Spencer - Called to Serve: Week 70 - City Slickers, and Busy week = Blessings!

Assalamualaikum folks! (A greeting in Arabic)

It has just been a WONDERFUL week! My companion and I are putting our heads down and just getting to work and seeking the elect of God in this gigantic city. We have decided that we are the 'City Slickers.' With that little companionship nickname Heavenly Father has to bless us.....that and a lot of prayers and faith and planning and teaching and everything else.

Here is just a little run down of what the week consisted of. Monday was a great P-day, other mission leaders came in for preparation of our MLC meeting, we had a very successful family night. Our ward here is about 80% young single adults so they always ask to have family nights and what not so we invite our investigators and the less-actives and things are history from there. Tuesday was our MLC meeting which went very well. We focused on contacting people and to really just lose the fear and open our mouths with everyone. The spirit came and we made a little mission contacting challenge. As a companionship we have put a lot of focus on the members this past week and we have witnessed miracles with all of them. I will explain later. Thursday-Saturday we have just been out teaching and finding! I was asked to give a talk yesterday in church and I think it went very well. I pretty much just hyped myself up and was probably the happiest person in the world yesterday! :) Busy week = Blessings!

This past week we were able to visit 3 families that are already members. My companion and I prepared a little lesson to share with everyone that takes all but 10 minutes yet the spirit is out of this world strong. Family 1: Tuesday night we go to their house, open with a prayer, watch a little member missionary video with the background music of "I'll go where you want me to go," we then hand the family a piece of paper to write the names of people they know that are not yet members. We ask the head of the household to offer a kneeling prayer and to pray specifically for the names on the list. The prayer was awesome and when we sat back up we asked if there was a name that they felt needed something....there was a pause of silence and at the very same time, the husband and wife belted out the exact same name on the list. The family knew, we knew and Heavenly Father knew that this person needed something. We have challenged the family to start talking with this person, Miracle. Family 2: Saturday morning we go to their house, open with a prayer, watch that same video and hand them their piece of paper. This family wrote 18 names on the list. The head of the household offered the kneeling prayer and after the prayer, the wife felt like one of her own family members needed something. We challenged her to reach out to that specific family member. Family 3: Saturday night we go their house, open with a prayer, watch that same video and this time, we are impressed to have the 19-year old daughter offer the kneeling prayer. The prayer was so powerful, she started praying and when she got to a particular name she paused and was just overcome by the spirit! With tears just pouring she finished the prayer, praying specifically for two of the names. We sat back up and the whole family was in tears and at that moment they knew what they had to do as a family to help these people. We will be following up to see their progress. It was an awesome week just helping the members fulfill their missionary responsibilities!! Miracle, miracle, miracle!

It has FINALLY rained! Saturday morning we were on the bus, right when we got off, it just rained cats and dogs like you have never seen before! So much for the umbrella, it was raining sideways! We got to the train station (our area is so big that sometimes we have to travel by train) hopped in the train just soaked but it was raining so hard that the train itself started to flood!! Eventually the doors shut and off we went. It rained all day Saturday and Sunday it rained from the evening into the night. It has already helped with the smog and haze and the temperature. I think we may have finally dropped to around to 80's! It will be an interesting rainy season because it is starting later and Jakarta floods so we will see!!

We have been talking with everybody this week! With that we have met some interesting people! We have met a 6-fingered man, a man with dreads longer than long who lives on the street and super humble, a starting non-believer that we feel was put in our way to boost him up, and just so many different people!!

To answer the question about the people that are Muslim. We teach them but as of now, they have to be interviewed by the mission president for baptism because of various outcomes. We do not openly proselyte here, that is why we contact people when we travel. Everybody is more than willing to talk and share their religious beliefs.

Well, it's been a good week. Love you all!

Elder Hayes