. I think it's the style here or something. It looks super funny. I love it. We met with Lydia and Telajan too. They're pretty awesome. We walked in, and a HUGE beetle flew in and was making a ton of sound. Elder Mickelson called it a banshee beetle. It was about 3 and a half inches long! I couldn't believe it! Telajan said that if we caught it, he'd fry it and we could all eat it. They eat bugs here. I forgot to mention that.

At night time, we met with Sylvester and Sariya. Sariya is a recent convert. Sylvester is investigating, and he's SUPER solid. He stopped smoking, and he's going strong. He made a lot of changes in his life to prepare for baptism, and he's doing great. He's an awesome guy. They have 2 daughters. I don't know their names, but I know they call one Adik, which just means little kid. Adik is CRAZY. She's a ball of energy for sure. And she likes to wedge herself between the two elders and just sit there and try to get us to talk with her or play whatever she wants to play. She's a ton of fun.

Saturday, we met with a ton of investigators, and I got to learn even more Malay. I started to understand a little bit more, and I had to say a few prayers for our lessons, so I got to practice too! That was good. The TJK Elders (the ones that live in the same house as us) had a baptism, so we went to that too. We didn't get dinner until really late, and we went to KFC with the TJK Elders. KFC here is better than in West. I don't know why. It tastes good though. That's a tradition now; KFC after baptisms. We have another one next week, then another one the week after, and then the week after that we have another one, and I think there's one more the week after. We'll be BAPTIZING WEEKLY. WHAAAAT?? East Malaysia is SUPER different in that way. Everyone is already Christian, so it's super easy to teach them. The problem is, Iban culture is to be super committed to something for a while, then stop. They have a lot of inactives here. That's a lot of the work we do; ust visiting inactives. It's fun though!

Yesterday, Elder Mickelson had a bit of food poisoning, so we left church really quickly after it ended. It was great to go to church though! I enjoyed meeting the members. I did studies while Elder Mickelson sat in the bathroom for a long time, then we headed out to give a baptismal interview. After the interview, we met with a potential investigator we found on Thursday named Ko. He speaks like a Filipino. It was really funny. Filipino's just have really funny accents. It was fun to hear him speak English. He actually knew quite a bit! He's pretty solid. He has desire for sure. We met with a bunch of other people too, and by the end of the night, I felt like I could actually understand Malay quite a bit! I could follow conversations, and it was really fun to be able to actually understand what they said. Now I just have to be able to think of the right word. If I hear it, I know what it means, but it's hard to remember the word to speak it.

This morning, when I did studies, I read the Book of Mormon in Malay (Kitab Mormon). I actually understood the first 3 verses! It was CRAZY. I couldn't believe it! So. It's coming. I'm excited to keep learning! Over the week, I was told I look like Harry Potter, Peter Parker, and Sherman from Mr. Peabody and Sherman. That was funny. People here think that I look like every single white person that wear glasses.

Sungai Plan is awesome, and I'm loving it! It's so much fun to see the new cultures and to learn Malay! I really enjoy it! Now I just need to be able to talk with the people! That'd be nice! Ha ha! I should be able to talk with people really soon! Maybe in 2 weeks I'll be able to have conversations with everyone. That'll be good. Thanks for all your support! I'll keep you updated on everything.

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins