Elder Ben Mullins: Craziest Baptism Ever!

Recording from Elder Mullins and Elder Sorenson:

This was an awesome week! We were able to go to Singapore! That took 3 days. Before Singapore we were able to confirm Vincent. He’s the Chinese, Iban, Malaysian, awesome guy who got baptized on Sunday. He passed his baptismal interview. In Singapore we landed and Elder Sorenson met his favorite band manager. Then we moved on to visit Miss Wando. We met her at Dimond Deluca in Bukatonjon. She was Elder Sorenson’s second grade teacher. He lived in Singapore when he was in second grade. He went to an American school there. She bought us some really good food. It was super expensive, but it was way good. She was super kind and really easy to talk to. She reminded him of a mix between his Grandma and Nancy, a teacher, but Grandma style. It was really cool. She talked about the students in his class that he remembered. She told him what they were doing today. That was pretty awesome. The trials and tribulations of getting there was way good as well. We also got salad.

There is No Window!

After that we went to zone conference, then we had more zone conference. It was about baptizing converts. It was really good. We always have an activity. We had hamburgers and hot dogs with the zone and then went to Marina Bay. We went to the gardens by the bay. They’ve got amazing man-made, beautiful gardens. We saw a light show with these trees. There are lights attached to them and they light up in fancy combinations. Everyone lays down underneath the trees and watches them. They had music with the lights, like Harry Potter and Star Wars. President Simmons was taking selfies with everyone. It was awesome.

Elder McCusker, Tennant, Forsyth, and Mullins-always buddies

After that we ran over to the water show on the opposite side of the mall there. The mall there is so nice. It has the river going through, and it’s just beautiful! Then we walked around the Louis Baton Island. We went into this store. It’s called Frokmueller and they have about 500,000 singing watches. We walked in there acting like we were something, but we aren’t. We asked to see their most expensive watch. We saw this watch covered in diamonds with gold. It was way too fancy. Elder Sorenson was looking at it. He said, “I don’t think this gold would match my Lambourgini. Ha Ha! We had fun! I think they thought we were being serious. I was walking away, because Elder Florence thought we were going to get in trouble. I was like, “Whatever!” We were walking away at quite a distance trying not to laugh as we listened. The door there was about 4 times the size of a normal door. It was cool.

Elder Sorenson

Sunglasses--maybe not...

Marina Bay Trees

Then we rolled back to the mission home and played some basketball, then came back to Kuching. President didn’t ever give us interviews. That was kind of a bummer. We’ll Skype with him later. He was really busy.

Here’s something crazy: The Sisters had a baptism this last Saturday. It was the craziest baptism I’ve ever had in my entire life. It was Sister Mark and Sister Toro. They are upbeat and having a blast on their missions. We finished a lesson at the church on Saturday. It’s around 1:00 pm. We heard the Sisters outside as we were teaching our lesson. They are saying stuff like, “Oh my goodness! We just got here and we have to fill up the font! How do we do it? Oh, my goodness! We don’t have enough time!” We went and looked and the font is just trickling water. Almost nothing was coming out. It’s going to take about 7 hours to fill up the font. They’ve got about 3 hours until the baptism. Elder Sorenson called another missionary from another zone. He asked him how to fill up the font. He said go outside in the courtyard, turn left, open the hole, and turn the wheel to the right. There were about 17 wheels, and then pull the lever and there were 4 buttons on the left side. It was crazy! We started filling up buckets of water and throwing it in the font. We had to go get some dinner so we left. When we got back we saw the church steps covered in blood, the hose was still on, and the buckets are all over the ground. We called Elder Magelby, he’s a senior missionary, and asked what happened. When Sister Toro was filling buckets and pouring it into the font she stepped on a plastic grate. She fell through and tore up her ankle. In Malaysia there are gutters and plastic grates cover the gutters. Just her leg fell through and it tore off her skin to the bone. There was blood everywhere. It was quite scary, but she’s fine now. She got some stitches. They were in the hospital and the baptism was in 2 hours. The font was still not filled. We cleaned up the blood, put the buckets away and wondered what we were going to do. There was a member there named Jeffrey. He decided we should just keep filling up buckets. We were filling up buckets in the bathroom, 3 at a time. There is no way we were going to make it in time for the baptism. Then we saw a fire hose. We pulled it out and turned it on. It was blasting water. We were excited it was going to work. Everything is going to be great! It filled in about 30 minutes. We opened the door from the other side and the water was brown! It looked like somebody had pooped in the water. It was disgusting! The baptismal candidates showed up feeling a little nervous and excited. They were putting on their baptismal clothing. They asked where their missionaries were. We told them they were at the hospital. They asked about the font and we told them it wasn’t ready yet. We got an idea! The senior couple have a swimming pool at their condo complex. We talked to Elder Magelby and asked if we could use their pool for the baptism. He told us to call President Simmons. With approval from President Simmons we moved the baptism to a swimming pool. Elder McCusker and Forsyth got to go for a swim while baptizing. They came at 8:00 expecting to baptize at the church in the font and had no idea of what was happening until they got there. It was super eventful. The font got filled with disgusting water and we moved to a pool. We decided to prepare for our baptism this week we will be there really early and get that font ready so there’s no tribulation. It’s been awesome.