Elder Ben Mullins

Hey Everyone!

This week went by super-fast! I don't even know where the time went! At first, it seemed like it was going a little slow, but all of a sudden it was over! It was definitely a good week, but we were out of our area for half the week as well... so that wasn't the best. But other than that, it was great!

Monday, we just napped all day. Bintulu/Sungai Plan is famous for not having anything to do on P Days, so a lot of the time, missionaries just nap. We'll see what we do today... We might go to the beach or something. After P Day, we went over to Listie's house. She's been a member for a long time. She was one of the first to be baptized in Sungai Plan. She hasn't been coming to church for a while, so we've been working with her to see if we can get her to come back. She came this Sunday with her family, so that was good! Now we just have to get her to stay for all 3 hours! After Listie fed us a really good dinner (She's really good at cooking chicken), we went over to Sylvester's. He hasn't smoked for 6 days! That's way cool! We gave him a little notebook and taught about keeping a study journal, so that was good.

Tuesday was a little slow. We had all of our plans, backup plans, and backup backup plans fall through by 3:30. SO. We did the best we could in staying effective. Everyone was going out for one last break before Gawai ended (it ended today), so everyone was doing something. We met with Brother Wong and his family though, and had a really good lesson on the Atonement of Christ! We talked about how it was His gift to us, and we need to give back to him. Then they all made their own commitments, and they all followed through with their commitments. So that was good!

Wednesday was our last day in the area until Sunday. We taught Elyzza! She's so funny. I really like teaching her, because I can make as many mistakes as I want, and she just tries helping me learn. That's what kids are really good at. They teach you a lot of Malay. Haha! They're learning it too, so they like to teach you since they're better at speaking it than someone else! They all speak Iban, and learn Malay in school. Anyway, it was a ton of fun. We also taught Ellaine and Cecilia, then went over to Sylvester's house and did a family night thing that we had talked about doing. He made some really good kuay (basically snacks that are homemade) that we ate while we did that. We played Uno too. He and his wife Suriah get super into it.

Thursday, we woke up, exercised, did personal study, and then called Brother Henry to drive us to Bintulu city! We loaded up our bikes in his car, and drove down to the bus terminal. We totally passed Sylvester driving back to his hometown on the way to the terminal. We were going to Miri for Zone Conference! And exchanges too! We had a 4 hour bus ride. So that was pretty uneventful. Our bus driver sprayed deodorant for air freshener. That was funny. OH! In the morning, when we exercised, I had found a MASSIVE hill that I wanted to ride my bike down, so Elder Mickelson and I biked to the foot of this hill. Two little kittens popped out of some bushes and followed us around. It was really cool. They were our Pokemon. We went to the top of the hill, but it was WAY too steep to ride bikes down. My wheels were locking, and I was still sliding down the hill. It was insane. Super intense. I ended up walking my bike down. Elder Mickelson didn't even try to ride his bike down. He walked up the hill, then right back down.

When we arrived in Miri later that night, we ate, then went to the house. They had just moved, and the house was the nicest house in the mission. It was HUGE and brand new. Everything about it was super nice. I'm just saying that I wouldn't be mad if I got transferred to Miri. The house was insane. They have a whole room dedicated to just about everything. They have a whole room with nothing in it but an ironing board. Pretty epic. Elder Boud was there, and it was good to catch up with him, because he had just left Puchong. He filled me in on everything there.

Friday, we had zone conference from the morning until 5:00! It was pretty good. Not the best zone conference, but it was alright. I just didn't feel like there were any doctrinal points on what the zone leaders trained on, but that's ok, because President and Sister Simmons did a great job at inspiring us. After 5 pm, exchanges started, and we went to work. I went with Elder Loutzenheiser (Elder Loutz). He's been out a transfer longer than me, but he was switched over to Malay speaking from English like 4 weeks after I was! I was better at speaking Malay than he was! Pretty crazy! We mostly rode our bikes around and talked with people we passed by since he didn't know anyone in their area, and didn't have any appointments. BUT something crazy DID happen. It was about 8:30, so we had an extra hour before we had to be home, and we didn't have anything to do. We found this dirt road that went into the jungle and had houses in it. Well... more like shacks in it. We went down, and saw this kid, but he didn't want to talk to us. We just rode past him and stopped at the end of the dirt road. The kid that we had passed sprinted by us, and over a little bridge that led to a group of houses. Elder Loutz and I were talking trying to decide what to do since we didn't find anything on the road, when a group of about 10 guys came out and started walking over the bridge with flashlights shining in our faces, and they were all silent. We could hardly see them, and they kind of surrounded us. We were in the middle of this jungle, with NO lights besides their flashlights shining in our faces. Straight up, I thought we were going to get robbed. I seriously thought that kid ran and got his friends to go get some money from us. It turned out they just wanted to talk to the white people, and everything was ok. Haha! Elder Loutz and I were a little bit terrified for a second.

Saturday, we continued the exchanges. We basically did the same thing that we did the day before. So not a ton happened, but the day went by fast! I got to practice my Malay a ton since Elder Loutz hardly spoke any Malay. At 5:00, we got on a bus and headed back to Bintulu! 4 hours later, we arrived, and looked for a taxi for 30 minutes before finding one that could fit our bikes. We got home at about 10 pm.

Sunday, President Simmons came to Sungai Plan for temple recommend interviews for the members, and we had interviews with him too. That was fun! After that, we went over to Elyzza's house, and Jatasia was back! I was super excited to see her little girl again! Anna! She's adorable. But she forgot us! She was gone for two and a half weeks, and she forgot us. We'll have to get her to warm back up to us. It shouldn't be too hard. All the other kids in the house love us. After them, we went over to Lydia and Telajan's and taught them and their kids about prophets, and then we taught them the song Follow the Prophet! But in Malay. So that was fun! They really liked singing. It was a good idea. After that, we went over to Alyster's family and taught the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was a really good lesson. I can't believe their family is less active! They're all so close and love being with each other! But Only Alyster and his mom come to church! Soooo we're gonna change that soon!

That was my week! Sunday night, we got home, and made a killer Asian stir fry that was WAY good, and then talked and went to bed! Sungai Plan is an awesome area, and President Simmons said I should be training by August! So that'll be cool! I'm excited for that! It'll be a lot of fun. Every single companion I've had on my mission so far has been further out on their mission than me. My trainee might be my first companion that's younger in the mission than me. I love it here, and I'm enjoying every single day! Thanks for all the emails!

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins

Elder Loutz

Elder Mickelson

Miri

The MTC in Malaysia!

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