Chicken Feet and Mukjizat (Miracles)

So much to talk about... and yet no idea where to begin... So we'll start with PLD! The Jawa Barat zone plus the Medan district all met together in Jakarta with President and Sister Donald for our once a month meeting. It's kinda like General Conference, where all the missionaries expect some big new thing. But this time, President Donald just emphasized things that he's asked us to do in previous meetings, and if we aren't doing them, encouraged us to do them now. He also brought out the new mission "motto" or "theme" or whatever you want to call it. "Obedience is the Price, Faith is the Power, Work is the Commitment, Love is the Motive, Spirit is the Key, Christ is the Reason. And One More Contact before going home." Coming up on my year mark, it gave me some added purpose and motivation.

As for investigator work, we had a huge miracle happen yesterday at church. You remember Hxxx? He's the one who knows it's all true, but can't come to church because his boss never gives him Sundays off. So yesterday as we were getting ready for Sacrament Meeting, we were pretty surprised to see none other than Hxxx walk in the doors! Last night he prayed to God telling Him he would come to church on Sunday and if he felt something, he would stay and keep learning. And he had an awesome experience! He decided he'll just face his boss tomorrow, but it's a testimony to me that whoever puts the Lord first will have all other things fall into place, maybe not according to what we want, but I think the Lord's will is better than our own. :) We're meeting with him again later today and will follow it all up.

A fun resource for Gospel learning is the Bible Dictionary (if I'm not wrong, written by Elder Bruce R. McConkie.. Someone correct me if I'm not correct). This last week, I read the entry on "Prayer" and learned this: "Many of the so-called difficulties about prayer arise from forgetting this 'father-son' relationship. Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other. The object of prayer is not to change the will of God but to secure for ourselves and others blessings that God is already willing to grant, but that are made conditional on our asking for them. Blessings require some work or effort on our part before we can obtain them." So my invitation of the week is to make your prayers more heartfelt and to truly search out the will of God. 

Misi adalah enak! (The mission in delicious!)

Elder Seth Barrus

This is a chicken foot, or "ceker" (check-air). It's actually quite delicious. If it's boiled correctly, you can bite at the joints and pull the talons off and suck the skin and meat off the bones. If you were wondering..

This is my becak shirt Elder Costner bought for me in Medan. And to answer your question Mom- no... we haven't taken the Christmas tree down yet..

Two more pictures from PLD (Zone Conference). One silly and one serious. It was a great meeting!

Rats and a Snowman

For Easter here, everything Christian kind of shuts down. Starting with the Thursday before Good Friday, most Christians here in Tangerang went to their church and it continued every day until this last Sunday. Everybody had work off too. Is that a thing in America? 

This last week was great! We caught 2 rats in our house, made some oriental omelettes (thanks Bishop Gardner), and taught a lot of investigators.

This is rat #1. We baited him with some great cake sort of thing we got from a less active member. Great for mouse bait, not so great for the ol' stomach.  

We also finally met up with James! He texted us last Tuesday when Elder Canfield and I were on a split and said he was ready to finally meet up. Instead of waiting until another day, we set up an appointment for that same day. We were expecting an embittered, kind of angry man, since he canceled his membership about 2 years ago, but instead we met up with the most humble, open, ready to repent man I have ever met on my mission. As we helped him understand the process of repentance and the role of the Savior's Atonement in his life, I think I'm finally starting to truly understand the immense impact the Atonement has on everyone's life and the lasting peace that will come as a result of accepting it. We also taught Brother Wxxxxxx about why we consider Jesus as our Savior this Easter season. We invited him to church, but he still is exercising his free agency and not coming.  Timing is a funky thing. 

This last week was chalk full of experiences in teaching about Christ and His Atonement, but I think my favorite was when we met with Pak Ixxx. He's a new investigator we found while searching for someone else's address. We started by sharing an Easter message and made this really fun transition to how there are other witnesses of
Christ's resurrection... in the Kitab Mormon! He's going to Vietnam these next couple weeks, but he wants to read the testimony of Christ in the Americas while he's there. 

Is it still snowing in Utah? If not, it's snowing in Tangerang!!! Ha ha! Just kidding. There's this "Snow World International" building next to a big mall here in Tangerang and inside the building is a winter wonderland. Last PDay, we trekked on over there and holy schnikies it was cold!! This is me chillin' next to a Pak I met.  

In Preach My Gospel, there's an entire section devoted to "developing Christlike attributes". Elder Ballard encouraged every member to get a copy and study it. If you're confused as to where to start since maybe you aren't a full time missionary, I encourage you start here. As you develop Christlike attributes, you'll get the Spirit. As you get the Spirit, you'll be able to hear the promptings of how you can share the Gospel with your friends and family. Happy Easter! Tuhan Yesus Kristus telah bangkit biar kita semua bisa bangkit satu hari nanti. "Dia tidak di sini, Dia telah bangkit." (The Lord Jesus Christ is risen so that we can all rise one day. "He is not here, He has risen."

Elder Seth Michael Barrus

General Conference in Indonesian

Conference was great! The Tangerang District watched it with the local Tangerang members here in Indonesian and as much as I'd like to say my Indonesian has improved, the General Authorities of the church use pretty formal words which makes for some pretty funny and hard to understand Indonesian phrases. I feel kinda bad for the translators. Luckily, the stake president was reading the talks in English during the sessions, so I just looked over his shoulder and read them in English... There were two talks that really stuck out to me--the one from President Uchtdorf about how we need to be a more grateful people and Elder Michael Teh's talk about how the Lord has a way of refocusing our priorities in times of calamity or tragedy. He then asked a great question "Why do we devote our time to things that are so fleeting and inconsequential?" Good question. After devoting these 2 years to the Lord, I hope this is something I can apply in "normal life". 

Elder Sutadiyono and I were praying that Brother Wintolo would be able to come to at least one of the sessions, but he didn't come. So after our 6 o'clock appointment on Sunday we swung by his house and just chatted with him about how much he missed out on... Ha ha! He's good though. We taught him last week again about how Jesus Christ fulfilled the law of Moses and a little bit about the Kitab Mormon. For whatever reason, I feel like my work here in Tangerang isn't quite yet done. We're starting a new 16 week English course we got from the area headquarters in Hong Kong and from the looks of it, it's gonna be an awesome tool to help members invite their friends to come and do missionary work. 

We rode a train to Zone Training Meeting last week and took this fun picture of us waiting for the train.This Muslim lady is wondering where these weird Bules came from. Elder Sutadiyono and I have started to contact more and more Muslim people, not with the intent to convert them to Christianity, but so that we can understand them and their culture better.

I promised to send a picture of our new bikes and here they are! Parked right next to a "Womens' Parking" sign. Oops... No crashes yet worthy enough to report. Elder Sutadiyono and I have taken great fun in shifting all the way down (or up?) where we have to pump our legs super super fast just to go 5 feet, and then we race home the last stretch to our house. Ha ha! Fun stuff on the mish.

This is an Alfamart. You will find these EVERYWHERE, sometimes placed right next to an Indomart. It's just your basic local convenience store. We do most of our shopping here. You just can't find milk here though... at least not quality Smith's or BYU Creamery milk. We've taught one of our investigators, Mbak Rxxxx, in front of one of these Alfamarts. 

Real quick before I finish, we've met with a new investigator, his name is Bxxxxx, he's 13 years old and he's ready and wants to be baptized in May. The Lord is definitely preparing the hearts of men to receive His message. I dunno what we're doing, but He's blessing us. Hope everyone has a great week! 

Elder Barrus

This Week in Pictures

I sure hope everybody had a great General Conference weekend! We have to wait for the translation and hopefully get to watch it this Saturday and Sunday. To switch things up today, this week's email will be in pictures! 

Like I said last week, we went to the beach for Pday! I'm a huge fan of Indonesian beaches because of the emphasis on modesty. It was super fun playing in the sand and taking dumb pictures. This is the Tangerang District. Me, Elder Canfield, Elder Heiner, and Elder Sutadiyono.

Angkot picture! The stock at the mission office is currently out of Kitab Mormons, so when my comp and I ride angkots, he carries around a Chinese Book of Mormon, and I carry my teeny tiny copy in English. 

French Toast! We have to wait for the General Conference CD to arrive in the mission office in Senopati, where it will be copied onto flashdisks and sent to all the wards and branches. So even though we don't get to watch Conference until next week, I made some General Conference french toast anyway. And my shirt has totally shrunk since buying it in Medan. Three cheers for missionary sleeve tans! 

Here is where I get to talk a little bit about the investigators. This is Brother Txx. Yep. Like "pohon" or "tree". He's gone through so much change it's incredible. He texted us last week saying he wanted to meet more often. So we sent his information to the Jakarta elders and they've been able to meet with him more than just the once a week at church that we've been doing. He said he prayed about the Kitab Mormon, (Finally!!) but hasn't received an answer yet. He'll get one though because that promise isn't from us as 19 year old kids, but from an All-knowing God. 

The prayers and fasting for Brother Txxxx Wxxxxxx have paid off. This last week, we planned on teaching a little bit about Joseph Smith's prayer and inviting him to church again. Right before we wanted to begin, he asked us two questions: why we consider Jesus "Lord" and why Ishmael wasn't the promised line. It's the first time he's actually asked us questions and we had an incredible lesson because of it. Your prayers for him will be much appreciated.

Mas Bxxxxxx came to church and was confirmed! He's still got a lot to learn as far as membership in the church goes (don't we all?) but he's got a solid foundation. And that gift of the Holy Ghost will help, too. We are teaching another new investigator, his name is Mas Hxxx, and he's awesome! He became interested with the church because he listened to some David Archuleta music and heard something on the internet that he was a Mormon. At this point, he knows the church is true and he wants to be baptized himself. So wherever you are David Archuleta, a random missionary in Indonesia is thanking you. Mas Hxxx's only problem is that he works every single day from 6 am until 2 pm. Church starts on Sundays at 8 and goes till 11. We're encouraging him to ask his boss for Sundays off. Even though it seems impossible, anything is possible through the Lord. 1 Nephi 3:7.

The Lord continually blesses those who continually hold fast to what He asks. Hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Seth Michael Barrus

                                 On top of the "Living World" overlooking the city of Tangerang.

Waktunya Pantai (Time to Beach!)

Don't have a ton of time to write today because we just got back from a trip to the beach. Super nice and sunny. It was really fun getting out of the city for a change. It was a beach close to Krakatao, the volcano that erupted in 1883 and destroyed almost a whole island. The sand is black.  Will send pictures later. 

I heard about the freak snow storm that's happening in Utah. Must've been worldwide or something because yesterday, it was a balmy 70 or so degrees riding our bikes to church. About halfway home, it just started dumping buckets of the Indian Ocean on us. Just soaked! 

We got bikes! I'll attach a picture next week, but we got permission last week to purchase 4 brand new bicycles, water bottle attachment and all. We'll still ride angkots when it's far, but if we have a relatively close appointment, we have a choice now if we want to exercise our fat selves or not. 

Brother Bxxxxxxx couldn't come to church this week because he went to his family's house in Semarang to tell his family about his wedding. So his confirmation has to be placed on hold until this next Sunday. Brother Wxxxxxxx is showing some really good progress randomly now. He came to Bxxxxxx's baptism last week, went to Solo this week and attended another baptism (I'm assuming where his son who is serving a mission baptized a new member). And this last week when we met, he actually was interested and participated in the discussion. We're planning on teaching about the Restoration this week. It's a fun time to be a missionary in Tangerang! We're working with a few more people, but haven't been able to meet enough times to see what problems or how much potential there is yet.

Thanks everybody for the support and prayers! Have a great week!

Elder Seth Barrus

Krakatoa Island--nearly destroyed in 1883 by gigantic volcanic eruption.
Now called "Anak Krakatoa", or Krakatoa's Child. 

"Awal Baru" (New Start)

This last week was very much a week of "seeing what happens". Brother Bxxxxxxx asked to be baptized quicker and so we set a date for March 23rd and said he needed to meet with us more often. We fasted last week that he would find time because he usually goes to Bogor every day for work, so meeting at night is usually a rare thing. He pulled it off where he was able to meet last Monday, Wednesday, and then get interviewed Friday. And he passed! His baptism yesterday was probably one of the sweetest things of my life for many reasons. Sister Dhian has been dating him for 4 years and hasn't wanted to get married to him until he got baptized. It's taken this long just for him to meet with the missionaries or come to church, so as he was coming out of the font, she was understandably crying. It's been quite a fun ride teaching and seeing him grow. The only scary thing about it is if he tells his immediate family, they will disown him. Bxxxxxxx is 35 years old, and while talking with him about it, it sounds like he will give it some time before he tells them. I asked him after the actual baptism how he felt and he said "awal baru" or "new start".   

It was just a great overall day too because we randomly invited Brother Wxxxxxx to the baptism and he actually came! Elder Sutadiyono and I have been praying that his heart will be softened enough to the point where he'll receive the Gospel, but this was a huge blessing to us. We're just gonna go for it this week and invite him to Church next Sunday. We are being so blessed it's humbling. New investigators are coming out of the woodwork, investigators are actually reading their scriptures and keeping their committments (except for coming to church), and the members are starting to reach out to their friends. Things are definitely rolling!

As for how my "stuff" is, I could use some new shirts... I scrub them every time, but some are getting slowly destroyed. Garments are holding up really well. I haven't even dipped into my supply at Senopati. Shoes are doing great. One of my pairs of pants I gave to an Indonesian elder, so I need to go out and buy a new pair. Don't worry about sending new ones. I'm doing good though. Nothing that's too hard to fix myself.

The Tangerang District did some fun math last week: there are over 7 billion people in the world and just over 16 million members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. If you divide that 16 million by the 7 billion, and we learn that LDS members represent about 0.2% of the world's population. Even with all the success that missionaries worldwide are experiencing, there's still a lot of work left to do! Terus Maju dan Jangan Mundur! Tuhan mau mempercepatkan pekerjaan Nya. (Go forward continuously, and never backward. God wants to speed up His work.)

Thanks everybody for your support and prayers! 

Elder Seth Barrus

This is what happens when your best player is someone who hasn't played (or exercised seriously) for 10 months, and the rest of the team is made up of a discus thrower, a lacrosse player, and a futsal playing Indonesian. We thought we were going to play Timmy's junior high team, but we ended up playing a professional team. We had no idea. And we got stomped mostly because they just ran us out of the gym.

Good Things in the Forecast

Eating a fish head (with a spoon in it's mouth!)

I feel like we aren't doing anything different, and yet, the Lord is blessing us. Long story short, Mas Bxxxxxx wants to be baptized faster. Like next week on the 23rd of March! It's kinda thrown us for a loop because before this, he could only meet on Sundays, right after church. He said he'll find time this week where we'll be able to meet every day and finish everything up before his interview. I'm hoping by next week's email, I'll get to tell you how it went. We taught Word of Wisdom last Wednesday and by Sunday, he had stopped it all, cold turkey. So here we go! 

Brother Wxxxxxx is doing okay. While we were having family night with him and his family, the phone rang with the news that his little brother has a brain tumor and is in critical condition in the hospital. That shocked him a little bit. So we taught about the Atonement and how everything unfair about life can be made OK through it. He's started to interact a lot more with the members, and vice versa, so I'm still certain that all we need is time with him.

 Elder Heiner and Elder Canfield are serving in Tangerang 2, where there hasn't been a convert baptism for about 3.5 years. And these last couple of weeks, they've been doing work! And finding perfectly prepared people. Most times when we don't understand why, the Lord knows perfectly. And we'll know in the end.

Fun story of the week: since not a lot of our current investigators could meet, we started flipping through the area book and found some former investigators to contact. Ibu Exxx was one of them and we decided to go to her house right then. She invited us in and started to tell us that she'd recently been in a motorcycle accident, and how after her accident she's felt that she has more time for the things of God. And also her son, Bryan, has been hanging out with some pretty bad influences. She said her first reaction was to call up someone who could help, and her first thought was: The Missionaries! She didn't have our number anymore though, so when we came by 2 days later, she took it as a sign. We reminded her of the Restoration and at the very end of a very spiritual lesson, she said, "I thought you guys were Jehovah's Witnesses. Aren't Mormons Jehovah's Witnesses?" Not quite. But I'm glad we made that clear. I don't know why she became a "former investigator", but I feel like it's her time now. Every person has their own timing and situation. 

I've been thinking a lot about how the Restoration really is one of the most monumentous events of the world's history. Before, when people in the spirit world learned about the gospel, they were probably told they have to wait until the Priesthood is again restored on the earth. They must have been overjoyed when Joseph went with his humble prayer into the sacred grove. We read in D&C 15:6 and 16:6 that "The thing which will be of the most worth unto you will be to declare repentance unto the people, that you may bring souls unto Me, that you may rest with them in the kingdom of my Father." 

Hidup adalah enak. Dan lezat. (Life is good. And delicious.)

Elder Barrus

Elder Canfield, Elder Sutadiyono and I riding in an angkot.

Love this guy! My companion--
Elder Sutadiyono.

I found Zion! It's right across the street from the Tangerang Chapel!