Spencer - Called to Serve: Week 75 - An Unforgettable Week!

Hello everybody!! I have not really been in Jakarta at all this past week! However, this past week was probably one of the most unique experiences of my whole mission! Elder and Sister Wong from the 70 came (you may know Elder Wong because he was one of the first people to give a general conference talk in his native language, cantonese) and also Elder and Sister Pon came who will become the 2nd counselor in the Asia area presidency! Talk about an amazing, super spiritual week!

We finished our preparations for the mission tour on Monday and Tuesday and got ready. Wednesday we had the first portion of the tour here in Jakarta. IT WAS AWESOME!! It was literally one of the craziest, most inspired things ever! The spirit was so strong and I learned so much and was just so busy writing things that the spirit was teaching me. Afterwards, we headed straight to the airport to head to Solo. There, we had a cool experience. We were sitting there waiting for the plane when I had an impression that we needed to talk to the Muslim lady in front of us. We opened our mouth and she opened right up and explained how she used to be Christian and actually has been wanting her family to learn about it. We were able to offer the Restoration pamflet and teach her a little bit right then and there! It was completely lead by the spirit and now she is a referral for the missionaries in Solo. Because we were talking to her the guy next to me started to talking to me but was not interested! I have experienced more miracles in this city more than ever! Later on, I know these things will be harvested!

We were in Solo on Thursday for that portion of the mission tour. It was a COMPLETELY different meeting. The spirit took that meeting to a whole different place!! I was also just writing spiritual impressions that came to me as we participated in this one as well! That night we hopped on a 4 hour train ride to Surabaya. My companion and I sat next to Elder and Sister Pon where we learned a few chinese characters and learned how to say "I am Elder Hayes" let me tell you, I spent the last few days trying to say that right and maybe have only gotten it once. That is for sure a hard language to speak and write!! We arrived in Surabaya and had a COMPLETELY different meeting there on Friday. It was just another spirit-lead meeting where we were learning a lot. We were able to go on splits with the ZL's there on Saturday and then on Sunday we attended the district conference there! We were the designated translators and had a great time!

This truly has been a very special week! This is for sure a week I will not forget! December is by far my favorite month of the year for a number of reasons. One of which is the atmosphere of peace and excitement. The excitement for Christmas has always been there but when you can stop and realize that the Savior was born, our world changes.

"He came to pay a debt he didn't owe because we had a debt that we couldn't pay"

The church is true! Happy Holidays!

Elder Hayes