This last week was very much a week of "seeing what happens". Brother Bxxxxxxx asked to be baptized quicker and so we set a date for March 23rd and said he needed to meet with us more often. We fasted last week that he would find time because he usually goes to Bogor every day for work, so meeting at night is usually a rare thing. He pulled it off where he was able to meet last Monday, Wednesday, and then get interviewed Friday. And he passed! His baptism yesterday was probably one of the sweetest things of my life for many reasons. Sister Dhian has been dating him for 4 years and hasn't wanted to get married to him until he got baptized. It's taken this long just for him to meet with the missionaries or come to church, so as he was coming out of the font, she was understandably crying. It's been quite a fun ride teaching and seeing him grow. The only scary thing about it is if he tells his immediate family, they will disown him. Bxxxxxxx is 35 years old, and while talking with him about it, it sounds like he will give it some time before he tells them. I asked him after the actual baptism how he felt and he said "awal baru" or "new start".
It was just a great overall day too because we randomly invited Brother Wxxxxxx to the baptism and he actually came! Elder Sutadiyono and I have been praying that his heart will be softened enough to the point where he'll receive the Gospel, but this was a huge blessing to us. We're just gonna go for it this week and invite him to Church next Sunday. We are being so blessed it's humbling. New investigators are coming out of the woodwork, investigators are actually reading their scriptures and keeping their committments (except for coming to church), and the members are starting to reach out to their friends. Things are definitely rolling!
As for how my "stuff" is, I could use some new shirts... I scrub them every time, but some are getting slowly destroyed. Garments are holding up really well. I haven't even dipped into my supply at Senopati. Shoes are doing great. One of my pairs of pants I gave to an Indonesian elder, so I need to go out and buy a new pair. Don't worry about sending new ones. I'm doing good though. Nothing that's too hard to fix myself.
The Tangerang District did some fun math last week: there are over 7 billion people in the world and just over 16 million members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. If you divide that 16 million by the 7 billion, and we learn that LDS members represent about 0.2% of the world's population. Even with all the success that missionaries worldwide are experiencing, there's still a lot of work left to do! Terus Maju dan Jangan Mundur! Tuhan mau mempercepatkan pekerjaan Nya. (Go forward continuously, and never backward. God wants to speed up His work.)
Elder Seth Barrus
This is what happens when your best player is someone who hasn't played (or exercised seriously) for 10 months, and the rest of the team is made up of a discus thrower, a lacrosse player, and a futsal playing Indonesian. We thought we were going to play Timmy's junior high team, but we ended up playing a professional team. We had no idea. And we got stomped mostly because they just ran us out of the gym.
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