Keluarga dan teman saya! Apa kabar? Saya dan rekan saya BAGUS, minggu ini BAGUS.
Can you believe tomorrow is our HALF WAY POINT?? Thank goodness, I can't wait to get to Indonesia when it starts snowing!! ALSO Who the crud is our President?? Either or, it's probably a good thing I'm leaving the country for a year and half in 3 weeks ya?
Okay,so last tuesday we had an AWESOME Devotional with Joy D. Jones, the primary general president and her husband. Her husband calculated how many hours we serve as full time missionaries, and for sisters its around 12,000 hours that we get to serve our Lord! And he said to us, DON'T WASTE A SINGLE SECOND. I'm trying my best, I've learned to LOVE PCL (Personal, Companion, Language) study so so so much. Especially personal, it's where I learn the things I need to truly understand and have a strong testimony of for my investigators. It's made me reflect on my life and on the HOURS that I wasted no reading my scriptures, or developing my testimony everyday back in the day. Yes, y'all don't have 9 hours to study like we do, BUT, I know you can at least find 5 minutes a day to think about your Savior and Heavenly Father ya?
Wednesday we taught Alfred!! Remember how bad our last lesson was? WELL THIS ONE RULED. It was our first time that we actually worked TOGETHER as a companionship and we taught SIMPLY for Alfred to understand. We were teaching him about prophets, and the priesthood authority Jesus brought to the earth during his ministry. and how important it is to have that authority to administer ordinances like baptism. I taught about Joseph Smith, and simply bore my testimony of Him and how thankful I was for him restoring the gospel of Jesus Christ once again on the earth today, and restoring the priesthood authority we NEED here on earth. I then pulled out a picture of Thomas S. Monson, and we all bore testimony that WE HAVE A LIVING PROPHET on the earth TODAY, who LEADS and GUIDES us! How wonderful is that? We were all almost in tears and we invited Alfred to prepare for baptism! He said he may! That's better than a no!
I heard the coolest quote this week, "Your group (missionaries) are the most prayed for in the world, missionaries are prayed for more than the Prophet Himself, think of the prayers in the temples, every single day, think of the people at home and in your ward that are praying for you by name" So whenever I'm feeling down I have to remind myself, how blessed I am to be here, to serve the Lord and bring God's children unto Christ. I have to remember that Heavenly Father is taking care of my family while I'm gone, that I don't need to worry about them, and that Heaven is on my side.
Saturday: OUR FIRST TRC!!! Don't ask me what it stands for, I have no idea, no one tells you anything here, BUT, we had the opportunity to teach members FROM INDONESIA and return missionaries that served there. AND THEN, one of our girls brought her Muslim friend!!!! UH OKAY HERE'S OUR FIRST REAL INVESTIGATOR WHOOP. Trc was quite literally a slap of humility to the face. I thought my bahasa was pretty good!! I can understand 89% of the things my teachers say BUT THEN we go in and natives speak sO FAST. SO SOS SOSOSOSOSOOOOOO FAST. I was like "apa?" "APA?" "APA?!!?" (what) I seriously need to work harder on my language skill, I had no idea what they were saying hahaha, I could pick out some words, but that's about it. We taught them about Enduring to the End, it was great, next time we're going to teach about the Book of Mormon, because we asked Heniff ( our muslim friend) if he had one. Of course he said no, but that's going to change soon(: Hopefully..
SUNDAY IS THE BEST DAY EVER LIKE USUAL. You should SEE, my spiritual Journal and the notes that I took, I learned SO MUCH. So first off, my companions and I are in choir, and Brother Eget is having us sing Joseph's First Prayer. Seriously, my favorite song ever, I love Joseph Smith so much, I'm so grateful for his sacrifice. During choir, our teacher tells stories about the piece we're singing, he told us a TON about Joseph Smith during his first prayer. Apparently on LDS.org there are a bunch of more in depth accounts on what Joseph saw, I can't WAIT to read them. He really was an extraordinary man. I can't wait to sing it on Tuesday for devotional. We then had Richard I Heaton come and speak with us. It was a little weird... I can't go into much detail cuz it'll take too long... BUT his talk was SO AWESOME, D&C is literally a GOLD MINE full of scriptures for missionaries, His talk was basically saying "Don't wait for the holy ghost to tell you what to do. When you pray and wait for an answer and it doesn't come, just GO, MOVE, God is working in your life whether you see it or not" After a lesson when I think or will think "Crap, none of that made sense, I don't know if he felt the spirit, what if he doesn't understand!" IT DOESN'T MATTER, God is working on him STILL, he shared a little story,
"One day I asked a new member what made them want to keep meeting with the missionaries, the member then said, "I have no idea, they could barely speak the language, what they were teaching me was all over the place and didn't make much sense, but it was the way that I felt when they were there that kept me wanting to learn from them" It doesn't matter what you say, if you open your mouth, Heavenly Father will fill it with whatever needs to be said, the spirit is a universal language. When a thought comes into your head to do something DO IT, especially if it's for another person, don't ever post pone a prompting!
Okay last last bit, AFTER devotional we went to watch Elder Bednar's talk "Recognizing the Spirit" IT WAS SOOO AMAZING The main question for him was "Elder B, how do I know if it's the spirit, or if it's just me?" His answer: "QUIT WORRYING ABOUT IT" !!! AWESOME HUH here's a quote
"So many missionaries are PARALYZED thinking, Oh I'm not being moved by the spirit etc... quit worrying about it and get to work! If it's a good thought, it's the spirit, be a good boy, be a good girl, keep your covenants, obey the commandments, and GO" Sitting around waiting for some dramatic revelation isn't going to work, yeah maybe some missionaries do have crazy experiences, but other times the Lord leaves it up to you but "what you think you're thinking is still the Lord's influence on you" (I'm really bad at quoting, he said it much more beautifully haha) I don't know if that made any sense. but Sunday was a real answer to my prayers, I just need to work hard, be obedient, and get my booty to work! I need to quit thinking "Oh oh OH WHERES THE SPIRIT TELL ME WHAT TO DO." because I wont' get anything done!
Sorry for my epistle, I really try not to make my emails long, but I learn so much each week! I love you all and I can feel your prayers, THANK YOU TO MY WARD FOR THE LETTER AND SCARF I WAS CRYING, I miss you guys. And mom thanks for the Swedish fish AND MY INDO CTR RING, I know what it says " Memilih yang Benar!!" cool huh, thank you for all the letters and emails too, you have no idea how much they lift me up and remind me why I need to be here! Keep reading your scriptures and praying, talk to your Heavenly Father, He wants to hear about your day and your needs and concerns, thank Him daily for EVERYTHING that He gives to you. I love being a missionary and I love my Savior! I know He lives and because of HIM I can do anything!
Sampai nanti!
1) okay the sister in the middle is sister Mcdonnel, she just left yesterday for thailand SO OUR ZONE IS LITERALLY ALL GONE. She is so amazing and I miss her dearly
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