Jakarta - Week 8

Halo semua!

Apa Kabar?! Things are going well in Jakarta! This week we had our second baptism, Tessa. She's 11 and her grandma is a member but her parents are not. She also got baptized along side of Daniel who is one of the Elder's investigators! It was so great to see both of them receive this ordinance and I can't wait for them to receive the Gift of The Holy Ghost next week. YAY!!

 Tessa's Baptism

 Daniel with the Elders and President Donald at his baptism.

So we also had PLD this week on tuesday and that's what I want to talk about the most. It was AWESOME!! We had Elder Gong from the area presidency come and visit us. He and Sister Gong are both so kind and really great. I learned a lot of things at PLD and that's mainly what I'd like to share this week!

First is that Satan really likes to interrupt our companionships. Whether we are on missions, working at a job, married, etc etc satan likes to interrupt the good. President Donald has said that we need to have "skin like a crocodile" meaning not let the little things get in the way. Say my companion...just does something out of habit that bothers me. If I let that get between us then satan will use that against us but if I have skin like a crocodile and don't let anything under my skin then all is well! Both him and Sister Donald talked about how important unity is. I've always known unity is important but I didn't quite understand just how much until I had to start living and working with a companion. The other day, Sister Narko and I was were struggling with unity and there was just a huge difference in our relationship. Also the Spirit wasn't there and I just felt so bad the whole time. Luckily Sister Narko is forgiving and we were able to get over it really quickly. Can you believe it? 7 weeks and that was the first time we've had a real big problem besides the language barrier (that I am over coming!). It's true how important unity is though! No one can do this work alone and nobody is meant to live life alone. Having unity with others helps SO much and then there's having unity with God. When we are unified with God we do His will and He has our best interests in mind! He knows what's right and I promise true happiness will come as we become unified with Him. Of course there will always be tribulation and trial but those are for our benefit.

 Beautiful Sister Narko!

 

The next thing I really learned at PLD was the "Doctrine of Stakes" For instance I didn't know that you had to have 5 stakes to get a temple in an area. Right now Indonesia has 2, almost 3 stakes. They announced that one of the wards is splitting soon, which means some of us missionaries could get moved to a different ward, and that's super exciting news! I will have you know that Zion is growing in this area of the world! It takes 5 wards to make a stake and each ward should have around 150 members and at least 15 active, full tithe, worthy Melchizidik (excues my spelling) priesthood holders. Stakes are usually around 1900 members. I also found out that there are 7 billion people on Earth. 3.5billion of those people live in Asia. The Asia area has half of the world population alone!!!  There was a lot more "statistic wise" stuff that Elder Gong told us that was really neat. It got me and the other missionaries really excited to get out there and help progress the work. It also showed that Heavenly Father really is hastening His work!

The last really neat thing I wanted to share was that I got to be on a little "question council" with Elder Gong, who reminded us that he is a general authority (he says a general authority is someone who can answer general questions ;)). He was allowing us time to just ask him any questions we wanted. He said that he, President  Donald, me and Elder Blaser would be happy to answer any questions. I was shocked when he said my name! And although I only really answered one question (I don't quite remember the question but I gave an answer from conference)  I still felt honored that a general authority chose me to help him answer questions. It was just the confidence booster I needed because the night before I was at a FHE lesson at a members house and I had the answer to the question he was asking but was unable to explain it, so, I was feeling a little down that I couldn't answer his question and that he gave it to a different Elder to answer instead. It just showed me that Heavenly Father is aware of me. He knows that I know what I am talking about even if I can't say it.

The rest of the week was pretty normal! Thank you for your love and support. I really am truly grateful for all of you!!!! Love you!