I know I say this at the beginning of every email, but that is because it is just so true. I love Bogor and I love being a missionary. This week has been so wonderful and I am so excited for all the things that are in store!
This week started with going to Jakarta on Tuesday for a meeting with Elder Evans from the Seventy. We have to ride two angkots to the train station and then the train for about an hour that stops off close to the church in Jakarta. We were stuck in horrible traffic when Sister Hyde realizes she forgot her nametag!! Of all the days! So we called the AP's and asked if it was better to be ib time without a name tag or to be late with one. He told us to get off the angkot and ride a taxi home and then to the train station to get to Jakarta. So we tried to find a taxi, but ended up riding another angkot to place with a lot of taxis. We got in the taxi and then found out he wasn't from Bogor and didn't know how to get home. The road we usually go on was closed off so we went another way, and we got very lost. It ended up taking us an hour and a half to get home when it should have taken us 20 minutes. She grabbed her name tag and decided we would just deal with it and pay the taxi to take us to Jakarta. Thankfully the church is in south Jakarta right next to the toll road so we miraculously made it to the church with 15 minutes to spare. That was probably one of the most stressful time experiences of my life haha. The meeting was really great! Elder Evans used to be an executive director of the missionary department and just barely got called to the Asia Area Presidency. He talked a lot about the doctrinal purpose of missionary work, teaching repentance and baptizing converts. We talked about how we need to teach more often, which means we need more investigators and all of our activities need to be about teaching people to get baptized. Sometimes we do good things, but we need to focus on doing the best things. I'm glad we have so many investigators here that we can teach so we don't have to worry about that problem as much here, but in Solo and other parts of the mission it is definitely harder, so hopefully we can change the mission culture to follow these principles better. He also talked about asking referrals from everyone, not just members. Because investigators and new members are going to be the ones that will most likely be able to give us names of friends, rather than members whose closest friends are usually members. So far we have been really good about doing that. We haven't had a referral given to us yet from it, but there have been a few people that said they would text us their information if we reminded them. The biggest blessing that has come though is the progress and success of our other investigators because of our obedience to the call to act from a general authority of the Savior. This week the best things that happened were investigators at church. We had 4 which is SO GOOD here in Indonesia. ..... is so awesome! She came to church again and brought her 16 year old son. She told her member friend who gave us the referral that she wants to be baptized as soon as possible!! We are going to try to meet with her as often as possible so we can teach her all that she needs to know so she is completely prepared to be baptized without going into it too fast. Sarah is another investigator that came to church. She is 18 and really likes being friends with us. We finally got into a setting to teach her about the Restoration which was a great lesson. She is genuinely open and I can tell she loves learning with us. We invited her to come to the Bishops house with us this Friday, and she was really excited about that. I know that with love and teaching with the spirit, if she does her part in keeping commitments, she will gain a testimony and be baptized! ......is our last investigator at church. She is about 26 and we met her from English Class. We taught her and her mom on Saturday with Sister ...... It is so awesome that members are so willing to come with us to lessons so that the investigator has a friend to go to church with. Her mom is a very strong lover of the Bible, but she doesn't have a church. She agreed with us about how of course there is a prophet on the earth today, and just about everything else we said. Hopefully she can see the importance of going to church and will be able to act and keep commitments we give her. I wish we could have focused more on ..... during the lesson, but her mom liked to talk A LOT! We gave her a lot more attention at church which was really nice and we are definitely going to meet with her often. The thing I love most about Bogor is the feeling I have with the members. Bogor is a pretty established place, with a lot of people that work in Jakarta or have worked in Jakarta but they like living in Bogor because it is cooler and there is more land to have more homes instead of just massive apartment buildings. There are families here that have been established that are on their 3rd generation of members. They are thriving temporally and spiritually and can really support each other in all aspects of their lives. We went to a family home evening on Saturday evening with about 5 or 6 member families, and there was time after we gave the lesson from the Family Proclamation and bore our testimonies about families, so almost everyone got to share their testimony. It was so amazing to hear their conversion stories. These people here have so much faith. They are humble enough to open their hearts to these 20 year old kids, can gain faith in a 14 year old boy 200 years ago, and have such strong faith in a Living Prophet that lives half way across the world. When I am at church, I feel the strongest faith in the world. Some of these people have to leave 2 hours before church to come and they still come early. I literally shake hands with every single person that comes through the door. Everyone knows everyone and they recognize when an investigator there and aren't scared to talk to them and welcome them with open arms. I can just see Jesus walking in the door at the beginning of sacrament meeting, seeing so many saints with such strong faith and devotion towards him, all with so much love for one another. I learn so much more from these people than they even realize. They are really examples of the scripture in Moses 7:18 "And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them." This church building every day is Zion, and I am so blessed to experience it every single week for 9 hours since we attend both wards. I am so grateful for the examples to me here, and I really couldn't wish for anything better. This week is transfers, and we are getting one new Sister in the mission, which makes me happy, but sad because that means our trio is probably getting split up. I love working with Sister Hyde and Sister Simanungkalit and I hope that more than anything we get another Sister to come and live with us so we can all work in Bogor together, even if we are in different companionships. I love you all and hope this week is fantastic!! 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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