This is one of the weirdest things I've ever experienced. I get to email you, but even more importantly I can talk to you in person in just 3 days!! That's super crazy and so exciting!
This week we had some awesome miracles!! First, our investigator _______ from last Sunday. We met with her once this week and we explained a little bit more about the Book of Mormon. She did her homework which is AWESOME and she agreed to come to church on Sunday. And she CAME!! So many people agree to come but then they don't come. But she totally came and was so honest and true to her commitment. She loved how our organization of the church is really detailed and structured. I think she thought it was a little long, but she seemed to enjoy it. We are going to meet with her tomorrow too so that will be really awesome. Our second one was a girl named _________. The Sister Training Leaders contacted her a few days ago and we were able to meet with her and explain more about the Book of Mormon. She was also really open to it and had a lot of really great questions. She wants to read it and to see if this also could be the word of God. She wants to work on an oil ship though so she won't be in Jakarta very often, so that might be difficult for her to learn a lot, but she does have the Book of Mormon so maybe she can bring it with her on the ship and read it. She is really cool :) The last one is ______. Tuesday we met with her and we taught about baptism again. She understands now why we need to be baptized, but her trial right now is that she is afraid of water... She has had a few experiences with almost drowning when she was little and a huge flood a few years ago and she is really scared to go under the water. But it was amazing to hear that if she didn't have that fear she would want to be baptized. From the first time I met her when she didn't know anything about Heavenly Father, to her giving me a big hug and at the end of the lesson she prayed that my trip home would be safe and there wouldn't be any interruptions at all. It was so sincere even though it was so simple. I am going to miss her so much. I almost cried while walking to the busway after we said goodbye. She couldn't come to church on Sunday though, because they are renovating their house so that it won't flood again, and the guy who wanted to fix the back of the house only wanted to do it on Sunday. But she'll come the next week and then every time. Good thing there is Facebook and Brother ______ likes to use it so I can still send messages to her :) Maybe I can Skype with one of the members after they are done with church to say congratulations when Sister _______ does get baptized :) It's really bitter sweet leaving this country. I'm SO EXCITED but I know when I get home I'm going to miss it so much. The people here are just my size and they are so nice to talk to. A big piece of my heart is here and it always will be. Thats about all for this week! As for the next few days, since I already had dinner with President and Sister Rowley, they are just normal days. I'll have an interview with President Rowley while we are doing our laundry at the mission home but that's all. So it's just normal. :) I'll ride a taxi from our apartment at like 1:30am or something like that. (yay no traffic :)) My companions are most likely staying together for the rest of this transfer (but that's not positive because President Rowley likes to change his mind). I'm giving a lot of my clothes to Sister Patton because we are pretty much the same size, mostly skirts because thats what she wants. But I have enough batik clothes so it makes up for all the ones I'm leaving here haha. On the way home I want to eat at Kneaders so we don't break the tradition and I want to try to eat healthy (don't be surprized when you see me because my rice gut and double chin is SO real). So I need to lose all that weight haha :) We can just go grocery shopping together :) Maybe you could make a salad like you know I like it with ranch dressing :) Fresh vegetables that aren't cooked are rare here. I love you SO MUCH!! I"LL SEE YOU IN A FEW DAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!! Love, Sister Davis
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Hi! This week was really good :) We had a few good little miracles so thats always great!
First was with _________. This week their house just started getting renovated so it doesn't flood anymore. They were really worried and wondering how they could find anyone that could fix it without it being too expensive. She explained to us that she knows that this is a blessing from the Lord since she has been praying and keeping the commandments. How great is that? Also SHE PRAYED FOR US AGAIN!! She usually doesn't want to pray in front of her brother, but she was willing to with us (I think he was in the back and couldn't hear) so that was just super sweet. We are going to try to teach her about baptism again since we know that her heart is slowly being opened to understanding. Hopefully we can have a miracle and I can leave Jakarta with at least one baptismal commitment. The next one was on Sunday. I contacted this lady named ________, and she was really interested in the Book of Mormon and she asked for my number before I could ask for hers. That rarely happens so you know they are sincere. We met at the church on Sunday after church. We explained the restoration and she totally understood what dispensations and apostasies are. She said "So really Joseph wasn't searching, but God was searching for someone like Joseph." She is super excited to read from the Book of Mormon. This was really just a tender mercy from the Lord. I haven't had someone that I have contacted really really interested and prepared to receive the gospel. Most have come from member referrals or from other missionaries, but it is so awesome to see that we were in the right place at the right time where someone that has been prepared to be open to our message was crossing our path. So that was really awesome! I don't know how far she will progress, but I really hope that she will read from the Book of Mormon with a sincere heart and that she will recognize when the Holy Ghost testifies to her that it is true. Also, on Friday I went on exchanges with Sister Tanner! She lives in Fruit Heights and went to Davis so we had a lot of fun together. We are like crazily similar. She hates fresh tomatoes and sweet potatoes, and she doesn't really like chocolate cake, but brownies are different. Also her mom used Love and Logic with her kids too, so we even had that in common!! Mom you should meet with her because you are so similar. Maybe later :) We taught a lady named _______ before English class and she had a lot of good questions while we read about the Book of Mormon. Hopefully she came to church! I'll have to ask Sister Tanner. The 17th of August for Independence day was pretty normal because our ward is too spread out to have an activity, but it was fun to pass by the national monument and see the tons of people crowded around there. They love their country here and it's super cool :) I hope you have a great week! Love, Sister Davis Hi :)
So for the first question, I went to dinner with President and Sister Rowley and the Assistants because usually on the night before missionaries leave they do a dinner at the mission home, but Elder Saunders is going home this Wednesday and then me just two weeks later, so it would work out better with President's schedule for them to just take us out to eat after Zone Conference. President doesn't like it when I have to do something for school and my companions just hang around and do nothing, so he sends them out to work and I do something for school or go to get food with him and Sister Rowley. We went to a Mexican Restaurant. It's been FOREVER since I had Mexican food haha. So it was delicious and fun. They gave the going home spiel that they always give to missionaries, so that was kind of weird because I still have a few weeks left, but it was kind of nice to have people ask me about my plans for going home instead of them just asking me if i'm trunky haha. So Zone Conference was on Friday. I thought I was going to get away without having to translate for Zone Conference, but I'm now the oldest sister in the zone so it automatically fell on me haha. They always have an elder and a sister translate, so I translated with Elder Supriadi and we would switch back and forth. But it's nice translating back into English if a Bule is speaking Indonesian, because they translate from English into Indonesian in their head so I just have to translate it back haha. By the end of like 4 hours your brain is fried but that's okay. I did a lot better than I thought I would. Probably because I have practiced with Elder and Sister Jensen at church every Sunday. Our lesson with Sister ______ about Family History on Tuesday didn't go as well as we thought because her younger brother, Brother ______ listened too and he likes to talk a lot and sometimes they bicker like siblings who have lived together for too long. But they are seeing blessings in their lives. Their back area is getting renovated so that they don't have any more floods and before they didn't think there would be anyone to do it or that they wouldn't have money but their brother is helping them and the people who are doing their neighbors house can do their house as well in a couple weeks. So that's great! On Saturday we went there also and we taught about repentance again from Alma the Younger and the sons of Mosiah from the Book of Mormon stories book, and we talked about how he was able to be forgiven because he changed his life to fix what he has done and to keep the commandments and serve the Savior, and she agreed that if they did that they could be forgiven. So that's a big step. She's just so sweet and I'm glad that I have been able to go to her house twice a week and that she trusts me and she can laugh with us. Brother _____ uses Facebook so I'll be able to talk to her like that. I'm sure that one day she will get baptized. She so wants to do what is right. She just takes a second to really understand what is right. Sadly I haven't gotten the letter or the envelope yet.. I look every time I go to Senopati and it's sad when it isn't there. Hopefully after emailing we will go check again because they usually bring packages about this time. Hopefully it comes. I'm really glad you and ______ got my letters too. And that's okay you couldn't wait until your Birthday haha. I forgive you. Love you so much! I hope you enjoy the pictures and the long letter :) The church is true! Love, Sister Davis It was a great surprise with ______ this week. So we gave her the New Testament stories book and we thought she had been only reading that but we found out she has actually been reading a ton from the Book of Mormon and she is on like Alma 10. So that is amazing! She marks with a pencil if she has already read the verse and we flipped through and there were a ton of markings next to the verses so that was cool. She also sat with a member during Relief Society instead of just next to us so that was great too. She'll come along eventually. We're going to talk about the temple and family history. Because of her culture she has a lot of respect for her parents and ancestors, so maybe she feels if she switched she wouldn't be honoring her ancestors, so maybe family history and if she realizes she'll be doing the best thing ever to honor their lives then that will hit a little spark in her.
With _______ she didn't come to church this week again but she did read a little bit from the Book of Mormon so that was really great :) From Sister Utomo's perspective, from when she was an investigator she said she was always busy or if she was tired she wouldn't always go or stuff like that, So as a teenage girl, that probably would be really hard. We're just trying to have patience with that. We met with a lady who we contacted on the Busway who had met with Sister ______ and Sister ________ (my MTC teachers when they were companions in Jakarta), so we gave it a whirl. She wanted to meet with us at a hospital where she just finished her appointment, but turns out the doctor was late so we were talking in the waiting room and she refused to speak in anything but English. It was kind of hard to understand what she was talking about because tenses in the English language are really hard for Indonesians. She is from the Seventh Day Advent church, so when she would talk about the Book of Mormon she talked about if Nephi was a descendent of the Jews and if they had Sabbath on Saturday or Sunday and then she immediately invited us to her church on Saturday. We decided we're probably not going to meet with her again... So there's that. The people that actually answer their phones and want to meet with us here in Jakarta are usually people that don't really like us and want to bring us to their church. This week is Zone Conference and then next week is INDEPENDENCE DAY!! I love Indonesian Independence Day so that will be exciting.! Hopefully the ward does a fun activity. I think that's all for this week :) LOVE YOU!! So on Friday morning we're just casually studying and it's almost 9:00 so I just closed studying when I get a call from Elder Saunders who is the AP (which is normal now because we serve in the same ward) and he says that I have to leave my companions at home and come to Senopati by myself in a taxi because President wants to meet with me. What?! If anyone has ever served a mission that is not normal! I was pretty scared to be honest and my companions we pretty scared too. Then when President invites me in his office he says "So with your VISA" and my heart relaxed because I knew I wasn't getting transferred or we weren't in trouble or someone in my family didn't die or something like that, I was glad about that. My VISA expires the beginning of September and so if they renew it just for a couple of months it would take a spot for another missionary for a whole year. So we decided it was fine to finish a couple weeks early. So Dad told me in his email it's August 30, so that's happening and it's kind of crazy!
My feelings with it are totally fine. I love being a missionary, but I think every missionary is excited to be with family again. I still feel like I served a full mission and I don't feel jipped or anything like that. All is good. Now back to normal stuff! This week was pretty normal again. ________ told us a little bit more about how she is feeling with everything. She really wants to know that it is true and she wants to come to church. It's just hard because her family goes to a different church and she feels scared to ask their permission or for their approval. So we have that mountain to climb but the important thing is that we are on the mountain! The hardest part is finding someone who has a true desire to learn. And ________ does! When we have a desire and ask in prayer the Lord will help us accomplish that desire and commandment. _______ still is pretty much the same with everything. We still visit her, but it will just take the Holy Ghost to help convert her when she will open her heart to let him in. Patience is a virtue and we need it with her. In Jakarta we meet with people of other Churches who are very strong and they like to debate a lot. So we try not to, but sometimes when they seem like they want to we try to share our message but it just turns into a debate like thing, even though they call it "sharing-sharing". So we had a couple of those this week. Other than that, just busway, talking to people, handing out pass along cards, and all that jazz. So that's about it! I love you all :) Have a great month of AUGUST!! Love, Sister Davis So this week was pretty normal but there were a few exciting things.
Tuesday we got a bunk bed so Sister Utomo doesn't have to sleep on the floor anymore, so that was exciting. Now we can barely walk around in the apartment but it's okay. It's like Sister Patton and I have a sleepover every night because our beds are right next to each other haha. Sister _______ is still pretty much the same. She said this week she isn't brave enough to be baptized because she is scared of falling backwards into the water, so at least we know she's thought about it. Pelan-pelan aja. She'll get there eventually. She still comes to church and she paid pretty good attention during the lessons on Sunday so that was good too. _________ is still taking the lessons but she didn't come to church again so we are working with her to see what will help her become converted. She is learning and likes what we teach so we'll see what goes on with that. Other than that we met with a couple of new people and they are just barely new so there's nothing that fun to write about them. Hopefully some of them will be excited when we meet them again this week and there will be more fun things to write about. We went to __________ again this week to contact so I took this picture :) and this is our apartment with the bunkbeds too, so thats fun :) I'm glad that EVERYONE emailed this week so that's fun :) I hope you have a great pioneer day and happy birthday Catherine!!! Love you all! Love, Sister Davis |
Sister Jacqueline DavisSister Davis is currently serving as a missionary in the Indonesia Jakarta Mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. ContactMission Address: Sister Jacqueline Davis Indonesia Jakarta Mission Jalan Senopati 115 Kebayoran Baru Jakarta 12190 INDONESIA Email: [email protected] Prepare to Serve Link: http://preparetoserve.com/indonesia-jakarta-mission Learn more about the LDS Church:www.lds.org
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August 2017
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