Sudah Christmas? (Christmas Already?)

Hey Everyone!

This week was crazy! So much happened! Elder Johnson is gone now, and I'm back with Elder Mickelson for the second time! We're pumped to have an AWESOME transfer, and so far, it's really looking up to be an awesome transfer! We have tons of faith and energy, so we're planning to just blow everything out of the water with our faith! It'll be great! Monday, we played volleyball. So that kind of stunk, but it was fun to talk to the members at least!  It was a pretty chill P Day for me.   After that, we went over to the senior couple's house and had our Christmas party! It was pretty fun.  We had a Thanksgiving dinner (including turkey), and it was super good.  I haven't eaten turkey in a long time. It was great!

Tuesday, we shipped Elder Johnson's bike. It took forever, because we had to take it apart, stick it in a box, and then take the Sister's bike apart, stick it in a box, then we carried these two huge boxes for about 30 minutes to the place where we send them.  It took a while, but it was good. The guy that was helping us send them was like, "I swear... people like you come here every month or so and send a bike! Maybe they're your friends?"   I explained to him why we did it every 6 weeks. Haha! It was pretty funny. Apparently, the missionaries sent a bike on his first day working, then 6 weeks later, sent another one, then we just sent 2. Haha! I think I showed Elder Loutzenhiser and DJ around the KK 1 area that day... I'm pretty sure it was Tuesday I did that.

Wednesday, Elder Mickelson and I planned a ton of stuff for the zone, the districts in the zone, and for our area. We are SET for this next transfer. I can't wait to see it all pan out. We also taught this super cool guy named Tay. Tay is about 30, and his wife and child live in Miri.  They mean the world to him.  We really hit him up with the Plan of Salvation, and he loved it. Later in the week, we met again, and taught the restoration. He had a hard time understanding, but we taught until he understood, and at the end of the lesson, he was like, "Wow. I've never had someone be able to teach me so well about anything like this. You teach me so I understand." That's what happens when the spirit teaches. AWESOME. Then we met him again and read the Book of Mormon with him, and talked about learning by faith.  We met with him 3 times this week, and those were the first 3 times he's met with the missionaries.   He's wayyyyy solid. We're pumped for him. We also went caroling at night with the branch, and it was a ton of fun. There's this member here named Mixer that organized it all.  I’m not gonna lie, I have NO idea why the missionaries haven't been trying to work with him, but I just feel like he's such a bro, and he's got a ton of stuff he could help us out with.  Later in the week, we went and visited him. More on that later.

Thursday... Weekly planning sucked up a bunch of time.  We practiced our skit for our Christmas party, and we taught an investigator they've been meeting with for a while named Azmira. She's pretty cool. She and her boyfriend are going to get married in a month, then she'll be able to be baptized! She's way cool. We also stopped by a bunch of people's houses and invited them to the Christmas party.

Friday, we advertised for English Class, practiced our skit, had a coordination meeting with KK2 people.  We went around and met a bunch of members... Oh, and we got stuck teaching English class too... Haha, so it was a less than an awesome day, but that's ok, because the rest of the week made up for it.

Saturday, we met with Tay.  We went around and invited a bunch of inactives to the Christmas party. We literally invited everyone we passed that wasn't Muslim to the Christmas party, and tried using our fancy app thing to find a bunch of less actives (didn't work).  In the morning, we were walking around talking with tons of people, and we passed this one lady that looked pretty Muslim, but she wasn't wearing any Muslim clothes, so I decided I'd at least say hi.  I said hi in Malay, and then she got super excited and told us she was from KL and got to Sabah the night before for vacation. It turned out she's Christian.  We invited her to the party later that night. And guess who came? SHE TOTALLY DID. She's way solid too. She ate up the church. She loved how everyone was so talkative and happy and stuff, and she's way down to go to church over in KL.

At the party, the event that's looked forward to most is the missionary's part in the program.  For some reason, everyone loves what missionaries do. Everyyyyy year, you hear, "OH there was this ONE GROUP of missionaries that did such and such and it was SOOOO FUNNY. Best skit ever."  The goal for missionaries is for the skit to be one that everyone always talks about.  I thiiiink we might've made it this year. I dunno. Everyone was dying.  I'm just gonna say, I would never do anything like that if I was back at home.  On the mission, you’ve got to impress the members and make sure they really like you, because then missionary work is a lot easier and more fun too. So that was pretty awesome. The members loved it, and we had tons of referrals come to the party too.   We're super excited for what happens next!

Sunday, we had a nice sacrament meeting, met with a bunch of people, and had some good donuts after church. We finally got to meet with a member who’s been dodging the missionaries for a long time too! So that was awesome! He just really didn't like one of the missionaries here a few transfers here ago, and hasn't met with the missionaries ever since. But we got him again! And he ate up what he learned. So that was good.

This week flew by! I can't believe it's Christmas already! Mostly because it's still hot outside and there aren't very many Christmas decorations up, but it's been tons of fun! I'm super excited to see what the rest of the transfer holds! I hope you all have a great Christmas, and a Happy New Year too! I'll send pictures later!

I ALMOST FORGOT. I have officially been a Malay Elder longer than I was an English Elder! Isn't that crazy? I can't believe I can speak another language... Or that I've been learning Malay for that long. It's been over 9 months I think...

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins

No trash zone

Staying in KK!

Hey Everyone!

This week flew by, and transfers are tomorrow! Elder Johnson will be going to Miri, and I'll be swapping out Elder Loutzenhiser from KK1 to KK2! So I'll probably be in KK1 for an extra week going on exchanges with Elder Loutzenhiser so that he knows where everything is, but after that, he'll be with his companion, and I'll be in KK2 with Elder Mickelson! Reunited! Haha, Elder Mickelson and I are pumped to be back together to rule KK! It'll be great. That was the biggest news for sure this week though!

Monday, Elder Mickelson and I flew out to Singapore for MLC, and we pretty much just walked around Singapore and chilled the whole day. President Simmons gave us permission to go sight seeing at night time, so we had tons of fun doing that too.

Tuesday, we literally sat in a room talking about smart phones from 10 AM to 9 PM. That was pretty killer. Not much to report there.

Wednesday, we flew back to KK. I can't remember what happened... I think we went and followed up with all of our investigators since I got back kinda late.

Thursday we tried using this fancy feature on the missionary app that shows where all the members live on a map. All the members we visited were gone or had incomplete addresses. Sooooo that was a bummer. But it was fun. One crazy thing was... There was this road, and it was blocked off because of construction, but it was the only way to get to this place we needed to go. We could've back tracked and made a huge loop that would take forever, but that didn't sound very cool. So we walked right through all the construction. There was this crane swinging stuff back and forth, and all the construction workers were pumped to see two white kids walking through all this welding and lifting and moving and stuff. It was pretty funny.

Friday, we went over to Lodelin and Johnny's house. They're great. They made some mega good food for us, and then after we finished teaching them, we went advertising for English Class. We tried meeting with some PI's, but they all decided KK was too far to travel, so we didn't end up meeting. But we taught English Class, so that was fun. I'm really having a hard time remembering everything we did this week. It just flew by. Haha, so much happened, but so little is coming to mind.

Saturday, Elder Weight and Sister Weight picked us up and brought us to their apartment to help them set up electronic stuff for the Christmas party. They couldn't really figure it out, so they had Elder Johnson and I come over and do it all. It was fun. Their apartment is WAY nice. There was wood in it. That's how nice it was. And a super cool view too. At night time, there was a Christmas recital thing. Everyone in the branches played piano or sung. It was really fun. ALSO. We got a call in the morning from the AP's telling us about transfers, and figured out Elder Johnson was leaving, and figured out Elder Loutzenhiser was coming to KK1 with a different elder. So Elder Mickelson and I were undecided for FOREVER. But finally a couple hours later the call came and we figured out that we'd be companions. So that was exciting.

Sunday, Sister Lilian brought her niece to church. Esther Vivian. Super shy 12 year old girl. But Lilian wanted us to teach her, so we met with her after church! She's pretty cool! Just mega shy. Anyway, we're excited to work with her. Sister Lilian is a referral machine, so it's good to finally have gotten a referral from her. After that, we went over to Rina's and said hi one last time for Elder Johnson before he leaves KK. We then ran over to Johnny's, and had him call us a car over to Roslina's. At Roslina's, she gave us some awesome T Shirts. I'll send some pictures. They were pretty funny. Shirts were a bit small. But that's ok. It was awesome. We said by to them, and then ran over to Brother Ian's house for an awesome final dinner with them. Brother Ian and his family are awesome. 

It was an awesome week, and tons more happened, I just can't remember... Oh, Elder Johnson and Elder Loutzenhiser taught 2 people that we found last week while I was in Singapore. So that was cool. We also had a guy tell us that Elder Johnson speaks Malay like a computer. I'm not really sure what that means, but that was funny. ALSO. Friday night. We get home, I was checking out my family tree and reading the stories on there, then I said, "Check out this guy's name! Abel Nephi Casto." to Elder Johnson. Then he said, "WOAH. I'm related to some Casto's. One sec." He ran and grabbed his family history tree thing, and we found the Casto's on his, and GUESS WHAT. My Grandpa's grandma's grandpa is Elder Johnson's grandpa's grandpa's grandpa! CRAZYYYYY. WE'RE TOTALLY 5TH COUSINS OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT. So we've been referring to ourselves as cousins. One funny thing is that people always ask us if we're siblings, because both of our names are Elder. So now we said, "Not siblings. We're just cousins." Hahaha! It's way funny. We've been loving it.

I was also informed by the other elders that one night, I was literally sleep talking in Malay. Awkward. I didn't even realize that I dreamed in Malay that much. I knew that every now and then, I mixed it into my dreams a bit, but I didn't realize I had entire dreams in Malay! So that was funny. I guess I really can speak Malay now! So that was funny!

David Chong made a nice little poem that I'll attach onto this email too. I don't know if it'll be as funny to everyone that's not in Malaysia, but I liked it.

Thanks for everything you all do for me! I'll send pictures later when I have wifi on my phone! Have a great week! You're all awesome!

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins

By David Chong

Twas The Night Before Christmas – Singapore Mission

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through Singapore Mission

For a good Christmas Dinner, all were wishing;

It was nearly January and nothing is free,

So there were no stockings hung and there was no Christmas tree

My companion was safely asleep in his bed,

While visions of investigators danced in his bed.

With the air-con on full, I had knelt down to pray,

In the hope that I’d sleep well before the next day,

When out as the car park there arose such a clatter,

I called from the bedroom to see what was the matter.

Away to the window, I crawled like a worm,

I had thought that the noise may have just been a storm.

The light from the skyscrapers overpowered the moon,

And made the city look as if it were noon,

When what to my wondering eyes did appear,

But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer,

With a little old driver so lively and quick,

I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick.

More rapid than motos his reindeer they came,

And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:

“Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now Prancer and Vixen!

On, Comet! On, Cupid! On Donner and Blitzen!

To the top of the apartments! To the top of the mosque!

Now dash away, before the Nepal guards see us, get lost!”

Like baptismal goals when confidence is high,

When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;

So past the LRT Station they flew,

With a sleigh full of gifts, and St. Nicholas too -------

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof

The prancing and panning of each little hoof.

As I unlocked the door, St Nick looked at me dimly,

“My job would be easier if apartments had chimneys!”

He was dressed all in fur, so, was sweating like mad,

As my face cringed, he asked me, “is it really that bad?”

A bundle of gifts he had flung on his back,

And he looked like a rice farmer with his big, heavy sack.

His dimples were merry, there was a twinkle in his eyes,

It was like when I had first eaten Roti Canai,

His droll little mouth was drawn up like bow,

And the beard on his chin was as white as snow;

The stump of a pipe, he had already lit,

So I had at the ready, a Word of Wisdom pamphlet.

He had a broad face and a flatulent belly,

He explained, “on the way here, I ate food in New Delhi.”

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,

And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.

A wink of an eye and a raise of his eyebrows –

I hoped this was him or there’s a strange man in my house.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

He put down some gifts and then turned, with a jerk,

“Where are the decorations, the tree and the star?”

I said, “like the wise men, I’ve come very far,

For a short time I’m here, and for a short time I’ll stay,

In the hope it affects someone in some good way,

And though I miss my family – I’ve a gift you can’t buy,

For I know I’ll be with them, even after I die!

So, when ignored and rejected I can still bear a smile,

Because I have a present better than the newest mobile.”

St. Nick looked at me, in his eye was a tear,

“You and I have a similar purpose here,

Sometimes I worry that my gifts can get in the way

Of the very special reason we have Christmas Day,

To remember the Savior, His kindness and love,

And when He came to the stable from way up above.

Dear missionary, thank you for spreading the word,

For bringing His lost sheep back into the herd,

And although it’s not the usual Christmas you envision,

You’ll be blessed from the Heavens for serving a mission.”

Next thing, he told me that he was in a hurry,

I looked and asked, “Hey, where’s my leftover fish-head curry?”

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,

And away all they flew, like the dawn of a thistle,

But I heard him exclaim ‘ere he drove out of sight,

“Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

Andrew

Talking with kids

Ian's family

Rosalina's shirts she gave us

Sister Rina

Some cute little girls

 

Lots of kids

 

Exchanges in Singapore