Singapore

Singapore
Singapore

Sunday, May 21, 2017

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

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