I am feeling so much better today. Let's just start with that so you can feel better and don't need to worry anymore :) Also, I am still in Solo and things are looking better for next week.
On Tuesday they explained my injury much better! It was just an infected ingrown hair that became a big abses. After they drained it they had to go deep to get the core all cleaned. Every morning at around 9 we go to the medical clinic and they continue to clean it out. Every day it has gotten much better. They want to make sure it it completely clean before they let it heal on its own. Hostpitals/clinics here are not nearly as bad as I thought they would be. Of course not up to American standards, but at least in these big cities where there are missionaries the people who work here are educated and they know what they are doing. It is usually one of the same 3 nurses that help me every day and then a female doctor that knows what medicine to give. They know who I am and it's not as bad going now :) I don't know how much longer I have to go. Hopefully only 1 more week at most and then it can start to heal on its own. I was taking an antibiotic or something for a week but I've finished that because the infection is already gone. The mission doctor in Hong Kong said that what they are doing here is right too so Mom and Dad don't worry :) the building is a real big building that is put together and not crumbling down haha :) The problem is I can't ride a bike for 1 or 2 months until it heals and that's pretty hard here in Solo because the public transportation is pretty bad, so we'll see how this next month goes haha. I think maybe a side effect of my medication or just from my body trying to heal, was a week immune system, because I got a fever on Friday and it lasted until yesterday. My appetite was gone and I was pretty light headed when I stood too long, but it's gone today :) Okay enough about being sick. We did have a few lessons this week. We went to Sister ____ house 3 times to help her prepare for baptism and she was baptized this Sunday after church!! I'm glad we had that highlight of this dull and boring week of sleeping. It is so cool to see someone commit to take upon them the name of Christ. And I am excited to help her continue to learn through Gospel Principles class and teaching the missionary lessons again as she is a new member. She will be confirmed this coming Sunday during sacrament meeting. We also had PLD on Tuesday and Wednesday, which was fun to meet with other missionaries again. I also love being taught by President Donald because he is such an inspired man. He just makes you want to become a better person and a better missionary. He has goals for the mission and you can see his faith that they can be met when we do the right things. A simple sentence he said was, "Let's do the right things." I love that. Really just do the right things, which is following the mission rules, studying the scriptures, applying the principles in Preach My Gospel, and there will be rewards of our labors because the Lord works through those who choose to work in His way. Today I'm emailing late because we went to Bishop ____ house. He is the Bishop of one of the other wards in Solo that me and my companion don't serve in. He lives an hour away from the church in the mountains and IT WAS BEAUTIFUL!! His story is rags to riches and now he literally has a beautiful view. His son Elder ____ served in Layton a few years ago. We also went to this waterfall that was so cool! We were just in this rainforest and it felt like Indonesia. I just fell in love with this place so much today. Which is what I want to do most. I'm so glad I could be in such a great place and have such a fun time with the missionaries in all 4 Solo wards. Every day I just try to focus on what I am grateful for. I'm grateful for family and friends who I know pray for me every day and who have support for me here. I'm grateful I have to type super fast to fit in everything I want to say because I get so many emails from my friends and family. I love you all and I hope you have a wonderful week!! Love, Sister Davis Well this week has been a pretty crazy experience. I guess I'll just start with the most eventful thing.
So last Thursday after I had been riding my bike for a few days my tailbone was starting to hurt, like a bruise or something. I thought it was just from normal bike riding. It was weird because it's above where I sit on my bike. By Tuesday it had gotten bigger and I couldn't sit back on my chair like normal. I also couldn't sleep on my back because it hurt so bad. Friday it was like almost the size of half a golf ball so we called Sister Donald and we had to go to the doctor. So we went and they drained it. It's really infected. Since Friday, we have gone back every day to have it drained and cleaned. We haven't been able to ride bikes and I can't walk long distances so we don't do much every day. Every time we have to go to the doctor we have to call a taxi and that gets expensive every day. Since Friday we have just gone to the doctor, come home, studied, slept, and that's all. We did go to church on Sunday. So that's been kind of crazy and made work hard. But before that we have had some missionary work!! On Monday after we went shopping for P-day we had FHE with the Bishop and his family of the Jebres ward. He and his wife are in the Plan of Salvation pamphlet so that's pretty cool haha :) Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday we had a lot of normal missionary work and met with members and our progressing investigator. Every day we met with Sister _____ and Sister ____ together. Sister ____ was planning to get baptized this Sunday, so we tried to meet with her every day to finish teaching her about the commandments and have her Baptismal Interview. We would spent quite a lot of time there because we could get two lessons in one place with Sister _____ and Sister _____. On Sunday was almost her baptism, but it fell through so we are going to try for next week. I'm pretty sure we will be fine for next week but we'll just have to see. It was pretty disappointing, but we are hopeful that we can teach her and get her ready for this Sunday and hopefully there won't be any problems. One member I love to meet is Sister _____. She is a tailor and she just finished making matching dresses for me and Sister Winanto!! To have them hand tailored it was only $3! and like 4 for the fabric. Ah Indonesia is just great :) Usually she is sometimes considered less active, but she came to church this week so we can change her status to member which is really exciting :) hopefully she can get back in the habit of coming. She has been a member for 20 years but her husband has always refused to hear about the gospel. We still give her hope and teach about the spirit world and that there is still a chance for him to accept the gospel one day. Another member we visited was Sister _____. She lives so far!! and the bike ride was all uphill. I was so tired by the time I got up there but really it was a cool experience! She lives really in the villages with rice fields and trees everywhere. When I pictured Indonesia before I come that's what I pictured. I always forget to take pictures because we are always biking. Hopefully when we go back I'll remember. She is only 18 years old and already has two children. She was married at 14 and her husband was 17. They sometimes fight a lot and its hard for her. She seemed really grateful and wanting to listen to what we were teaching about prayer and scriptures again. I hope she can have the faith to do the simple things everyday to come back to the Savior. Really that's what it is. Those we visit always just need to do those everyday things and then their lives turn around. Every time. It is visible and they just need to have the faith everyday. We are promised if we do the little things, marvelous things will be brought to pass. This week has taught me a lot about patience and being grateful for what I have. Every time we go to the doctor I look around and see so many people with barely enough money to pay for their visit that's not expensive anyway, but here it is. I am so blessed to know I will always have what I need and the knowledge that I am not alone in this through the atonement. I love you all! I love your letters that are so uplifting and it's so fun to see all the wonderful things that are happening back home! Love you!! Love, Sister Davis Wow! I've been in Solo for almost a whole week! Its been crazy and way different from Jakarta, which I really like :) Tuesday I got to listen to about half of MLC which was really cool and fun to see how the leaders make goals for the mission. It was so amazing to see the revelation that President Donald has for the whole mission. He is definitely inspired in his calling. After MLC I flew out to Solo with the zone leaders here. Thank goodness they came with me cause that would have been pretty scary to fly and go through Indonesian airports with no idea where to go. After I got to Solo, I had to ride a taxi by myself to the house. I didn't know where I was and I couldn't help the driver. He had the cellphone number of my companion so she tried to explain it to him. We finally found it :) It was just funny because I was just this bule (white person) with this taxi driver with no idea how to help him haha. My Companion is Sister Winanto. She is so great!! The Sister Trainers told me she didn't understand any English but her english is better than she gives herself credit for. She always speaks Indonesian and I can understand her better than I can most natives. It is a real blessing that her accent is fairly easy. If she doesn't know the word in english, she can usually describe it simply in Indonesian so I can understand. She is from Malang Indonesia. She served 6 months in Jakarta and now has been in Solo for 3 months. Here in Solo we bike!! On Wednesday within the first minute on my bike I fell off. So I don't know how true the saying "It's just like riding a bike" is because It was hard at first haha. Also, the traffic is not nearly as bad as Jakarta but it is still scary to ride bikes because there are cars literally right next to you! and buses are also sooo scary. They are massive and the road is rough and I'm still getting used to it. But I'm way better than the first day haha :) Banjasari is super hillly so sometimes we have to walk. I have never been so sweaty in my life. It is crazy. I literally am just sticky and hot all the time. But it is wonderful because the churches have AC and also our bedrooms. At least I don't wake up hot :) There are 4 wards in Solo and two church buildings. There is one set of Elders for every ward and one set of sisters for every 2 wards. We serve in Banjasari and Jebres. So on Sunday we get to go to church for 5 hours!! Here in Solo we do a lot of meeting with less actives, and only a few investigators. There are just a few people I want to talk about even though we've had lessons with a lot of different people. First Investigator: ______ was a referral from a member. We taught her about the Book of Mormon and I can tell she already believes it is from God. She can't go to church because her health doesn't allow her to drive a motorcycle by herself or ride her bike. It is so much harder to teach people and help them keep commitments to come to church because a lot of time their circumstances are out of their control. We have only had one lesson with her but hopefully she becomes a progressive investigator and finds a way to come to church. Second Investigator: _____ is also a referral. We also taught her about the Book of Mormon and I think she has a lot of potential. It is easier when they have a friend to help them and answer their questions and go to church with them. Third Investigator: _____ is our investigator with a baptismal date for next Sunday!! Yay! But there is a little problem with getting official documents with divorces and marriages... So the Ward Mission Leader came with us to our lesson with her and they are trying to figure out how to get things sorted out so she can be baptized. She is really great though and keeps her commitments. I didn't really understand everything they said but that's the gist of it. Sister _____ Less Active: Okay this woman is one of the most amazing people I have ever met. She is so great! She only lives like a 30 second bike ride from us. The problem is after she was baptized, her husband heard things from the neighbors that Mormon's are a cult and he won't let her come to church. He won't let her meet with the missionaries either. This week he has been gone so we took advantage of the time to visit her. We visited with her a little longer than normal and the Elders came too. She has a little boy named _____ who is 6 and he is so cute. He loves the Elders. She has one of the strongest testimonies ever. She always says that she has faith. And that even through her trials, she is happy. She loves reading the Book of Mormon and asks questions that are pretty deep for only being a member for less than a year. Her testimony strengthens mine so much. She has hope even through so much trial. Hopefully if I were in the same situation I would have the same faith to be happy like her. Also every member loves to feed you. We get something to drink or eat at every meal. There are these salted boiled egg things that are nasty... and I have had fried tofu which isn't the worst thing but I don't really like it... But I love whenever they give us chicken, rice either fried or regular, fried eggs, mie (flavored ramen noodles pretty much) and that's about all. So far I have survived but there are still a lot more things I have to try. We met with a lot of other people but I don't have time to share about it all. When I say we taught a lesson, it is pretty much just Sister Winanto and I barely bear testimony about something. It is so hard because I feel like I just follow her and I am her sidekick instead of her companion. I want to understand so bad!! My heart just wants to run so much farther than my brain can! It has probably been the most frustrating thing. Saturday and Sunday was General Conference!!! YES! And I got to watch it in English which is like the greatest blessings ever. I thought I was going to have to watch it in Indonesian which scared me so bad. The main thing I got from it and that touched me so much was the message that "I am a child of God." And He loves us perfectly because we are His children. He loves us and he will rescue us. He will never leave us alone. It doesn't matter what we have done. He loves us simply because we are His children. He knows all our imperfections and weaknesses, but he still loves us. He sees us as we can become, not as we are. My goal is to help these people really understand who God is and that each one of them is a special child of God. Because he loves us, he has provided a perfect plan for each of us to return to him. If each one of us truly understand this, we will have a desire to do all we can to follow his plan so we can be physically in his loving presence again. It is so important to always remember and never forget it. One way I can help others understand his love is by loving them. I may not be able to understand anything about them, but I can still love them. I can love them even if I don't know their name. It is my goal. They can come closer to Christ by seeing my love for them. As I listen with love, I will be able to understand them and know what to say by the power of the Holy Ghost just like it says in Preach My Gospel. I am so grateful for leaders of this church who love us and are examples of how to be like the Savior. Funny things: There are literally chickens and roosters everywhere and it is hilarious. Also there was this massive scorpion beetle thing that sister Winanto had to kill for me that was so nasty!!!! Ugh!! Also she is scared of little lizards which is funny because I'm not haha. I'm glad we're scared of different things. Love you all so much!! I'm so grateful for this adventure and all the things I'm learning! Thanks for all your letters! I only have an hour so I can't reply while I still have to write about all these culture things but hopefully later I will have more time. Love you!! Kasih, 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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