Week 69 - A Week of Traveling for PLD and Totally Exhausted

My first words of this weeks email may get me in trouble....I happen to be on the other side of the world so I can live with that! You're looking a little gray on top there Dad! :) 

Well, I gave you all the heads up last week that this week's email might be sweet and simple. This past week was a lot of traveling and I had a blast!! On Tuesday, bright and early.....well actually before bright we caught a plane to Surabaya, that was where our first conference was. It was really cool to be able to go back to an area that I have already served. The first day consisted of the interviews and the second day was the spiritual uplifting meeting! We did have a role and if you ask me it went very well! It is fun being able to go around and meet ALL of the missionaries that we have in the mission as well as old companions, old missionaries that have been in the same district. On Wednesday after the conference, President and Sister Donald as well as my companion and I caught a train to Solo. The train ride was about 4 hours long and the next day consisted of interviews and Friday was the conference part. I think we finally got our lesson down on the third time haha! That was also cool because Solo was my first city! Friday night, we caught a plane back to Jakarta. You may have already seen most of the pictures from Sister Donald. I must say we are EXHAUSTED!! It is totally worth it!

Saturday we went right back to work. We started planning for the MLC meeting next week where all the Zone Leaders and a couple of the district Leaders meet here at Senopati once a month. That will be next week. We were able to meet with a new member who is doing awesome and makes me laugh everytime he opens his mouth. That night we met with a less-active family and were able to teach a little about the Temple and the blessings it will bring to their family when they have the chance to go. 

Most of our teaching in Jakarta is done on buses. It is hard to get to houses as almost any house that we would want to go to is the quickest 1 hour away because of walking time, traffic, and etc. Keep in mind that is the quickest. Sometimes it takes up to 2.5 almost 3 hours to get places solely because of city traffic, and the fact that it takes a little time to walk places. It makes the mission life here in Jakarta WAY different...just like a whole new mission basically! 

To answer a few questions:

1- Now that it is just Elder P and myself here we have quite a bit of space for the two of us. We are already spoiled with hot showers and good AC, which I freeze and shiver all the time now, and a great kitchen and all that good stuff but I would say we are even more spoiled! :)

2- Well Jakarta is a little different when it comes to teaching. We can teach on the buses and actually because we live in the main part of the city a lot of people pass by the offices and are willing to meet here. So if we are here sometimes we can just take a break to go teach somebody here in the office and then return to the things that we have going on. That makes it convenient.

3- Right now there are 3 Sister Training Leaders who are the Sister leaders in the mission. They also serve here in Jakarta just not as often in the office as we are.

Well, it sounds like Tuscarora is doing well this year in football and BYU had a good week. It is crazy to think that the Holidays are sinking in with Halloween....well at least there in America, Thanksgiving and Christmas!! Owen will be excited to leave and get started!! 

Love you all!

Elder Hayes

An Early Morning Flight to Surabaya

Grabbing some Lunch at PLD

PLD in Surabaya

PLD in Solo

Part of the original MTC Group

Putting together little packs for little school kids so they can have some cool things

The Finished Product

Caught him on the Train. :)

Week 68 - Life is Great, the Light of Christ, and Some Pretty Good Ice Cream

Life is great! That sums up this past week basically! Everything has gone very well and lots of other things have happened that just went well. Last Monday we made our way over to Grand Indonesia which is one of the craziest malls I have ever been into. We treated ourselves to some very delicious ice cream!! I'm guessing it tasted better than the noodles that Zach cooked!! HAHA :)

On Tuesday, I had my interview with President as every 3 months as part of the PLD conferences happens. It was amazing!! It was literally everything that I needed and probably wanted to hear. President Donald was teaching me a little bit about the light of Christ and how that works in this temporal world that we live in. Wahh it was so eye opening just bits and pieces of doctrine that I have never thought of before!! He then looked me in the eye and just started listing off gifts that I have and I held back those tears the whole time! It was awesome!!

Transfers happened on Tuesday. I was not transfered nor my companion but it was a busy day as we plan all of it. We plan the plane tickets and everything it was crazy! It's nice to hear at the end of the day that everybody made it to their areas safe and sound!!

We had our first PLD in Jawa Barat this past week. It went so well. Many of you are asking what is our role in it.....almost everything. We have a planning meeting with President and Sister Donald and we plan it out and then we go and hand out the assignment make schedules and agendas and we teach. It is a pretty hectic thing but nice to see when things pull together and make a very very spiritual meeting. I must say for the first one lots of questions how it would go but afterwards and reflecting it was perfect!! This week, we will be traveling to Surabaya and Solo to have those conferences. So my email next week may not be a whole lot as we leave tomorrow and get back Friday night!! With this we were able to play futsal with all the missionaries and I must say, I may still have some skills :)!!

We had 3 investigators to church and a couple less actives!!! It was a great week!

Seriously, everything is just going so well! It is just my companion and I right now here because the other Elders both moved and no one came to replace them!! 

SELAMAT ULANG TAHUN KEPADA ADIKKU!!!!! I'm sure when I'll see him again nothing will be the same!! He'll be huge!! 

I am memorizing a scripture a week just in Indonesian so this past week was D&C 82:10 "Aku Tuhan terikat ketika kamu melakukan apa yang Aku firmankan, tetapi ketika kamu tidak melakukan apa yang Aku firmankan, kamu tidak memporoleh janji" It is a great scripture and has meant so much to me on my mission..

I love you all and it is great to hear about things there!!

Elder Hayes

At PLD (Zone Conference)

At PLD (Zone Conference)

At PLD (Zone Conference)

Some Pretty Good Ice Cream

One of the National Monuments

Sate Padang! (So Good!!)

Week 67 - Conference, A Missionaries Christmas, Preparing for PLD (Zone Conference)

Hello everybody on the other side of the world! We are getting an early start today, not for any particular reason but just because we want to! :)

This past week has been really good with lots of good things!! I may have mentioned this last week in my email but our last Monday night activity which was a family home evening in Senopati was such a success. It helped just numerous people, including myself feel the spirit and strengthen their testimonies!! We actually some later results that I will talk about from this activity! 

On Tuesday, there was a bunch of missionaries going home so my companion and I didn't really have time to do a whole lot of teaching as our focus was on them. I was actually able to serve at least in the same city with every single one of them that went home, it was great to see. We had dinner together and a little devotional and off they went just in time to get new missionaries in on Wednesday. Our Wednesday focus was on them and preparing for the upcoming PLD meetings that we have. I have no idea how these meetings come together because at this point is is just pieces but we know it will come together. I am excited and will have to give you an update on how they go. We will be starting in Jakarta this week and then next week we will be traveling to Surabaya and Solo to hold the meetings there. I'm excited because I have actually already served in both of those cities!

This past week it rained one night.....IT ACTUALLY RAINED!!! alhamdulillah!!!! It was great to finally great rain. The dust and dirt have been kind of taking over Jakarta lately making it hard to not breath in dust. With that little rain it kind of helped and actually it should already be rainy season but we are awaiting for that to start up here some time shortly!! Jakarta does flood terribly so we will see how that goes!!

It has been a blast to see and work with a few of the new missionaries. We have been going on splits and other things with them this past week. I now know how I was my first week here! :) I was on splits with one of the new missionaries and he actually needed to pick up a few small things right when he got here so we went out. When we were walking on the street there was a guy that was just making it SO OBVIOUS that he was looking at the Book of Mormon. Like it was so obvious I'm pretty sure I was laughing. We immediately stopped and I'm pretty sure frightened him because we stopped to talk to him about it. We explained a little gave him a copy and off he went. We actually met with him the next day and he is so confused out of his mind that there could be another book and just the teachings of a church could be like they are here. He left saying, "I think I need to read this book." It was a miracle to watch someone confused come to the conclusion that he needed to learn a little more.

We finally we able to watch conference and it was AMAZING!!! Just the whole time, the spirit was talking to me and my notes aren't even anything the people said but what the spirit told me. My favorite talk was Uctdorff's talk about how we make living the Gospel too complex when in reality it is easy to live! That talk was just so powerful to me. I also was a fan of the one about asking Heavenly Father what we can do to improve our lives. Thomas S. Monson nailed it about obedience in simple terms and I was a fan about trying to memorize a scripture a week. Just so many great things were said! Conference is a missionaries' Christmas! It was super cool to see the Lord work through others to call the new Apostles, to go along with that the talks really backed them up and talked about the divine calling that they just received and that it is from the Lord. It was also a blessing because we have been working with a new member who is already inactive to really help him. He is a great person just doesn't come to church. He actually came to the activity on Monday and really felt the spirit, we visited him and had a super spiritual lesson and then he came yesterday to conference to feel the spirit again. We have created a great relationship with him. He has been exposed to the Spirit so much this week that it is like a "high" he wants more and more and he is doing the things he needs to do to get it. He shared a story that he sorted out his problems at church and that he would like to be coming every week. We will visit him and next week pick him up. It has been a great miracle to work with him and see the changes that are going on in his life.

It was a great week and we got a lot of things coming up. We are busy and all that! The pictures look great and sounds like people are doing well. Thank you for your support and all!

Elder Hayes

Me and Elder B.

Bro. A!!!!!! Great guy!!

My Styling Companion

Missionaries that went home this week

Week 66 - MLC, and A Little P-Day Fun

Hello Everyone! Not a lot of time but so much to say! 

This past week has been a good one with lots of things going on. There really is not a lot of time so I'll just get right to it!

We had MLC on Tuesday, just this time I wasn't making the flight to Jakarta, I was already here. It was a GREAT meeting. We really focused on how we can work with the members and how to make our relationship with them better so that they see us as real representatives of the church. It was spirit filled and we got a lot of insight. 

As far as sickness goes, I threw up for the first time on my mission on Thursday night. No need to worry, it was a one night thing and it was because I had just eaten some bad food. I'm glad that is over, I am feeling a lot better and my voice has seemed to creeped its way back little by little. :)

To answer some of the questions, 

1. We have our own house which is not really in the mission home but is behind it. President and Sister Donald live right behind us again on like the 53rd floor. Crazy to think a small little home is backed by a tall building like that. Our office is just up the stairs so we live pretty dang close.

2. Each day we wake up and we study, sometimes we take all of our alotted time to study, sometimes we don't so that we can go work on all the extra things we have to do such as transfers, orders, referals, planning, and lots more!! We try to be out of the office as fast as possible so that we are teaching. We actually teach a lot of our lessons right here at the church offices because a lot of people know it and it makes it easier on them and us...best of both worlds.

3. We do a little bit of cooking and eating out. When we do get a member appointment we do get fed. Member appointments are a little rare because each house takes about 2 hours+ to get to because of traffic and other stuff.

The Elders that are in our house (who will be moving out next week) had a baptism yesterday in our ward. The guy is actually from Manado, so I have been able to become really close with him. He already has a strong testimony and the baptismal service was awesome! The spirit was so strong and there were investigators there and what not it was great!! 

Today for P-day, President allowed us a little treat so we went to an amusement park! IT WAS AWESOME!!!! It was a great district building thing and just a nice enjoyable day. We topped it off with a family home evening here in the office. We watched "The Testaments." I cry everytime I watch that movie! We had investigators, new members, old members, less-actives it was just so spiritual and amazing!!

I know that this church is true. I've had the burning witness inside me of the truthfulness. I thank you all and love you all!

Elder Hayes

A Little P-Day Fun

City Life

CIty Life

City Traffic

Week 65 - A Whole New World in Jakarta

WOW!!! Boy is the city a fast-paced, crowded, busy place! It is literally a whole new world! I have had to do a lot of adjusting this past week with lots of new things. My new companion's name is Elder P. He too is from Medan on the island of Sumatera. So far to this point in my mission, I have been companions from Medan twice! Here is Elder P's story which is a pretty cool one. When he was 8-years old, he lived on the same street as the church in Medan. One day as an 8-year old, by himself wondered into church and attended. He made friends, as any 8-year old would and the missionaries ended up going home with him and asking his parents if they could teach him. His parents gave them permission and that was that, he was baptized along with his mom. Unfortunately, his mom passed away right before he left on his mission. He is for sure a unique person with a big sense of humor. He was actually trained by Elder James if you remember him from Virginia! Good stuff!

With the new assignment, we get up and start normal studies. At about 10 we go up to the office and start working, meetings, and all sorts of stuff.....we get VERY busy!! That's what a normal day but sometimes President Donald comes in to the house or sends a texts and says that we need to start meetings earlier and we just head up and get to work. In the afternoon we leave and just talk to everybody that we can see. A lot of our lessons our a lot different to lessons I have taught in the past. A lot of them come over phone, Facebook, email, and just riding the public busway we just start teaching there. It is very hard to get to people's houses here. 

Here in Jakarta there is 3 wards, 1 english branch and two Indonesian wards. We are serving in one of the Indonesian wards. It has been almost a year since serving in a ward so that number of names that I have to learn just shot up! :)

One of the crazy things that I see here is white people!! 100% honest, they scare me!! It's almost like I forgot how to talk to people hahaha but the Indonesian people are just so much easier to talk to! All the white people I've seen in the mission up to this point were tourists but the ones here are truly here for work or school. It is just a whole different atmosphere!!

The traffic is absolutely terrible, we ride the public busway to get places, the streets show the poorest of the poorest and then you take one step into the mall across the street and we have the richest of the richest. For the record, I have seen a Porsche 9/11 turbo racing down the road as well as a slick black Lamborghini. It is just mind blowing to experience what this city has!!

I have lost my voice but I'll just blame that one on all the teaching that goes on here. Lots of great things and good things to come! I am oh so excited to continue on!!

The pictures look great and OUCH BYU hopefully will learn from that one. Well, I think that is enough for this week. I love you all!!

Elder Hayes

Me and my New Companion Elder P.

One of the Many Great Families in Manado

Last Day in Manado

Week 64 - Off to the Big City

Well, my time in Manado (a mini heaven on earth) has come to an end and I will be making the move to Jakarta. One of, if not the most densely populated city in the entire world! I actually leave later tonight! President Donald, Sister Donald, the AP's, and the Sister training leaders all came to visit Manado this week. I think that the district here has maybe started a little buzz and they just had to come see and witness for themselves! It has been a great last week with lots of great things. Yesterday at church we almost reached 100 people in the tiny church that we have and boy was it blistering hot in there! I was beyond grateful to serve here in Manado for the past 4.5 months but it is now time to hit the city of Jakarta!

To answer EVERYBODY'S question about the rat, it did not taste bad nor taste good. It was almost tasteless but chewy! Therefore it was not my favorite but I did not hate it!!

The Sisters had a baptism on Saturday and she has to be one of the most fired-up people I have ever met! She makes me laugh every time her mouth opens but it was such a great experience for her and her family. I know sometime in the future her husband will join her as during the baptism, he leans over to me and says, "you're going to baptize me right?" It just goes to shows that the spirit (truth) is manifested in the ordinances (somewhere in Doctrine and Covenants).

We have had splits with different missionaries, we visited the members, investigators with baptismal dates and it was just a great week, a super hot one, but a great one!!

I know that this church is true and that the priesthood authority has been restored!

Love you all,

Elder Hayes

J's Baptisim

Another Baptisim

I Just Liked This Picture

On the Way to an Appointment.

Beautiful Manado

Week 63 - Eating Rat, More Baptisms, and Awesomeness

Another just rewarding week of some great missionary work!

Just to keep people on their toes I'll start with a pretty crazy story. This past week we had made an appointment with a member. We showed up at the appointment and right away he invites us to eat before the lesson rather than after the lesson. No Elder is going to turn that down. We sat down and away we went. There was a peculiar dish that I nor my native companion were familiar with. We both asked what it was but the member told us just to eat it.....maybe for the better. Moments later another member had pulled up to the house and the one member calls out the window and says, "come on in, there is fish and rat!" My companion looked at each other with blank stares and continued to ask the member if really the dish we were eating was rat! I can now say I have eaten Rat!!!

Last Monday night was one of the craziest lessons I have ever taught on the mission. We went to the house of a lady that we had contacted. She was home. After shaking her hand, not even joking one-by-one about 17 people filed into the house shaking our hands and the lady was just rambling off, "this is my aunt, this is my cousin, this is my nephew, my brother......" It was NUTS!!! The 18 or so people all found a place in the small house and we began the first lesson. We kind of felt like Jesus Christ in the midst of this small multitude of people! The spirit was super strong and nerves had settled and the spirit just took over! It was awesome!

On Tuesday I caught a plane to Jakarta and came back Wednesday night. There was a meeting there for the leadership as we have our monthly meetings. We talked about setting goals and what we have to do as individuals and companionships to achieve them. It was super spiritual and motivating that really ANY goal that we want to make can be achieved, it's what and how we put our efforts into it! I now have some wild dream ideas running through my mind, but nothing is impossible!! :)

The first of Bro. A's children was baptized on Saturday. Bro. A suffered a stroke about 6 months ago and physically cannot baptize but a member baptized her and it was a wonderful experience to see! Her name is J and turns 17 in October. The church here in Manado is like a rocket! If not mistaken the Sisters have a baptism lined up for this week! Almost every week this last little bit has had a baptism! The Lord's work is just taking off!

A little miracle for Sunday. We had enough food to cook ourselves but both lunch and dinner were provided by just random means by others. It was a mini miracle for us because we didn't have to cook and was able to enjoy some great food! :)

Time is just flying out here!! To be honest, I don't know where most of it has gone! I'm healthy, happy, and wise!! Thank you all for your kind words and thoughts. Many of you know that Timur Leste was opened for missionary work in the Indonesia Jakarta Mission. At this point there are no missionaries except 2 humanitarian mission couples there! A fun fact, Timur Leste won its independence from Indonesia so technically it is it's own county but still falls under our mission!

Until next week!

Elder Hayes