Elder Ben Mullins: Ups and Downs

Hey Everyone!

This week was super full of ups and downs, I guess I can explain a bit.

Monday, we went over to see a new family we're teaching. Minah, Marajin, Marianah, Venerah, Yohannes, Brandon, and Camilia. They are a super awesome family, and we had a super awesome lesson. The dad got home right as we were closing the lesson. He saw the Book of Mormon, and was super curious about it. I gave the watered-down version of the Book of Mormon to him, he was pumped to read it, and we got a return appointment with the entire family for Thursday. I guess I'll just skip all the way to Thursday. We went back Thursday night, and Marianah was acting kind of weird when we walk up to the door. She says her parents went back to kampung, and we couldn't meet that night, and all of her siblings were hiding in the back room. Sooooo we kinda thought for a moment. We decided maybe her dad had gotten some anti information or something, so we visited a member that lives really close to them, and told her to invite Marianah over to read the Book of Mormon with her Friday. Fast forward again…we went back Saturday, and the member tells us that Marianah gave back 3 of the 4 Book of Mormons we gave her family. She kept one for herself, and said her parents don't want to learn anymore, and then they just talked about life. Fast forward to that night, the member brought Marianah to our Thanksgiving party, and they had tons of fun. It was way good. SO. I thiiiiink Marianah will get baptized, buuuuuuut her family might take a while longer. So. Up and down for sure there!

Tuesday... Let's see. We met with a lot of people, had a good district meeting, ate some American food that was super good at an American restaurant. The only problem was that there were all these American things like baseball and football and Elvis and saxophones and trumpets and stuff, and all these things that just SCREAMED America, and then... There was a picture of the Beatles right in the middle of everything. Just one. I don’t know... Maybe everyone else thinks the Beatles are an American thing, buuuuut I kind of got the British idea from it instead of America. SO. That was weird. The burgers were really good! Best burger I've had in East Malaysia for sure! I can't really remember much from Tuesday.

Wednesday, we met a lady named Linda! She seemed waaayyyy down to go to church, and she was really cool. Sunday came, and she didn't answer her phone when a member called to make sure she was still coming to church. Sooooo we'll have to try to get her next week. She seems pretty solid! She's been reading the Book of Mormon every day! We found a lot of people that we're excited to meet with too!

Thursday, Ryan called and made an appointment, then cancelled for the millionth time. I told him that if he set appointments with us and cancelled, he was wasting God's time. I asked him if he was actually interested to learn, and gave him every possible way of saying he didn't want to learn. He thought for a second, then said that he and his family really wanted to learn and it was important to them. I told him to talk with his wife and find 30 minutes in their week that they for sure 100% without a doubt could meet with us, then give us a call. Hopefully they give us a call with a real appointment this time! We met with Andrew, so that was fun. Our appointment at night time with Marianah and her family didn't go through. Haha! OH! AND. The power went out, so our Thanksgiving consisted of hanging a bike light on the ceiling, and playing cards while drinking Malaysian hot chocolate and eating Tim Tams. At night time, no air conditioning was killer. It was the hottest night of my mission. No fan, no air conditioning, no nothing. BLAZING HOT. But we all made it. It’s probably the worst I've ever slept on the mission. Even the tile in the house was hot.

Friday... Let's see. We went over and met with Inday and Lodelin, had some super good lunch there, advertised for English Class, and then ran around trying to group up people for our Thanksgiving party on Saturday. After that, we ran over to English Class, and there were tons of people, and we had a ton of fun in class. The English Class this last week was about 10x larger than it has been since I've gotten to KK! So that was tons of fun! We're starting to gain some momentum with it, and the sisters are getting tons of investigators out of it! So that's cool. Mostly women come, and sisters teach sisters, and elders teach brothers. SOOOOO that's kind of a bummer, but we'll get someone eventually.

Saturday, everything built up to our Thanksgiving party. We played basketball while some members barbecued the food, then it started dumping rain. It put out their fire, and everyone was just sitting inside. Elder Johnson and I rounded up the kids and played some games with them for a while, helped set everything up in doors, and had some SUPER GOOD FOOD. All the women in the church brought their friends. So that was cool, except all their friends were girls. So the sisters loved all the new investigators they got! Hahaha! We're super excited for the sisters if you couldn't tell! They're going to get tons of baptisms, so everyone is pumped. Now we’ve just got to get a ton of referrals from the men and see if we can get them to match all the sisters. The party was a success for sure though.

Church was great on Sunday, and Andrew followed us the entire day after church. We got hit by a ton of rain, but he took it and kept following. So that was awesome! He really wants to be a missionary, and says he has to start following us more so he can learn how we do missionary work! Haha! He also talked to us about how he never had friends in his other church, but he has lots in this church, and he thinks that's super awesome. So that was great! We mainly visited people that weren't at church, and asked why, and committed them to church this week!

That was my week! I really enjoyed it! I love KK! It's tons of fun, and every week is better and better! Sorry I didn't include everyone we taught! I'm running out of time! Haha! So next week I'll try to include more! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins