Transfers Sudahhhhhh

Hey Everyone!

I can't believe it, but it's already been 6 weeks in Sungai Plan! Transfers are coming out later today!  We'll see what happens! This week was PACKED.  I'll just cut out everything kind of big and put in the bigger stuff. It was a super crazy week.

On Monday, we practiced our dance for our Gawai party. It was tons of fun to practice. It was a water ballet thing. Super funny.  It was lots of fun, and we got it down pat.  It was great. Here’s a quick explanation of Gawai:  Ibans celebrate it. Iban is a tribe in Malaysia. It's the biggest tribe, and literally everyone in Sungai Plan is Iban, so they all celebrate it.  Whenever I ask people why they celebrate it, nobody has an answer. I have no idea why they celebrate it. It might just be celebrating that Iban's exist. I dunno.  We still have Sacrament meeting at least as long as someone in the branch presidency is still here.  We'll have one here this year, so we're good.

After P Day, we went over to a potential investigators house. Her name is Lin. We were going to teach the entire family, but all the males left, so we had our male member present, then 4 women.  We taught the women... We were hoping for potential priesthood holder investigators, but that's ok. Whatever. Haha! They seemed really solid! They ate up the restoration, and set a return appointment!

Tuesday was crazy.  We met with Sylvester, and he LOVES the Book of Mormon. It's crazy. He just wanted to read it for our lesson. So we did.  He didn't smoke for about 5 days. He smoked Saturday night, but other than that, he didn't, so he's doing tons better! We’ve just got to keep track of it, and he'll quit really soon! After that, we went over to Lydia and Telajan's and picked up their niece named Stacy as an investigator. She really wanted to learn, and we finally had time at the same time she did to teach her! She's got a lot of potential to be solid. We're trying to get Telajan to be reactivated and baptize her, so if all goes according to plan, we'll regain a whole family! After that, later that night, we met with Jatasia's niece named Elyzza. We had no idea she isn't baptized.  Her uncle, Roslan, is turning 16 in a few weeks, so we're planning on having HIM baptize her. That'd be money. Elyzza is a super sweet, quiet, 9-year-old girl. She's hilarious. I'll have to get a picture with her this next week.

Wednesday, we went to follow up with Lin and her family in person. She was talking about how all the churches are the same, and all of them are true because they all teach about Jesus.  We told her that if our church is true, that means none of the other churches are true.  She didn't like that. Soooo I think we got dropped. I'm not sure. We'll follow up on that later this week just to see if we really did get dropped. Haha! Other than that, we followed up with a billion potential investigators, and met with Alyster. He's still going strong, and his mom is becoming more active! So that's good! His sisters are coming to church too now!

Thursday, we mapped out all the flats, marked where we had members, and whether they were active or not.  We took a while to do that, but now we know where every single inactive member lives! So that's awesome! That'll be super nice to have. We met with Elyzza again too. She's so funny. Oh, she has a cousin too that's named Anna (Anna is like 1 year old), and she LOVES the elders. It's tons of fun to go over there, because all the little kids get so excited to see us. Especially Anna. She's adorable.

We also went to follow up with Fiona's parents.  Elder Mickelson and I met Fiona one of my first days in the area. She's about 10. She's good friends with our recent convert Sara.  We wanted to see if we could use her to get in with the family.  Every time we've tried getting in the house, we got turned down.  We tried it again, and got turned down AGAIN, but this is important, because we had something CRAZY happen Saturday.  Just remember we tried following up with her family again, but it didn't work.

Friday, we checked up with Sylvester on his smoking, and he hadn't smoked since we saw him last! That was awesome!  We spent the rest of the day inviting people to the Gawai Party! It was a ton of fun! We did an awesome dance at the party, and everyone loved it. We might've gotten some new investigators out of it too. So that's cool. We're still trying to follow up with them. We'll see how that works out!

Saturday, I went on exchanges with Elder Read. We know about the same amount of Malay so it was interesting.  We got a lot done, and I actually know a lot more Malay than I thought I did! I was able to teach the Word of Wisdom, and half of lesson 5 without even practicing. So that was great! I've been learning a ton of Malay this week. Really, the past 3 weeks I feel like my Malay really got better. I had a lot of chances to try to teach and have conversations. So that was good.  That night, we were walking through this MASSIVE longhouse (it was about 70 rooms long. It took us about 6 or 7 minutes to walk from end to end).  We saw this cat that must've found some alcohol, because it couldn't even stand up straight, and was wobbling whenever it sat still. It was super sad, but it was way funny too. Poor cat.

Sunday, a ton happened, but there was one thing that was super crazy that happened.  After church, we did studies, and it was a billion degrees outside.  When we finished studies, we were about to fall asleep, but we knew we had to go out, so we forced ourselves to bike back to the church, and go to the flats in the thousand-degree weather.  We went to follow up with Sylvester. On the way up to his house, we saw Fiona, and our recent convert, and her little sister, Adik, playing in Fiona's house. They ran out and said hi and were super happy.  We said hi, and waved inside at an old dude chillin’ in there and her dad as well. Then we went and followed up with Sylvester on smoking, and I looked at Elder Mickelson and he looked at me and we both said, "How are we going get in Fiona's house?"  We decided we'd just go up to it and follow the spirit.  We walked up to the door and just stood there.  The old dude stared at us. We were hoping Fiona's dad would invite us in, but he didn't.  BUT...the old dude was super excited to see white people and told us to come in! We were shocked. We took off our shoes, and I said, "That was a lot easier than I thought it would be." and walked in! Fiona's dad (Reuben I think) walked into the other room right as we walked in. He wasn't happy, but the old dude was his dad (Fiona's grandpa), so he had to respect the decision. After about 5 minutes, Reuben came back out, and we took the chance to start a conversation.  After we started the conversation, he sat down, then we told everyone why we were in Malaysia, and the grandpa wanted us to teach Reuben. Haha! We totally did, and Reuben was totally open!  We have a return appointment! I can't believe it, but we TOTALLY got into the house! MIRACLES FROM GOD!!!! WOOHOOO! We were pumped. It was TOTALLY worth leaving the house even though we were exhausted and could've spent the time updating the area book or doing something else inside.  That was a direct blessing from us choosing the harder right!

Thanks for all your emails! I don't have transfer news yet, but if I get it before we're done, I'll email really quick and let you all know what's happening! I love you all! Have an awesome week!

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins

My Gawai Party costume

Who knows what this means?

Elder Read and me on exchanges

Going to the Gawai Party

I'm an Iban warrior

Iban housing

Biking selfie with Elder Read

Mother's Day + Follow Up

Hey Everyone!

This week was insane! We got a BILLION Potential Investigators that we followed up with, had a baptism, and had a lot of success and miracles! I loved it. Super awesome. Aside from all that, I got to Skype home too! It was a ton of fun to talk with the family! This time next year, I'll only have 2 months left! I can't believe how fast time goes by! It's unbelievable! Oh, and I forgot my SD card reader. Soooo I won't be able to send pictures today.

Monday, we purged the house. We cleaned everything so that it was nice and sparkly! Not a ton of other stuff happened that day. We went by a few members' houses, and then stopped at Jatasia's house. She's a recent convert.  She has the cutest little baby girl ever.   She loves it when I shake her hand.  She relaxes her entire arm so that if flops around everywhere, then she gets this huge smile on her face and can't stop laughing. She's adorable.  It was fun to stop by there and talk with the family.

Tuesday, we met with Serrina and taught her really quick. The lesson was about 15 minutes. After that, we followed up with Ellaine, who passed her baptismal interview earlier that day!!! Woohooooo! She got baptized Saturday! After we did that, we got a branch list and an action list, and we went through and found each person that didn't get baptized with their family.  We mapped it out, then visited every single one over the week!  We had tons of success there; more on that later! The rest of the night, we went to our investigators and recent converts houses and checked up on them.

Wednesday, right after personal study, we went to Serrina's to teach her. We saw Alyster and his two sisters on the top floor, so we told them to come down and help us teach.  There were a billion kids that were Serrina's and Alyster's friends all around us, and they figured that if we were inviting Alyster and his sisters, they were invited too.  We walked in, then about 10 kids that we don't even know the names of follow behind us. Serrina's dad was super happy to have so many kids in the house, so it ended up being ok. We improvised an object lesson that involved a kid standing on one side of the room (his name was Emanuel), and another kid with a blindfold on at the other end.  We had all the kids guiding him to Emanuel, so he got there, but couldn't see him.  He started moving his arms around trying to find him, and ended up slapping Emanuel SUPER hard. It was hilarious. Elder Mickelson and I lost it.  We were laughing super hard and finally got it under control.  Now all the little kids know the restoration!

Earlier in the week, we found a potential investigator named Lucy with a family, so we followed up with them. They didn't have a male in the house, so we couldn't go in and teach them, but they have a really big family.  If we can get in with them, that'd be awesome. They don't have a religion, so I think it'd be easy to help them understand. Sometimes it's hard to teach Christians, because they already have certain beliefs.  After them, we went over to Sister Listie's house and had some WAY good garlic fried chicken. It was suuuper good. I'm going ask her how to make it.

Thursday... What'd we do?...  Weekly planning, visiting a ton of PI's (mainly the unbaptized people on the branch action list), visited Ellaine to teach about baptism... Oh!  One of the unbaptized people we visited was a girl named Siti. We had an appointment fall through right beneath her house, and we knew a little bit about Siti, but we weren't sure if we should visit her with a member or without, because we knew she was friends with one of the young women.  We had a hard time deciding, but I felt like we should go up and knock and at least invite her to our branch Gawai party.  We knocked on the door, and she answered, a little bit confused.  We introduced ourselves, and made sure she was Siti.  We had some conversation, and she said that she had felt like she needed to start going to church and that she was surprised we came over. Elder Mickelson peaked into her house, and her husband was home.  He was carving something out of wood on the floor, so he said hi, and asked what he was making, and he invited in!  We went in, and talked for a while, and then taught them.  They are SOLID. Mega solid potential investigators. We taught about the Godhead and how we can come closer to them. I was teaching about how to pray, then I couldn't think of a word, so I just paused... but before that, I knew what they were saying and everything I had to say, so they thought I was fluent.  There was a really long pause out of nowhere, so they felt really awkward.  I told them I'm not good at speaking Malay and then they understood, and said they'd be patient with me. It was really funny.  We had a great lesson, and they're awesome. That was a big miracle. I'm glad we followed the prompting to go knock instead of wait for one of the young women to come with us!

We had exchanges on Friday! I went to the TJK area with Elder Thompson. He's way cool. Next transfer is his last transfer, so he's been out a long time.  We got along really well. We have similar personalities, similar styles of missionary work, and similar interests. He's a super awesome Elder, so we had a blast. We talked to a ton of people, and got them some possible people they can teach. We also taught a recent convert named Henry that night. He lives in a huge longhouse. Right before we started the lesson, I noticed a lady in the other room just sitting there doing nothing, so I asked if she was a member, and she wasn't. She had never been taught by missionaries.  I asked him if he wanted a new investigator, and he said, “sure, why not?”   I called her over and asked her to sit in on the lesson.  At first she refused, but I was persistent, and she finally decided she could sit in. She ended up being really interested, and they got a solid new investigator! It was super funny. Elder Thompson was really surprised, because he didn't think she'd be interested. Buuuut we got her. So that was awesome!

Elder Mickelson got a call from Serrina on Friday, and she said she had to go back to Kampung early, so she wouldn't be able to be baptized this next Saturday. She'll be baptized in about a month instead! So that was delayed, but that'll be ok! Her dad is a strong member, so there shouldn't be any problems with that!

Saturday was great. We taught Alyster at 2:00, but his UNBAPTIZED older brother was home, so we ended up teaching him with Alyster's help, and got him as a new investigator! So that was awesome! I'm not sure how solid he is, but he has potential for sure! After that, we spent the rest of the day following up with all the potential investigators we had gotten earlier in the week. It was crazy. I was exhausted. That night, we had Ellaine's baptism!  That was awesome! Her dad baptized her! So that was great! When she came out of the water, she had the biggest smile on her face! I have literally never seen anyone with a bigger smile. It was awesome. She was so happy. After, we celebrated by getting KFC with the other elders.

Sunday, church was awesome, and right after church, we hurried home to do studies so that we'd have enough time to follow up with all of our PI's. We started companionship study, and we got a phone call from a random number.  Elder Mickelson answered it since I can't speak enough Malay to have an entire conversation by myself, and turns out, it was a guy named Matthew.  He had learned from the missionaries years ago, and then stopped.  He went to tons of different churches, and the story of Joseph Smith always stuck out.  He said that he felt like our church is the true church!  He wants to get baptized, and wants us to teach his little brother too so that he can get baptized!  That was a HUGE miracle. I can't believe something like that could even happen. Anyway. I'm super excited to meet him in person tomorrow! That'll be awesome.

After our studies, we hurried super quick to Lydia and Telajan's, put all the kids there on date, We committed Telajan to become worthy to baptize them. So that's awesome!  After them, we followed up with even more PI's, then taught Nelson and put him on date. Nelson is about 12 years old. He lives with a recent convert named Magdaline. He was always too busy playing with his friends to learn while she was, so we're teaching him now! He should be baptized in a month or so! He's a super cool kid. After him, we hurried over to Siti's with Contessa, one of the young women, and they are SUPER good friends. It's ridiculous. They got along so well it was unbelievable. So she's MEGA fellowshipped now. It's great. Later, we stopped by Jatasia's, then hurried home and set goals for next week. While Elder Mickelson was reporting, me and the other elders made some WAY good fried rice. It was delicious. I'll definitely have to make some of that more.  It's super easy, so I'll totally be able to make it at home. I have two super good fried rice recipes now. Kok Cin taught me one in Puchong, and Elder Thompson taught me the other.

Tons of stuff is happening here now, and the area is still going strong! Sungai Plan is super awesome! I love it! It seriously is one of the coolest areas in the mission. That's one of the biggest secrets in the mission. Every missionary thinks that Sungai Plan is the worst area in the entire mission, because for a long time, nothing happened here. Their baptismal goal for this entire year was two.  We have literally baptized two people since I got here, and we have a million more on the way. Super awesome! I love it here!

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins