Tuesday, January 21, 2014

20 January 2014


Sister Rachel Mullen

> I don't know what special time of year it is or whatever... but for some reason, all the dogs hear now have shirts on. Is that a thing?

> > We are at 138 baptisms with one more weekend in January. 62 more to meet our goal!!!

> > The couple got married!!! We went to go teach them and they had just bought glasses so the husband now can read the Book of Mormon so much better! It's crazy.

> > They were faithful to each other, they loved each other, I knew it. But now that they are officially married and following the commandments, the Lord's way, there was a different love that I saw when they were together. It was the best.

> > They passed their interview! Baptism on the 25th. But they didn't come to church this yesterday. Her leg wasn't feeling good.

> > They other missionaries had a baptism this last weekend. Our new investigator, Keng, came to it. We taught her Law of Chastity this last week and she feels it will be hard. She lives with her boyfriend, who is probably also the father of her kids. And after she was committed to come to church this last Sunday, she called me at 10:32 Saturday night and said she got in a car accident! Ahhh, satan.

> > She is ok and we have been studying for her and for Sister Sombun, our other dater.

> > Sister Sombun is the older lady. She has a boyfriend that works in a different city. She doesn't see him much, but they live in the same place. Because this is a commandment that involves another person, I think she feels it's too hard.

> > She passed her first interview but needed a second interview. The interviewer said he wouldn't email her until she was married. Sister Sombun started saying a lot of things. She didn't want to be baptized. She needed time, she couldn't do it. It was so hard to hear that. Especially when she is so close.

> > I studied today about faith. About how when we have faith, we trust. And how to help our investigators grow in faith to do the hard things.

> > I have come to the conclusion that for them, we have need to be more Christ-like. To increase in faith, we need to know Jesus Christ more... and what better way than to see the example in the people you see.

> > I need to continue to grow in faith and be the strong example. I think about for myself, and when something is really hard. If I am having a hard time remembering my faith in Jesus Christ, I need to see others' first. That is what I am going to be for my investigators.

> > Love, Sister Mullen #1

Sister Jasmine Mullen

Man. its going to be a whole new house by the time we're all home again! I pray for your guys' health everyday. Every one tells me I'm a really hard worker and i know i get it from you both so don't wear yourselves out! :) I'm pretty sure i only wrote one of those quotes haha. Rachel is the theatrical one. She has such a way with words. :)

and i know! i cannot believe it. i don't understand how time could possibly be going so fast. its a bit scary but exciting! There's always something to be done.

This week has been fantastic! I am being humbled every second. I am so happy to be here. I'm able to tweak my self to be a little better each day.

I don't know what kind of place this is but there are miracles happening left and right. So we were walking one day and we were late for an appointment. This Srilankin lady was walking and i went up to her and we gave her a card. We quickly invited her to church and then left. UM. SHE FLIPPIN CAME TO CHURCH. With her son. He name is shiny and her son is rendu. and she doesn't speak english very well but theres a recent convert in our ward that knows her. He's from Srilanka as well, but he doesn't speak good english either haha. But they were talking and he came up to me and he was like.

"She baptist"

and i was like "what you're a baptist?"

and he was like "no baptise."

yeah. She wants to be baptized and so does her son. He loved primary! So they're getting baptized on February 8th. We're seeing them tomorrow to begin teaching them the lessons. I'm so excited for her. She's just so happy and loving.

And then we went to the families house with our member. And they want to be baptized, but they also need to be retaught the restoration and the lessons. They're from burma and their dad is now in Thailand for 2 months. So i told him to go to church. Luckily our member had an iphone. So she quickly looked up where the church would be where he was staying. He's going to Matsok i think? But apparently thats where Phisanulok branch is? So i told him to go to find my sister! I hope he does so rachel can meet him and baptize him and then i'll baptize the rest of his family here!

We had a wonderful week. miracles are starting to happen. And we're just trying to keep up with this haste. I love my companion. She really is teaching me a lot. And all i have to do is love her. I love this work. Thank you for making this possible for me to experience. Have a great week :)

i love you

sister mullen #2














13 January 2014


Sister Rachel Mullen

I just want to thank everyone for all of their support. This mission is the most amazing thing and I wish I could share it with everyone who is helping back home. So the mission has been at a steady 30, 40, 50 baptisms every month the last year, right? but then with November and Decembers' goals we got around 100. January's goal is 200 and our faith has never been more real. Seriously, when there are disappointments, or struggles, it doesn't phase us. I don't know how to explain it. The faith of the mission is just so strong right now and it shows in our teaching and handling of our investigators.

We got a new investigator this week and she is definitely prepared by the Lord. She asks great questions and is just so desirous to be baptized. She is 21 and already has a couple kids! But she is the cutest and we gave her a date for this month! She didn't come to church though, but we are seeing her again today.

The couple we have been working with did not come to church or get married this last week, but they have plans to go today. I feel like I said that last week in my email. They are SO close. We have been helping them remember their goals and their vision and how this is just one thing they need to do in order to attain it.

Sister Sombun, she is an older woman and the cutest thing. I didn't really know how to teach her. She wants to be baptized and comes to church. But her understanding just was so off and her memory is not the best. I didn't get discouraged in teaching her, but I was definitely in need of the Spirit and guidance. We taught her this week, and it was like a whole new investigator. She understood so well, and didn't make a fuss when we asked her to pray. Just everything was so smooth!

We had training this week. Kamphaengphet came to do it with us. The Zone Leaders explained the goal again. Amazing January. 200 people baptized. They talked about working with our branches more. Having white washed trained twice already, I KNOW that is the only way to do this work. They did a Mentos activity where one Elder had to sort out a whole box full of Mentos. Put all of the white ones into another box, as many as he could in 30 seconds. Then the ZL's gave him Branch members... Haha. I was the one sister being the "relief society president"...

But it really shows, if we are going to baptize people and expect them to stay, we need to include the members in the whole process and really love and serve them.

I think about how all of these people have that child-like desire to be baptized. We as members think they don't know what they are getting themselves into, especially if the missionaries baptize them within just a 2 week time frame... But isn't the qualification for baptism. Desire?

Don't let our own faith hinder that of another person's opportunity to come and be with us in the church. Fellowship. Love. Care. That is what helps these people for the rest of their conversion process.

I am so grateful for the members all over the world who know how to do this. How to look for those recent converts and really show them the way.

Did I say in my last email, when I went to Kamphaengphet, the night before I got hit in the face with a frisbee. Yeah, of course. So I had a fat lip seeing the fambam. Embarassing. But God and His tender mercies, it's almost healed.

God loves His missionaries.

ps. Na Tuk I think went to church yesterday. The Elders texted me!!!

My birthday this last week was amazing! 23. Every other missionary calls me grandma. Elder Hunt in our district was like, 32. In just 9 years that will be you. Some of us are closer than others. Haha People hate me. No, I think the reason why this birthday has probably been the best ever is because it was on the mission. Everyone being selfless and making it a special day for me. The sisters bought me the most beautiful necklace, and LA bought me a cake, I got to pick the opening and closing song for FHE. Even if I wanted it to be Because I Have Been Given Much twice. Brother Oh drew a picture of me (the one of me sticking my tongue out... the blue one... haha) Just amazing people over here.

We are going to a waterfall today. They are making me go hiking. Now that it's not my birthday, they can force me to do things I don't want to.

Sister Mullen

Sister Jasmine Mullen

hello! i know. my emails always randomly coming at different times. but! i had a wonderful week. seriously i don't know whats going on, but our mission is on some kind of miracle high.

it scares me a little bit. but its great. i never know whats going to happen next.

so we have been struggling with melissa, harriot and cooper. melissa talks for ages so its really hard to actually teach her something and get out of there in under an hour. even an hour and a half is hard. they've been taught for 3 months and melissa (the mom) hasn't actually been taught a lesson yet. so we told our district leader, and he was like, do you start with a prayer? OH MY GOSH. i felt so dumb haha. OF COURSE! lets start with a prayer haha. and now our lessons aren't perfect yet, but we were able to teach her all of the first lesson! ahhh!

we gave nirosha and her family a 7 day challenge to read the book of mormon and pray about it. and committed them to be baptized february 8th. they said yes, but not sure if the book of mormon is true still. so we weren't feeling to confident but our zone leaders were like, we'll all fast for them. because we believe they can be baptized. and its soo cool! just to know that they believe when we're lacking some faith. other missionaries are there to build us up.

oh! did i tell you i'm in the Manns family's ward? The famuis? Yeah. Its pretty cool. This ward is awesome. I feel like I know a lot of people, but there's still so many people to meet! Yeah its the APs ward. So its kinda nice because sometimes we go to dinner all together, (7 missionaries) and its not awkward. haha

oh and yesterday we were late for a dinner appointment, (and we don't have the car) so we had to run to their house! ( i don't know if thats breaking the sabbath but...) yeah so as we're running this lady up ahead is smiling at us, so we stop and she's a less active that lives down the street from us. we've been trying to get into her house but she has 3 dogs...we asked her if she had a book of mormon and she started crying and she's going through a ton of stuff so her life could get pretty crazy after today but we're praying that it'll end up okay. but she invited us over for dinner that night. we had to say yes haha. so that was a first for me, 2 dinners in one night.

but she's awesome. it was such a miracle and she said the opening prayer and she said, i'm grateful for the sisters, they were literally running towards me and i know it was for a reason. funny how things work out.

my companion and i are great. i am really learning to love her. not that she's hard to love, its just you know me, i like being alone haha.

our motto for this transfer is bold and bubbly with small and simple things. :) its going to be a great 4 weeks.

yeah its still hot as. no chance of it cooling down soon. except when its raining. we have to keep everything in the fridge because it goes bad so quickly because of the humidity.

sorry this is so long. i love you! i hope you both had a great week and that you can rest up soon!

sister mullen #2














6 January 2014


Sister Rachel Mullen

This week was REALLY hard with numbers. People all went home to visit family and stuff for new years. Just really weird times. The Elders in Kamphaengphet said they were going to go teach the family so I invited myself Hahaha. President told me to go, so I figured just go. So we got on a bus and went.

It was crazy. Got to the church and all 4 Kamphaenphet elders were there.I swear, these elders are cooler than the Laos elders, i think. Haha I remember every time at transfers or whatever, when the Laos missionaries would walk in it was like... woah. But nope. Kamphaenphet is the place to be. Haha I love it! I had the Elders lead the lesson. I felt it was best since they would be the ones teaching later. We will see if they want to keep learning, but they were very worried about commandments I felt, Haha, just like everyone in the world I feel, when they see a mormon missionary knocking on their door.

I told them they just need to try, or else they will Never know.

I feel they really liked the elders and we went out to eat afterward. They already have 2 baptisms for the 12th and they invited the family to go and see what it is like. Na Tong asked if I would be there. I started to answer no, but then elder davies is like... yes you can. Haha, that'd be the coolest.

Khunyai remembered me. She was so cute and Na Tuk got some really good pictures. Have her send you all of them and then send them to me!

It was an amazing opportunity to go and do that. Of course I thought of a gagillion things I wish I Would have said, but I hope they start to open their hearts.

Ugh, why on earth is this the best experience ever.

President told me you sent him 17 referrals. That is awesome. He asked what he should do to work on that. I said, open up a sister area in Kamphaengphet. Hahahaha we'll see...

Love you all, our investigators are hopefully getting married today (on my birthday) so they can be interviewed this weekend. Yay.

The mission has a goal of 200 baptisms this month. Let's DO IT!!!

Sister Mullen

Sister Jasmine Mullen

Happy New Year! Man i feel like its been forever since i've actually emailed you guys. But yeah. I'm in Chermside, serving with a cool sister called sister allen. we were in the mtc together. So yeah its been fun. Its just us two living in the flat. Elders lived there before, so yeah. We tidied up a bit. Theres like 500 couches in our flat. So we pushed them all into one room for someone to take.

So this area is great. We don't have a lot of investigators but we are working on building it up. We have two families that we work with everyday. So I really like being able to give as much time to them as possible. Theres been so many miracles happening lately. Its seriously crazy. But I can't lie, i love it. Our mission has been praying for miracles and we've been stepping up in obedience so now we're all seeing the effects of it. And its not coincidence but still its COOL!

So one night we had 30 minutes left so we'd thought we'd street contact people. Its usually not effective especially at night but it was the only thing we could do. So as we're walking around we meet this man called George and we talk for a bit and he's super friendly (like 60s) and so we left him a card (without the church address on it) and he said great but he lives in western australia so he'd only be here until wednesday. So then we got to church the next day and some lady bears her testimony and says the missionaries gave a man a book of mormon and he's here. I didn't think too much of it. And then in our class GEORGE walks in. He was teary eyed the entire day. He came and found the church himself and he said when he goes home he's going to look up the church. AHHH!! It was just an amazing experience meeting him and talking to him. We called him last night to say goodbye and wish him a safe flight and he said that he just loved the feeling he had at church and he said that all the nice people in brisbane were all in the church ahaha. so yeah basically the ward im in is awesome. they're very missionary minded.

the second miracle was we were at a boy Abhi's house. And we were talking to him about the Book of Mormon and he said he prayed but he didn't know if it was true. So then we're playing book of mormon bingo and his friend texts him a picture of Jesus. First off. What the heck. Second. Random. But Abhi saw the picture and paused and then said " Now I know the book of mormon is true". And then continues on with the game. And we were shocked and were like WHAT?!! But yeah he knows its true and we're going to go over tonight to ask his mom if he can be baptized! EEEKKK!

kl;aflkja;ldkfj i don't even know what to say.

but yeah its been great. we had interviews with president and he gave me permission to call sister tobiassen (my golden) whenever i felt prompted. she's having a really hard time still but i told her that she can't go home until i do. she just laughed. but she told me that centenary lakes is also booming with miracles. LA are coming to church and the edmonds are still on date for their baptism on the 8th of february! :) i'm so excited because i'll be able to go to the temple with them. :) :)

anyway. thank you for all you do. i miss you all so much!!!! love you. have a good week.

sister mullen #2














30 December 2013


Sister Rachel Mullen

Well, I think it will be short because I JUST talked to you. But anyways, for Christmas I opened up a new thing of contacts. Gloria.

We went and taught the couple that have a date in January. Only the husband was there and we were able to finish all the lessons for him. We took a member, Sister Nancy, she is the FUNNIEST thing ever. She just gets there, picks up the two puppies at their house, and makes conversation. She then goes out to their field and starts picking the crops. She's Hilarious.

Also had a little coughing attack teaching a lesson yesterday. That was awkward. Just a whole lot of awkwardness this week. It's never going to stop.

Even though there was awkwardness though, even though there were a gagillion things that went wrong, I am trying to learn what I need to.

First of all, don't be so dramatic: Our reactions are effecting others and the situation even more. Who cares about the mistake... make it right!

Secondly, God's way is the right way. And how are we to know if we don't plead with Him in prayer to know what is right.

It's the most cliche sounding thing in the whole world and I don't want to say it because it is so cliche but here goes: Everything happens for a reason.

I am ok with mistakes. I am ok with challenges. I am ok with trials. Because if I use that foundation of faith that I already have embedded within me, I'm not going to freak out. I'm not going sweat it. I'm going to portray to others my confidence that I have in my Heavenly Father.

It's all part of the plan! Listen to me, you won't get acne if you're not stressed out about the little things. Am I right, am I right?

For reals.

Trust in Him because literally, LITERALLY nothing else matters.

Sister Mullen #1

Sister Jasmine Mullen