Transfers and Burning the Wardrobe

Hey Everyone!

This week was CRAZY! Tons happened, and I'm definitely not gonna be able to remember everything. Luckily, it's all in the journal. But it was tons of fun, and flew by. It's transfer news day, so I might forget to say what's happening for transfers, BUT I do know that President Simmons changed the Zone Leader area over to Sungai Plan because we were doing a billion times better than every other area in the zone. Haha! I'm not a zone leader, but Elder Mickelson is! The other one is a Chinese elder.  That's pretty cool that I'm in a zone leader area now! That means my area is supposed to be one of the easy areas that's super easy to make look good.   It's totally true. The area is one of the best in the mission for sure! The members are GREAT, and the work here is really easy if you do it right.

Monday, we figured out that would be Elder Thompson's last Monday, because his plane to Singapore was leaving today early in the morning.   We went on a shopping spree for him to find all of his last minute souvenirs. It was a ton of fun.  We went to the huge store down in the city and got some way good barbecue sauce and steak seasoning. Now we just need to find some beef... After P Day was over, we went to Brother Gelanie's house.  I took an awesome selfie with Heaven Lee. Well... I think that was Monday. If I took it last week and already sent it, I'm sorry. The days all kind of blur together.  We talked with Cecilia too, and she's doing great. She's progressing a little slower, BUT she's definitely going to get dunked! We also met with Hallory. He understood a lot more this week than he did last week, so that was good. I was thinking he might be unteachable last week, but he understood really well about prophets and priesthood. He'll take a while too.

Tuesday morning, the TJK branch had a closing Gawai party. Elder Mickelson and I went, because at least one of us is going be serving in that branch this next transfer. They're combining the missionaries here. I think that Elder Mickelson and I will stay and serve in Sungai Plan and TJK.  We’ll see what happens there... but it was a ton of fun. That branch has a lot of super awesome members, and a ton of super fun little kids to play with.  We had a blast, and Elder Mickelson and I got to know the members. After that, we met with Valentino. We got him as a potential investigator 1 or 2 months ago, set up 6 or 7 appointments with him, and he would never show up, so we just gave up. BUT. He came to church last week, and we met with him.  He's solid. He was taught all the lessons twice, but some stuff happened, and he ended up not getting baptized.  He'll get baptized this time. I'm sure of it.

Wednesday was exchanges! I went with Elder Read. We met with Alyster, and it was a ton of fun to meet with him.  It felt like it had been a long time since we had met with him, so I was glad to finally see him again. He's hilarious. The way his voice sounds is awesome. It's the perfect little kid voice. After him, we met with Lydia, Telajan, and Stacy.  Telajan is moving to JB (West Malaysia) really soon, so we had a 'final lesson' type thing with him.   He'll probably keep going to church in JB.

Thursday, tons happened, but the funniest thing that happened was when we picked up Elyzza to teach at night time.   We had to walk to the church so that we could have a male with us while we taught her. While we were walking, she looked up at the sky, and saw some stars. She said, "Hey, why do the stars always follow just me?  Watch this.  If I stop, and you keep walking, the stars stop with me. Then I start moving, and they follow me again." It's pretty good in English, but in Malay, it was hilarious. Elder Mickelson and I were dying. It just sounded so funny in Malay.  We told her it was because she was a princess.  She said, "manada" which basically means in what universe does that exist. It doesn't have a super good translation, but that's a thing they say a lot.  Then we told her that she was God's princess, and she said, "Oh.  Well that doesn't explain why the stars follow me."   We finally just dropped it and walked the rest of the way to the church.

Friday, Jatasia's husband, Moses, got back from working offshore!  "Working offshore" is something that a lot of people do here.  They basically go away from home for 2 or 3 months and work every day, then come back for about a month, then do it again. It's unbelievable.  It pays well, so people do it.  It was fun to surprise him that I could actually speak Malay now. When he left, I was still barely understanding people. It was fun to see him again. After that, we met with Sylvester. He's doing great. He hasn't smoked for a month, and he's just got to come to church one more week, and he can get interviewed for baptism. He's awesome. He'll be one of those super strong members that comes to church every week and helps out the missionaries all the time. So that'll be good!

Saturday, we had a really good lunch with Moses. Jatasia made some WAY good curry, and we got to teach all the little kids while they made all the stuff.  That was tons of fun. After meeting with lots of people, we had Elyzza's baptism! It was so funny.  Elyzza changed into her jumpsuit, and she was still wearing her pants under it.  I, at the time, didn't know the work for "take off" (really I did, I just didn't know that it was used like that).  Elder Mickelson was way too scared to tell her to take off her pants, so after I convinced him he was the one that had to do it for  5 minutes, he finally told her.  She just stared at him for a second, then said no, and walked away. Haha!   We had to get Jatasia and her mom to coax her into only wearing the jumpsuit. Haha!  The baptism was great! Elder Mickelson baptized her! She came out of the water smiling and laughing! She was super excited.

After her, the other branch had a baptism! It was really good. After the baptism, we had a farewell dinner for Elder Thompson, and it was pretty good. While we were eating, I was talking with their recent convert, Henry. He wants to learn English, so I was teaching him English, and he was teaching me Malay. It was fun, and I got a lot of words I need to memorize now! Haha! I already have a ton. But I have even more now.

Sunday, we picked up Elyzza to go to church, because we were trying to pick up her uncle, Hallory, but he decided he wanted to sleep.  We went to her house and grabbed her.   On the way to the church, she said something hilarious. She told Elder Mickelson he had a good heart, and was really wise.  Then she said, "And super handsommmmmme!" It was hilarious. She even said handsome in English. It was sooooo funny. We were dying. Then she said, "You're going to marry a girl and she's going be like 'WOOOOOO' because she married you". It was SOOO funny. I haven't let him live that down. Elyzza is the best…a great recent convert.

Sunday night, we got home and burned all of Elder Thompson's clothes. ALL of them. It was epic. The fire was MASSIVE. When we finished burning everything, we got a call from a member.  His daughter had just gotten in a really bad car accident, and he wanted us all to go to the hospital so we could give her blessing. It was 10:50, and curfew is 11:00.  We called the Zone Leaders and asked them if we could stay out late.  They said we could, so we went out and gave her a blessing, and got home at 1:00. It was super late,so we just went to sleep.

Transfer news is out! I'm transferring! I'm going to Miri!  There's a 4 hour bus ride by myself! That'll be a bummer, but that's fine! I'm excited to get to know everyone! I've been told that in the Miri area is doing really well, so that'll be fun! I'll have lots to do!  My area is going to be massive. So that's bad. Haha!  My companion will be Elder Asah. He came in with me! He's a native!  It'll be fun to be with him, AND it will probably make my Malay really good really fast! So that's exciting! I'm excited to go! Thanks for all the emails! I love you all!

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins

Heaven Lee

Jackson

Pday

Pre Dunkage Selfie

Elyzza's Baptism

Closing Gawai Party

Ana and her cousins

Epic Anklets and Soccer on the Beach

Hey Everyone!

I had a ton of fun this week, and we were super busy! Busy is always good in missionary work! Lots of stuff is happening, and Elyzza passed her baptismal interview! She'll be getting baptized next Saturday! My Malay is coming really fast, and I'm going ham on the memorizing vocab., so that's pretty awesome. I don't know all I need to yet, but I still have a month and a half before I need to really be good at speaking Malay.

Last Monday, we went and played soccer on this field right on the beach. It was awesome. Perfect view, tons of fun.  Lots of young men and us 4 missionaries packed into one car and drove down. It was awesome. After that, we went over to Christopher's, and had an awesome lesson on the Plan of Salvation about the premortal life and our purpose on earth. Then we put him on date! His two little girls were going crazy, but we still got the spirit there.

Tuesday, we went over to a less active member's house. She was making this INSANE anklet out of beads. It looked way cool. I couldn't believe that it was possible to make an anklet like that. Elder Mickelson is obsessed with anklets, so I think he's going to try to buy one off of her. Haha!  It was fun to go over there! Their dog is insane. He jumped up onto us and tried playing with us, but we were trying to talk with them.  He was going extra crazy so that we'd pay attention to him. After that, we stopped by the Kong's house. Elder Mickelson and I found them in my first week I think.  They didn't really want to meet much the first time we talked with them (I couldn't speak any Malay when I met them the first time), but when we stopped over, they totally invited us to come back over and teach in 2 days!  That was pretty crazy!

Wednesday was tons of fun. I went on exchanges with Elder Thompson. He has a week left of his mission, so that's pretty crazy. He's way cool.  We went up to a place called Clemena, which is basically Sungai Plan, just in a different place. Tons of flats, and a lot of members live there. It was a ton of fun. We were visiting an inactive member that everyone calls King Kong--no idea why.  This crazy old lady came up to us and said she thought one of her friends was a member of our church.  We found her name on the branch directory, and asked the old lady where she lived since they didn't have an address on the directory, so we went and met with them. They hadn't seen the missionaries in 5 years, and the daughter literally reads the Book of Mormon every single day still. She's finished it a few times, and is reading it again. Isn't that crazy??? They haven't been to church in 5 years, haven't seen the missionaries in 5 years, and STILL read the Book of Mormon every day. Unbelievable.

ALSO, while I was on exchanges, Sylvester's dad died, so he went back to Kampung, and Matthew John is totally dating a Muslim girl. UNBELIEVABLE. If he marries her, he's forced to convert to Islam, and then he can't even learn about our church.  He has a huge desire to be baptized. SOOOO we're probably going to go over there and see if we can get him to realize that since he already knows our church is true, it's really dumb of him to convert to Islam to marry this girl... we'll see what happens there.

Thursday, we went over to Elyzza's and reviewed her baptismal questions, and she did a really good job! The only thing we had to work on was how she explained repentance. When we asked what repentance was, she just said pray. Then we had to ask a bunch of questions to clarify what you do in your prayer and stuff. Haha! She's hilarious. But yeah, that was tons of fun! Later that night, we went to Matthew John's to slap some sense into him through the Holy Ghost, but his older brother was the only one in his house, so we taught him! He seemed pretty cool, but he's always driving trucks across Malaysia, and can't meet regularly.  We'll see how that one goes.

Friday, we wanted to follow up with one of our new investigators, Hallory.  We went to his house, and he wasn't home, but his wife was home, and she had some friends over. One of her friends was super weird. She refused to speak Malay with us. She only spoke English.  We spoke Malay, she spoke English, and it was SUPER hard to not switch into English. I would always mix in a few words here and there, but I tried really hard to not. Haha!  She said that if Elder Mickelson's girlfriend broke up with him, he should come back and marry her. She was about 45 years old. Hahaha! Pretty funny. That's a common occurrence to have people ask the missionaries to marry them. So be careful who you ask if they have anything you can help with.

Later, on Friday, we went and taught Ellaine. We taught about the Atonement, and it was crazy. While we were teaching, I looked up, and I thought that I saw tears in Ellaine's eyes, but I just decide I was just seeing things.  Then we flipped to a picture of Jesus on the cross, and she just BURST into tears. She's a 9-year-old girl with special needs, and she TOTALLY understands the Atonement. More than anyone! She literally started bawling because Jesus died. Haha! Elder Mickelson and I didn't know what to do. We just flipped to the pictures of Jesus being resurrected, and then slowly she stopped crying, but it was pretty cool. I didn't think she even understood half the things we taught. But she totally understood it!

Saturday, we went over to the Kong's house, and it was fun to see them all again. Especially the guy that told us to call him Handsome Boy. He's way funny.  Handsome Boy brought his girlfriend to his house, and we taught both of them. Handsome Boy isn't very interested, but his girlfriend was! So that's cool! They live in Mukah, so we'll pass them over once they leave. We also taught a mission prep class, and it was fire. I think the youth are going to get way into missionary work if they keep coming. We just barely started it, so it could have a ton of success. I'm excited to see where it goes.  That night, we met with Cecilia. She's finally comfortable praying! She wouldn't pray for a long time, but now when we ask her to pray, she'll close lessons for us! So that's super great!

Sunday was fun. It's always fun. Not a ton happened. The Kong’s invited us over again for lunch, and they made some KILLER fried rice. Way good. I ate the entire bowl full. Oh, that's another thing. This week, I've been WAY hungry. Every single day when I finish meals, I'm still super hungry. It's been a struggle. I haven't felt full all week... But that's ok! I'm eating way more than I normally do. It just doesn't make me full. So maybe I'm growing or something. Not sure. Maybe I'll grow a foot or two finally!

Pretty much all of the church material (like books and magazines and stuff) is in Indonesian, and because Indonesian is so close to Malay, they just read it. BUT. Some crazy twisting of the language happens every now and then. For example. The word for need in Indonesian is the equivalent of the F word in English. SO. Reading books and stuff in church is extremely dangerous. Just think how many times you say need in church. Like if you need to follow the Savior or need to do what’s right.  Every single time you read it, you have to replace it with a different word.  If you don't replace it with a different word, you're saying a super bad swear word. And that's my life. Every single Sunday. It's a bit terrifying to read in church, because I’ve got to make sure that I really pay attention and  that it doesn't say ‘need’ in anything I'm reading. Elder Mickelson almost messed up once yesterday, so that's why I decided to write about it.

I love being here in Malaysia! It's tons of fun, and the work is going strong! We're having lots of success, and my Malay is getting better and better every single week! Thanks for all the emails!

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins

Alma 63:5-8

Anna

Odd...the bathroom door is on the outside of the room

Biggest phone ever (must be the newest Samsung S8)

Cecilia and Fam

A chubby baby (Chubbers)

Cicil

Elyzza and Anna

Henry and Jackson

Menulis

I survived the MTC!  Ha Ha!