Seth's Mission Blog: Trunkiness Never Was Happiness

Elder Jones and Alien

Note from Mom: We received this email a few days ago from Seth's email:

so many days left

Inbox

Seth Barrus

Apr 9 (4 days ago)

to me, Josh, Matt

Dear family .. I am so trunky... I count my days and my minuets. I miss you all.

Seth

(We knew it wasn't Seth because it wasn't on PDay, he wouldn't ever write that, and the word "minute" was misspelled.) We thought it was his Indonesian companion, Elder Wintolo, because he's been giving Seth a hard time about going home and counting down the days for him.)

Dear Family,

I just asked the office elders if they sent that email because Elder Wintolo claimed he was innocent. It was just Elder Jones. Not sure how he got onto my account. The bum. Ha ha! I love that elder. No I'm not trunky. He's the one counting down days in an effort to try and make me trunky. #trunkinessnever was happiness

General conference was sooo good! Mostly it was me, Elder Jones, and Elder Troff watching it on a TV in one of the classrooms at the church. Elder Wintolo went with our Ward Mission Leader, Jonathan, to listen to it in Indonesian. He tried staying for one session in English, but said "Elder, that is hard. I don't understand them." Ha ha! poor guy. I told him I don't understand sometimes too. That made him feel a little better.

OK, General Authorities and Quorum of the Twelve, I get your point. I should get married, be a good father and husband, have kids, raise them right in the Gospel, and embrace the grace of Christ more often in my life. That's what I got out of Conference. Seriously. It's like they realized all those missionaries who left right at the age change announcement are coming home within these next 6 months. And that with all these gospel checklist things we have to do, that we need to realize we won't be perfect in them; and it's not so much the doing of those things that bring us exaltation, but the becoming that's only possible through Christ's grace. Such a powerful conference. By the close of the final session, I just felt at peace. I felt satisfied. Grateful for the chance to still serve for the next ___ days as a missionary; and excited at the opportunities in front of me.

We got a couple of our investigators out to conference, but I hope you realize from listening to the voice-over when Spanish or Portuguese speakers talk, that listening to the voice-over is just not the same. Indonesians have been listening to a voice-over for years. And you just miss the emotion in the voice of the speakers. President Ucthdorf's joke when he started speaking German got a couple of laughs out of our English listening section at the church. Our leaders are just normal men! They're not robots, but have a sense of humor as well.

Elder Wintolo is the coolest companion on planet earth because he really really wants to do what the Prophet asked and get married in a reasonable amount of time after his mission. The culture expectation here is that you have to have a home, a job, and stable finances before getting married. But Elder Wintolo doesn't want to follow the trend. It made me ask if I'm as excited to follow the Prophet in things that aren't too popular in my own culture or personal opinions. We taught Axxx afterwards and he wants to get baptized on the 8th of May now because he feels bad for not coming to church the last 3 weeks. We taught Nxxxxxxx with Brother Ivan from Jakarta 2nd ward and Ivan's gonna make a great missionary some day. He testified about all the right things and was able to give a perspective that we couldn't give as missionaries. So invitation for the day: Go on splits with the missionaries. It helps a lot!

We went and finally played some basketball in Jakarta selatan (south) this morning and I got destroyed. My shoes that is. Josh, don't you be getting any ideas. ;) We played with two of the elders' investigators from Africa. They're super soccer players, but when it comes to putting the ball into the rim with hands, not feet, it got a little difficult. Ha ha! But it was fun. Amongst their broken English and jabbering French, we still had a good time. First time I've played basketball in a while here. You just can't find quality courts here.

Elder Wintolo and I have been busy in preparation for this next round of Zone Conferences. We're going to Surabaya tomorrow, Solo Thursday, and coming back by Friday for the Jakarta conference next week on Wednesday. I'll be sure to let you know how it all goes.

Hope everybody has a great week!

Elder Barrus