Merry Christmas in just 7 days! Wow it's just a week away. That's so fun and exciting, especially because I get the opportunity to see your cute faces! We're going to be skyping at the church using members laptops, so hopefully everything works out and the connection is good. We're going to be using the church WIFI so it should be just fine :)
This week we had a couple miracles that were really awesome. The first one was on Monday. After we emailed we went to the church to plan our missionary thing for the Christmas party. Sister ..... said her and Brother ....... went to ........ house to give her daughter a blessing for the rash that has been on her arms for weeks. We didn't even call them to remind them or anything. They called our investigator all by themselves and went to give her a blessing. It is so amazing how much these members care about our investigators and will take hours out of their week to help people. ......this weekend also said that the blessing helped and they found a medicine that is finally working and that is just so sweet to know that she totally had faith in the blessing before it even happened. The next blessing was on Tuesday. All of our appointments had fallen through, and we really had a desire to teach ....... because it had been a while and she was really getting excited and soaking in what we have been teaching her. She recently got a job which was a blessing from God and an answer to her prayers, which is amazing that she can recognize that, but she works literally every day. At about 12 we got a text from Sister ...... saying that ...... came home early from work and wanted to meet with us! We were so dang excited. That morning we thought it was finally time we could explain about baptism and that she was ready to understand it now that we have taught about other more foundational doctrines. We went and she had actually written some questions down that she wanted to ask. I love that because it means she actually has been pondering and thinking about what we have taught. Her question was "What is Baptism and why does everyone need to be baptized?" Sister ..... face was so happy and I was so happy. It gave us a chance to teach about the Holy Ghost and how it prompted us that morning to meet with her and to plan the lesson that she wanted to know about. She definitely is not ready to be baptized or make a commitment, but her heart is becoming open to it and that is a great miracle to me to someone who at the beginning only knew Jesus Christ as a name. Now he is actually someone important to her and it is amazing. Christmas is definitely different in a climate that is warm and a country where only a small percent actually celebrates it. But what I love is that those who celebrate it REALLY celebrate it. On Saturday was our Christmas party! We have spent the past month of December sharing Christmas messages with our investigators, members, and giving them all invitations for themselves and for them to invite their friends. Saturday morning we didn't have any lessons planned so we went to ..... house to see if she could come, but she wasn't there so we invited her daughter and grandkids to come just because that's what we as missionaries do, just invite everyone :) Then we went to a former investigators house, ...... decided to see if she could come. Her family doesn't really like us, so we were kind of scared we would get kind of yelled at again, but we were blessed and ...... came right out the door and she invited us to share a message with her. We invited her to the party but weren't sure she would come. Christmas parties in America are so lame. We just eat food and talk and maybe the primary kids do a little nativity thing. But in Indonesia for every church it's like a 2 month planned thing. They decorated the church for like 5 hours on Monday, 6 hours on Friday, and all day on Saturday. Everyone participates. Sister Roylance and I had solo's in a song with the Relief Society, then we did a dance with the Relief Society, and then we as missionaries did a thing with Sock Puppets and Chin heads and it was really funny. The Primary did 2 things, the young men and the young women both did something, and the Elders Quorum did this hilarious play of the Good Samaritan and it was just wonderful. Total, there were over 180 people that came! That is so many people in one LDS Church in Indonesia! We had FOURTEEN Investigators and friends of members that we knew come! THAT IS SO MANY!! The Elders also had 8 investigators come which was awesome. ...... came and ........ family came! It was just SO AWESOME to see all of these people celebrating together when not everyone around us here in Indonesia does. They really love and support each other as a Christian community here and I love it. The last miracle was on Sunday. ...... came to church again for the third week in a row. We still didn't know how to invite her to learn with us, because each time we asked she just kind of didn't really answer. Brother ...... also didn't want to force her to learn with us. After Church we went home to eat lunch, and Brother ...... called us and said that they were still at the church and wondering if we could come back to teach ....... OF COURSE WE WILL! So we went back to the church straight away and were able to teach ..... with Sister ......, who is the Relief Society President and one of my absolute favorite members. She just is so friendly with everyone and she was perfect to have in the lesson. Their situations ended up being so similar, growing up with Chinese Buddhist background but starting to learn about Jesus by going to a Catholic Church. They just connected so well and it was so awesome to teach her about the Book of Mormon. She has already read a ton from the Gospel Principles book and downloaded the Gospel Library app on her phone. I have so much hope for her and I just know it wasn't a coincidence for her to get in contact with Brother........again after just being friends in junior high. After we taught ...... we went with a bunch of members and youth to people's houses to go Christmas Caroling! I have to admit it's way more comfortable Christmas caroling in 80 degree weather rather than 20 degrees haha. They want to go caroling to all the members throughout the week, which is quite a big feat when you think about how big the ward boundaries are. With only like 30 families to visit it will probably take like 7 hours, so we'll probably go for a few of them this next week. We're not quite sure what we're doing on Christmas day because it's Sunday and we don't know who would want to have the missionaries over, but we'll figure it out :) On Friday we have a devotional in Jakarta with Bruce R. Mckonkie's grandson or nephew or someone like that with the missionaries in Jawa Barat so that will be a lot of fun. I hope you have an absolutely fabulous Christmas! Remember the Savior in Everything you do and make a New Years resolution about how you can follow his example better in your life. LOVE YOU!!! Love, Sister Davis
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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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