Gilaness (Crazy)

April 29, 2018

Hey Everyone!

This week was really good! We met tons of great people, we had fun, and worked hard! The week went by super-fast, and I can't believe it's Monday again. That was quick. I'll give you the rundown of the week.

Monday morning, we woke up and sent Elder Forsyth to the airport. He said bye and went through security. Pretty crazy. When I was his companion in Puchong for 6 months, I didn't think that the end would ever be here for him. It just seemed so far away. But it's here! Now he's just brother Evan. After that, I can't really remember what we did. Emailing, shopping; all that good stuff. At night time, we went and visited one of the other branch's members, because we were in a tri-companionship and had to cover both areas. Then we ran over to one of our members after, and while we were walking to the house after parking our bikes, I nearly stepped on this HUUUUGE scorpion! It was massive!  We took some pictures. It was wayyyy big. Then we went up to the members house and shared really quick before going.

Scorpion right outside of Franklin's house (Almost stepped on it!)

Tuesday was good too. We taught Peter after district meeting, and he's still really solid. He's planning on getting baptized on the 12th of May! After that, we hurried to Mike and Milani's house to teach Milani. When we started teaching him, we noticed someone in the other room, so we asked who it was, and he said it was Mike's girlfriend.   We asked her if she wanted to follow, and she did, then she ended up loving it!   She's super solid! We're excited for her!  After that we went to Jordie's house, because he lives really close, and taught him. He told us that he could sing pretty well, but I was thinking this is like a "my mom said I'm a good singer" type thing.  He actually turned out to be a really good singer! He's going to record an album with his band in a while he said; like a week or so. Haha! So that was cool.

Wednesday was good! We dropped Elder McCusker off to get his new companion at the airport, and we went finding. We found lots of new people, but nobody that really stands out.  The highlight of the day was when we met with Vincent and Natasha's family. We went to teach them and read the scriptures together! When I first was in KK, Alana, Natasha's sister, said that the thing she wanted most was to have her family be active in the church and come closer together.  Just looking around their table yesterday as we read, (Alana was there too) made me realize that her wish came true! Her entire family is active and strong in the church! The spirit was really strong, and they all were so happy.  We just had a really good time reading the scriptures. It was fun.

Thursday was really good. We met with Sylvester and reviewed the Baptismal questions one last time before his interview.  We also met with Raymond and Tracy. They're suuuuuper solid; probably the most solid investigators we have right now. We taught about the spirit and how they can feel it more in their lives. It was good.

Friday we had an appointment with a referral. We didn't know who sent the referral or anything. It just appeared on our app.  He said he wanted a Book of Mormon.  We went to the appointment.  His name is Felix, and it turns out he's actually from KK!   I got to use some of my Sabah slang when I was teaching! That was fun.  He loved the Book of Mormon and the Priesthood and prophets!  We're really excited for him! He's really seeking the truth. We're gonna help him find it! At night time, we went over to JiJe and Franklin's house for dinner, and helped Franklin prepare his lesson for Sunday.

Saturday was good. At night time, we had a baptism for one of the Sisters’ investigators, Erika! She’s an 11-year-old little girl, and super funny.  She asked if Spiderman, (me) could Baptize her. Haha!   I got to baptize her! That was cool. She was so happy after! It made me happy to see her smiling and bouncing around.  After the baptism, we decided we needed to go out and use the last hour and a half of the day to find someone that could go to church.  We went ham finding and met Winstan and Joselin. Winstan is this huge guy and Joselin is just normal size. Haha!   We taught them.  They loved it and bought us dinner because we hadn't eaten yet, because we were trying to find people.  They came to church the next morning! They're super solid too! They had a 12-hour notice for church, and they freed up their schedule enough to come!

Sunday was good! Lots of people came to church.  President Simmons went to our branch, and he was pretty impressed. This branch had a long history of missionaries that didn't really work that hard, and the last time president Simmons came, there were 14 people that showed up to sacrament meeting (including him and the 70 that followed), the branch president was 20 minutes late, and it was absolutely awful.  That was 3 or 4 months ago. This time was crazy! Everyone seemed to just come!   The chapel was completely filled! There were like 130 people there.  There were all these men that I had never met who just decided to come too!  It looked like elder Sorensen and I exploded this branch and it would have to split soon, but it was just a good week. Haha, it was awesome though! Nearly 10 times the number of people coming 4 months later! It was awesome. I think President Simmons was impressed. During zone conference and when we met the person who’s going to replace President Simmons, President kept saying, "Yeah, we've been... Mildly impressed with these two elders and the energy they've given this branch over the past few months." Hahaha, it was so funny. He didn't want us to think he thought too highly of us, but still recognized our work. He's really happy with the work we've gotten done.  It's definitely a lot more fun to have all these people at church than it was to have 45 people. Kuching is just a great place.

After church, we met with Raymond and Tracy! They're so cool. They invited us to go over to Tracy's house for Gawai!  We'll probably be going over there and meeting her whole family at the end of May or beginning of June! That'll be tons of fun!  We taught them the Word of Wisdom. Hahaha, it was so classic. We were like, "so you can't drink alcohol, smoke, do illegal drugs, drink coffee," and then Tracy says, "COFFEE?!?" and we said, "Yep! And tea too!" then she said "What???" so we told her she could drink herbal tea, and she said "how about black tea?" "nope" "yellow tea?" "nope" "green tea?" "nope" "red tea" "nope. Just assume you can't drink it unless it's chrysanthemum tea." hahaha! She was in shock for a second, but then we talked about addiction and stuff, then she was OK with it. She's ready to follow the Word of Wisdom now. Raymond is the only Iban I've ever met who isn't a member of the church who quit smoking and drinking.  He did it by himself! So that's crazy. They're golden. Ready for baptism. And the best part about it is Tracy is super shy and will never pray with her voice for us.  We begged and begged. We tried so hard, and she said no. But then I got her.  I had shown her pictures of Alexis before, and Tracy was loving that I had a girlfriend, and then I told her "It's Alexis's birthday today! You HAVE to say the prayer with your voice so that she has a good birthday present from you!"   Guess who said the closing prayer out loud? Tracy!

That was my week! 

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins

Elder Sorenson and Elder Mullins

Cat perch