Double Baptism!

Hey Everyone!

This week was CRAZY! So many things happened... Wow. I don't know if I can fit it all into one email... I'll give it a shot.

Monday, we all sat inside because Elder Mickelson and Johnson were sick. Elder Schellenberg and I went out at night time and taught a family home evening.  The members invited 5 non-members over (which all turned into new investigators), then we went home. So not much happened.  When we got home, the sink was leaking big time.  We couldn't use our kitchen sink all week, so we just ate out every single meal. That was terrible. Haha! We got it fixed today though, so everything is ok now.

Tuesday, I woke up, and I felt super sick.  I jumped out of bed, snagged a bowl from the kitchen, ran to the bathroom, sat down on the toilet, diarrhea AND throwing up. Same time. Double headed dragon. Sooooo that was pretty crazy. BUT. After that, I started getting better super quick, and by the end of the night, I was ready to go do missionary work, but I couldn't because the day was over. BUT. While we were inside, Elder Johnson and Elder Mickelson were all better, so they went out. Last Sunday, we had set an appointment with this super awesome guy name Ryan. I was so pumped. He seemed so solid, he had a little baby, and he was super interested. I was mega disappointed I wasn't able to go to his first lesson.  The other elders got back, and said that they heard his baby crying inside, but they didn't answer the door. They saw someone peek out of a window, but then they didn't answer.  I was super disappointed, because I was 100% certain that he would be interested. Anyway, fast forward to Wednesday.

Wednesday, we were over in the general area of Ryan's house (Beverly Hills), and I still couldn't believe that he didn't want to meet.  I proposed we go and knock his door again. The thing was, when we met him, we didn't write his address down. We just knew it was in the first block we knocked. So Elder Johnson took me to the door he knocked the night before, and I was pretty sure that I remembered the door, but then I realized that it was the door of a family that didn't want to learn. I remembered our conversation with them.  I said it was the wrong one, and we went back a tower, and went up the stairs, and I found the room!  We knocked the door, his wife answered, and told us to come back in a few hours and Ryan would be home.  We came back, and taught Ryan and Ana! And they are SOLID. It was awesome. They literally already act like members. I could totally see them being members. Ana is Filipino, and she asked for a Book of Mormon in English. We didn't have one, but we told her that we could stop by and drop one off tomorrow. Then she said, "Ok, so you can drop it off, then we can meet again and you can teach more, right?" So Elder Johnson almost clarified and said, "No, we just wanted to drop it off." But I cut him off, and said that it would be fine and we'd love to teach them again the next day. Hahaha! Here’s another miracle, we taught Andrew, and we had moved his date back a week, because he didn't feel ready, but in our lesson, he got a strong answer that being baptized as soon as possible would be best.  He asked if he could be baptized right then. Hahaha! We told him he'd have to wait until Saturday, but we could get him then.

Thursday, we went over to Ryan and Ana's again, taught them the Plan of Salvation, put them on date, and invited them to church. They had a family emergency on Sunday morning, so they went to the hospital instead of church, but we'll get them next week. Haha! But they're seriously WAY solid. Ryan said he was going to bring his older brother to our next lesson, and then said that he has some friends that live right next door to our church that he would try to bring to church.  We could get lots of referrals from Ryan. We'll see. Haha! Oh, and Ryan and Ana have a super cute little baby boy that's mega fat.

Friday... I can't remember what happened. Exchanges with Elder Schellenberg? I can't remember much. We mainly just worked on his contacting skills. It was a pretty fast day.

Saturday, we met with another super awesome family. Flashback to last Sunday again. We knocked a door, and nobody answered.  We had knocked the entire floor of doors, so we went down a floor and started knocking again.  An older lady poked her head over the edge above us and asked us if we had knocked on her door. She wore these glasses that made her eyes look huge, and she had hair like Edna Mode in The Incredibles.  We ran back up, talked with her, talked with her son, and they wanted to meet. SO.  We met them on Saturday. They are mega solid. They really understood the Restoration and why it was important. They couldn't go to church because we didn't give them a notice soon enough, but they said they'll come next week.  They were Mark and Mamak (mother in Malay). We just call her Edna, but when we're with her, we call her Mamak.  Haha! We're going to meet with Mark and his wife next week! Oh, Mamak/Edna is Mark's mom. Mark has a super cute little baby girl. I think Ryan and Mark's babies are the same age. So that's awesome. They're both new families, and way cool, and super prepared! We're mega pumped.

While we filled up the font on Saturday, we forgot to turn it off when we wanted to, so we ran down the stairs about 10 minutes later than we meant to, and guess what?  Instead of draining down the drain that's supposed to make it so that it doesn't overflow, it just dragged all the dirt from inside that pipe, into the font, and the font was about 2 inches from overflowing.  We turned it off, drained it, cleaned it, filled it up again. It was almost super bad, but we got it under control. After, the baptism was super good! I got to baptize Andrew and Inday! They were both so happy! I was too. Haha! They both bore awesome testimonies! Inday talked about how when we first started teaching her, she told us she read The Book of Mormon, but she hadn't really. I remembered when it happened, and I started laughing, because we totally knew she hadn't. It's not too hard to tell when someone hasn't read, but she thought she got away with it I guess! Andrew is bent on getting a branch started in his village. He said he's going to do everything he can to teach about the Book of Mormon over there. He's going to be a way good member too.

Sunday, Andrew and Inday were confirmed! We were super happy about that. We could hit our branch's baptism goal this year! so that'll be cool! We'll just have to make sure we get a few more baptisms! Oh, we were walking to a member's house in Beverly Hills, and we passed this guy that was working on his car, and his wife was standing off to the side. He looked Italian or something.  We went over and asked if we could help him out with anything, he spoke super good English.  His name was Carlos.  I asked if he was Filipino, and he said he was Malaysian.  He was super cool, way down to learn, and has a little baby too!  We could be teaching 3 couples that have a little baby that's about 3 months old! That'd be CRAAAAZY! We're super excited. We've knocked through about half of the first section of Beverly Hills, so that means there's still a TON left that we have to go through. Our area is really picking up though! Moving to the other side of our area was a super good decision!  We're really having a blast over in KK.

Elder Johnson and I will be staying together for another transfer!  This is transfer number 3! We're excited to keep going out and working hard! We both love KK, so we were both really glad we stayed! Haha! Thanks for all the emails you send! I really appreciate it! I hope you all have a great week! Also. The sisters I came out with just started their last transfer. WHAAAAAAAAT???

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins

Inday's baptism, Elder Johnson and me

Andrew's Baptism