Happy Lebaran! Lebaran is the Muslim holiday where they break their fast for the month of Rhamadan. I honestly don't know that much about it, except for they get a month off of school during the month of the fast and everyone goes home to their kampung so Jakarta is not even the same city. It was SOOOO EMPTY on our ride from our apartment to the mission office. It usually takes us like 20 minutes, but today it only took 10 and our taxi driver was kind of slow.
With that being said, since everyone is out of town for the next week, that means they aren't here to be taught.. So we had kind of a slow week last week and this next week will be really slow too, but that's okay :) There are still a few people who don't go home and since this week is still off for most of them we are hoping to get a few new investigators! So on Monday Sister Angelie was told that she would be released to go home and get better. So Wednesday morning she was released and I got another new companion! This is already my fourth companion in Jakarta and my 10th companion! That's a lot of companions! I guess the Lord has something for me to learn from each of them :) My companions name is Sister Fuglsang. She is originally from Tasmania, Australia (How sweet is that) but now she lives in Brisbane. She is an art teacher in high school and she is SO talented. She can draw a sketch of the savior so fast and it is so amazing. I hope I can learn a lot from her. She is about 8 months into her mission and just moved her from Solo. So the past week we have done a lot of contacting to fill our pipeline again because it was pretty empty from being home for so much. Sister ______ is still doing SO well! We taught about Joseph Smith and the restoration on Tuesday. At first when we talked about the first vision she thought it was enlightenment, but that's because she relates everything we say to something she is familiar with. But she understood it quite well too. She read the part in the pamphlet about Joseph Smith and the Priesthood for her homework and she asked questions about it. She is quite a diligent investigator and we love that! On Saturday we taught her about Repentance. I wasn't sure how that was going to go down because before she has been so stuck on the fact that when we sin we have spots and they stick with us until we are reincarnated. But when we taught her she didn't go against what we were teaching. We read about Alma the Younger in Alma 36 and the Joy he felt from repenting. She asked after we talked about all the steps and gave her the commitment to pray and repent of her sins, "What do I need to repent of?" She hadn't had a Christian background so she doesn't really know specific commandments besides to pray and to read the scriptures and to be kind to others like she has been taught her whole life. She usually stays at home so she doesn't really have a lot of opportunities to sin anyway. We told her just to be kind to Brother ________ and to ask forgiveness if she uses a strong or mean voice with him at home. She is so cute and so wants to do what is right. On Sunday morning the Busway wasn't going to start until at least 9:00 because there was a prayer for Labaran in the morning. So she was debating on being able to come to church because of the buses and there is no other transportation for her. We were pretty sure that she wasn't going to be able to come, but at 8:30 they left home and they showed up at church at 10:15 in gospel principles and I haven't been so happy to see anyone at church before. She really is feeling the Light of Christ and the happiness that coming to church brings in her life that she would come even though she knew she was going to miss sacrament meeting. This week we are going to focus on the rest of the gospel of Jesus Christ and how the atonement really makes it possible for us to become cleansed from sin to return to our Heavenly Father. We are going to give her a baptismal commitment this week and I'm so excited about that! She lights my world on the mission and I am so grateful for every person the Lord gives me to be able to teach. This week was also Zone Conference. We have them so often now and it's just in Jakarta so it's more normal than it used to be. We talked about the importance of having investigators come to church and how to help them get there. It's fun to see the progress of the mission. President Rowley has been here for a year this next week! Crazy how time really does fly! I hope you have a fantastic week :) Love, Sister Davis
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This week was kind of weird, in that Sister Angelie has been sick for a few days so we spent quite a few days at home. We did go to Sister ________ house twice, so that's what I'll share about.
On Wednesday we taught Sister _________ about the Holy Ghost. We did the simple explanation about how he is the third member of the Godhead and he is a comforter and he will be our friend. So we asked her if she wanted to have the Holy Ghost with her, and I love her honest answers, she said "Nggak, Takut" (No, that's scary) hahahaha! For her the word "Roh" or Ghost meant something bad. She pictured a creepy ghost following her around everywhere she went hahahaha. So we explained that Spirits aren't always bad, but if God sends them to help us they are good. So we asked her again, "So who is the Holy Ghost" and she said "Roh yang baik" (A good spirit) that was good enough for me! She makes me laugh so much! She is the most honest person ever and it is just so much fun to teach her. Then on Saturday we went and explained the whole Plan of Salvation. We had explained up to our life on earth but we never had finished it. So we talked about the difference between resurrection and reincarnation, and something actually stuck with her this time, I think. We talked about how she could live with her family forever. When we asked if she believed she would see her family again, she said "Nggak Tentu" (It's not certain.) We were able to testify to her that it IS CERTAIN! We asked her if she wanted to meet with her parents again, and she didn't really answer. I don't think she's even thought about if she wants to or not because she didn't even believe it was completely possible. That is so very sad to me. But I think we opened up a thought process in her mind that wasn't there before. She also comes to church without us even having to remind her. She was there up in the chapel area by herself talking with the members. She was answering out loud the rhetorical questions in Relief Society too. She has progressed so much and I am so glad I get to be in this area for a long time so I can see her progress :) Other than that I have had quite a few Liahona reading Marathons and Solitare games too. That's what happens when a companion is sick. I hope you have a great week and Happy Fathers day to you all! Love, Sister Davis Thank you for all your pictures! Everyone is just going vacation crazy and it's so fun to look at. There is so much of this world that needs to be explored, and it's cool that our family is going all over the world to find it. I've loved hearing about your vacations and I'm excited to see even more pictures next week!
Wednesday Sister Rowntree flew back to Malang and I got my new companion! Her name is Sister Angelie. She is from BOGOR!! I love Bogor :) So I know her family and we can talk about all the members there and it's way fun. Sadly I never made it to her family's house. She is of Chinese descent, like a lot of Christians in Indonesia. She went to BYU Hawaii for 4 semesters so her English is way good. and also my Indonesian is going to get better because she is my first native companion since the beginning of September!! So that's really great. Here in Jakarta we mostly do the same things every day. Get up, study, ride the busway to our appointments, contact on the busway, get stuck in traffic for hours, and so on haha. I want to share about Sister ______ though. I love that little old lady so so so so much! She might not yet understand everything, but I know that she feels the Holy Ghost and she really loves to have us over. Before it was easy to have a lesson in a half hour, but now it's WAY hard to keep it under an hour because she loves telling us stories. She found some old photo albums in her house and she showed us all of them and there were a ton of pictures. She pointed out all of her siblings and where she was. She also had me pick out where she was in the picture and I got pretty good at guessing after a while. Wednesday was when the miracle happened. She usually doesn't want to pray at all so on Wednesday I had her tell me a few things that she wanted to pray for. I wrote them down so she could just read it for the first time that she prayed out loud. She wanted to pray for her health, and also that her house could be fixed so it doesn't flood anymore if it rains. I gave the paper to her that I had written out with her prayer, and then she looked at me and smiled and said "What if I pray something like this? Heavenly Father, thank you for sending me Sister Davis and Sister Angelie to teach me. Please bless them with safety as they are about to go home." and then I reminded her "In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen." It was probably one of the sweetest moments on my mission. The first time I heard her pray out loud, she prayed specifically for us and prayed to Heavenly Father to thank us for coming. Even though it is slow and steady with her, it is steady. She comes to church now every week without us having to convince her. She can sit by herself without us having to be with her at every second. She makes sure to shake hands with some of the members she is friends with now before she leaves after church. She is such a blessing to teach and I just love her heart that used to be closed off and negative about life most of the time, but now is softer and she is recognizing that what she thought was just "good luck" from Chinese culture are actually blessings from God. We are going to focus this week on Repentance, and that instead of our sins staying with us until we die and then having another chance to try better when we are reincarnated, that they can actually be wiped away in this life through repentance. I really pray and hope that the spirit will be able to help open her understanding to such a new concept. Because everyone in Jakarta is SO busy sometimes we have people that will come to church but to meet with them to actually teach them is way hard. So lately we have had to focus on finding more people. Always finding, finding, finding. Hopefully I have a new investigator to share about next week! Probably the most exciting thing that wasn't missionary like is that near the Mission Home there is a grocery store that has a ton of imported stuff, so today I bought a big box of Pancake mix so that was exciting. Maybe in a couple weeks I'll buy the instant Country Time Lemonade powder or the Queso cheese dip haha. It's expensive so I have to pace myself. I hope you have a great week with getting back to normal life and vacations and all that fun stuff. Love you so much! Love, Sister Davis This week with ______ was good. She is still pretty much the same. She still comes to church and she does the things we ask, but we found out this week that she pretty much still believes that all religions are good and that it doesn't really matter what you do as long as you do good. So we really need to focus on teaching her about Jesus and how he really is her Savior and he is the way that she can receive happiness.
We also had a miracle where the Elders met this girl named _____ and she was interested so we taught her the whole restoration on Friday and she came to church on Sunday and then she had questions about the Gospel Principles lesson on Agency and about how it says we can become like God, so we taught the whole plan of salvation after church. She is about 23 and is so smart. She is really open too and is willing to read. She read the Introduction and a little bit about Nephi too, so we are really excited about her. The only thing is that she lives in the other Sisters area, so we have to find a way to give her over to them. Most people don't actually meet at their homes in the city, so sometimes it is hard to make sure they meet with the right missionaries and not just with the missionaries that contacted them. So hopefully things work out well with her. We also have an investigator named ______ who we haven't ever met since Sister Xiao and I came to Jakarta, so we tried to call her again and she answered and she came to church! She lives way close which is amazing here. We hardly talked to her because she is only 17 so she went to Young Women's and then had to leave way fast, but the leaders said she was really cute and that she liked church. She had to call her boss to ask for the morning off so she could come so that means that she is actually way interested. We will try to meet with her this week to teach her so hopefully there will be more info about that next week. Also Sister Rowntree is going back to Malang! Sister Angelie is feeling a lot better and so she gets to come back on her mission and she is going to be my companion in Jakarta. She is from Bogor so that will be fun to talk about her home ward with her too. I'll send a picture of her next week. I'll send some more pictures next week. I love you and I love hearing about all your vacations too. So SEND ME PICTURES!! 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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