Eye of the Eiger

This last week was pretty great! The church is phasing out missionaries wearing backpacks and requiring shoulder bags instead. In fact, here in the mission, all the missionaries who arrived after September 2013 have to have shoulder bags. I feel weird telling other missionaries what to do without doing it myself, so I bought a shoulder bag. Check it out! It's from a company called "Eiger", hence the cool title of this email. :)

After Zone Training Meeting, Elder Suryono and I headed on out to Bekasi for a baptismal interview for Elder Costner's investigator. Elder Johnson, and Elder Costner and I have all served in Medan and Elder Sxxxxx (Txxxxx, remember him?) is from Medan. It was fun! The interview went well and he will be baptized next week. 

After Mission Leader Conference, we held ZTM. We got to teach all of the other districts what we learned from President Donald. We have so many investigators in our zone that have baptismal commitments and President wants us to make sure we're doing everything we can to help them get baptized. He also wants us to be more bold in inviting people to be baptized so we can "sift through the nations".

We also went on splits with the AP's and I got to go with Elder Collett and learned so much from him. He teaches with such clarity and power. I hope I can teach like him some day. We tried to give every investigator we taught a baptismal commitment and it helped me see who we should focus on more. 2 investigators straight up said "not yet" and the other, Brother Exxxx just wants to make sure he can stop smoking first. 

Cool! I've heard of Elder Mulia. I never met him, but I heard from other missionaries who served with him. That sounds really fun! (We invited his parents over for dinner after we found out they live 5 minutes away from us.) We'll have to do the same thing once I get back. :) Did you get to practice any of your Indonesian with them? All the old timey members in Indonesia, especially in Jakarta, know them because they do the translations for General Conference. Good family. Super small world. Especially in the Indonesian Jakarta mission world. That's too bad you couldn't meet with Elder Murphy's mom.

Ooh, yeah I could use another journal. I'm just using a regular notebook right now, but a nicer journal would be appreciated. :) No need for hymn arrangements. I've got a couple in Senopati I've not yet used. Oh! I actually got to play for the Primary in the Jakarta 2nd Ward yesterday. Soooo much fun! Even though they've never even seen snow, you should have seen how excited they were to sing "Once There Was A Snowman." Ha ha!

Last thing--we taught a less active member, Brother Txxxxx, last week and he was baptized when he was a student in Fresno, California. Didn't you live in Fresno? Do you know a President Bob Smith? That's who baptized him. He was the stake president at the time. He's cool! Add him to the prayer list. He's less active because something's messed up with his internal clock where he only can't go to sleep at 4 am. And so he sleeps in and can't come to church. He's got a son, Bxxxx, who isn't baptized yet and goes to college in Seattle in September, so we're focusing on him.

That's about it for this week's letter. Hope everyone is doing well and has a great week! 

Elder Barrus

Note from Sharon:  I asked Seth what he wanted me to send for his birthday. This is what he requested:

Hmm.... Fruit snacks

Starbursts.

Socks. 

Jelly Belly's. 

A temple.

People who want to be baptized.