God is good. Very good. (Allah baik. Sangat baik.)

Selamat pagi semuanya-

There were a ton of things that happened last week that I will remember for the rest of my life. Or at least I wrote them in my journal, so there's a chance right? There's no possibility I can write it all in one letter, but I'll include what I think is important and hopefully it's not so boring for you to read back home, or wher'er you may be. 

Last week was awesome because we had 2 solid investigators tell us to "jangan pernah kembali ke rumah ini." Or "never come back to this house." One of them told us to come by and retrieve the Book of Mormon and Restoration film, because she is Catholic, her parents died Catholic, and she will forever stay Catholic. It kind of was a downer. Sometimes people's free agency is the most frustrating thing to missionary work. But as a result of us trying to be humble, the Lord blessed us with different opportunities than we were expecting. 

We met with Brother Wxxxxxxx and taught about the Holy Ghost and it's role in guiding us to truth. Went well. But no major improvements yet, although they've started to pray together as a family. (In the Christian way).

There's a sister here in the Tangerang Ward that is engaged to a Muslim man. His name is Mas Bxxxxxx. He's come to church before we showed up in Tangerang, and even met with missionaries, but the Elders before us made the innocent mistake of mentioning we have a living prophet on the earth today. Aaand that made him back off because according to him, Mohammad was the "seal of the prophets". Can't be anymore. So he stopped coming to church and it's been tough to get ahold of him ever since. We asked his fiancee, Sister Dhian, if we could just come over to her house while he's there and we could just talk. Turned out to be a really great lesson! We shared about the Plan of Salvation and it was really interesting to see that the Mormon Plan of Happiness is eerily similar to the Muslim theology of life after death. Before a final judgement into one of the levels of heaven, they believe all spirits go to another world to await the judgement. It's called "Alam Roh". We put 2 and 2 together and became like a modern day Ammon teaching King Lamoni because his "Alam Roh" is exactly like what we call "dunia roh" or "spirit world". The only difference is the whole Paradise and Prison thing. Sister Dhian is a stalwart member who comes from an incredible family, and so before getting married to him, she wants him baptized. It'll just take a little time. 

For some strange reason, we're not finding a lot of success with Christians. So another solid investigator we have is Mas Txx. He is the boyfriend of another sister member here. He originally was Buddhist and from Tangerang, but went to a couple of Christian churches when he was in Australia. He's come to church multiple times, and yesterday, we finished up the Plan of Salvation. It's been really really really fun and satisfying to teach the Plan in such a simple and clear way so he can understand. Like when we taught that the Resurrection is not quite Reincarnation. If it was Reincarnation, when would God's plan end? How would we progress and become like Him? We had hoped to invite him to be baptized, but decided to wait. At the end of the lesson he said "Your Church is less extreme than the churches I went to in Australia. Yours makes sense. But give me time." So we will. :) 

God is preparing His children to be taught the Gospel. I know that's true in Tangerang. In a city of 4 million people, (totally made that number up) there's gotta be a few who want to know the truth. Our modern day Prophet President Monson said in last conference: "We are inclined to become impatient for a solution to our problems, forgetting the heavenly virtue of patience is required. The difficulties which come to us present us with the real test of our ability to endure. Shall I Falter or Shall I Finish?" We'll find them. Elder Sutadiyono and I have the faith to do so. We just need to be patient as we work hard. 

Last week was kinda rough, but I've learned that usually in my mission, the worst weeks are usually (or sometimes eventually) followed up with a great week. We're gonna keep trying.

I hope everyone is doing great! Selamat Hari Imlek this Friday! (Happy Chinese New Year)

Dengan kasih,

The Stronger the wind, the stronger the Trees,

Elder Seth Michael Barrus

PLD and Elder Funk

Elder Sxxxxxxxxxxx, Elder Funk and Elder Barrus in Tangerang
(wearing long sleeves because the air conditioning is cold in the Tangerang chapel)

Hello. Hope everyone's doing baik (good)!

Last week was a great motivational week. Like those motivational posters you always see inside high school classrooms, just in meeting form. Last Tuesday was Jawa Barat's turn for PLD (Zone Conference) and we discussed and role played how we're going to accomplish our goal of getting a baptism every 3 months per companionship. Then, since President Donald is the best mission president ever, we watched Ephraim's Rescue and something that really stuck out to me was Ephraim's preparedness. When others were saying "I'll be ready next week or by this Thursday" he said he was ready to act and help NOW. As a missionary, we don't have the time to get worthy and to get prepared because the moments we need to act will always pass us by. Now is the time to get ready and be worthy. Good film.

We met with Brother Wxxxxxxxx last week with his family and for the first time since he's met with missionaries, he showed to us he's willing to try out the Gospel for himself. He committed to start praying with his family every night, even though he himself is Muslim. And even agreed to start comparing the Al'Quran and the Kitab Mormon (The Book of Mormon) to see if it's scripture. Definitely made some great progress there. Slowly but surely, his heart is starting to soften. (Brother Wxxxxxxx's son is serving as a missionary in another area in Indonesia.)

And lastly, Elder Funk came down from Hong Kong to his native missionary land (he served in Indonesia from 1971-1973) to hold a couple meetings with the priesthood brethren and stuff like that. And he also wanted to meet exclusively with the Jawa Barat missionaries. The man is truly called of God to be a General Authority. Seeing the way he talked about how much he loved his mission made me want to work even harder to love my mission the same way. He said he totally forgot about the hardships and the sweating of his mission, and only remembered as people asked him about it. Such an incredible missionary. I hope I can be half the missionary he was.

Congratulations to Cindy, Matt, and Aubrey on the new addition of Tyson to the family! Can't wait to see him!

Terus Maju,

Elder Barrus

Faith

I've known for a long time that my greenie companion has better Indonesian than I do. But something I've also learned is that he also has more faith than I do. We've had two referrals from Mormon.org that we contacted a few weeks ago, but each lesson, they said they're not too interested in us coming back. Elder Sxxxxxxxxxx led out all of last week and he planned on going over there just to see what's up. I'll admit, both times I was kinda nervous we might get chased out, getting hit across the head with an Alkitab or something. Yet both times, they were willing for us to come back and continue the lessons. That's something I've slowly been learning on my mission: to have faith. In everything--investigators, having the faith to find, members, and most importantly, in Christ and His Atonement. And I do think it's because of faith that things are starting to look up here in Tangerang 1. 

We found one Ibu (woman) that we contacted in an Angkot. Her name is Ibu Fxxxxxxx and she is Catholic (because her parents were Catholic, her grandparents were Catholic, great-grandparents, and so on). As we taught her, and after sharing about the First Vision, she said "You two have the Spirit. I can see it. You are telling the truth." Wow. That was pretty humbling because we had just left an appointment with an "eternal investigator" who had said "If you truly knew Jesus, you wouldn't be teaching this 'Mormon stuff'". Ibu Fxxxxxxxx is great! We got her to commit to come to church with a member, but at the last moment, she canceled because I think she's scared of what her family and friends will think. But we'll keep trying and visiting and reminding her how she's felt. She lives with a nephew she took in because his parents neglected him, and she's never married. And so I think she feels somewhat of a responsibility to her parents to stay Catholic. Little does she know that her parents up in the Spirit World are wanting her to learn about and follow the Restored Gospel. 

We gave Mas Txx a baptismal commitment, and he's totally "gung-ho" about it. A slight problem is that he's the drummer for his own church, which meets at the same time as ours. He's currently training someone else to become a drummer too, so I think we'll just have to give him a little time. Mbak Exxx and her mom didn't come to church for unknown reasons and they haven't been picking up their phones, so we'll just have to wait and see what happens there. I really hope they come back into contact with us because they're the same ones who randomly appeared at church last week. 

A Christlike trait I've been trying to focus on is Humility because Elder Randy Funk said in last conference: "'Whosoever is sent in my name shall have the power to open the doors of my kingdom unto ANY nation whithersoever ye shall send them.' In order to have the spiritual power necessary to do that, you must be humble and obedient and have the ability to hear and follow the Spirit." 

On a Medan note, Txxx and Rxxx finally got baptized yesterday! Even though I would give anything to see them get baptized, I know that they truly are two of God's children prepared to build up His kingdom in Medan. Those people exist! His missionaries just need to have the faith to find them. 

Elder Seth Michael Barrus

Itu adalah Mukjizat (It's a Miracle!)

I've had a strong testimony ever since I got out into the mission field that this is truly the Lord's work and we as missionaries have the opportunity to be His instruments. It's been confirmed again and again throughout my mission, including this last week. Things are starting to look up as far as the work goes now with Christmas and New Years over, all of our investigators and members are returning home. We met with one investigator, his name is Mas Txx. He's a 19 year old college student that lives pretty close to the mission home. He's a referral from another investigator who said that his mom wants Tio to have "good influences in his life." I would agree with her that missionaries are some of the best. Haha! We followed up what the other Elders had taught and he told us he believes the Book of Mormon and the Bible to support each other. He did a side by side comparison, using footnotes (who uses those outside of members of the church??), and reading every day. He hadn't yet prayed about it, or come to church, so we encouraged him to do so. 

Since we're still crazy new and don't know any of the members or the area, we've been meeting with as many members as we can, trying to establish some kind of relationship between us and the members. Haven't got any referrals out of it yet, but as members see us truly caring about the work, they'll want to help out. The ward has a goal to get 7 baptisms for the year 2014. I'm a fan of that goal. :)

Here's the miracle of the week. We had Zone Training Meeting in Jakarta last Friday with all of the Jawa Barat Elders and received new mission goals for the entire mission. Long story short: it's much, much higher than what we've been getting. It's gonna take a lot of faith and help to get there, so Elder Sutadiyono and I decided to fast this last Sunday that we might eventually reach those goals on a consistent basis. We just weren't quite ready for the miracle that occurred. 

None of our investigators committed to coming to church, so we sat all by ourselves at Sacrament meeting.At the end of the meeting, all of these members started coming up to us asking who those investigators were at the back of the chapel. The thing is: we had no clue either. We ended up teaching Gospel Principles to three investigators that had come. There was one that was a referral from a member, which is awesome! His name is Tri. The other two are an Ibu and her daughter. They used to be Catholic but weren't satisfied for one reason or another and wanted to search for a new church. They had heard from a friend that there was a church close by Alam Sutera, which is the same area as our church. They asked around and eventually found our Church, not quite the same church they had heard about, but they came and sat down in the middle of Sacrament meeting. After all of the meetings, the sisters from the Relief Society came up to us and told us that these two ladies had said "When we came in, we realized we entered a different church than we were looking for. But now feel we have found a better one." God is still a God of miracles and will continue to work them according to His children's faith. And faith is always pointed towards the future. We just have to work in the moment we're given. 

Thanks for praying for me and my companion and our investigators by name. I just read Elder Gifford Nielson's talk, and it made me grateful for a family that already does that. I know we've been blessed as a result of your prayers. Thank you! Hope you all have a great week and that you keep looking for missionary opportunities yourselves! Allah menyertaimu sampai kita bertemu lagi! (God be with you til we meet again!)

Elder Seth Michael Barrus

This is how we proselyte in Angkots. President asked us to carry
around a Kitab  Mormon and put it in a place where everyone can see it. 

Selamat Tahun Baru (Happy New Year)

The Tangerang District celebrating Christmas.

The time in between Christmas and New Year's was always fun for me back home to hang out with family, friends, and others while enjoying the break from school. I think it's about twice as cool out on the mission. Unless everyone is sick... Ha ha! We had a great Christmas last week! All of the missionaries from West Java were invited to the mission home first, and then to an English Member's home in Jakarta for some real American "bule" food. Fun stuff. No snow or Santa or anything, but a closeness with the Savior. I think that's the best kind of present I could ask for. And skyping with the family. That was a pretty great present too. 

Last week was weird. I was sick from Monday til Wednesday, and then out of the kindness of my heart, I think I gave the same sickness to Elder Sxxxxxxxxxxxxx. He was sick from Wednesday til yesterday, and now Elder Sxxxxxx is sick. Yep. It's weird how things work here in Indonesia. (No worries mom, I just took Vitamin D, C, and ibuprofen) but the Indonesians just walked on down to the local pharmacy and got some medicine for themselves. 

In spite of all the illness, we still managed to teach a couple times. We taught a less active family. (Do you remember Elder Mxxxxxxxx? He was my first DL in Surabaya. It's his family. His mom didn't even know he'd had dengue fever until he came home. Oops.) We taught from Elder Packer's talk from last conference how simply reading and pondering the scriptures will protect us from the evil influences of the world. When Sister Mxxxxxxxx closed with prayer she started crying and thanking the Lord for the 'inspired' message the missionaries had shared. Really touched me. I hope we as active members aren't taking things like prayer, scripture study, and church for granted. These things give us power and the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost. 

As far as investigators go, we have one 19 year old dude, his name is Mas Txx. (Remember in Medan, they say 'bang' but in Jawa they say 'mas' in reference to young men.) He's currently attending college and his mom is super supportive of him coming to Gereja Yesus Kristus (church). We're meeting up with him tomorrow to follow up, so next week I'll let you know how things are with him. 

Tangerang is entirely an angkot area. It's too large to be a biking area. Although, President told us at Christmas that he might use the leftover mission money to buy bikes for the Tang elders. Which would be nice because there are some areas close by the house where we have to walk for an hour to get to because there aren't any angkots that run through that area. I'll let you know. I'm feeling a bit stuffed up still, but perfectly well enough to go out and teach. Tangerang is colder than Medan. But just because it rains more. When the sun is out, it gets downright hot. The apt is a nice little place. We have AC in the bedroom and an actual bathtub, but no hot water. Still haven't had that since my first week in Jakarta. It's a nice, little expensive place. :) 

Angkot--a converted minivan

I did get the CD's! I totally forgot to mention that! Thank you so much for them! And also the cookies 'n cream bars! It was a testimony to me that you still love me. :) I also got the big butcher paper Christmas card from the ward. That was a nice surprise! Did they do that for all the River Oaks missionaries?

The work will always continue! But it only continues as members and missionaries have faith. Something that was quoted in last Conference by Elder Dube was that "faith is always pointed toward the future. The past is to be learned from, but not lived in." With the new year coming up, let's all have a little bit more faith than we had last year, a little more love, and be a little bit more obedient. As we do so, we invite Heaven's power. Selamat Tahun Baru!

Elder Barrus

Wow. It's about 30 times faster to send pictures. So I'll send a bunch today. This is me at "Air Tejun 2 warna" (or waterfall of 2 colors.) The colors? White and blue. Ha ha! But it was really pretty and cool. We hiked for maybe 1.5 hours to get there. No worries, I didn't actually dive in.

Elder Mxxxxxxxx and I helped bail out his
family's home in Medan after it was flooded.

Elder Mxxxxxxx and I with three young men from Medan 
who will be leaving on their missions in February. 
We taught their mission prep classes on Sundays.    

Our Christmas Skype

This is Mom-Sharon. We were able to skype with Seth last night. He told us that they spent Christmas Day in Jakarta at the mission home, so that was nice. Then he and his companion got up early and went to the "warnet", which is an internet cafe. It took us about 40 minutes to set up the call. First he had to find one that was skype accessible, then he had to find a computer where the the video worked (he could see us but we couldn't see or hear him), then he found one where we could hear and see him, and he could see us, but he couldn't hear us, but he finally found one where we could all hear and see each other.

We set up a group skype call with Brooke (his sister) and Eric in Portland, Brandon (his brother) and Mandi in Idaho, and Becca (his sister) in Provo, so there were 5 of us. (Well actually there were 17 of us--just 5 groups.) The quality of the sound and video were great, so we really enjoyed the call. About halfway through the call, the internet at the warnet went out, so we just waited and he came back on about 30 minutes later. Everyone took a turn talking and we even got to talk to his companion, who has pretty good English. We really liked his companion--very animated, and funny, and charming. 

I asked him what his favorite thing about his mission was so far. He said, "The people". He loves the people they meet and just really enjoys working with them and talking to them. When I asked him what the hardest thing has been so far, he thought for a few minutes, then said, "Being transferred so much." It's really had to learn how to get around the different cities--it takes about a month until you feel comfortable finding things, so just when he's feeling like he can get where he needs to go, he's been transferred. 

He told us that his mission president talked to him on Christmas about his transfer, and that he hadn't planned on transferring him at all, but as he and his assistants were working on transfers, they all felt impressed to transfer him and his companion to Tangerang. So, he feels more positve about going to Tangerang. He said Tangerang is a beautiful city, but that the people are well off (every home has a toilet, for example), and as a result, they are less receptive to listen to them. But he is still determined to work hard and find those the Lord has prepared to receive the restored gospel. 

He told us he'd been sick last week--upper respiratory stuff. Elder Heiner thought it might be all the pollution in Tangerang, but then his companion got the same thing this week, so it's probably a virus. And he told us he didn't play the piano much in the MTC or in his first area, Surabaya, but that he played it all the time in Medan and now that he's gone and Sister Hutchinson has gone home, there is no one to play up there. He said there are several members in Tangerang that play, so he hasn't played there so far. 

He also said that Elder Murphy had shared his peanut butter with him and that he hasn't bought any so far in Tangerang. (We put extra money in his account so he could go buy some.) We also told him that one of his uncles had put $30 in his account for Christmas and he said, "Wow! That's a lot of money here!" He said they get more money in Tangerang than in Medan, because it's more expensive to live in Tangerang. They rode their bikes in Medan, but in Tangerang they walk or ride angkots (minivans turned taxis) because the distances they travel to teach and go to church are much farther. And he really misses a particular dish they make in Medan--he hasn't been able to find it in Tangerang. 

All in all, it was really great to see him and hear him. I'm sure it made him homesick. When he could hear and see us, but we couldn't hear him, he emailed me and said, "This is fun! I can see you but my webcam isn't working. You guys look great!" 

Selamat Hari Natal Semuanya dari Tangerang

Hello from Tangerang! The trees are green, grass is green, it's slightly drizzling outside, it felt like 70 degrees yesterday, and we put up our paper tree. That obviously means it's Christmas right? Ha ha! Definitely doesn't quite feel like the Christmases I'm used to, but it's just about the 25th so that means Christmas is coming nonetheless. 

Elder Sxxxxxxxx and I packed all our things up, hopped on the AirAsia airplane, and headed on over to our new city. Even though it took an hour and a half to find the church building, I'm positive we're going to like it here. Even if we have to ride angkots (minivans turned taxi-buses) everywhere. Tangerang really is a beautiful city---really green and really modern as well. There are two wards here and my companion and I are assigned to Tangerang 1. It's really weird too because there are a lot of returned missionaries in our ward, like Brother Mxxxxx, Elder Mxxxxxxxx (my district leader in Surabaya--remember, he's the one that got dengue fever?), and Elder Sxxxxxx. We're sharing our apartment with Elder Heiner (we were in the MTC together) from Oregon and Elder Sxxxxxx from Solo. As far as the work goes, there are a lot of potential investigators that were left by other missionaries. At the same time, our plan is to work as much as we can with the members in getting more referrals and reactivating less actives. 

We met up with the Wxxxxxx family our first night there and they're pretty great! Sister Axxxx, the mother, is a member from Solo, and she married a Muslim man who is cool, but pretty set on being Muslim. They have a son, Elder Wxxxxx, serving a mission right now and he was in the same MTC as my companion, Elder Sxxxxxxxx. I know that he felt the spirit while we met with the family, but for whatever reason, Brother Wxxxxxxx is holding onto his Islam identity while his family follows the church. We're going to keep meeting with them and see what would prevent him from joining his family in enjoying all of the gifts and privileges of the Gospel.

I hope you all have a great Christmas! There's a quote from President Hinckley that I really like and hope we all apply during this season and in our lives: 

"'Mormonism' is a religion of refinement. It reasons that every man has within him God-possibilities, that salvation is essentially development. It argues that every man is potentially a great man. And through an inspired system, it offers the most extensive facilities in all the world for every man to discover himself and his possibilities, to so live that he can stand on the summit of his life and look back upon a trail of accomplishment and not a slough of wasted energies... Happy will be the man or woman who has tapped some hidden resource and given it voice. To such a character will come the sweet satisfying feeling of strengthening power, of having done something that has made life a little nobler. God has generously blessed us all with talent... Catch the silent thrill of growth!" 

Selamat Hari Natal!!! (Merry Christmas)

Elder Seth Michael Barrus