The Stone Cut without Hands is Rolling Forth

On Saturday night, the first counselor in the bishopric asked me to give a talk in sacrament meeting about missionary work. I decided to focus on Elder Bednar's talk about how to "sweep the earth as with a flood" as well as Daniel's prophecy about the stone cut without hands filling the whole earth. It's 100% applicable for all of us. First off, it fills the whole earth, not just parts. Which means everybody will be affected by it. We have the choice to either start running with it or try to stop it. The first choice will bring us happiness and joy, the second will just crush us. And if we just decide to watch the stone just roll by, it will also crush us, as it fills the entire earth. It's kind of as simple as that: do you want to get crushed, or feel happy? Yay! Member missionary work!

Great week! We did an exchange with the two alone missionaries serving here at this moment. I went with Elder Keller. He's from Rigby, Idaho and he looks exactly like Josh. I kid you not. (His first name is even Josh.) I've attached a picture below and you can judge. You are irreplaceable Joshua Ryan Barrus, but I keep imagining that it would completely weird if you got your mission call to Indonesia and he was your trainer.

I'm really really happy how much the ward has rallied around Ivan. The YSA group invited him to their activity at a member's home and he went by himself and had a blast. We've been encouraging him to start doing his own missionary work and he so far has 3 friends who are interested to meet with us sometime.

We do not have any missionaries in Bali yet, but any planting that I can do to justify sending missionaries there is fun. A random guy called us and asked if we could come to his house and give comfort because his wife just passed away 3 days previous. His name is Pak Paulus. He's from Solo, but his son and his wife live in Bali. They happened to be there at the house and as we shared a quick message about the Plan of Salvation, they seemed to take it in really well. They took off to Bali already, but we gave them a Kitab Mormon and said hopefully there will be missionaries there soon. No plans yet, but maybe one day. 

Elder Sutarno makes me laugh. I attached a photo of us taking a joy ride on some old fashioned Dutch bicycles on PDay last week. He's more ripped than I am because he's an exercise nut. And his English is awesome!  New investigators are coming out of the woodwork and I don't think I've been happier in my mission than now.

Also, tell Nick congrats on being ordained an elder. When does he leave for his mission? Ready for a small world story? He did Special Needs Mutual with one of the missionaries in my house, Elder Ty Campbell, back in Pleasant Grove. And he says "hi" to Nick. :)

Dad asked me my thoughts about how scripture study as preparation for a mission. Looking back, that might have been one of the areas I could have done better in preparation for my mission. Not only did I not do it every day, I didn't really have a purpose. I kinda was just doing it because. The first time I remember gaining a true testimony of the scriptures is when I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with school, calculus, basketball, and all my church assignments. I opened up to Helaman 3:35 which tells us that as the people fasted and prayed (and did the things asked of them from God) that it filled their souls with joy and consolation. I was so worried about what I hadn't yet become, that I was missing out on the joy in the spiritual progression steps that we make, as we make the "assignments from God" our first priority. 

As far as scriptures about scripture study, I really enjoy Doctrine and Covenants 10:5. "Pray always that you may come off conqueror; yea, that you may conquer Satan, and that you may escape the hands of the servants of Satan that do uphold his work." Really anytime we read "pray" we can also add the words "fasting and scripture study" too. The battle we are all in currently is a battle for our souls. By reading the scriptures, we can literally come off as conqueror of Satan. But it's all little by little. In Indonesian, it's "sedikit demi sedikit". If we expect some great marvelous vision or blessing to come as a result of studying our scriptures just one time, it won't come. But little choices every day and little gems we collect over time add up to a huge protection, blessing, and a way of happy living. Like in 2 Nephi 28:30. Does that count as my answer? :) 

Hope you all have a great week!

Elder Seth Barrus