Elder Ben Mullins: Faulty Font Follies

Hey Everyone!

This week was preeeeetty crazy! Lots of pictures too! So that's good! Elder Johnson and I are having the success we've been looking for the entire transfer, so that's really good! I really like it here in Kota Kimbatu! It's seriously the prettiest area ever, and tons of fun. It’s nice and busy, but also has a bunch of quiet places.

Last Monday, we went to the beach, because there was a member that was leaving to the MTC the next day. He wanted to hang out with all the missionaries before he left! It was fun! We had a lot of the branch there, so we got to strengthen member relations AND play at the beach! We buried some people in the sand, caught a few crabs (they could run super-fast), and rode our bikes through the ocean. It was SUPER fun to ride through the ocean, but it gets sand in your gears. Luckily, it was dumping rain, so all the sand washed out right after we did it. Oh yeah, and some guys taught us how to find pearls. Pretty cool.

Tuesday was probably the most intense day this week. It was a normal day up until 6:00. We met with people, rescheduled a few appointments that fell through, and talked with a bunch of people. However, at 6:00, Elder Howell and I met at the house, because we had to go catch a flight for exchanges in Sandakan. The member that we had arranged with to pick us up thought that we meant 6 AM the next morning, not 6:00 at night... SO. We had to call another car to drive us to the airport, and it took about 20 minutes for it to get to our place, and then traffic was literally backed up from the airport all the way to our house--bumper to bumper. Guess who missed their flight? Yeah, pretty bad. What made it even worse is that Elder Howell and his companion missed the exact same flight for the exact same place for the exchange with the same elders the transfer before. SO. We were a little scared to call the AP's, but we did it, because we're accountable! We called both AP's a million times and they didn't answer, we called President Simmons and his wife a million times and they didn't answer. There weren't any more flights leaving to Sandakan until the next morning, so we just went home. Elder Johnson and Schellenberg were super confused when we got back, because we were supposed to be gone for another 2 days. Haha! We explained what happened, and eventually the AP's called us back. Then we called customer service for the airport, figured everything out, and got our flight scheduled for the next morning!

Wednesday, we woke up mega early (like 4 in the morning early), and made it to the airport with 2 hours to spare. Haha! We took our time checking in, and sat around doing nothing for an hour and 50 minutes. That was better than missing our flight! We got to Sandakan at 6:30 or 6:45 (can't remember). Our taxi driver that the elders in Sandakan had called for us picked us up. The taxi driver's name was Muhammad. So. Definitely Muslim. We were driving along, and he asked the classic where are you from, why are you here type stuff. We told him we were here for church, and he said he used to be Christian, but when he moved from the Philippines, he converted to Islam. Pretty common story. Then he started talking about how most Christians were ok, but there were 2 denominations he hated. The one he most hated was... Mormons. Hahaha! It was super awkward when he said that he hated Mormons. We asked why, and he just talked about how crazy the beliefs were. We told him we were Mormons. There was an awkward pause, then a few sorrys, then silence. Hahaha! Suuuuuuper awkward. Elder Howell tried picking up the conversation, and Muhammad started talking about all of our beliefs, then started naming off Gordon B Hinckley and President Monson and prophets in the Book of Mormon. I was thinking, "This guy has got to be a member. There's no way he could know this much without being a member.", so I asked, and he said he was Islam. The conversation slowly turned to other things, and we arrived at the place the Sandakan elders live. They were waiting out front. They said, "Glad to see you! You can just go in and we'll get your bags!" I thought it was a little weird that they were being so nice to us, but I just said ok. We went up to the elevator and held the door, and one of them was talking to the taxi driver. He closed the cab and started walking around the back, then Muhammad revved his engine, squeeled his tires, and took off with Elder Howell's luggage. (I still had mine, because I just stuck everything in my backpack). The Sandakan elders started running after the car, and Elder Howell and I just started laughing. Pretty much the entire mission knows about how dangerous Sandakan can be. We hear these kinds of stories all the time, so we were just laughing about it, but then we started talking, and we came to the conclusion that Muhammad actually wasn't Muhammad. We were right! He came back about 5 minutes later, and he was a member. They were just trying to play a joke on us. It was super funny, but we kind of knew the whole time. Everything was just too weird. Haha! It was a good thought though. Great story.

After that, we started exchanges, and I went with Elder Bringhurst! He was Elder Forsyth's trainer, and Elder Forsyth finished my training! Sooooo I'm not really sure what that makes him to me, but there's a connection somewhere there! They had just found a village that no missionaries had ever gone in, and our job was to go check out that entire village and see how many potential investigators we could get. We raided the village (we found 75% Christians. Sandakan is about 90% Muslim, so it was a great place to find), and had lots of people that were really excited to see us! I think they had some success later in the week out of all the potentials we got. It was tons of fun to be the first missionaries in a village! Everyone loved us! Haha!

Thursday, we woke up super early (about 4:30) and went back to KK. Elder Johnson and Elder Schellenberg lost 2 new investigators due to miscommunication problems. They couldn't find the investigators because they couldn't speak Malay quite well enough. Hahaha! It was ok. They must not have wanted to learn bad enough! We've been trying to call them back, so not everything is lost yet! They didn't set anything up for Thursday, so we just went around to inactive members' houses, and I got a little bit burnt! It was lots of fun though! We found some really cool people!

Friday morning, we called the entire zone, and challenged them. It got the entire zone super pumped to talk with literally everyone they saw, and the zone got to see some miracles from it. We had lots of fun with that, and we met with Andrew! Andrew is great. He committed to church, and ended up coming on Sunday! We met his older brother too! We're hoping to be able to teach his older brother later! He's great at really thinking about what we're saying, so I'm pretty sure he'll get baptized! As long as he keeps reading the Book of Mormon, he'll get baptized for sure! After him, we were going to a less active, and he actually lived about a 2 minute walk from their house! So that was cool too! Now we know where he lives! Later that night, we went over to an active member's house, and shared the restoration. It was super good, and the father, who is not yet a member, agreed to retake all the discussions! Hopefully we can see success with that! We had some super good fried rice too. Their son, Artobelly, went to school to be a chef, and he's really good at cooking.

Saturday was Lodelin's baptism! It was super good! BUT. We had some problems filling up the font. We filled it up, and came back an hour later to make sure that it was still full, and IT HAD DRAINED. We filled it up again, and twisted the drain the other way, and guess what? IT DRAINED EVEN FASTER. We tried a few different things before we decided to just stick a plastic bag over the drain, and it did the trick! We had our baptism, and it was awesome! Her husband, Johnny, baptized her, and it was GREAT! We also met a new guy named Alvin, and our member who was present went a little ham with temples and all that good stuff. I don't think we'll use him as a member-present anymore. BUT. The lesson went good! And also! On the way home, I was riding my bike, and I hit this HUUUUGE pothole, and flipped my bike. It had just rained, so there were puddles everywhere, and I landed riiiiight in a puddle. Awesome. A car drove by right as I ate it, and I heard someone yell, "OH MY GOODNESS ARE YOU OK???" Pretty funny. I was fine, just super dirty. I jumped back onto my bike, and got about half way home before my tire became too flat to ride on. I think the pothole popped it. We walked the rest of the way home, and I fixed my tire when we made it home.

Yesterday was great! Andrew came to church, and he really enjoyed it! He had lots of really good questions, and I answered them all! Someone also gave a talk in English, so I translated it for Andrew since he doesn't speak any English! I was really surprised at how easy it was to translate, so that was good! After church, we took the sisters over to Ivy (an inactive member)'s house. The sisters were Chinese speaking, and we were told that Ivy and her entire family were better at speaking Chinese than Malay. When we got there, it turned out she didn't know a single work in Mandarin. Only Hakka. So still Chinese... Buuuuut. Not Mandarin. Pretty awkward. We just stayed and taught her, and we had an AWESOME lesson on the ministry of Christ in the America's! The sisters left right after we realized she couldn't speak Mandarin. Haha! That night, we went over to Sister Audrey and her family's house. She has 2 boys that are super cool. 16 and 13. We had a super good lesson on the Plan of Salvation, and they literally gave us 10 referrals. Unbelievable. I'm super excited to get those 10 referrals baptized! Haha! It sounded like 7 of them had been referred before, but they wanted to give it a second shot. SO. I can't wait to see what happens there! Oh yeah, and earlier, we met with a guy named Jainoh. I'm running out of time, so I can't really say anything about him.

This week was great! I really enjoyed it! Everything went by so fast! This morning, we woke up super early and went over to Mount Kinabalu! We didn't hike up it, but we did hike around it and get some super cool pictures! It was tons of fun.

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins