Elder Ben Mullins: Quick Week!

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was super awesome until about 5 last night! Elder Johnson and Elder Mickelson have the flu. They're wrecked. Our mission nurse said that Elder Schellenberg and I will probably get it too since we've been with them all day. SO. That's awesome. Pray I don't get the flu. She said we probably already are infected though, so that's awesome. I don't know how those two got sick before us. Maybe they're just weak. Haha!

Monday, we went and did an escape room, and it was tons of fun. It was like an upside-down thing, so they nailed everything to the ceiling. It was tons of fun. The two people working were both Muslim, but one wasn't wearing a hijab (the hood thing Muslim women wear), so we had to wait 3 minutes for a lock to reset. She was in there helping us, so I started contacting her in the middle of the escape room. She ended up being Muslim, soooo cannot. It was pretty funny. Those two girls literally just watched us it the entire time we were there. They were laughing and laughing. It was kind of awkward though.

Tuesday, I'll be honest, I can't remember what we did, but at night time we flew out to Sandakan for exchanges! We got there safely, and then ate dinner and slept.

Wednesday we had exchanges, and it was lots of fun. Elder Curtis has been out for less than a transfer, and I went with him. I think the funniest thing that happened was we were sitting on a bench in a park doing language study. Our language study stuff was all over the bench, and we were speaking Malay together. Before I go on, my objective in this exchange was to show Elder Curtis that you have to talk with every person you see so that he would realize there are actually a lot of people in his area. So anyway, we were doing language study, and he looked up and saw a girl about 15 feet away on a different bench. He asked, "Do you think we should talk to her?" I told him now that he noticed her, OF COURSE we had to talk with her. It was going to be mega awkward, because we had all of our stuff out, and we were just going walk over to her, talk with her, then come back and sit down where we were, 15 feet away. We started planning how we would make it less awkward, when she stood up and started speed-walking away. I have no idea why. I looked at Elder Curtis, and I said, "We just messed up. If she would have accepted the gospel, that was a HUGE sin. Even if she wouldn't have, that was still a big sin." We looked at each other for a split second, then shoved all of our language study material in our bags as fast as we could, hopped on our bikes, and chased after her as fast as we could. We chased her for like 3 or 4 minutes weaving between cars. We FINALLY caught up with her, and it turned out she was Muslim, so we couldn't even talk with her anyway. LAAAME. Buuuut I made the point that we need to talk with people as soon as we notice them, and if we don't, we need to repent. It was super funny. I think that'll be one of the stories Elder Curtis tells for the rest of his mission. I think it made a really good impression on him of how to do missionary work.

Thursday, we woke up mega early and flew back, planned a ton, met with Andrew and went over the baptismal interview questions, and did a testimony check. He was great. We also met with Syirus, and he's still doing great. He's super smart. It's fun to teach someone who’s really educated. Andrew and Syirus are some of the most educated people we're teaching right now.

Friday, I went on exchanges with Elder Mickelson. It was tons of fun to be back with him and teach with him. It was weird having a companion that was really good at speaking Malay. I didn't even have to worry about correcting the Malay or simplifying what he said or anything. It was great. I enjoyed it a lot!

Saturday... Hmmmm. Oh! Inday and Andrew had their baptismal interviews! And they both passed! I'm way excited about that! Andrew will be baptized in 2 weeks, and Inday will be this Saturday! They've come a long way since I've been here! So that was awesome to see! Other than that... I can't remember. I know our plans all fell through. We still had a bunch to do, but I can't remember what it was... Haha

Sunday, we didn't have any appointments after church, because everyone went back to their villages this week. Over the last two weeks or so, I kept having feelings that we should go door knocking in this certain area with a bunch of flats, but I kind of ignored it, because everyone knows door knocking isn't effective, right? Well, we talked with some members on how they were found, and a lot said door knocking. They told us that nobody in this mission had knocked doors in this MASSIVE place of flats in about 5 years, so we decided to take it up. We found 3 super cool families, plus 3 individuals that were super interested to learn! So we're meeting with them tomorrow! I'm super excited for that! It was really fun too, because we got some drinks and food as we knocked doors from random people that were happy we were "spreading the good news". So that was cool.

It was a great week. This next week is the last week of the transfer, so we'll see what happens next week! I'm thinking I'll stay again. I hope so! Haha! This week has a ton of potential, and I think our success this week will decide whether Elder Johnson and I are companions next transfer or not! I hope the sickness doesn't get in the way! So far, I'm good! Thanks for all your emails! I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins