Elder Ben Mullins: Epic Anklets and Soccer on the Beach

Hey Everyone!

I had a ton of fun this week, and we were super busy! Busy is always good in missionary work! Lots of stuff is happening, and Elyzza passed her baptismal interview! She'll be getting baptized next Saturday! My Malay is coming really fast, and I'm going ham on the memorizing vocab., so that's pretty awesome. I don't know all I need to yet, but I still have a month and a half before I need to really be good at speaking Malay.

Last Monday, we went and played soccer on this field right on the beach. It was awesome. Perfect view, tons of fun. Lots of young men and us 4 missionaries packed into one car and drove down. It was awesome. After that, we went over to Christopher's, and had an awesome lesson on the Plan of Salvation about the premortal life and our purpose on earth. Then we put him on date! His two little girls were going crazy, but we still got the spirit there.

Tuesday, we went over to a less active member's house. She was making this INSANE anklet out of beads. It looked way cool. I couldn't believe that it was possible to make an anklet like that. Elder Mickelson is obsessed with anklets, so I think he's going to try to buy one off of her. Haha! It was fun to go over there! Their dog is insane. He jumped up onto us and tried playing with us, but we were trying to talk with them. He was going extra crazy so that we'd pay attention to him. After that, we stopped by the Kong's house. Elder Mickelson and I found them in my first week I think. They didn't really want to meet much the first time we talked with them (I couldn't speak any Malay when I met them the first time), but when we stopped over, they totally invited us to come back over and teach in 2 days! That was pretty crazy!

Wednesday was tons of fun. I went on exchanges with Elder Thompson. He has a week left of his mission, so that's pretty crazy. He's way cool. We went up to a place called Clemena, which is basically Sungai Plan, just in a different place. Tons of flats, and a lot of members live there. It was a ton of fun. We were visiting an inactive member that everyone calls King Kong--no idea why. This crazy old lady came up to us and said she thought one of her friends was a member of our church. We found her name on the branch directory, and asked the old lady where she lived since they didn't have an address on the directory, so we went and met with them. They hadn't seen the missionaries in 5 years, and the daughter literally reads the Book of Mormon every single day still. She's finished it a few times, and is reading it again. Isn't that crazy??? They haven't been to church in 5 years, haven't seen the missionaries in 5 years, and STILL read the Book of Mormon every day. Unbelievable.

ALSO, while I was on exchanges, Sylvester's dad died, so he went back to Kampung, and Matthew John is totally dating a Muslim girl. UNBELIEVABLE. If he marries her, he's forced to convert to Islam, and then he can't even learn about our church. He has a huge desire to be baptized. SOOOO we're probably going to go over there and see if we can get him to realize that since he already knows our church is true, it's really dumb of him to convert to Islam to marry this girl... we'll see what happens there.

Thursday, we went over to Elyzza's and reviewed her baptismal questions, and she did a really good job! The only thing we had to work on was how she explained repentance. When we asked what repentance was, she just said pray. Then we had to ask a bunch of questions to clarify what you do in your prayer and stuff. Haha! She's hilarious. But yeah, that was tons of fun! Later that night, we went to Matthew John's to slap some sense into him through the Holy Ghost, but his older brother was the only one in his house, so we taught him! He seemed pretty cool, but he's always driving trucks across Malaysia, and can't meet regularly. We'll see how that one goes.

Friday, we wanted to follow up with one of our new investigators, Hallory. We went to his house, and he wasn't home, but his wife was home, and she had some friends over. One of her friends was super weird. She refused to speak Malay with us. She only spoke English. We spoke Malay, she spoke English, and it was SUPER hard to not switch into English. I would always mix in a few words here and there, but I tried really hard to not. Haha! She said that if Elder Mickelson's girlfriend broke up with him, he should come back and marry her. She was about 45 years old. Hahaha! Pretty funny. That's a common occurrence to have people ask the missionaries to marry them. So be careful who you ask if they have anything you can help with.

Later, on Friday, we went and taught Ellaine. We taught about the Atonement, and it was crazy. While we were teaching, I looked up, and I thought that I saw tears in Ellaine's eyes, but I just decide I was just seeing things. Then we flipped to a picture of Jesus on the cross, and she just BURST into tears. She's a 9-year-old girl with special needs, and she TOTALLY understands the Atonement. More than anyone! She literally started bawling because Jesus died. Haha! Elder Mickelson and I didn't know what to do. We just flipped to the pictures of Jesus being resurrected, and then slowly she stopped crying, but it was pretty cool. I didn't think she even understood half the things we taught. But she totally understood it!

Saturday, we went over to the Kong's house, and it was fun to see them all again. Especially the guy that told us to call him Handsome Boy. He's way funny. Handsome Boy brought his girlfriend to his house, and we taught both of them. Handsome Boy isn't very interested, but his girlfriend was! So that's cool! They live in Mukah, so we'll pass them over once they leave. We also taught a mission prep class, and it was fire. I think the youth are going to get way into missionary work if they keep coming. We just barely started it, so it could have a ton of success. I'm excited to see where it goes. That night, we met with Cecilia. She's finally comfortable praying! She wouldn't pray for a long time, but now when we ask her to pray, she'll close lessons for us! So that's super great!

Sunday was fun. It's always fun. Not a ton happened. The Kong’s invited us over again for lunch, and they made some KILLER fried rice. Way good. I ate the entire bowl full. Oh, that's another thing. This week, I've been WAY hungry. Every single day when I finish meals, I'm still super hungry. It's been a struggle. I haven't felt full all week... But that's ok! I'm eating way more than I normally do. It just doesn't make me full. So maybe I'm growing or something. Not sure. Maybe I'll grow a foot or two finally!

Pretty much all of the church material (like books and magazines and stuff) is in Indonesian, and because Indonesian is so close to Malay, they just read it. BUT. Some crazy twisting of the language happens every now and then. For example. The word for need in Indonesian is the equivalent of the F word in English. SO. Reading books and stuff in church is extremely dangerous. Just think how many times you say need in church. Like if you need to follow the Savior or need to do what’s right. Every single time you read it, you have to replace it with a different word. If you don't replace it with a different word, you're saying a super bad swear word. And that's my life. Every single Sunday. It's a bit terrifying to read in church, because I’ve got to make sure that I really pay attention and that it doesn't say ‘need’ in anything I'm reading. Elder Mickelson almost messed up once yesterday, so that's why I decided to write about it.

I love being here in Malaysia! It's tons of fun, and the work is going strong! We're having lots of success, and my Malay is getting better and better every single week! Thanks for all the emails!

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins