Elder Seth Barrus

Elder Seth Barrus
Jakarta Indonesia Mission May2013-2015

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Selamat Hari Pionir!

Zone Training Meeting (The Serious Picture)

Zone Training Meeting (The Not-So-Serious Picture)


Happy Pioneer Day in 3 days everyone!

For whatever reason, (more online proselyting I think), we're getting more mormon.org referrals here in the Jawa Barat zone. The great thing about them is that they actually want to meet with us. The first referral, Pak Axxx, is a retired fellow living in Cibubur, which is about a 2 hour bus ride in between Bogor and Jakarta. What we thought would be just 2 hours, turned out to be 2 hours just on the tollway. We could've walked faster than the car was driving. But we made it to his house and he's pretty awesome, so no need to complain about how long it took to get there. He wants us to come back this next week and meet with all his other neighbors who have false preconceived notions about our Church. 

The second referral, Mas Dxxxx, noticed some missionaries on a busway two weeks ago, noted their name badges, and started his search on the internet for anything about Mormons. Luckily, he found mormon.org and asked for a missionary visit. We met him at the church and he's awesome! He rarely goes to his own church and rarely prays, but he's had so many questions about God and life that other people haven't been able to answer yet. We're meeting him again today, so wish us luck! 

Brother Exxxxx is progressing along nicely towards his baptism on the 9th of August. Again, we're just waiting for his son, Cxxxx, to come home from Solo, and then he wants to be baptized. We had a great lesson about the Gift of the Holy Ghost and it's made me think more about the role the Holy Ghost has in everyone's life. Spiritual moment time.... 

You remember the story from Elder Perry in last April's conference? He compared following the Holy Ghost to breaking in a pair of new horses. They first need to have complete trust in the driver and then the correct tools to help steer the horses in the direction the driver wants to go. That's where the importance of the harness and bit comes in. Just by a short, soft tug, the driver can influence the horses to turn whichever way he wanted, thus completely altering the horses' course. He compared it to the Holy Ghost in that the he never tugs us forcefully or even strongly. But out of respect for our agency, it's usually a small and simple tug; and if we follow said prompting, it could totally alter our course in the direction that the driver (Heavenly Father) wants us to go. Cool comparison!

In the Jakarta Selatan house, we made this goal to wake up as a 4-some right at 6:30 am every morning. To help us accomplish this goal, we also set all the alarms for 6:25. As soon as it hits 6:30, we go into this all out attack, smacking each other with pillows. I do say that since I've come on a mission, I've learned the importance of making plans to accomplish the goals I set. Ha ha! 

You remember Tri? he's getting baptized this Saturday!

The Church is true no matter where you go! 

Elder Seth Barrus

PS: Oh yeah! Thanks for the second part of the package! I met the former Elder Mulia (Mardy) at Senopati (the mission office) last week and he handed me these 2 ziplock bags. I haven't met his mom yet though. Good family. And I do know Elder Johnson! Elder Matt Johnson right? He's here in Bekasi right now and he used to be my Zone Leader when I was in Tangerang. I really respect the guy! Hope you have fun at the missionary reunion on the 31st!

Tell Jonathan good job! It's kinda intimidating to do musical numbers in front of the ward... The ward somehow found out that I can plunk out some songs on the piano, so they asked me to play for a special musical number from the youth this last week (Come unto Christ) and about halfway into the song, my sheet music fell off the piano. I stopped playing at the next measure, quickly picked up the remaining pages, and just started playing the first measure I saw, luckily happened to be the same measure they were singing. I've also played for sacrament meeting a couple of times when the pianist doesn't show. And the Primary has asked me to play every 3rd hour. Which is actually more fun than staying for priesthood... :) Jonathan's piano skills will come in handy on da mish.

Love you mom! 
Elder Barrus

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