Hey Everyone!
This week was CRAZY. Tons of
awesome stuff happened, and I didn't write most of it down in my planner, so
I'm probably going forget a lot. BUT. That's ok, because it's in my journal
back at the house. It flew by, but tons of stuff happened.
Monday, we played soccer with
Elder Duckworth and his family and some of the branch, then ate some super good
food after. They took us to a way nice place.
We all got MEGA expensive stuff, and it ended up being 20 US dollars for
all of us to eat. Total. So that was super awesome. I can't wait to come back
here while I make USD so that I'm loaded. While we played soccer, Elder
Thompson ran into me while we were both running for the ball. He bumped my glasses up, and they CUT me.
Unbelievable. I had a pretty epic
scratch for a few days. I'll send a picture.
Tuesday was CRAZY. We live with 2 other elders. They serve in
the TJK branch. They got a call from one
of their investigators, Jackson. He told them that he and their recent convert,
Henry, were on some scaffolding at work, and the scaffolding collapsed and they
both fell. Henry from the 4th floor, and Jackson from the 2nd just the day
before. That is a LONG way to fall. We
dropped EVERYTHING and caught a bus to the hospital. We got there, and it
wasn't visiting hours, but they let the other two elders go in. Henry was
WRECKED, and hadn't awakened since he had hit the ground. They came out because the doctors didn't want
them to be in there, and we decided we should go get something to eat since we
had to wait an hour for it to be visiting hours. We went and ate lunch at a
super good Indonesian barbecue place. It
was super good. While we were there, we got a call from the zone leaders, and
it was super loud where we were, so we went outside and hung out in the gutter
so it wouldn't be as loud. I took some
pictures while we listened, then after, we took a squad picture. After that, we
went back to the hospital. Before I go on with what happened, you’ve got to
know some background information.
Right before Henry was baptized
he was challenged to find someone to share the gospel with. He prayed for an
opportunity, and a few days later, met Jackson. Little did Henry know, Jackson had actually
learned from Elders in Kuching a few years ago, but he moved to a place that
didn't have Elders, and he never heard from them again. Really quickly, they
became best friends, and they literally ALWAYS are hanging out. They're bros. Jackson and Henry would not know each other
if it weren't for the gospel. OK, back to the story.
We walked in the hospital, and
went over to Henry's bed. Jackson was sitting on a chair, asleep, right next to
the bed, and Henry was half awake. He had a huge gash on his forehead, and
scratches everywhere. He looked
terrible. Jackson had tons of scratches and stuff, but didn't look near as bad
as Henry did. Jackson woke up, and Henry
tried his best to be conscious. Henry still was hooked up to a million machines
and stuff, and had the "urgent" red paper thing above his bed. We
talked, and figured out the story. Henry's scaffolding fell at the top, and as he
fell, he hit a bar at the 3rd floor, then as he passed the second floor,
Jackson tried to catch him, but obviously, Henry was falling WAY too fast for
Jackson to catch him. He had 2 floors of momentum. Jackson tried so hard to save not only his
best friend, but his only friend, that he was willing to fall down with
him. Jackson slowed Henry down as much
as he could, then got dragged off the scaffolding with Henry right before his
floor of scaffolding collapsed. They
fell together. Henry landed on his head,
Jackson landed on his arm. After all this, they knew that Jackson had messed up
his arm pretty bad, and they weren't even sure about Henry. He had a brain
hemorrhage, but that was all they had checked for. So of course, they were
expecting broken bones and stuff, but didn't X Ray him yet. So. Henry and
Jackson were destroyed. We stayed through the visiting hours, and then left.
We went home, and deep cleaned
the house. I forgot to mention that it's officially Gawai, and literally 100%
of our members were gone Tuesday - Friday.
99% of the people in our area were gone too. They went back to their
longhouses and visited their families. We
decided that we should purge the house to use our time most effectively. We
picked papayas off of the trees in the back, took care of the banana trees, and
emptied all of everything in the house.
We moved beds, cupboards, EVERYTHING. Then it was visiting hours at the
hospital again, and we took off. Henry's nearest family was a 2-day car drive
away, so we felt obligated to be his family for the day. We biked over to the hospital this time (bus
was too expensive). We had to bike up
this MASSIVE hill to get to the hospital, but we made it, and went back in.
Jackson had been released from the hospital, but Henry was still there. He
looked a little better, but still not the best. He had been changed from urgent
care, so that was good. He wasn't hooked up to quite as many things. We talked with him, and gave him a blessing,
then left. It was a super crazy Tuesday.
We got home at 9:20 pm, and enjoyed our mega clean house.
Wednesday, the other elders
went to visit Henry in the morning, but we decided we could find more
productive things to do, so we studied while they went to the hospital. They
rode their bikes. During companionship
study, the other elders came back in. They had been gone for an hour and a
half. We asked what was up, and
apparently, in the morning, Henry woke up, and he was fine. His brain stopped
bleeding, he didn't have any broken bones when they X Rayed him, and he was
just bruised and scratched. UNBELIEVABLE RIGHT??? He had gone home! We all hopped on our bikes and cruised over
to see him at his house! We met his dad, who had driven 2 days to see his
son. Henry was totally normal besides
all of his scratches and bruises. It was a miracle. It was super awesome to see
how fast he got better. He fell from the 4th floor, and was in the hospital
less than 2 days. He only got 19 days
release from work... UNBELIEVABLE. The doctors wrote him a note that said that
he couldn't work for 19 days. 3 weeks of recovery from falling from that high.
Literally less than a week per a floor! Anyway. that was a HUGE miracle, and
Jackson is totally fine too. We were all pumped. Nobody had gotten back from
Gawai yet, so we walked around the flats trying to find as many people as we
could, but nobody was home. Literally nobody. It was a long day. We talked to a
lot more Muslims than normal though since they don't celebrate Gawai.
Thursday, we woke up, did
studies, and then I went out back to see if we had any papayas that were
ripe. There was this MASSIVE black snake
in our backyard! It was about 6 feet
long, and pure black. Super epic. I
watched it, and it just went over into our neighbors yard. Way cool though.
After studies and all that, we went and swept the flats! The flats are basically apartment buildings
that are 5 stories high, and don't have elevators. It's awful. Our entire area is literally 18 flats. That's
it. Nothing else. WAIT. That's a lie. There's a longhouse up on top of the hill
next to the flats. Other than that, nothing.
We took our brooms, and swept a few floors of the flats! They're
filthy... so it didn't really do much. We stopped after a while, and it turned
out, Elyzza was home! We went over there
and taught her and her family! It was a ton of fun! She had pink eye, so her
eye was always watering, and it made my eyes water just watching her eye water.
It was pretty funny.
Friday, TONS of branch members
came back, because at their longhouses, a lot of people died (honestly,
probably from alcohol poisoning), so they stopped celebrating Gawai early this
year. That was good for us! We got to
meet with a lot of people!
Saturday... Oh, we were
traveling home from the church, and this guy started waving us down. Elder
Mickelson thought he was drunk (that happens a lot), so he kept riding
past. I felt like if he was waving us
down, we should stop. We turned around
and talked to him. It turned out, his wife left him, and he wants something to bring
his family together. He felt like the
gospel was what would bring his family together, so we taught him about God (he
had no concept of God) and prayer. He ate it up. The only problem is, he lives
in the other Elders' area, so we passed him after that first lesson. but he's
WAY prepared. Too bad I don't get to teach him!
Sunday, we only had 1 hour of
church since there was hardly anyone there. After church, we studied, then met
with Alyster. His other older brother became a new investigator! He's super
cool, but I can't remember his name. I
think we can get him to start learning pretty regularly! That'll be good!
Alyster is doing great. He's still the funny awesome kid I met when I first got
here. During the lesson, it was crazy,
because I literally understood 100% of what was being said, and I taught a ton.
I'm actually getting better at Malay! I felt like progress was a little slow,
but it's actually way fast. I think I'll
be fine in a transfer when I have to train! That'll be tons of fun. After that,
we went to President Jalil's house, and his wife made us a MASSIVE dinner, and
invited all 4 elders. Since it was Gawai, President Simmons let us eat
together. Elder Thompson really likes the pork skin/fat dish, so he was going
ham on that. UNTIL he found a piece of the pig that had hair. Not human hair…literally pig hair coming out
of every pore. It looked disgusting. He
stopped eating it after he found that piece. After that, Elder Mickelson and I
went to Jessica and Henry's house (different Henry than the one previously
mentioned), and they fed us dinner again.
I had eaten so much at President
Jalil's that I felt like I was going to pop.
I forced down a little bit more, then felt like it was all going to come
up at any second because I had eaten so much, but I kept it down. Then we went
home and did reporting!
There was a ton of other stuff
that happened this week, but I can't remember it right now. Sooooo I guess
that's all I have for this week! Thanks for all the emails you send! I hope you
all have an awesome summer while I work super hard out here without a break!
Haha! It's not too bad though. I really enjoy it. Sungai Plan is a super
awesome area, and the members take care of us very well! It's great!
Love,
Elder Ben Mullins
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| Our banana tree |
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| Chillin' before church |
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| Sungai Plan sunset |
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| Listening to the zone on the phone |
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| People actually buy chicken heads! |
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| My glasses scratch |
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| The Squad |
