Elder Seth Barrus

Elder Seth Barrus
Jakarta Indonesia Mission May2013-2015

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

This...is...Jakarta!

Selamat datang dari kota yang terkasih- Jakarta! (welcome from the beloved city!) It's a little bit more crowded, noisy, and different than Tangerang, or my other cities, but I'm certain I'll grow to love it just as much as my other cities. (Wow, if that doesn't sound missionary cliche, I'm not sure what does.) My companion is a super short elder from Bandung. His name is Elder Suryono and he goes home in August, so my job is to work with him in the Jawa Barat zone and keep him from trunking himself out. We live in the same house with Elder Litster and Elder Rogers really close to the church here. We'll be covering two "wards", and by that I mean the Jakarta 2nd ward, and the Jakarta 3rd ward, which is just the English speaking ward. We share the entire city with the AP's, the Sister Trainers, another set of sisters, and the elders in our house. Yep. It's great fun!

We ride angkots, buses, or the busway system. We haven't found a good housing complex to proselyte in yet, but we do get plenty of opportunities to talk to people in the buses. Like one time we were talking to this one guy (from Medan! woot!) about the Kitab Mormon, and this lady sprang to her feet from her chair and said "That book is false and not true!" We calmly explained that nope. It's not. But she was still pretty fervent in her quest of stopping us in "corrupting" this youth. By the end, the Medan guy wouldn't take the Book of Mormon, but wants to meet with the missionaries in Bekasi sometime. There are some weeeird people in Jakarta. But some great ones too! We went to Stake Conference this past weekend and heard lots of talks from lots of great people. Elder Suryono said that all the past conference themes have been about member missionary work. I'm a fan of that. :)
I'm at a new warnet and can't figure out how to send pictures. But I'll figure it out later and send some next week. 


They do have Memorial Day here, just on a different day. I forget when... I think August maybe?

Ha ha! Oh Sister Sheffield. Elder Suryono and I went over to the Lucherini's apartment with the sisters last night and it's so weird but great having sisters back in my district. My companion is hilarious! He was Elder Heiner's trainer back in Malang last year, and at that time, his English was awful. But now it's super great! I guess continuously training new missionaries does that to you. But he still says some funny stuff. Like when he said we should be careful we didn't go down to "H-E-double stick hockey". I'm excited to serve with him!

Oh! So I actually rummaged through my stuff at Senopati (the mission home) and found some extra shirts I had actually saved. I don't know the status of the package, but I don't think you need to worry about sending shirts anymore. Unless you already did. And if so, no worries. :) Just send the fruit snacks. :)

Yep. I chatted with Elder Wood at Stake Conference this last weekend, and Tangerang is a tough place to whitewash just because it's huge! And he did come from a paradise in Manado. The word on the street goes that they had some ridiculous number like 15 investigators with baptismal commitments up there in Christian land. But Tangerang is a great place. He'll be happy there.

New prayer list: add Pak Dxxxxx. He's a doctor from Manado who's come to church before and has a lot of potential. We're meeting with him tomorrow. 

Elder Seth Barrus

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