i'd heard a few rumors about the house and things going on in the branch here, but i'm still trying to figure out what's true and what's not. for example, "the house in malang is the best house the sisters live in!" ya....false. i don't think it's anything more or less than the other houses, EXCEPT that it has a little flower area in the front and side of it that was FULL of weeds when i got here. i was completely disgusted with that, so every morning i've been spending about a half hour or so weeding it out, and it looks pretty good (thanks mom for teaching me to weed :P). this morning i had more time, and after about 45 minutes sis lie and langi came out and helped me, and we talked about what we wanna plant there. hopefully i'm getting them a little more excited to focus more on the front of the house, and making sure it LOOKS like a place where Christ's servants live. not where a bunch of bums off the street live. it actually looked really good this morning, and by next week maybe i'll have it all cleared out and we can plant some new flowers (yup, it WILL take me that long, cuz there is not one piece of dirt showing....it's all completely covered in weeds).
sis lie and sis langi get along really well, which is fun for me to join in....we all get along, but i'm trying to help them focus more on contacting rather than always laughing and talking to each other while their in the angkots. i know sis langi is still new, and she still has a huge fear of talking to people (that whole language barrier that i knew so well in jakarta), but she REALLY wants to talk to people, and i've noticed a big change with her in just the last week. she got her first indonesian contact last night! so i was excited for her.
sis rhondeau was here before me, and they had a ton of investigators (got a family baptized the week before her parents got here!), and so they've turned most of those over to us...so we spent the last few days trying to get a hold of them. but the problem is, nobody's been home. i was surprised to hear that sis langi still hadn't taught a single discussion in indonesia, but monday we passed by an elder man who was weeding, and i offered to help, and that led to him asking us what church we were from, and he knew we were the Mormon church, and i asked if he'd read the BofM yet, and he said no....and the next thing we knew, we were in his house teaching the first discussion. langi was completely blown away, and nervous as could be, cuz it'd be weeks since she and lie had practiced giving the first discussion....i felt really bad (she just kept looking at me, saying "i dunno what to say..." and i tried to help her, but you can only tell someone so much to say before it's better if you just say it yourself...), and so now i'm pushing that we practice the discussions for our comp study every day. langi really is so excited and stoked about doing the work here...she just hasn't had someone REALLY showing her the way. i don't want lie to feel like i'm taking over her compship...but i also don't want us to not be effective when we teach because of something that we COULD work on, but we're too lazy to. that's not what missionary work is about. we'll see what happens with the guy (i think he thought we were going to force him to try and believe what we believe cuz he kept saying that we can't force our beliefs on him....), but it was a good lesson to learn from.
sis rhondeau and sis lily's families were here until sunday, so it was fun to be around LOTS of bules after i hadn't been around any for basically 4 months. sis rhondeau's mom has a letter for you guys...sorry you just got my package and all my pics, so i didn't know what else to send. but it's a piece of my love :)
so here's 2 stories of inactive members here that totally opened my heart last week - the first one is sis yuni, who married a muslim, but has joined the church and has a VERY strong faith in Christ and this restored gospel...but her husband has no idea. EVERYTHING has been done behind his back, because if he finds out, she knows he'll tell her she can't do it. so she basically lives a lie, solaking (praying) 5 times a day, and everything else that is islam....but when she gets time where she's all by herself in the house, she reads the BofM, and saturdays we meet in her mom's house to have a little spiritual building. SOOO dedicated, and you can feel her testimony so dang strong when you're there. her mom is muslim as well, but not fanatic (most of sis yuni's family is christian, and her little brother is even a member in jakarta), and just SOOO dang cute. she doesn't like us coming and going fast...she just wants us to chill the house with her. haha....so cute.
the other sister is sis nursiam, who is a nurse and works every single day, and takes all her holidays on sundays when possible so she can come to church, but she only gets 1 or 2 holidays every month, so she doesn't get to church much....but she said before they started these new shifts, she used to get off at 2 pm, and then she'd fellowship with the elders and sisters everywhere... she said she'd helped find TONS of people who eventually got baptized, which is totally cool. but the saddest part is that her family is all muslim, and her son (who was a member long before she was) married a fanatic muslim girl who won't let him go to church. sos poor sis nursiam is the only faithful member in her family who truly, TRULY loves Christ. sooooo cool.
anywho....so things are still new, we still don't have any REAL investigators, but we've contacted a few that are potentials, and i'm hoping this compship'll get moving more in the right direction so i'm busy busy busy here in malang! i'm sick of shopping :P but it helps a lot to have a greenie who's still fresh and excited to work. we'll see what this next week'll bring!
oh, and spiritual thought for the week is "the darkest hour always comes before the dawn" - this is my dawn, and it's only gonna get lighter from here :) i love this gospel....i'm so grateful for the testimony that i have of it. i'm grateful that i have parents who raised me with the truth and values that they were taught, and which have helped me SOOOOOO much more than you'll ever know here in indo. i know Christ lives, and i know this work is the most important work in the world...which is why i'll NEVER give up. i'll keep pushing until the end! i love you all, thanks for all the love and support....until next week!
~Sister Sara
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