Elder Ben Mullins: The Breath of Puasa

June 3, 2018

Hey Everyone!

This week was really interesting. There seemed to be a clash in cultures. The Malays (Muslims) are all fasting for Ramadan, and the Dayak people (Ibans, Bedayus, Melanaus, and basically every other tribe, aka the Christians) are stuffing themselves every day and getting wasted because of Gawai. So that's pretty cool. It's been a crazy week, because there have been almost 0 Dayak people, so no Christians, nobody that we can actually talk with. But we made it work!

I'm trying to remember what we did this week... Monday we went over Brother John's house, and he invited us to come back over on Saturday and eat with him and his family for Gawai. His neighbors who are former investigators invited us for Thursday. So we went to both! They gave us tons of food, forced us to eat tons of food and drink a lot of soda. It was good. I thought I'd get used to eating chicken skin by the end of my mission, but it's still kinda gross. The texture is really weird. It has a lot of flavor, but it's just hard to eat... The actual meat was really good!

I can't remember everything that we did, sooooo I'm just gonna list some events. We met with a few potential missionaries and got them to open their hearts to serving a mission. One quit her job so that she could start preparing. We got another guy to stop going to school early (he goes to one of those school where you stay all week and come back on the weekends) so that he could make it to church. We started filling out one's mission papers online, and the other one we got to give 5 referrals to the sister missionaries! So that was crazy. We had a ton of success with them this week. All 4 of them are planning on going on missions now. We also talked with a person from a different branch about setting up an interview with her branch president! So. Lots of missionaries are about to come out of Kuching. That'll be way good.

There was a baptism Saturday, and the little girl asked me to baptize her, so I did! It was a really good service, and more people showed up to that than to church! More on that later. Honestly, I have no idea why all the little girls that get baptized ask me to baptize them. I think they just don't know anyone else or something. I always say hi, so they know me a little bit. I'll have to start getting members to be nice to them instead of me. Haha

Sunday rolled around, and there were 5 members at church, 2 friends of the girl that got baptized, and then the girl that got baptized. So 15 minutes in, there were 6 members instead of 5! Haha! There was just nobody because of Gawai. We blessed the sacrament, and when I broke the bread, I just broke it into normal pieces, knelt down, said the prayer, and then stood up and gave the tray to the person that is going to pass (a family walked in like 2 minutes before the sacrament, so there were like 15 people or so at this point). Elder Sorensen gave his tray to the other one that was going to pass. I looked at his tray, and he literally broke two pieces of bread into like 10 pieces. So I looked at him, and he just said that he was hungry because it was fast Sunday. Hahaha, anyway, the members were really surprised to get a piece of bread that big for the sacrament. I guess it's ok because there was easily enough for everyone in the room... Buuuuut I dunno. ANYWAY. There was only 1 hour of church.

We called a lot of investigators on the phone while they were at their longhouses. Iit was fun, because they'd tell us about what was happening and stuff. Jordie video called us to show us his band he was going to be singing with. Haha, Jordie is actually a really good entertainer. It was fun to see him do karaoke at the church Gawai party.

Sunday night, Raymond and Tracy got back from their longhouse, so we went over there with the senior couple to teach them about preparing to go to the temple. They've made a goal to go next June! They're super excited to go, and Elder Sorensen should be finishing his mission at the same time they're going, so he's thinking he might go with them! How cool would that be? Anyway, they're super solid, they didn't drink a drop of alcohol during Gawai, and it was a ton of fun to teach them.

Raymond and Tracy

I honestly have no idea what else to talk about this week. Lots of stuff happened, but I can't really remember a lot of it. We got invited to a few Gawai parties, and everyone was absolutely wasted at them except for the members. Alcohol stinks. Really bad. But the food was super good. Ibans looove karaoke, so it was really funny to hear them sing.

I just got a call from President Simmons saying that I'm going back to Puchong for my last transfer!!! WOOHOOOOO!!! I'm so excited! My favorite area for my last 6 weeks! It's gonna be great! I miss KL a lot. I miss the people, and now I can speak Malay! Haha! It'll be fun to speak with all the people that didn't have the best English! I'll be able to see what they're really like now! Ahhhh I'm way excited. This transfer will be the best transfer of my mission hopefully! Haha! Oh, my companion is an Elder Housely. I'm not sure if that's spelled correctly. I've never met him since he's served in West Malaysia his entire mission (he's like 4 months out), but he seems like a really nice guy, and I've heard good things about him! I don't know much about him though!

I love you all! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins