Tender Mercies

With Elder Subandriyo and wife

 This week was full of just grand, epic, and majestic news. The streets in Jakarta this past week were absolutely desolate. Everybody headed back to their original city of birth (kinda Joseph going back to Bethlehem style), and since there aren't a lot of people just from Jakarta itself, there was almost no one on the streets. Super weird in comparison to the traffic jams and crowds of people we usually deal with. For the holiday itself, a former area 70, Elder Joshua Subandriyo, invited Elder Suryono and I to his house for some food and to chat. So what would you say or do if you went to the house of a former mission president, branch president, and general authority? Why you ask for his own experiences and advice of course. He shared so much with us, but one of the stories I want to highlight is when Elder Packer came to Indonesia early in the 2000's and asked if he could offer a prayer in the biggest masjid (mosque) in Southeast Asia, here in Jakarta. After some asking around, they got permission for the Apostle to do so. After the prayer and while they were leaving, one of the head imams there asked Elder Subandriyo "Who is that man?". Elder Subandriyo replied "He is an Apostle of the Lord." The imam replied "Very appropriate. We all could feel something as he prayed." The Twelve Apostles truly hold the same authority and power that the former Twelve held during New Testament times. Elder Subandriyo also is close friends with Sister Mary Ellen Edmunds. I attached a photo you can send to her. 

All our investigators were out of town, so all the lessons we taught this last week were with new investigators. We taught one man, his name is Mxxxxxx, all the way in Central Sumatra (I forgot the city's name) through facebook video call. Pretty techie if I do say so myself. He wants to change his life so bad and he knows about the Mormons from his brother-in-law who is a Mormon in Australia, the only problem is that he lives 10 hours away by bus to the closest chapel in Medan. President doesn't want us baptizing people into inactivity, so after explaining this to Mxxxxx, he concluded that he will go to Medan at least once a month to attend meetings there so he can be baptized. He's so awesome!! 

Mas Txxxx's baptism

Do you remember Brother Txx from Tangerang? He married a member there, Sister Chrissie, and then moved to Jakarta and continued being taught by the District leader there. I moved to Jakarta, Elder Rogers continued to teach him and had a great experience where they knelt in prayer together and asked God right then if Txx should be baptized. After the prayer was over, Txx opened his eyes and said "I don't feel anything." But nobody said anything for a few seconds, he closed his eyes again, opened them, and said "I know it's all true. I feel like God really has been trying to speak to me the whole time I've been learning. I've just been denying it. I need to be baptized." So this past Sunday, he decided to be baptized! He asked me to baptize him, and Elder Rogers to confer the Holy Ghost. It was definitely a tender mercy from the Lord to let me see my former investigator finally make that first covenant with Him. 

Transfers! With Elder Suryono and Elder Rogers going home next week, my new companion will be Elder Sutarno from Solo. You might remember him because we were in the same house back in Tangerang. I'm super stoked because he's a great missionary! Elder Sutadi will become the District Leader and will train. I'll definitely miss Elder Suryono, but he's most needed there in the Bandung branch as Ward Mission Leader, so we'll tearfully let him go. 

Last little tender mercy from the Lord: Remember Brother Wxxxxxx in Tangerang? He came to church last week and again yesterday!! He made the decision with Elder Wood that he would start coming to church every week from now on. He hasn't done his 5 sholats a day, and has even started to pray in the name of Jesus Christ. No baptismal date yet, but this is such a huge step for him! 

I've been reading some of Grandpa Killian's journal entries from his mission in Argentina and while he was in the Mission Home in Salt Lake back in September 1950, the man who set him apart said something that is soo key to missionary work. He said: "Always remember you have to make a friend before you can convert them to the Gospel." We're really just gathering our friends and family back into the fold of God that we all knew in the pre-existence. We should really treat them so. 

Saya mengasihi anda kalian! Makasih utk bantuan dan dukungan yg kalian telah memberi kepada saya! (I love you guys! Thanks For the help and support that you have given me!)

Dengan Kasih,

Elder Seth Barrus

Bonus Photos (thanks to Sister Sheffield's blog):

Sister Allred's and Elder Roger's birthday celebration

Mission Leader Conference tricky photo