Elder Ben Mullins: Kalau Kamu Percaya, Kamu Akan Berjaya

Hey Everyone!

This week was CRAZY. Tons of awesome stuff happened, and I didn't write most of it down in my planner, so I'm probably going forget a lot. BUT. That's ok, because it's in my journal back at the house. It flew by, but tons of stuff happened.

Monday, we played soccer with Elder Duckworth and his family and some of the branch, then ate some super good food after. They took us to a way nice place. We all got MEGA expensive stuff, and it ended up being 20 US dollars for all of us to eat. Total. So that was super awesome. I can't wait to come back here while I make USD so that I'm loaded. While we played soccer, Elder Thompson ran into me while we were both running for the ball. He bumped my glasses up, and they CUT me. Unbelievable. I had a pretty epic scratch for a few days. I'll send a picture.

Tuesday was CRAZY. We live with 2 other elders. They serve in the TJK branch. They got a call from one of their investigators, Jackson. He told them that he and their recent convert, Henry, were on some scaffolding at work, and the scaffolding collapsed and they both fell. Henry from the 4th floor, and Jackson from the 2nd just the day before. That is a LONG way to fall. We dropped EVERYTHING and caught a bus to the hospital. We got there, and it wasn't visiting hours, but they let the other two elders go in. Henry was WRECKED, and hadn't awakened since he had hit the ground. They came out because the doctors didn't want them to be in there, and we decided we should go get something to eat since we had to wait an hour for it to be visiting hours. We went and ate lunch at a super good Indonesian barbecue place. It was super good. While we were there, we got a call from the zone leaders, and it was super loud where we were, so we went outside and hung out in the gutter so it wouldn't be as loud. I took some pictures while we listened, then after, we took a squad picture. After that, we went back to the hospital. Before I go on with what happened, you’ve got to know some background information.

Right before Henry was baptized he was challenged to find someone to share the gospel with. He prayed for an opportunity, and a few days later, met Jackson. Little did Henry know, Jackson had actually learned from Elders in Kuching a few years ago, but he moved to a place that didn't have Elders, and he never heard from them again. Really quickly, they became best friends, and they literally ALWAYS are hanging out. They're bros. Jackson and Henry would not know each other if it weren't for the gospel. OK, back to the story.

We walked in the hospital, and went over to Henry's bed. Jackson was sitting on a chair, asleep, right next to the bed, and Henry was half awake. He had a huge gash on his forehead, and scratches everywhere. He looked terrible. Jackson had tons of scratches and stuff, but didn't look near as bad as Henry did. Jackson woke up, and Henry tried his best to be conscious. Henry still was hooked up to a million machines and stuff, and had the "urgent" red paper thing above his bed. We talked, and figured out the story. Henry's scaffolding fell at the top, and as he fell, he hit a bar at the 3rd floor, then as he passed the second floor, Jackson tried to catch him, but obviously, Henry was falling WAY too fast for Jackson to catch him. He had 2 floors of momentum. Jackson tried so hard to save not only his best friend, but his only friend, that he was willing to fall down with him. Jackson slowed Henry down as much as he could, then got dragged off the scaffolding with Henry right before his floor of scaffolding collapsed. They fell together. Henry landed on his head, Jackson landed on his arm. After all this, they knew that Jackson had messed up his arm pretty bad, and they weren't even sure about Henry. He had a brain hemorrhage, but that was all they had checked for. So of course, they were expecting broken bones and stuff, but didn't X Ray him yet. So. Henry and Jackson were destroyed. We stayed through the visiting hours, and then left.

We went home, and deep cleaned the house. I forgot to mention that it's officially Gawai, and literally 100% of our members were gone Tuesday - Friday. 99% of the people in our area were gone too. They went back to their longhouses and visited their families. We decided that we should purge the house to use our time most effectively. We picked papayas off of the trees in the back, took care of the banana trees, and emptied all of everything in the house. We moved beds, cupboards, EVERYTHING. Then it was visiting hours at the hospital again, and we took off. Henry's nearest family was a 2-day car drive away, so we felt obligated to be his family for the day. We biked over to the hospital this time (bus was too expensive). We had to bike up this MASSIVE hill to get to the hospital, but we made it, and went back in. Jackson had been released from the hospital, but Henry was still there. He looked a little better, but still not the best. He had been changed from urgent care, so that was good. He wasn't hooked up to quite as many things. We talked with him, and gave him a blessing, then left. It was a super crazy Tuesday. We got home at 9:20 pm, and enjoyed our mega clean house.

Wednesday, the other elders went to visit Henry in the morning, but we decided we could find more productive things to do, so we studied while they went to the hospital. They rode their bikes. During companionship study, the other elders came back in. They had been gone for an hour and a half. We asked what was up, and apparently, in the morning, Henry woke up, and he was fine. His brain stopped bleeding, he didn't have any broken bones when they X Rayed him, and he was just bruised and scratched. UNBELIEVABLE RIGHT??? He had gone home! We all hopped on our bikes and cruised over to see him at his house! We met his dad, who had driven 2 days to see his son. Henry was totally normal besides all of his scratches and bruises. It was a miracle. It was super awesome to see how fast he got better. He fell from the 4th floor, and was in the hospital less than 2 days. He only got 19 days release from work... UNBELIEVABLE. The doctors wrote him a note that said that he couldn't work for 19 days. 3 weeks of recovery from falling from that high. Literally less than a week per a floor! Anyway. that was a HUGE miracle, and Jackson is totally fine too. We were all pumped. Nobody had gotten back from Gawai yet, so we walked around the flats trying to find as many people as we could, but nobody was home. Literally nobody. It was a long day. We talked to a lot more Muslims than normal though since they don't celebrate Gawai.

Thursday, we woke up, did studies, and then I went out back to see if we had any papayas that were ripe. There was this MASSIVE black snake in our backyard! It was about 6 feet long, and pure black. Super epic. I watched it, and it just went over into our neighbors yard. Way cool though. After studies and all that, we went and swept the flats! The flats are basically apartment buildings that are 5 stories high, and don't have elevators. It's awful. Our entire area is literally 18 flats. That's it. Nothing else. WAIT. That's a lie. There's a longhouse up on top of the hill next to the flats. Other than that, nothing. We took our brooms, and swept a few floors of the flats! They're filthy... so it didn't really do much. We stopped after a while, and it turned out, Elyzza was home! We went over there and taught her and her family! It was a ton of fun! She had pink eye, so her eye was always watering, and it made my eyes water just watching her eye water. It was pretty funny.

Friday, TONS of branch members came back, because at their longhouses, a lot of people died (honestly, probably from alcohol poisoning), so they stopped celebrating Gawai early this year. That was good for us! We got to meet with a lot of people!

Saturday... Oh, we were traveling home from the church, and this guy started waving us down. Elder Mickelson thought he was drunk (that happens a lot), so he kept riding past. I felt like if he was waving us down, we should stop. We turned around and talked to him. It turned out, his wife left him, and he wants something to bring his family together. He felt like the gospel was what would bring his family together, so we taught him about God (he had no concept of God) and prayer. He ate it up. The only problem is, he lives in the other Elders' area, so we passed him after that first lesson. but he's WAY prepared. Too bad I don't get to teach him!

Sunday, we only had 1 hour of church since there was hardly anyone there. After church, we studied, then met with Alyster. His other older brother became a new investigator! He's super cool, but I can't remember his name. I think we can get him to start learning pretty regularly! That'll be good! Alyster is doing great. He's still the funny awesome kid I met when I first got here. During the lesson, it was crazy, because I literally understood 100% of what was being said, and I taught a ton. I'm actually getting better at Malay! I felt like progress was a little slow, but it's actually way fast. I think I'll be fine in a transfer when I have to train! That'll be tons of fun. After that, we went to President Jalil's house, and his wife made us a MASSIVE dinner, and invited all 4 elders. Since it was Gawai, President Simmons let us eat together. Elder Thompson really likes the pork skin/fat dish, so he was going ham on that. UNTIL he found a piece of the pig that had hair. Not human hair…literally pig hair coming out of every pore. It looked disgusting. He stopped eating it after he found that piece. After that, Elder Mickelson and I went to Jessica and Henry's house (different Henry than the one previously mentioned), and they fed us dinner again. I had eaten so much at President Jalil's that I felt like I was going to pop. I forced down a little bit more, then felt like it was all going to come up at any second because I had eaten so much, but I kept it down. Then we went home and did reporting!

There was a ton of other stuff that happened this week, but I can't remember it right now. Sooooo I guess that's all I have for this week! Thanks for all the emails you send! I hope you all have an awesome summer while I work super hard out here without a break! Haha! It's not too bad though. I really enjoy it. Sungai Plan is a super awesome area, and the members take care of us very well! It's great!

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins