Elder Ben Mullins

Hey Everyone!

This week was craaaaazy fast! I can't believe it's Monday again! Lots of great stuff happened this week! We met with new people, we figured out we had a mega solid investigator that got mega prepared while we kind of pushed her to the side, and we had a lot of fun! I learned that Elder Johnson's knees sweat (super weird, but his grey pants had sweat spots on his knees from all his sweat), I lost my name tag (fell off while we were biking, so now I wear my English one), learned a lot of new Malay words, and remembered to tell everyone that I'm trilingual! I speak Indonesian, Malay, and English! Crazy, right? Missions bring blessings I guess! Anyway, lots of stuff this week. Let's see how much I can remember.

Monday, we went to the beach! It was pretty fun! We played baseball, ran along the shore, and found sea shells and stuff. The water was mega warm too. Super weird, but it was fun! At night time, we went to Brother Artobelly's house. He's super cool. Huuuuuge dude, way cool family, and we might be teaching his dad soon. We'll see. We had some really good fried rice and chicken too, and they invited us over again this Friday to eat some seggo worm. No idea how to spell that. Super excited for that though. We got home and called a bunch of PI's for the rest of the night.

Tuesday, we had district meeting, and the power went out. The water also stopped working because a pipe was broken. SO. That was pretty lame sauce. It was a super warm district meeting, but after that, we had some good lunch, and visited a ton of less active/inactive members! That pretty much took up our entire day. So that was fun. It was a less eventful day as far as crazy things happening. This was the day I realized how badly Elder Johnson sweats. We walked up this huge hill, and he was dripping sweat every step, and his knees were covered in sweat…and really everything was. It was super weird, because there was a patch on his knees!

Wednesday... hmmm. We met with Andrew and put him on date! We taught the Plan of Salvation, and once we closed the lesson, Andrew had this funny smile on his face, so I asked him why he was smiling. He said he was super excited because he was finally looking for the truth! Haha! He'll find it as long as he reads the Book of Mormon! After teaching him, we did some studies, because we had met with Lodeline before we could finish our studies. That reminds me! After Lodeline, Inday, a referral from them, walked in, and expressed her desire to learn more! She was already an investigator, but we weren't quite sure how solid she was, because she kind of dodged out of a few lessons. But now she's super solid!

Later on Wednesday, we taught Binus. He's moving to another place nearby, so we'll still meet with him, but he expressed a lot of concerns on his faith. So we're going strengthen his faith, and then he'll be mega solid! We're excited for him still! He's got some referrals for us too! We’ve got to get those soon.

Thursday was a 'get organized' day. Tons of studies and planning. But it was Malaysia's independence day too! It was a pretty lame sauce Independence Day though. A small parade down the center of KK with a bunch of school kids walking through the street, but that was about it. We did our studies (one of the first times we've been able to fit all of our studies in in one day since I got here), weekly planning, and then had some correlation meeting while we ate dinner. So. Super calm day. But really good too!

Friday, we met with Lodeline, went over the baptismal interview questions, and then taught Inday the Plan of Salvation! It was really good! She's pumped to get dunked! I'm really excited for her! After that, we went advertising for English Class! It was pretty fun! Not as fun as Puchong was, but still pretty good! There were a lot of restrictions placed on advertising after we went viral in that video last December... so it's been a long time since I've advertised for English Class. After that, we visited a bunch of inactives, and set up a ton of appointments.

Saturday, we met with two new people! Steve and Peter! I don't know how solid they really are, but we met with them! They wanted to speak English, so we taught in English, and it was actually really hard, because I've transformed my thinking in lessons so that I think in Malay before I think in English! I kept accidentally using Malay words instead of English words! Super weird. That's been less of a problem until I taught that lesson. Every now and then I'll throw in an English word while I'm speaking Malay and not even realize it, but that's about it! Haha! Normally I try to mix as much Malay into my English as I can so that Elder Johnson learns faster, but I don't really accidentally mix Malay into my English. It's always on purpose. Anyway, cool guys, but I don't think they have tons of interest to change. After them, we biked super far out in our area and visited some inactives. One in particular was named Rina. She's craaazy. She calls everyone "wicked" that isn't a member. Pretty funny. She's hilarious. We shared a nice scripture and left. There's this huge hill we had to bike up, and at the very top, there were about 6 dogs that were getting ready to fight us. I pretended to pick up a rock and get ready to throw it at them, and they all froze. I told Elder Johnson we were going to run on 3, and the dogs would chase after us. So I counted, then hopped on my bike super-fast, and the dogs started booking it after us. LUCKILY, we had a hill to drive down, so we flew ahead of the dogs. If we didn't have that hill, we could've gotten a few ouchies from those dogs. Haha! It's a common thing everywhere else, but that was the first time it happened in KK for me. Elder Johnson was freaking out, and I was yelling so that he thought that the dogs were super close behind us. It was chaos. Super funny. We also had the baptism of brother Ian's son, Hyrum, on Saturday! He was 8, so it wasn't a convert baptism, but it finally got done! The water started working Saturday morning, so we got the baptism going! It stopped working up until Saturday, but they got it fixed in time for the baptism! After that, we had a farewell party for Brother Derrett, because he's leaving on his mission tomorrow! He's super excited. His twin is serving in our mission right now! So that's pretty cool!

At the party, I was told that there's a new horror movie that came out named Annabel or something like that. ANYWAY. The family's name in the movie is the Mullins family! MULLINS. Like MY LAST NAME. Crazy. But suddenly it got easier for everyone here to remember my name! Because of the movie! Hahaha! So that was good.

Sunday was a struggle after church at first, but before that Lodeline had her interview (she passed and is getting baptized this next Saturday). That happened right after church. But at the same time, we had someone asking us to give them a blessing (found members to do that), had to teach a lesson, had to talk to President Simmons, had to get our phone back from Elder Weight, had to set up appointments with members throughout the week, reschedule Sandakan's baptismal interview, AND we were fasting. Haha! CRAAAAZY. But we did it all! It was definitely a miracle. So right after church, we were suuuuper busy. But then we went home, did a quick personal study and planned our lessons, and went over to Sister Ivy's house to check and see why she wasn't at church. It was kind of awkward, because she didn't have a reason that she wasn't there. BUT. We had a good lesson! Haha! So hopefully she comes next week! We had about 30 minutes left before we had dinner (remember this is fast Sunday), and we decided we'd take a leap of faith. We stopped by Brother Ian's house. We were expecting to stop by and say hi super quick so that we could go home and eat mega quick, but they didn't think that was a good idea. They asked if we had anything later, and we told them all we had was dinner and reporting. They made us stay and teach their kids for an hour, then eat this HUGE dinner that was suuuuuuper good. Spaghetti, fried rice, and chicken, and a super good cake. Sedapnya. It was a ton of fun though. They have 5 girls and a little boy. They were crazy! It was super fun to teach them though. We got creative when we taught them, and it made it really fun.

My week overall was great! I forgot to mention that on Sunday, Elder Johnson totally crashed his bike into a guy that was walking down the street (I don't know why Elder Johnson didn't just steer out into the road a bit). He tried contacting him, but it was just too awkward for him, so he just rode away. Haha! Also, Thursday, his pedal snapped off his bike (plastic pedals...) and his crank wrecked his leg, and we spent some time fixing that. Haha! Elder Johnson is hilarious. Definitely the best trainee ever. I'm going out to Sandakan this Wednesday to do exchanges, so I'm excited to be able to explore more of Sabah for a day! Oh, and we saw a cobra or something slithering down the sidewalk the other day. Not really sure. It had the little venom gland things. Pretty awesome. The week was great, and I'm super excited for this next week too!

Have an awesome week!

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins

Elder Johnson and Me

Abandoned building

Biking with Elder Johnson

View from Ivy's house

At the beach

Me and Elder Johnson

Hey Everyone!

This week was craaaaazy! Elder Johnson reminded me that Hot Wheels cars are made in Malaysia, so that's pretty cool. I wasn't in my area from Monday to Thursday night, so I felt like the week just disappeared. Elder Johnson was with the other trainee and a missionary named Elder Loutzenheiser. None of them can really speak Malay, so it was a struggle I was told. But that's ok! Because none of them died!

Monday, we pretty much spent the entire day in the plane. Two-and-a-half hour flight over to Singapore, but we made it, and it was rush hour. We were 45 minutes late to our meeting that night. We walked in, and it was starting to end. So not a ton happened.

Tuesday, Elder Christofferson came to Singapore and talked to all of us missionaries! It was mega awesome. He said a ton of super good stuff, and I took a bunch of notes. He basically just told us to start firing questions at him, and he'd do his best to answer the questions. One thing he talked about was that not only our actions are judged, but our desires are too. Then he said something along the lines of what you really want, you will receive. So be careful what you want. It kind of hit me. It brought to remembrance the scripture that says blessed is he who is compelled to be humble, but even more blessed is he who chooses to be humble. If our desire is to be humble, we'll receive it as long as we work. If our desire is to do good, we'll receive our reward. If it's evil, we'll receive a different reward. So be careful what you want! Another thing he talked about a lot was our relationship with God. He talked about it in the fire side he did for the entire Singapore stake. He said a lot of really profound things, and then pretty much said that if we saw God, he'd look really familiar to us, because we spent a long time with him. So the song “I lived in heaven a long time ago it is true” (don't know the title. Probably” I lived in Heaven a long time ago”) has been stuck in my head because he was talking about that. On top of those, he said a lot of super awesome things, and I didn't bring my notes with me. We were in meetings with him all day, so it was pretty awesome. We ate Subway too, and it was mega good.

Wednesday, we had meetings all day. Literally. We did studies outside before the meetings. Elder Boud and Mickelson took Elder Howell and me over to some durian shaped buildings that surround Marina Bay, and we went to the top of the buildings. It was pretty cool. I got some pictures with Elder Howell. In MLC, I got to check out the mission's stats and stuff, so that was cool. President Simmons analyzes tons of stats, because he did it for a living. He's got some crazy graphs. Super interesting. They basically just taught us how to inspire all the missionaries, and made plans for our zone conferences.

Thursday, we went back to KK! In the Singapore airport, we went to the butterfly garden, so that was pretty awesome. Butterflies are super cool. Not a ton happened though, because we got back late at night. I got to watch the sun set from the plane though. So that was cool.

Friday was a little crazy. We found 152 potential investigators that hadn't been called. We called about 50 of them, did weekly planning, and taught Binus. Binus is still progressing, but he wasn't able to make it to church this week. We taught the Plan of Salvation, and he had some questions about the Atonement. So that was good! In Malay, there's no word for atonement, so you just have to say the redeeming sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Super long name, and it's hard for people to understand. We taught a lot more about that than I was planning, but it was really good! That's a great thing to talk about! We also went to English class. We thought it started at 7:00, buuuut it actually started at 6:00. So instead of being 30 minutes early, we were 30 minutes late. Oh well. It ended up being ok.

Saturday, we met with Johnny and Lodeline. Lodeline is pumped to get baptized in 2 weeks! She's a way good investigator! She really is converted. It's awesome. She and Johnny are mega pumped to get sealed in the temple in a year. It's way fun to go over there and teach her. AND they make super good Filipino food for us. Every time. I don't eat breakfast before we go over there. Other than Lodeline, we had some appointments fall through since they weren't confirmed all week, and we called a TON of PI's and got some appointments set up.

Sunday... Let's see. I remembered a ton of the members' names! So that was super good. They love it when new missionaries remember their names. I got to talk with a ton of them, we got lots of appointments scheduled, and we got to know them all a lot better! We had branch council after church, and this branch is so organized! I could hardly believe it! Everything here is moving great, everyone has responsibilities, and they all fulfill their callings.

After all that, we had choir practice (for district conference. I was forced to do it), did half an hour of personal study, and then went to find an inactive member named Ivy. We found it. Her house was on the top of this HUGE hill. Mega steep, but we made it up, and her house looked over all of Penampang. So that was super cool. There was this Chinese temple/tower thing that looked super cool, and a bunch of other stuff. It was pretty awesome. She was cool too. We shared a scripture and got to know her a bit!

Not a ton happened this week since I was gone for most of it, but KK is picking up! My Malay is great, and Elder Johnson's is coming! He's getting there. Haha! I think he'll be able to teach all the lessons by the end of this transfer! He just needs to get a little faster when he speaks so that people don't get lost when he talks. I remember when I spoke like that... But now I'm up to speed! It's super crazy to walk away from a lesson and realize that it was all in Malay. And it's even crazier that I understood it all! Haha! It's mega crazy to be able to speak another language! I didn't think I would ever learn a language! I didn't even think it'd be possible! But it is! Pretty crazy! People will mix Malay and English a ton in sacrament meeting, because there are people who don't speak Malay. It's super funny when every other word is Malay. It just makes me laugh. The craziest thing is that it's still understandable. I dunno. I love KK. The people here are mega cool, the food is way good, the Malay is super to understand. The land is beautiful, and biking here is AWESOME. I love biking here. There's so much to look at while you bike, it's not mega crowded, but there are still people, and lots of hills to ride down (I control the pace, so we ride up the hills nice and slow), and it's amazing. I love it. I really hope I stay here a while.

Love,

Elder Ben Mullins