KK is SEDAP

Hey Everyone!

This week FLEW by, but it was a little bit harder to meet with people this week. I have no idea why. Every potential investigator we had was told or found anti information, so that was a bummer.  We didn't meet any new PI's, but we did end up finding one person and teaching them on the spot, and now they're pumped to learn. But Elder Johnson and I had a ton of fun and stayed positive!  We're pumped for this next week!

I can't even remember what we did on Monday... For P day, we did an escape room because we got a discount from doing one the week before, and it was super cheap.  We went, and it was way fun up until the very end. The last room in the escape room wasn't finished, so "the puzzle" was to just twist the door knob and it was already unlocked.  We were in the room for like a minute, then the worker just opened the door for us and said that.  It kind of got rid of the satisfaction of doing the escape room super quickly.

Tuesday, we had a district meeting on teaching simply, and it went really well. That's something our zone struggles with, so we're working on teaching everyone how to teach simply. It's kind of hard, because we need to make sure that we teach 100% simply so that they can see what we mean, but that means a lot more planning. Haha!  We did a good job, and they're all excited to teach simply now! So that's good! After that, we went to Beverly Hills, and knocked, and followed up with people. Ryan and Anna didn't meet us this week. They cancelled 3 appointments, so that was kind of annoying... They've kept good contact though, so I think we'll give them one more week before we maybe drop them for a while.

Oh, also. We were walking to a member's house, and this pack of dogs started following us and barking.  We just walked away like we normally do, but then this one dog got a little brave and started biting Elder Johnson's shoe/heel.  He was doing his best not to freak out so that the other dogs wouldn't attack us, but then I told him to kick the dog.  He tried, and missed, then all the dogs started snarling and stuff and bearing their teeth, then we went on a trying to kick the dogs' faces frenzy, and then they were just backing up a bit.  Then Elder Johnson said, "FIND A ROCK AND THROW IT AT THEM!"  I bent down trying to find a rock, and all the dogs thought I had picked up a rock, and they just booked it away.  Haha!  It was super easy to get them off of us, but it was pretty epic. Then 30 seconds after that, a little kid walked past us with his siblings, and he said, "Woah, your face is exactly like that one guy on the English class video I saw..." The kid totally recognized me from the English class video.

Wednesday... I can't remember. We met with Lodelin and taught the restoration, then ate some super good food after. Filipino's are super good cooks. So that's always awesome.  After them. I can't really remember what happened. I had to buy a new light for my bike since my other one finally broke from the time I flipped my bike a while ago. When I landed in the puddle, I must've hit a rock or something, because there was a crack in the light.  I taped it, and it lasted up until last Monday. SO. Now I have a new one! Thank goodness I'm in Malaysia!  Everything is mega cheap. Oh, we also learned that the bros all moved back to their village. They weren't planning on it when they left there.  Due to the Malaysian culture, they stayed for a week, then another week, then decided they just didn't want to come back!  Hurray for Malaysia!  That's ok, because now we're 100% in Beverly Hills!  Now we can really focus our efforts! It only took about 2 weeks to relocate areas. That shows how fast areas change! Oh, we also met this old dude who was way funny. Racist, says that running will keep you forever young AS LONG AS you eat bread. If you eat rice, no way. Running will do nothing. So that's pretty awesome. Haha!

Thursday, Elder Mickelson and I had MLC, and we got some super cool news! Our mission is going have smartphones sometime in January! Every missionary will have one. So that's cool! We're hoping we get some water proof phones. We didn't have to go to Singapore for this MLC. We just skyped in.  It was hard to understand everything that was being said, so that was kind of a bummer. Meetings are definitely better in person than over skype.  Next time it'll be in person. That lasted all day, so it was a loooong meeting.

Friday, we met with Mark and his mom again! They're really good. Mark takes full accountability, but his mom always offers excuses for him. Haha!  She takes full accountability for everything about herself. Here’s an example: We tell them that the fact that they didn't go to church last week was a sin, and that we want them to be able to receive the blessings that come from being obedient to that commandment. Mark says, "You're right. That was a sin, and we could have avoided it. I need to try harder next week to make it.", his mom says, "Oh Mark can't possibly make it to church! He works 15 hour shifts on weekends and is exhausted. So even if he wasn't working, he still wouldn't be able to make it! But you're right, I definitely sinned by not going to church. That was my fault. I need to be a better Christian and go to church next week." SO.  It’s kind of difficult, and pretty funny too. We call his mom Mamak, so that's probably what I'll call her from now on.  They're way cool. I took a picture with Mark.

Saturday, we had a ton of appointments with potential investigators fall through, but we DID get to meet with Bonis.  He's been studying up on the church on the internet. He's read some crazy things about our church.  He wasn't reading to prove us wrong, so he had honest questions on what he read, and most of it was lies, so it was super easy to convince him that pretty much everything he read about us wasn't true.  He's happy to keep learning! He didn't come to church, but we'll change that by next week!

Sunday... church was good! After church, we went and followed up with Mamak, and her daughter that lives on the other side of Sabah (the state we're in) was visiting! She was really shocked that two white people came to their door and started speaking Malay with her mom.  She was even more surprised when her mom was super happy and excited to see us. We love going over to say hi to Mamak, because she gets super excited when we come over, and gives us a bunch of drinks and treats and stuff.  She tries to convince us we need to go inside and take a seat and rest for a while. Too bad there isn't a male there unless Mark is home. Otherwise, we could've taught her all the lessons in a week. Hahaha! We also were walking around and saw this lady washing her car.  We introduced ourselves to her, and asked if we could help wash her car! She said there was no way she'd let us help her wash her car.  We told her we were from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  She asked where the church was, and she totally knew where it was. But then she said, "My friends always told me that was a Mormon church!"  We explained that we're Mormons, but she was super cool. (Forgot to mention her name was Irene.) We asked if she wanted to learn more about the Book of Mormon after talking a while longer, and she said sure.  We asked if she had 30 minutes right then, and she said she did.  We tried getting her to let us wash her car and teach her while she just sat down and listened, but she didn't like that idea.  We sat down and taught while she washed the car and listened. Haha! She asked a ton of questions, and ate it up!  We're really excited for her, but we'll probably have to pass her to the sisters since she's a woman, and she speaks English, and she's Chinese. So. There is literally no reason why we should be teaching her. But hey, that's ok. We're all on the same team.

That was a quick, watered down run down of my week! Sorry I didn't have tons of detail! I'm sending a picture of Mark and of Bonis. Soooooooo yeah.  I don't know how to specify which is which. Mark is older than Bonis! The picture of Mark is in a house.  KK is super awesome, and we're loving it here! There's been less rain this week, so that was good!  It also means it's hotter, but rain is no good either. Thanks for all the emails! I hope you have an awesome week!

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins

Bonis

Mark

Kids that live on top of the hill

Double Baptism!

Hey Everyone!

This week was CRAZY! So many things happened... Wow. I don't know if I can fit it all into one email... I'll give it a shot.

Monday, we all sat inside because Elder Mickelson and Johnson were sick. Elder Schellenberg and I went out at night time and taught a family home evening.  The members invited 5 non-members over (which all turned into new investigators), then we went home. So not much happened.  When we got home, the sink was leaking big time.  We couldn't use our kitchen sink all week, so we just ate out every single meal. That was terrible. Haha! We got it fixed today though, so everything is ok now.

Tuesday, I woke up, and I felt super sick.  I jumped out of bed, snagged a bowl from the kitchen, ran to the bathroom, sat down on the toilet, diarrhea AND throwing up. Same time. Double headed dragon. Sooooo that was pretty crazy. BUT. After that, I started getting better super quick, and by the end of the night, I was ready to go do missionary work, but I couldn't because the day was over. BUT. While we were inside, Elder Johnson and Elder Mickelson were all better, so they went out. Last Sunday, we had set an appointment with this super awesome guy name Ryan. I was so pumped. He seemed so solid, he had a little baby, and he was super interested. I was mega disappointed I wasn't able to go to his first lesson.  The other elders got back, and said that they heard his baby crying inside, but they didn't answer the door. They saw someone peek out of a window, but then they didn't answer.  I was super disappointed, because I was 100% certain that he would be interested. Anyway, fast forward to Wednesday.

Wednesday, we were over in the general area of Ryan's house (Beverly Hills), and I still couldn't believe that he didn't want to meet.  I proposed we go and knock his door again. The thing was, when we met him, we didn't write his address down. We just knew it was in the first block we knocked. So Elder Johnson took me to the door he knocked the night before, and I was pretty sure that I remembered the door, but then I realized that it was the door of a family that didn't want to learn. I remembered our conversation with them.  I said it was the wrong one, and we went back a tower, and went up the stairs, and I found the room!  We knocked the door, his wife answered, and told us to come back in a few hours and Ryan would be home.  We came back, and taught Ryan and Ana! And they are SOLID. It was awesome. They literally already act like members. I could totally see them being members. Ana is Filipino, and she asked for a Book of Mormon in English. We didn't have one, but we told her that we could stop by and drop one off tomorrow. Then she said, "Ok, so you can drop it off, then we can meet again and you can teach more, right?" So Elder Johnson almost clarified and said, "No, we just wanted to drop it off." But I cut him off, and said that it would be fine and we'd love to teach them again the next day. Hahaha! Here’s another miracle, we taught Andrew, and we had moved his date back a week, because he didn't feel ready, but in our lesson, he got a strong answer that being baptized as soon as possible would be best.  He asked if he could be baptized right then. Hahaha! We told him he'd have to wait until Saturday, but we could get him then.

Thursday, we went over to Ryan and Ana's again, taught them the Plan of Salvation, put them on date, and invited them to church. They had a family emergency on Sunday morning, so they went to the hospital instead of church, but we'll get them next week. Haha! But they're seriously WAY solid. Ryan said he was going to bring his older brother to our next lesson, and then said that he has some friends that live right next door to our church that he would try to bring to church.  We could get lots of referrals from Ryan. We'll see. Haha! Oh, and Ryan and Ana have a super cute little baby boy that's mega fat.

Friday... I can't remember what happened. Exchanges with Elder Schellenberg? I can't remember much. We mainly just worked on his contacting skills. It was a pretty fast day.

Saturday, we met with another super awesome family. Flashback to last Sunday again. We knocked a door, and nobody answered.  We had knocked the entire floor of doors, so we went down a floor and started knocking again.  An older lady poked her head over the edge above us and asked us if we had knocked on her door. She wore these glasses that made her eyes look huge, and she had hair like Edna Mode in The Incredibles.  We ran back up, talked with her, talked with her son, and they wanted to meet. SO.  We met them on Saturday. They are mega solid. They really understood the Restoration and why it was important. They couldn't go to church because we didn't give them a notice soon enough, but they said they'll come next week.  They were Mark and Mamak (mother in Malay). We just call her Edna, but when we're with her, we call her Mamak.  Haha! We're going to meet with Mark and his wife next week! Oh, Mamak/Edna is Mark's mom. Mark has a super cute little baby girl. I think Ryan and Mark's babies are the same age. So that's awesome. They're both new families, and way cool, and super prepared! We're mega pumped.

While we filled up the font on Saturday, we forgot to turn it off when we wanted to, so we ran down the stairs about 10 minutes later than we meant to, and guess what?  Instead of draining down the drain that's supposed to make it so that it doesn't overflow, it just dragged all the dirt from inside that pipe, into the font, and the font was about 2 inches from overflowing.  We turned it off, drained it, cleaned it, filled it up again. It was almost super bad, but we got it under control. After, the baptism was super good! I got to baptize Andrew and Inday! They were both so happy! I was too. Haha! They both bore awesome testimonies! Inday talked about how when we first started teaching her, she told us she read The Book of Mormon, but she hadn't really. I remembered when it happened, and I started laughing, because we totally knew she hadn't. It's not too hard to tell when someone hasn't read, but she thought she got away with it I guess! Andrew is bent on getting a branch started in his village. He said he's going to do everything he can to teach about the Book of Mormon over there. He's going to be a way good member too.

Sunday, Andrew and Inday were confirmed! We were super happy about that. We could hit our branch's baptism goal this year! so that'll be cool! We'll just have to make sure we get a few more baptisms! Oh, we were walking to a member's house in Beverly Hills, and we passed this guy that was working on his car, and his wife was standing off to the side. He looked Italian or something.  We went over and asked if we could help him out with anything, he spoke super good English.  His name was Carlos.  I asked if he was Filipino, and he said he was Malaysian.  He was super cool, way down to learn, and has a little baby too!  We could be teaching 3 couples that have a little baby that's about 3 months old! That'd be CRAAAAZY! We're super excited. We've knocked through about half of the first section of Beverly Hills, so that means there's still a TON left that we have to go through. Our area is really picking up though! Moving to the other side of our area was a super good decision!  We're really having a blast over in KK.

Elder Johnson and I will be staying together for another transfer!  This is transfer number 3! We're excited to keep going out and working hard! We both love KK, so we were both really glad we stayed! Haha! Thanks for all the emails you send! I really appreciate it! I hope you all have a great week! Also. The sisters I came out with just started their last transfer. WHAAAAAAAAT???

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins

Inday's baptism, Elder Johnson and me

Andrew's Baptism

Quick Week!

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was super awesome until about 5 last night! Elder Johnson and Elder Mickelson have the flu. They're wrecked.  Our mission nurse said that Elder Schellenberg and I will probably get it too since we've been with them all day. SO. That's awesome. Pray I don't get the flu. She said we probably already are infected though, so that's awesome. I don't know how those two got sick before us. Maybe they're just weak. Haha!

Monday, we went and did an escape room, and it was tons of fun. It was like an upside-down thing, so they nailed everything to the ceiling. It was tons of fun. The two people working were both Muslim, but one wasn't wearing a hijab (the hood thing Muslim women wear), so we had to wait 3 minutes for a lock to reset.  She was in there helping us, so I started contacting her in the middle of the escape room.   She ended up being Muslim, soooo cannot.  It was pretty funny. Those two girls literally just watched us it the entire time we were there. They were laughing and laughing.  It was kind of awkward though.

Tuesday, I'll be honest, I can't remember what we did, but at night time we flew out to Sandakan for exchanges! We got there safely, and then ate dinner and slept.

Wednesday we had exchanges, and it was lots of fun. Elder Curtis has been out for less than a transfer, and I went with him. I think the funniest thing that happened was we were sitting on a bench in a park doing language study. Our language study stuff was all over the bench, and we were speaking Malay together. Before I go on, my objective in this exchange was to show Elder Curtis that you have to talk with every person you see so that he would realize there are actually a lot of people in his area. So anyway, we were doing language study, and he looked up and saw a girl about 15 feet away on a different bench.  He asked,  "Do you think we should talk to her?"  I told him now that he noticed her, OF COURSE we had to talk with her.  It was going to be mega awkward, because we had all of our stuff out, and we were just going walk over to her, talk with her, then come back and sit down where we were, 15 feet away.  We started planning how we would make it less awkward, when she stood up and started speed-walking away. I have no idea why.   I looked at Elder Curtis, and I said, "We just messed up. If she would have accepted the gospel, that was a HUGE sin. Even if she wouldn't have, that was still a big sin."  We looked at each other for a split second, then shoved all of our language study material in our bags as fast as we could, hopped on our bikes, and chased after her as fast as we could.  We chased her for like 3 or 4 minutes weaving between cars.  We FINALLY caught up with her, and it turned out she was Muslim, so we couldn't even talk with her anyway. LAAAME. Buuuut I made the point that we need to talk with people as soon as we notice them, and if we don't, we need to repent. It was super funny. I think that'll be one of the stories Elder Curtis tells for the rest of his mission. I think it made a really good impression on him of how to do missionary work.

Thursday, we woke up mega early and flew back, planned a ton, met with Andrew and went over the baptismal interview questions, and did a testimony check. He was great. We also met with Syirus, and he's still doing great. He's super smart.  It's fun to teach someone who’s really educated. Andrew and Syirus are some of the most educated people we're teaching right now.

Friday, I went on exchanges with Elder Mickelson. It was tons of fun to be back with him and teach with him. It was weird having a companion that was really good at speaking Malay. I didn't even have to worry about correcting the Malay or simplifying what he said or anything. It was great. I enjoyed it a lot!

Saturday... Hmmmm. Oh! Inday and Andrew had their baptismal interviews! And they both passed!  I'm way excited about that! Andrew will be baptized in 2 weeks, and Inday will be this Saturday! They've come a long way since I've been here! So that was awesome to see! Other than that... I can't remember. I know our plans all fell through.  We still had a bunch to do, but I can't remember what it was... Haha

Sunday, we didn't have any appointments after church, because everyone went back to their villages this week. Over the last two weeks or so, I kept having feelings that we should go door knocking in this certain area with a bunch of flats, but I kind of ignored it, because everyone knows door knocking isn't effective, right? Well, we talked with some members on how they were found, and a lot said door knocking.  They told us that nobody in this mission had knocked doors in this MASSIVE place of flats in about 5 years, so we decided to take it up.  We found 3 super cool families, plus 3 individuals that were super interested to learn! So we're meeting with them tomorrow! I'm super excited for that! It was really fun too, because we got some drinks and food as we knocked doors  from random people that were happy we were "spreading the good news". So that was cool.

It was a great week. This next week is the last week of the transfer, so we'll see what happens next week! I'm thinking I'll stay again. I hope so! Haha! This week has a ton of potential, and I think our success this week will decide whether Elder Johnson and I are companions next transfer or not! I hope the sickness doesn't get in the way! So far, I'm good! Thanks for all your emails! I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins

Some guys fishing near the ocean

Elder Curtis

Kampung

Lots of cats

Cute puppies

Elder Johnson

Cutting my bike lock