Faith

I've known for a long time that my greenie companion has better Indonesian than I do. But something I've also learned is that he also has more faith than I do. We've had two referrals from Mormon.org that we contacted a few weeks ago, but each lesson, they said they're not too interested in us coming back. Elder Sxxxxxxxxxx led out all of last week and he planned on going over there just to see what's up. I'll admit, both times I was kinda nervous we might get chased out, getting hit across the head with an Alkitab or something. Yet both times, they were willing for us to come back and continue the lessons. That's something I've slowly been learning on my mission: to have faith. In everything--investigators, having the faith to find, members, and most importantly, in Christ and His Atonement. And I do think it's because of faith that things are starting to look up here in Tangerang 1. 

We found one Ibu (woman) that we contacted in an Angkot. Her name is Ibu Fxxxxxxx and she is Catholic (because her parents were Catholic, her grandparents were Catholic, great-grandparents, and so on). As we taught her, and after sharing about the First Vision, she said "You two have the Spirit. I can see it. You are telling the truth." Wow. That was pretty humbling because we had just left an appointment with an "eternal investigator" who had said "If you truly knew Jesus, you wouldn't be teaching this 'Mormon stuff'". Ibu Fxxxxxxxx is great! We got her to commit to come to church with a member, but at the last moment, she canceled because I think she's scared of what her family and friends will think. But we'll keep trying and visiting and reminding her how she's felt. She lives with a nephew she took in because his parents neglected him, and she's never married. And so I think she feels somewhat of a responsibility to her parents to stay Catholic. Little does she know that her parents up in the Spirit World are wanting her to learn about and follow the Restored Gospel. 

We gave Mas Txx a baptismal commitment, and he's totally "gung-ho" about it. A slight problem is that he's the drummer for his own church, which meets at the same time as ours. He's currently training someone else to become a drummer too, so I think we'll just have to give him a little time. Mbak Exxx and her mom didn't come to church for unknown reasons and they haven't been picking up their phones, so we'll just have to wait and see what happens there. I really hope they come back into contact with us because they're the same ones who randomly appeared at church last week. 

A Christlike trait I've been trying to focus on is Humility because Elder Randy Funk said in last conference: "'Whosoever is sent in my name shall have the power to open the doors of my kingdom unto ANY nation whithersoever ye shall send them.' In order to have the spiritual power necessary to do that, you must be humble and obedient and have the ability to hear and follow the Spirit." 

On a Medan note, Txxx and Rxxx finally got baptized yesterday! Even though I would give anything to see them get baptized, I know that they truly are two of God's children prepared to build up His kingdom in Medan. Those people exist! His missionaries just need to have the faith to find them. 

Elder Seth Michael Barrus