so this last week has been another week. we got an appointment with this lady and her teenage daughter, and i was all excited to go and teach them, cuz they seem super cool and LOVED us when we met, but when we got to their house, the mom told us her story (which is good to know), and then told her daughter that she wanted her to tell us her problem with her boyfriend, and get a second opinion on how to handle it...ya, it was a long story and was basically just the usual relationship where the two aren't talking to each other, so they're all confused and crying and hurt feelings and "i think you hate me," "no, you're the one that hates me" (all thru texting, btw, which is ALWAYS the wrong way to handle fights), and i felt like i was back home talking to my friends about their boyfriends....which is FINE, i have no problem with it, but it left us with no time to talk about the restoration or anything else... just give our opinion and advice about how to handle the problem (TALK!!!!), and that was it. i think that happened cuz we now tell people we're "bembina rohani," cuz that's whats on our kitas, which basically means spiritual tutor......but missionaries PREACH....so i think that might be where they were a bit confused, but we're going back this week, and will try to actually get a lesson in this time. and possibly go earlier so we have more time. haha. i love indonesia. anywho...it actually just makes me laugh now, but at the time i was a TINY bit peeved.
saturday was quite a day...we found out that pres groberg was coming to bandung that day, and so we CLEANED....all morning. well, the indos did a lot more than i thought was needed, but the house looked DANG good afterwards. but, after that i tried getting appts, and no one even answered, but we found out that no one had cleaned the church yet (they JUST started the program here where the members clean the church, and the guy who usually organizes it was sick), so me and jo went to the church and cleaned the whole thing ourselves. it was a FULL day of cleaning, but i felt better about that than walking around a mall, so :) the other sisters picked up pres and sis groberg, and then they went to an inactives house, and after that we all met up and had dinner together. it was fun.
sunday was awesome, cuz sis groberg is SUCH a spitfire! she seriously makes me so happy....she's everything a mission president's wife should be - just so excited to go out and do the work, and working hard to try and understand the language. it's not coming as fast as she'd like it to, i know, but by the time she goes home she'll have this language down. as soon as church was over and president had interviewed us all, she was ready to go, "where are we going to go? who can we visit? we have the time, so let's get going so we can visit as many as possible!" haha, seriously, she made me so happy. it's nice to have someone else around who feels like that. so jo and i went with them and the branch president and his wife to visit one of the inactive members, and then they dropped us off to go to ibu dina's while they went to go visit others. my favorite is that they didn't have their own car or driver - they rode cititrans here (thats what we ride when we go to jakarta - it's just a direct route that they have here if you wanna go to jakarta or bandung), and then rode the angkots and walked with us - they wanted to take the angkot to go home saturday night, but sis mongan talked them into taking a taxi so they wouldn't get lost. haha. but ya...thats what i love - they're here WITH us missionaries, they want to know what we DO so they know how to help us. it was fun.
our visit with ibu dina was a bit of an eye opener for me last week - i'm seeing more and more that we've been too soft with her..she doesn't understand the restoration, and that this is GOD'S church on earth, and i tried to be as bold as i could without hurting her feelings when i told her that her baptism was not done with the Priesthood, which means it won't hold later on in Heaven.. after that, she started saying that, according to her, the guy who baptized her had the power of God, and that it's still good.....so me and jo have talked, and we have to go back to trying and explaining about the restoration again. i gave her HW this week to read from an article about joseph smith from the liahona - i'm hoping if she reads that, she'll be able to understand better the role of Joseph smith, and WHY he's so important in the Church Of Jesus Christ of LDS. it's a slow process - but hopefully we can get there.
yesterday we FINALLY just went to one of our inactive's house (i usually call, and there's always an excuse, but we haven't gone to her house yet cuz she works in the hospital as a lab tech and has weird hours), and i prayed the whole way there that she'd be there, cuz that morning had been a bit of a rough one for me, and i just NEEDED to feel the spirit and like i'd accomplished something that day - and my prayers were answered! she was there, and we had a great lesson, and she cried as she told us about her situation (married a Muslim, kids aren't allowed to come to church, got offended by a text from one of the sisters last year and hasn't come to church since), and we just invited her again to remember her testimony and come back to church. she's definitely one that needs strengthening thru the members that live around her - so i'll be talking to pres santoso this week about that. she's awesome, tho, and i was SOOO happy to finally meet her, and again was reminded that i have a loving Heavenly Father in Heaven who knows what i'm doing, and is helping strengthen me every single hard step of the way. i really am SOOO blessed.
monday night we did FHE with the family that was inactive when i first got here, but have since been active almost every single week, and sis hasibuan (we were on splits) talked about the conference talks, and how we need to keep reading those, and not just read from the scriptures, cuz those talks are SPECIFICALLY for us in this day, and are what Heavenly Father has revealed to our prophets today about what WE NEED. it chastized me a bit, and yesterday i started reading the May liahona again (we haven't gotten the november yet), and it really has strengthened me SOOO much. yesterday morning i was NOT in a good mood, and certainly didn't wanna go out or do anything, but then i read julie beck's talk about the handmaid... something like "by my handmaids ye may know me" or something like that, and there was no way i could read that talk and NOT take responsibility for what i'm here to do... and so i got up and got back to work. and MAN ALIVE am i grateful for that. i know Heavenly Father watches over us, i know he sees the hardships we suffer, and while maybe our problems aren't solved the way we want them to be or in the time we want them to be, but He will ALWAYS strengthen us to endure, and to ENDURE WELL, which means still doing what we're supposed to. i'm not sure how much longer i'll be serving here in bandung, but MAN ALIVE am i glad that Heavenly Father sent me here to use talents i never thought i'd be able to use, face problems i never thought i'd have to face, and yet still have the strength to go on and DO HIS WORK. i certainly have had my times where i'm down and it's taken a long time to get back, but i think i needed those humbling times so that i could FEEL that, and so that now i can know that i DON'T want to be like that anymore here. i told president groberg on sunday that i want to work HARD these last few months that i have, and hopefully he'll help me out with that. i know these last few months are going to be a gift from God, cuz REALLY, i should be going home next week if i hadn't gotten hurt, but there's a reason i need to be here, and i'm gonna make sure i work hard to find out what that is.
anywho...sorry, now i'm going off, but anywho i love you all, thanks for the love and support and prayers and everything else. i'm beyond blessed to have the support that i do back home - i've known that for years, but it's even more realistic here. THANK YOU! have a good week, loves~
~Sister Sara
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