Elder Ben Mullins

Hey Everyone!

This week was great! We stayed super busy the whole week, so that was awesome! We get to watch General Conference next week, so I'll let you know about that next week! All the branch members were talking about the talks at church today, so I hope it's as good as they say it was!

Monday was awesome. Most of you know that I like shopping at Deseret Industries (DI). There's this place by the Pasar Seni LRT station that's basically a DI where they try and rip you off because you're white, but then you can haggle them down to like 3/4 the price that it was, and it's all fake stuff that's super cheap. So I got a G Shock watch for less than 1/10th the price that a real one would be. The watch isn't very high quality, but it looks exactly like a G Shock! So that was super awesome! Elder McCusker bought a pair of cork flip flops, and the guy originally tried selling them to him for 120 ringgit, but he got it down to 35 ringgit. It was way funny, because he started walking away, then the guy called him back and said 35 ringgit was ok.

Tuesday... Let's see. I forgot my planner, so I can't remember exactly what we did every day. I know we saw this super funny horse statue that I took a picture of. There are some houses here that are mansions, and this horse statue was at one of those houses. We hiked up a lot of hills that day when we were looking for less actives... But we had lots of success in a super short amount of time, so that was super awesome.

Wednesday was sort of rough, but I can't remember what we did. I just remember we got 1 potential investigator, and that was the only number we got all day. Some days, people just don't want to talk. If they do talk, they aren't interested. Normally those days are Wednesdays and Thursdays. I don't know why, but Wednesday was a little slow. I forgot! We put a girl named Mars on date for the middle of next month, then asked where she lived as we were leaving, and she lives in Subong's area. We put her on date then passed her to the sister missionaries. So we did all the work. If Mars gets baptized, I'll just kinda take half credit for that... Haha, just kidding.

Thursday was Zone Conference so President and Sister Simmons flew out, and all the missionaries in the KL Zone went to PJ Chapel to meet them! And it lasted ALL DAY. We woke up at 5 AM, took the LRT over to the chapel, then trained for a lot of hours. Then we went to KL Sentral (Everything here is in Malay. That's why central is spelled wrong.) and did a picture scavenger hunt. I'll have Elder Forsyth send the pictures. My goal was to make the pictures look as funny as possible, so I hope you like them all! Talking with President Simmons was fun, and it was great meeting all the other missionaries in the zone! I feel like I actually know some missionaries now! Oh, random thing that happened a lot on Thursday. Everyone thought I wasn't an English Elder because I'd keep using Chinese words here and there and Malay ones instead, because it's fun to practice Chinese, and Malay words sound really funny. So everyone kept asking me if I was a Chinese Elder or a Malay Elder. That made me excited! Haha! Oh, my favorite word to say in Malay is sedap. It means delicious. It just sounds so funny... I love it!

Friday... Let's see. It wasn't a great day for numbers either, because nobody was really interested. At least they all talked with us. It's terrible when you get 10 potential investigator's and none of them are interested when you call! We like the straightforward rejection instead of the over-the-phone rejection. It saves time. We advertised for English Class, and that was way fun. People just love seeing a bunch of white people walking down the road at a green light holding signs that say free English class in the middle of a huge traffic jam! We had this Tamil taxi driver ask us if we were the Mormons. So that was funny. I love meeting people that know the Mormons. Unless they're from the Philippines. Normally they aren't as interested if they're from there. But they're super nice people! If they haven't heard of the Book of Mormon, they're super willing to listen! ANYWAY. At English class, I was bored, so I started drawing pictures on the whiteboards. I took pictures and I'll send them!

Saturday... Hmmm. Oh, we visited Winson again! He's super funny. I love talking with him. Then we found a super nice dog after visiting him, so we took a picture. Before we visited Winson, we took George to the church for his baptismal interview. Brother Kennedy let us use his laptop (the zone leaders didn't want to make the hour and a half LRT ride down to Puchong) to Skype, and he passed the interview! He'll be baptized at the end of the transfer! We're all really excited. He'll be the first male baptism for Puchong in quite a while.

Saturday night, we visited the Tan's. There are a few last names that are super common in Malaysia, and Tan is one of them. We visited Ritcher Tan and her boys. We figured out one is going to serve a mission, and we convinced the other that he should come to church! So that's cool. They're a less active family, but Jason, the one that's planning on serving a mission, comes to church probably every other week. So that was awesome to learn that he's planning on serving!

Sundays are always great! And it was fast and testimony meeting, so it was even better! There's this kid named Miguel that's 8, and he went up and chastised the entire branch for not repenting enough. It was awesome. Then he ran back down and hugged his mom because it was terrifying to speak in front of so many people. He did an awesome job! I'll take a picture with him next week!

We went contacting for about an hour after teaching a recent convert and getting our studies in, and it was really productive. We had 14 potential investigators, and reporting is Sunday night. Our goal was 25, so we were kinda freaking out, because the ZL's really care about our numbers. In just tan hour, we talked to 7 people, and 6 of them were really interested to learn more! What a miracle! God really does bless those that are willing to work! It was a great day of contacting, and a great day of teaching! We got to 20 PI's so that was another blessing. 20 was only falling short by 5 instead of 11. Room for improvement, but not too bad! Haha! After contacting, while Elder Forsyth was reporting, the rest of the Elders and I watched the April 2016 General Conference since we can't watch the new one for another week. We listened to some talks that explained what sustaining meant and why we sustain our prophets and apostles. So that was cool! It's a privilege to sustain President Monson! You're saying you'll support him in his calling, not voting on whether he's prophet or not.

This week went by so fast, and we're already halfway through the transfer! I can't believe it! I feel so new to Puchong! Actually, I AM so new to Puchong. It's awesome here, and the members are great! I asked if it felt like I had only been here for 2 and a half weeks, and they said that when they thought about time, it seemed like I'd been there for a week, but if they went off of how well they know me, it seems like a lot longer than 2 and a half weeks. So positive reviews from everyone for me! That's good! Thanks for supporting me while I'm on my mission! Have a nice week everyone!

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins

The mall

Sunglasses shop

Book Store...look what we found!

Brother Kennedy and Shaan

Elders taking a break

Book of Mormon in the jungle

Elder Forsyth and me tracting

A mansion with a random horse statue on top

Forsyth and me

Cool buildings in Puchong

The city

Fountains

Elder Forsyth's cool laser

A variety of Book of Mormons

We found a cute dog

A cool shot of the laser

The LRT

I was bored in English class so I drew this

More of my artwork

Pasar Seni

A selfie with President Simmons

A roach we found in the church

I've decided that Puchong is AMAZING. I REALLY hope that I stay here for a few transfers. So much happens every week, and it's way fun to meet people here. The branch members are way awesome, and I've loved every minute of this week! The people here are super funny. In Singapore and Malaysia, they speak very strangely. They say la and lo and mei and other stuff after each sentence. They all mean different things. So I love listening to the people in Puchong speak, because they use the words way more than they did in Penang. It just sounds so funny... I'll try and get in the habit so you can hear what it sounds like when I get back from my mission.

Last Monday, we just shopped and slept. It was great. Elder Forsyth set a goal to have 5 potential investigators by the end of the day, and we only proselyte after 6. So I thought it'd be impossible, but I decided we could shoot for 5. We went out, and actually got 6! So in 3 and a half hours, we found 6 people that were willing to set up an appointment and meet with us. That was a miracle.

Tuesday was kind of rough, but not bad. We only found one person, but we had a super awesome district meeting, and taught a lesson. When we were just talking to people, I said hi to this Chinese guy walking by, and then instead of responding, he just stuck out his hand and tapped my stomach, then kept walking. I was shocked. So after like 5 seconds of me being speechless, I just looked at Elder Forsyth and said, "Did you see what just happened?" Then he asked if that was my first 'belly tap', and I said yeah. Haha, I guess belly taps happen every now and then here. So that was funny!

Wednesday, Elder Forsyth and I were going to visit Ariz, a less active, while he was at work. We passed this Chinese guy while we were walking to Ariz, and all of a sudden, I just turned around and started talking with him. It was SO WEIRD. I didn't even mean to turn around and talk. I don't really remember what I said, but he went from saying that he wasn't interested when I first talked to him, to being super interested and wanted to meet really soon! He doesn't live near Puchong, so some other missionaries get him, but the Spirit really REALLY told me to go talk with him. So that was an AWESOME experience! The church is true.

Before that experience though, we taught Ashley, the girl that we found Saturday night and then went to church. She's great, but later in the week, she told us she might not be able to come to church anymore because of work. Hopefully we can convince her that she needs to come to church. She's an awesome investigator. Between that and our visit with Ariz, the Chinese Elders got caught at a police checkpoint, and when they showed copies of their passports, the police said they needed someone to come give them their passports or else they'd go to jail, so they called us. We dropped everything and ran home. We were super far away, so it took about 45 minutes. When we got home and grabbed their passports, they called and said the police let them go. Apparently some old Tamil dude came and somehow convinced the police to let them go. They don't even know why. They just know this old Tamil guy came and gave them back their passport copies and said to go before the police changed their minds. Pretty weird.

When we visited Ariz, he was super excited to see us. He made us some fruit juice earlier. He poured it in two cups for us, and we both took one and started to drink. Guess what it was? Watermelon juice. That was it. He literally just threw some watermelon in a juicer and then gave it to us. Most of you probably know that I REALLY don't like watermelon, but Ariz is such a nice guy, and he was so enthusiastic about giving us the juice... So I choked an ENTIRE CUP of WATERMELON JUICE down. One of the hardest things of my mission. But I survived. I almost started to gag, but held it back.

Thursday, Elder Forsyth and McCusker went to give someone a blessing unexpectedly, so Elder Jones and I were on exchanges! We merged our plans together, and taught a guy named Simon, and then taught Ariz right after. While we were doing that, the other Elders were leaving IOI mall, but there was a car parked so none of the cars could leave the parking lot! They decided to try to fix it, and got out of Sister Saffron's car (she's an awesome member), and then started trying to lift the car. Two people came and started to help. Then one HUGE Tamil guy came and lifted one side of the car while the four of them lifted the other side. They moved it onto the curb and then everyone was cheering and freaking out and stuff. Haha, they were pretty much superheroes. I wish I could've been there!

Friday, we advertised for English class, and there was a huuuuge traffic jam, so we'd just be between all these cars handing out fliers while the light was green, because none of the cars were moving. Before I go on, I have to mention that our goal for each week is to get 25 potential investigators, and we can do that by getting a name and phone number even if it's for English Class. The Chinese Elders were at 13, and needed to hit 25 by Sunday night. That's a lot of work to do in a couple days. ANYWAY. By the end of advertising, they got 14 potentials! So they met their goal, we had already met ours, and we were super pumped. The zone leaders here are all about the numbers, so we were glad we made our goal early.

Saturday morning, we woke up at 5:00, put on our running clothes, and went to run/walk a 5k! It was a charity event, and one of our members just signed us up for it. When we got there, we tried talking with people about the gospel, but nobody was really interested. Since we were all American, everyone wanted to take pictures with us! So I'm pretty sure I took 30 pictures with 30 random people while we were doing that. Planting seeds! After that, we went to PJ so Elder Forsyth could baptize a girl he taught. I got to meet Elder Rich! He's from American Fork! And his companion is Elder Fogth, so we got to have a little reunion! Elder Fogth is awesome. I was really happy to see him. The baptismal service was great, they had lots of bread after to eat, and then we rushed over to our young adult branch activity. The young adults met at Brother Shaan's (he's getting his mission call soon by the way) house, and had a barbeque! They were supposed to bring friends that weren't members, but none of them did, so we just got to know the members better! The young adults here are awesome. I talked to a guy named Darry who got back from his mission in Hong Kong a year ago. He's hilarious, and he taught me how to say la and lo and mei correctly. So that was cool.

Sundays are always great! We had church, taught Roman, then met with Josh. Josh has been investigating since about two months ago, and Elder Forsyth found and has taught him all the lessons. Well, we thought his name was Josh. During the last hour of church, Elder McCusker sent us a text that just said, "HIS NAME IS GEORGE". We had no idea what he was talking about, so we talked with him after church, and apparently Josh's name is George. His Liberian accent makes it sound like Josh when he says George, but he's a super nice guy and didn't correct the Elders when they met him. So Josh is now George, and he learned the last lesson he needed to for baptism! So he's gonna be baptized on the 8th! We're super excited!

Later at night, we taught Rama. Rama has a lot of things about him that make him really hard to teach. One is, he's obsessed with his friend David that died about a year ago. He still thinks about him every day. Second, he "accepts all religions". That makes it super hard to make him understand this is the only true church. We told him that accepting all religions makes it so he doesn't accept ours, because our church is the only true church, and we were pretty bold in declaring doctrine. I think he's finally got it figured out! If he comes to church this Sunday, I know that he'll be baptized. He's got a lot of family issues with coming to church, because they're all Hindu so they don't really approve. If he comes once, I'm pretty sure he'll come more and more.

Puchong is awesome! So many things here are great. Malaysia is pretty awesome in general. I wouldn't want to live here, but serving a mission here is literally the best ever. I love how funny people here sound. Their accent is so funny. I like telling them to say 'banana' because it sounds hilarious. The minions in “Despicable Me” speak a dialect of Malay apparently, so the people here can understand like half of what the minions say! The people here say banana just like they do. It's the best. Thanks for all your support! The church is true, I'm growing more and more each day, and I love serving! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins