The long lost relative in the Barrus family is officially a progressing investigator. Ha ha! We've been teaching Pak Barus for the last 3 weeks or so and he came to church for the first time yesterday! He even brought his daughter. Elder Jones and I went on an exchange last week and gave him a baptismal date for December 28. He lives much much closer to the Jakarta Selatan church, so we'll probably give him to Elder Wood and Elder Sutarno, but it's been a blast teaching somebody with the same Marga (clan). He's a cool cool guy. William didn't come to church because he slept in.
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| Thanksgiving Dinner with the Jakarta District courtesy of the Lucherini's at the Mission Home |
Sapi Suci! (Holy Cow!) It rained so hard last week! We had a nice Thanksgiving lunch with the Lucherini's (the mission couple), President and Sister Donald, and the Jakarta district missionaries after District Meeting last Friday and it just started pouring rain during lunch. Trees fell over, light posts turned a whole 180 degrees, and Jalan Senopati (Senopati Road) turned into Sungai Senopati (Senopati River). But Thanksgiving was delicious. We had pie, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, ice cream, turkey, and gravy.Good stuff.
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| Elder Barrus and soon to be member, Aleks |
We had a Wilford Woodruff type experience last week. Much like how Elder Woodruff was led to the Benbow farm and baptized thousands as a result, Elder Simanungkalit and I were led to Kebun Jeruk (Orange Farm if translated directly) and haven't quite baptized thousands, but we taught 10 new investigators, all from the wonderful land of Nias (an island off the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia). The only difference, is that about 8 of them are going to a school to become preachers. Man, it was way cool pulling out doctrine from the Book of Mormon to help them see the need for a restoration. K fine, we don't know if all of the pastors want to get baptized or just want to know, but we figured 2 of them are honest seekers of truth. It was quite the miracle. We'll be going over there this week to follow up. Bahasa Nias is still by far the weirdest language I have heard on my mission. It's not even on Google translate.
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| Sister Jibson, Elder Barrus, Sister Sheffield |
The time has come for the sisters in my MTC group to go home. Sister Jibson and Sister Sheffield came into Senopati last Tuesday night for the farewell dinner with President. It was fun, but weird to see the same missionaries I came with to Indonesia go home. Yikes, how many months do I have left? 12? 17? 24? I dunno. It's not that important. Mom stop counting the months.
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| Derry, Elder Barrus, Ivan. Two of the greatest guys right there. |
Guess who came by the English class in Harmoni the other day? Derry and Ivan!! Ah man, it just warmed my heart to see those two, still active and getting stronger in the Gospel every day. Derry is really starting to come into his own and interact with all the members, according to Ivan. That might be one of the biggest joys in my mission is seeing somebody change their life for Jesus Christ. Not for missionaries, not for their parents or anybody on earth. But because they developed this love and desire to follow the Savior.
2 Nephi 25:23. I am so grateful for the Book of Mormon and the answers to questions of the soul we receive from it. Like that verse. We used that maybe 5 times last week. I testify it's true!!!
23 For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.
Elder Seth Barrus
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