Elder Ben Mullins: Visa Runs to Singapore

Hey Everyone!

This week flew by! We spent nearly half of it in Singapore, and it was a ton of fun. Lots of stuff happened, but I can't remember it all, so this email might be a little shorter than normal.

Monday... We went shopping down in the city! It's about a 30-minute van ride down to the city. Oh, I don't know if I mentioned this, but instead of having buses, they have vans. People just pile into the van and they drop them all off one at a time. We went down there and bought stuff. Including something called a Saurang. It's what all the Ibans wear. It's a piece of cloth sewn together, then you step into it, and wrap it around you and roll it up at the top so that it stays. That's what people normally wear around their house. They're actually really comfortable. I like it a lot. Other than that, we didn't have much on Monday; just appointments at night, and that barbecue in the morning.

Tuesday, we were at a member's birthday party, hoping to get some referrals. A member came up to me with a picture of Peter Parker and told me that I looked exactly like him. Then everyone else started agreeing. I guess to Ibans, I look like Spider Man! I guess I'll have to learn how to do Spider Man things now! It was really funny though.

In the morning on Tuesday, we met with Serrina. Her dad wants her to be baptized on the 20th. We have to meet with her every single day this week if she wants to make the date. SO. That'll be insane—3-week baptism. I can't believe that it's finally happening. Normally something gets in the way, and it ends up not working out, but I'm pretty confident this one will work out.

Wednesday, we packed our bags early in the morning, and left to the airport to go to Singapore! It was a long trip. We flew from Bintulu to KL (2 hours), then had a 2 hour layover in KL before we flew to Singapore. We played Uno while we waited. We got into Singapore, and ran over to get some Indonesian Barbecue before we had a meeting that night. It was pretty good; a little sweet, but still super good. If you ever have a chance for that, you should take it. We had an opening meeting, then went to Pasir Panjang (the place where all the Elders stay while they're on visa runs) and talked with all the missionaries until bedtime.

Thursday, we had zone conference all day. BUT. We got pizza that night. It’s still not American pizza, but a million times better than any pizza you can find in Malaysia. Speaking of pizza, I'm thinking that when I get home, the first meal I want is a Papa Murphy's pizza. No joke. I've been thinking that sounds super good since my first few months. ANYWAY. We learned a lot about planning and preparing! We received a lot of good trainings.

Friday, we got up, and hurried over to the airport. We got there, and sat around forever playing Uno. It's a mission requirement to be to the airport 2 hours early. We played that for a long time, then took our flight to Kuching! It was a nice flight, then we had a 3-hour layover there. Kuching in Malay means cat. The cat poster picture I sent was in Kuching. Ee went to our gate, and it wasn't boarding yet, so we just waited for a while, and waited... and waited. Then we realized our gate was one over, and it was the final call. We ran over and got on the plane! We nearly missed our flight! But it was good. When we got back to Sungai Plan, we ran over to the church for English class, but nobody showed up. Ee practiced our skit/dance thing for the Gawai Party in a few weeks. We were trying to figure out a pretty cool finale trick, and we figured one out. Elder Read gets down on his hands and knees, then I jump off his back, and swan dive. Elder Mickelson and Thompson catch me before I hit the ground. SUPER epic. Way intense. They're both wayyyy bigger than me, so they catch me pretty easily. No worries. It's safe.

Saturday, for personal study, I was reading the Kitab Mormon (Book of Mormon in Malay). As I was reading, I was looking up the words that I didn't know, and writing them in. I always do that. I finished first chapter of 1 Nephi, and I looked at the beginning, then what I had done that day, and I went from finding the definition for every word, to finding the definition of a word here and there. I was really surprised to see all the progress I made! I can't believe it's already been a month! There's definitely a difference in how much Malay I know! So that's super awesome! I'm really glad that I have a way to physically see my improvement! That way is the Book of Mormon! It's awesome. I'm starting to get better and better!

Sunday, we fasted, and we felt it. We were exhausted all day. BUT. It was worth the blessings! We had church, which was great We taught Serrina, taught Suraya and Sylvester, then went over to Brother Charles's house to end our fast. They had cooked chicken feet and rice for us to break our fast. Lucky us. So that was great. Then we shared a quick message, and met with more members before coming home and eating a second dinner.

Before I forget--Malay is a crazy language. It's a mix of Tagalog, Arabic, Indonesian, and recently it's been getting some English influence. I can understand a bit of Tagalog apparently (probably just a few words really), a few words of Arabic, and then a lot of Indonesian. CRAZY. Malay is a mix of a billion different languages. Pretty cool. And it's super simple. You have your root words, then there are prefixes and suffixes to modify it. There are words if you want to make it an action, or a noun, or the actual process of doing it, or making something else do it... Anyway, it's a super easy language, and it's really interesting to learn!

Sungai Plan is an awesome area, my Malay is coming along really nicely, and Singapore was awesome! I really enjoy it here! It's awesome! It's tons of fun to learn the new culture and language and see all these awesome things! There's tons of stuff here, and I can't believe stuff like it even exists! Just cultural things mainly... Like people that literally live in the middle of the jungle and have never seen a white person in their entire life. I had no idea that existed. The missionaries are basically legends here. It's awesome. Oh... And I got my Malay nametag.

Love you all!

Elder Ben Mullins