Wow this week was definitely one of the craziest and saddest of my mission.
On Monday evening, Brother _______, Sister _______ fiance, passed away. On Saturday night he was alone and robbed and stabbed in the stomach. The doctors thought everything was fine until they found an infection in his large intestines that spread to the rest of his organs. He passed away on Monday night after the surgery was unsuccessful. This was the craziest thing I could have ever have expected. He and ____ had plans to get married in May or June and they had a wonderful life planned together. Both him and _____ hadn't ever been married, and they finally found each other at 41 years old. Brother _____ taught _____ SO MUCH about the gospel. It was crazy when we contacted some members and they told us that yes, he had passed away. In Indonesia they do funerals really fast. So on Tuesday we went to the church in the morning for DTM and all their family was there and a lot of the ward members. He had only passed away 12 hours before, so everyone was still in quite a lot of shock. It was probably the absolute saddest moment of my life seeing _____ just cry in my arms. Also on Tuesday night they had a thing called "Malam Penghiburan" which is like a meeting kind of like a funeral where the bishopric shares messages and some of his close friends shared memories of him. On Tuesday during the day the angkots all decided to protest and not go out all day long so we didn't have any transportation to get anywhere, so we stayed at the church and talked to all of their non member friends and we helped prepare the food and stuff. Wednesday morning they had the official funeral, and we sang the songs we did for stake conference. It was a crazy few days. On Thursday morning ____ called us and wanted us to go to her house and answer some of her questions. She is so strong. So strong! Of course she is sad, but she totally believes in the Lord's plan. For barely knowing about the church for 4 months. She understands A TON!! We talked about the deepest doctrine about the millenium, the Spirit World, and what it means for those who didn't have the opportunity to be married and sealed in this life. It was so amazing to feel that I actually helped her receive peace through this time of trial. I now know why I have been in Bogor for so long. Because I can't imagine not being here for her during this hard time. I'm so grateful for her strong testimony she has and her desire to keep following the Lord. A few times this week she also took us to visit her nephew. A month ago, he fell from 10 feet and broke both of his legs. He is 15 years old. He has had 2 surgeries and now he is scared he will never be able to walk again. We shared from the Book of Mormon with him, his brothers, and _______ sister who came to her baptism. Yesterday after church we brought a few members and they gave him a priesthood blessing. He was much calmer after that and I hope he has faith and that this can open the hearts of their family to listen to our message. This week has truly strengthened my testimony of the Plan of Salvation, the simpleness of it and the blessings of the deep doctrines we understand about the millenium and everything so that in times of trial, death, pain, we understand and believe that God's plan is perfect for all of us. I know that Brother ______ who was such a great teacher on this earth, got right to work and taught all of those waiting for him there. I'm so grateful that all of his family has an understanding of the Plan of Salvation so they can be comforted for the rest of their lives, and we can look forward to spending eternal life in the Celestial Kingdom with all of our friends and families. It is going to be so much fun. With investigators this week, we got a new family! Brother _____ and Sister ______ invited a couple to come to Family Home Evening with the ward at their house last week and this Thursday we taught them at their house. Brother _____ shared a wonderful testimony. He invites the Spirit and relates to them in a way we can't. I pray that their hearts can be opened and they will have a desire to really read and pray, because as they do I know that Heavenly Father will answer them through the Holy Ghost and they will receive a testimony of the truth. Thank you for sharing with me and answering all my questions :) It took me about a month to finish all those letters through different P-days so hopefully you enjoyed them :) Love you so much! Have a wonderful week! Love, Sister Davis
0 Comments
Wow this week has been pretty normal actually again but great too!
We have 3 investigators that have a little progress and potential that we are trying to focus on. The first ones are _____ and _____. It was probably the fastest contact I have ever done, so it was a miracle we got their number. _____ is _____ aunt. They are both single and live together. They go to a protestant church that I haven't ever heard of before. It took a few meetings with them before we could finally teach the whole restoration because they had so many other questions about topics about the Book of Mormon itself. We finally taught them the Restoration this week and it was really great! They get confused easily because of what they have been taught, but they got excited about Joseph Smith and they loved the poster of all the leaders of the church. They were busy this Sunday so they didn't come to church, but it is so nice going to people's house who are really curious about our message! Hopefully they can read all the assignments we give them so they can receive a real witness of the truth from the Holy Ghost. Our other Investigator is _____. She is 71 years old and lives by herself. She has never been married but has a lot of siblings and nieces and nephews. She is so cute and understands so much of what we teach. She had friends who she worked with from America that were Mormon so she already knew enough from them that she liked the Elders when they first met her while they were walking around her neighborhood. We invited her to be baptized, but at first she didn't get the whole Priesthood thing. She is still confused about it but after we reexplained it again she gets more of it. We are really hoping as she continues to read from the Book of Mormon and as we teach the Plan of Salvation next, she can also receive a witness of it's truth. She has been going to the same church for 71 years so that will be a big change if she switches. Miracles can happen even for 71 year old ladies :) Last week we went to Kebun Raya for P-day and it was way fun! We took lots of pictures so I hope you enjoy all the ones I sent!! This week also Sister Winanto came to Bogor to visit her relatives that live here so that was way fun to see her again! It is weird that she is home from her mission, but cool that we could still meet again:) Lately also we have maybe been happier or more smiley or something because we have had 4 guys who are Christian who wanted to talk to us, usually in their horrible english because they were excited that we are Bule's, but 2 of them have become new investigators for the Elders! It's cool that the Lord inspires other people to talk to us just as much as he inspires us to talk to them. Thanks for all your letters and emails to me. I'll really try to take more pictures. It's hard because we're not supposed to look like tourists and because Indonesia is so crowded I feel like people are staring at me when I take pictures, but honestly everyone is always staring at us anyway because there are two foreigners and one is white and the other is black haha :) It makes contacting easier because people like to talk to us haha :) Love you! Have a fantastic week! Love, Sister Davis Sorry if this letter is short, because we didn't really have a crazy exciting week. This week we just did what we usually do, talk to people, call people to make appointments, lots fall through, so we just find more people! We got 3 more new investigators this week which is nice. It's just hard because people aren't very good at making appointments enough in advance and then keeping them... So we just keep going :)
This week on Wednesday we both had a little break down, not crazy but just kind of feeling like we do the same thing everyday but we don't know if we are doing what's exactly right. We just kind of felt like we were going about doing the work but that we didn't feel anything while we were doing it. I woke up on Thursday morning feeling pretty down and just kind of numb, so I prayed for Heavenly Father to tell me what I needed to do or feel and what he thought of me. I read in Alma 8 and 9, where Alma is commanded to go back and meet Amulek. In Chapter 8 verse 13 it says that they "reviled him, and spit upon him, and caused that he should be cast out of their city, and he departed..." Alma must have felt horrible about what he was doing as a missionary. He must have been so confused with his life. Then the Lord sends an angel to him, who says in verse 15 "Blessed art thou, Alma; therefore, lift up thy head and rejoice, for thou hast great cause to rejoice; for thou hast been faithful in keeping the commandments of God." Alma had great reason to rejoice because he was faithful. If we go throughout our day, following the promptings of the spirit, even if we are rejected, we can rejoice because we know we have been faithful in keeping the commandments of God. After that, he met Amulek, and they went to Ammonihah again, and they were rejected again!!!! Just because people reject us when we feel prompted to talk to them doesn't mean it wasn't a prompting of the spirit. We need to just focus everyday on doing what is right, and if we try our best every day, we can sleep at night peacefully because we know the Lord is pleased with our work. I loved chatting with you all today! I hope this week is great and the weather still stays nice for you :) Love, Sister Davis Good morning! This week was kind of uneventful at least for things out of the ordinary, but I do have a couple stories for you.
We were coming home on an angkot on Monday evening after an appointment and there is a lot of traffic so the angkot was going really slow. Sister Rowntree sees this guy walking the opposite way the angkot was going, look at me, and immediately bolt to get on the angkot. This guy was probably about 70 years old, really scraggly and he didn't have a lot of teeth. He was really short too because he's Indonesian. I didn't see the whole first part just Sister Rowntree. I told him to be careful as he got in the angkot, and then he was surprised that I could speak Indonesian. I asked him "Where are you going" because that's what everyone asks first, and then he said "I'm searching for a woman. Do you already have a boyfriend?" HAHAHAHA that's not what I was expecting at all hahahaha. I told him "Yes" because what else was I supposed to say? He said "Oh just leave him and find an Indonesian" Hahahaha it was so funny and crazy. Good thing we were almost getting off the angkot to go home and that he didn't follow us hahaha. The rest of this week we spent a lot of time calling people and making appointments and trying to find new investigators, and we got 3! We went to one place that was 3 angkots and an hour and a half away, that didn't end up being one of the three, but it was quite an adventure trying to find her house that was out in the boons of Bogor. But we are so happy for the three new ones and hopefully they can all open their hearts to our whole message. I'll probably have more information on them when we meet with them again. Yesterday we had an awesome day at church! Bogor 2 was so great. Sacrament was fast and testimony meeting where we heard testimonies from a family who just went on a temple trip to Cebu for their sons wedding. They prepared so much, traveling so far to find names to bring to the temple. They went on a vacation up in Sumatra to go to the graves of a lot of their ancestors. They did over 100 ordinances at the temple for their families. Also .......... got up and bore her testimony! I could tell she was nervous because she kept looking back at the bishopric to make sure she was saying everything right. Hahaha I loved it :) She is so cute and it's fun to be in the ward long enough to see her progress as a new member. Also at church we had our investigator ............... come. She is the Sister-in-law of a younger sibling of Brother ............ Brother ............ and Sister .......... had their daughter ............ get baptized yesterday, so .......... came with her Brother in Law who has been inactive for YEARS! Also the inactive members wife came. ............ was paying attention a lot during gospel principles, relief society, and she was looking right at me when my ward mission leader made me bear my testimony during ......... Baptism. ............. also just quit her new job because she didn't like it, so now we will be able to see her more often. Hopefully she can have a baptismal commitment this week! That's about all for this week. By the way I don't know if I told you this last week but I'm just like Teresa and I'm lactose intolerant now :) yay... I kept getting sick in my stomach for like a month and it wouldn't go away even when I was eating way clean, so I did an experiment and stopped eating anything with milk and it went away... Then I had a Mcflurry from McDonalds to test it one more time and yeah.... That's definitely it... so now I can't eat ice cream or anything without getting sick.. At least I can still eat noodles and rice :) I hope you have a great week! 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
www.mormon.org Archives
August 2017
|