Counting Down... 4 weeks til we leave!

Apa Kabar, keluarga saya! Saya tidak dapat percaya hari ini adalah Pday lagi!

Alright, translation..How are you doing, my family? I can’t believe today is Pday again! Haha…yes, I have picked up one or two words while I’ve been here ;)

It’s been a really good week…there were a lot of things that made it good, so I’ll start at the beginning.

Friday morning, we had some guy walk into our room during personal study and literally just start bashing on how dirty the room was, how we needed to clean it up, and that we weren’t even close to “being ready for today.” All of us, including Bro Leo, were completely confused and pretty much thrown off by this guy just walking in and telling us how awful our room looked. We were all like, what are you talking about? The guy then goes, “the guy from Indonesia that’s coming this morning! This room looks awful, you need to clean it up before he gets here!” THIS totally threw us all off, and then we all started talkin at once, saying “What guy!?!?” Finally the guy gets it, and says “oh, you don’t know?” Apparently there was a MAJOR guy from Indonesia speaking at BYU the following Monday, but he wanted to come to the MTC and see what it was about while meeting the missionaries going to Indonesia. Now, when I say a major guy, I mean this guy is THE MAN who signs our passports that allow us into the country as missionaries. So yeah…pretty major. Anywho, we all cleaned our room and then started working on things to say and/or ask for the next hour while we waited for him to come. He showed up around 10 am, and we all got up and introduced ourselves, and where we were going. Lol, it was pretty funny with the Malaysian missionaries because he just looked at them with disgust when they said where they were going. He asked us a few questions, and we asked him a few, and then he looked directly at Elder Blissett (who is our district genius when it comes to speaking/understanding the language) and asked him why he wanted to go to Indonesia on his mission, and why he was doing it. Well, the interpreter somehow came around to the fact that Elder Blisset is going to Malaysia, so then Bapak Pasaribu switched his attention to the person sitting next to Elder B. who he KNEW was going to Indonesia…ME!

Not gonna lie…I freaked out a bit in my head when he asked me the same question. Elder B. is the genius in the class…I’m the one sitting in the corner picking her nose. Not literally, but that’s about how opposite we are. We have this bang bang game that we play, and if we’re doing it tournament style, everyone wants to go against me in the first round cuz they know it’s an automatic win :( sad, but really true. Anywho…so yes, I was really nervous when he asked. But, I had a calming assurance within me as I simply said (almost perfectly…), “Saya tahu bahwa gereja ini punya memberikan saya dalam kehidupan saya, jadi saya ingin untuk membagikan bahwa dengan orang-orang dari Indonesia,” which, translated means I know that this church has blessed me in my life, so I want to share that with the people of Indonesia. Nothing profound, but I felt good after I said it, and I hope he felt the spirit of it as well. It was a really cool experience, and I hope that I represented the church well as I did so. I have pics… I’ll send them next week after I get them developed.

As everyone knows, conference was AMAZING! It’s been a while since I’ve watched all the sessions, and I’m SO glad that I did. Yes, my butt was sore, but my heart was also definitely full by the end. Well… and the beginning. Haha the whole thing was just incredible! A few highlights…Dad, I didn’t think that Elder Nielsen sounded familiar, but I figured the likelihood of 2 missionaries from Finland were pretty rare, so I told everyone that HE was your companion…sorry! But at least you knew him. It makes me not a complete liar ;) he gave a very inspirational talk though. I actually don’t have any notes on the talk, because I didn’t want to miss anything! Very good. Of course, Elder Holland’s testimony of the Book of Mormon is SURE to go down in history along with…crap, I forgot his name for a sec, but the apostle who bore testimony of the savior, “That I won’t know any more than I know now that He is my Redeemer and Savior.” That’s always been one of my favorite testimonies, and Elder Holland’s goes right with it. Like I’ve said before…If he’s not pounding on the pulpit, he’ll be pounding on your heart. Loved it! I also loved how a lot of the first few talks seemed to focus mainly on love…Love for God, love for mankind, love for one another. And that WE’RE loved by Heavenly Father. Did anyone else from the Hewlett side of the family LOVE how Elder Eyring talked about the No Empty Chairs? I felt the most amazing spirit as he talked about it, and I thought about that reunion we had with Grandma and Mom doing that fireside. What an incredible family we have… it made me think of our temple visits we do every year together. How many families in the world can say that EVERY SINGLE MEMBER of its family is worthy to go to the Temple of the Lord to do service with one another? Think about it…the only reasons people in our family don’t come to those is because they’re on missions or taking care of little ones. So, that said…I know that next month my mom is putting that together, and I hope that EVERY SINGLE PERSON in our family who is able to will go and participate, because there are very few people in the world who get to experience that opportunity. I love our family! Anyways, it was a great conference, although I’m SUPER jealous that ya’ll gotta go to the cabin. I’m definitely excited to go do that again when I get home!

This week I finished the Book of Mormon, and started a bit on the New Testament. I’ve never read it all the way through, but I’m excited to do it now. I’m also reading Jesus the Christ, which is INCREDIBLE. I seriously love it, and suggested it to all :)

Now that we’ve basically learned all the grammatical stuff that we can in Indonesian, Bro Leo and Ross are really hitting us on being able to understand and speak the language better. Which is great if you know what they’re saying. But like I said earlier…this language is taking me a bit more time to get, but I have noticed a HUGE difference in my understanding from Monday to yesterday. I definitely have seen Heavenly Father’s help in this language. The first week I think I memorized like 10 words, but now I’ve worked my way up to the point that I can say almost my entire prayers in Indonesian (I’m sending a pic of all my study materials…you’ll DIE!), and it’s still growing daily… so definitely an answer to MANY prayers. I go off into the halls most of the time to study, cuz the people in my room will talk the whole time and I can’t just goof off…they get mad at me for not playing the games and stuff with them, but I don’t learn anything doing those games. I learn by getting new words and finding associations with them, then going over them again and again. Funny story actually. To serve in Indo is “melayani” and I was trying to come up with an association when I thought of Melanie Goates, and all the service things she’s done…haha so she’s my association there :)

The language is definitely coming along, but so is my humility. I don’t think that I’ve ever been as humble about something as I am learning a language. There are times when it’ll hit me really hard that, HOLY COW! I’m learning a whole new language! And it’s only been 5 weeks! What a blessing it is to see the hand of the Lord in my life as I work hard to accomplish this one thing here (this language), so that I can go out and serve Him and accomplish many other things the way that He wants it done because of learning that language. It’s gonna be awesome!

I had another lady in the RC (AGAIN the last call of the day) who I bore testimony of the difference she’d feel when the missionaries brought her the DVD that she’d ordered. She said that she needed to feel something different, and she hoped that they would come over soon. As Connie always says…I pray that the missionaries in these areas are doing their jobs so that these people can be blessed.

Sis O. and I have taught a few times this week to different people in Indonesian, and the lessons just keep getting better and better it seems. We still have a LONG ways to go, but the language coming along is REALLY helping our lessons a lot. I’m also getting better and better at what I want to say, so I don’t have to rely on Sis O. helping me through every lesson like I did before. Now it seems to be a lot more equal, which is AWESOME and something that a few weeks ago I didn’t think was possible.

I’m sorry to hear that Asiata is out AGAIN. That totally blows! The U will pull through though…I can’t hardly wait to hear how the BYU/Utah game goes. That will be a super good game. Dad, keep the Jazz scores coming in, and let me know how my Matty and Paul are doing.

MOM!!!!! Wow, it feels like it was forever ago so I almost forgot! THANKS A MILLION FOR THE CINNAMON ROLLS! Funny story… well not really funny, mostly gross. But we ate all those rolls you sent us in about…24 hours. Literally. I got them from the post office right before gym on Friday, so about 11, and then they were gone by Saturday night. There are 5 girls in my room, we are the only ones who ate them, and we absolutely DEVOURED them. And they get more and more excited whenever they hear I’m getting a package because they know they’ll get to eat whatever goodness is within them all. Haha. The cornbread was yummy, we had it today for breakfast while we did laundry. Thanks! You’re the best, seriously!

Also that day I got a big ol’ package from Sash and Anth…thanks you guys! SOOOO sweet of you guys to think of me like that! Definitely made my day :) and the treats have been great for class, and were SUPER nice to have during conference. You guys are the awesome and I love you!

Anywho, I best get going. I hope everything is going well for everyone. I’ve always found it interesting that President Monson asks the church to pray for him, but this last conference as he did so, I felt like if HE could do it, then I could do it…SOOO please pray for me, that this language will continue to come easier and easier, and that I’ll have the Spirit with me that I need in order to teach by it. I love you all and miss you more than you’ll ever know, but know that what I’m doing is what God wants for me. LOVES!!!!

~Sister Sara