Week 97 - A Sick Companion, Bearing Pure Testimony, Giving Thanks to God

This last week was AMAZING!! It started off with that great skype call with the family; from there it just got better and better!

A is doing awesome!! He is still on date for the 29th of May and is super excited. It is such a wonderful opportunity to teach him and help him get prepared to make covenants with the Lord. He soaks up everything that we teach him! This past week we have focused on the commandments. Every time he heard a commandment you could see him just want to live it, he has truly been prepared by the Lord to receive this glad message. His testimony is growing and he will be a great new member! 

We experienced more and more miracles. We were heading back home from an early morning appointment. As we got off the bus, we were followed and this guy tapped us on the shoulder. He is originally from Surabaya and has seen our church. Something urged him, he said to follow us and just ask what we had to share. We gave him a Book of Mormon and made an appointment a few days later where we explained the Restoration. He has not come to church yet but is still interested in learning more. Most of our miracles have been pretty close to the same. We have been talking with everybody!! Because we are talking with everybody, there are people we just forget who they are. This past week we just had people calling and texting asking if we could meet. Most of them truly wanted to know what message we had to share. Those are just a few examples of the daily miracles that we witness!! 

I have seen the blessings that the Gospel brings to our family! Without it, we might be scattered all over the place. It brings the joy and the happiness that we all experience and unites us. 

I spent half of Saturday working with President as Elder Tuttle suffered. He wasn't felling so well and we had a busy day at the mission home. We had a family of 6 come to the home and we were able to share a little about the plan of salvation. They mentioned how they were Muslim and were not interested. The fact that they took the time as a family to come and listen was just great and now the seed has been planted. Directly after that, a man came and we also taught him the Plan of Salvation. He too is from the Muslim faith and even accepted a Book of Mormon. One thing I have really learned here in Jakarta is just sharing pure testimony is the best thing to do, that is how they really feel the spirit. Elder Tuttle was feeling better in the evening so we were able to go out and meet Alexander at a member's house.

Yesterday in church, a member gave a great talk. He quoted a scripture that really hit me for the rest of the day. Usually when I think of Alma 7, I automatically go to Alma 7:11-13 about the Atonement. This brother read verses 23 and 24 which say, 

23 And now I would that ye should be humble, and be submissive and gentle; easy to be entreated; full of patience and long-suffering; being temperate in all things; being diligent in keeping the commandments of God at all times; asking for whatsoever things ye stand in need, both spiritual and temporal; always returning thanks unto God for whatsoever things ye do receive.

24 And see that ye have faith, hope, and charity, and then ye will always abound in good works.

I can just feel the Christ-like love that radiates from these verses. It teaches some of the attributes that will make us better people and teaches us how we can "always abound in good works." I also like the teaching on prayer, " asking for whatsoever things ye stand in need, both spiritual and temporal; always returning thanks unto God for whatsoever things ye do receive."  We can literally ask for ANYTHING in our prayers. We cannot forget to give the thanks back to him! When we give the thanks back to Him that is when we have those attributes of Christ. That is one thing I have really learned from Elder Tuttle and I am personally trying to apply more of the Christ-like attributes! 

The church is true and I love you all!!

Elder Hayes

the magical sword!!!!

My companion has had better days.

Week 96 - One More Degree, and an Awesome Skype Session with the Family

"At 211 degrees, water is hot. At 212 degrees, it boils. And with boiling water, comes steam. And with steam, you can power a train."

This is a pretty powerful quote to me and goes hand in hand with going the extra mile! This past week at MLC we talked about just doing a little bit more. This article goes on to say, "Many of life's failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." As a missionary, you just never know who is going to accept the message. We never know if we are one contact away, one step away, or one person away. We just never know!

This past week has been filled with more and more miracles. Elder Tuttle and I are just among the midst of miracles! We have been targeting more families and seen the reward from that! We met with a Muslim family this past week here at the church office and talked about the Plan of Salvation and about how families can be together forever! They were just one of the many that we have met and talked to this week!

We were able to meet the man on the bench again and teach The Plan of Salvation to him. He was very happy and excited and really wants to come to church! We now have 2 investigators with baptismal dates one of which is looking like 100% for the 29th of May!! With that, we had 5 investigators make it to church, one of which was in Bali. This guy is a self referal online so we called him and gave him the address. He lives pretty far from where the church is, but yesterday texted us saying he was sitting in the congregation. He sacrificed his day to make it to church! Afterwards he mentioned how there was just more out there and he wanted to know. It was pretty cool! We will hopefully be able to meet with him over skype this week with the many other miracles we have going on here.

I know the church is true! We just never know when that one will receive the gospel!! #MIRACLES!!!!!!! Missionary work is awesome!! Hope all is well! Skype was pretty awesome as well!!

Elder Hayes

Skype with the Family

this building just stands out in the middle of no where and is tall and skinny hahaha 

Sister Ingersoll and her family came back for a visit

Picture from MLC

 

Week 95 - 2 Crazies in the City, A New (And Last) Companion, And Missionary Work in McDonalds

MAYDAY, MAYDAY there are 2 crazies running around Jakarta! Those two crazies would be my companion and I. :) Elder Hariyadi as well as my former companion, Elder Panjaitan and others finished up their mission this past week. It was pretty weird to see them go. On Tuesday, my new companion arrived. His name is Elder Tuttle AKA Elder "Turtle" to the Indonesian people and to President "Private Tuttle" from the MASH series. He comes from a family of 9 and he falls at number 6 of the Tuttle Bunch. Him and I actually have almost similar stories back home. He was born and grew up in New York until he moved to Utah where as I was born and raised in Colorado and then moved out to Virginia! We flip flopped. I am super excited to work with him!

Where do I begin with what happened this past week?? SO many cool things took place and I think it was because of our hard work and diligence. We will start with one of the member referrals that we received. On Thursday, this member set up an appointment for us to come and teach some of her family members that asked to meet with us. President Donald came along with us....he drove...I navigated, pretty impressive team you might say. :) We showed up and the referrals actually could not come. This member's husband was there who is also not a member of the church but has been learning for a while. We started talking with him when the referrals showed up! It was a miracle for all! We taught about the Restoration and they took it in very well. They said they have been searching for truth but have yet to find it. They were unable to come to church this past week because of transportation but the member came up to us and explained that they took one of the old motorcycles and have been working on fixing it up so that they can make it to church! 

Next up, Mike and his beautiful family! On Saturday night we were walking into a mall to meet other people. Waiting out front was a family of 6. We walked by and debated on talking to them. We initially didn't talk to them and walked in. As we made it in, we both turned around and both had the same feeling that we needed to go talk to them. We walked back out and introduced ourselves. They knew exactly who we were. We got to know the family and learned more about them. As we were talking, we noticed they knew a lot about the church. Turns out he used to be a Pastor and once dated a member of the church. He expressed their fear when we walked by the first time but gave his great gratitude for us taking the time to turn around and talk to them. They had 4 little kids and it was such an awesome experience! It was a very beautiful family. We were able to share a restoration pamphlet and gave our numbers.

As we have been going crazy in the city, we have been just opening our mouth with everybody! We ended up talking to people that were highly interested in coming to church yesterday. They both didn't come because of work meetings but it was cool to just right away invite them to church. We will contact them this week and hopefully they will be able to come next week.

On Friday afternoon, we were sitting in McDonald's doing a little planning and getting a little snack when more miracles happened! A guy from Spain who saw us walk in followed us and introduced himself. He works here but knows who the missionaries are because they often go by his house in Spain. He just asked us questions about our lives here and from there we were able to teach just some small and simple truths. We only talked for about 5 minutes but it was short and powerful. As we went back to planning, more people interrupted us. One of them showed us pictures of him and his friend in front of the Oakland California temple. We stopped planning and taught about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. It was a pretty busy day just in that one spot. Lots of miracles!!!

Saturday morning as we went out, we passed by a man sitting on a bench in front of some ATM's. We stopped to take money out and also we took a seat next to this guy. We talked for just a little bit and he told us how his daughter who was only 15 or 16 passed away not even a year ago. We talked about the Plan of Salvation and how families can be together forever. The Holy Ghost was super strong. We exchanged numbers and went on our way. He called us last night asking when we could meet again. We will be trying to meet with him this Tuesday. Elder Tuttle and I have walked by that very spot where we met him many times since meeting him.......there is no bench there.

Our long time investigator came to church yesterday and we were able to teach him after church. It was such a great lesson. We are seeing miracles EVERYWHERE!! We are talking with anybody in sight and just seeing miracles happen and so many more that I couldn't write in here. Lots of good things are happening!! I know the church is true!

Elder Hayes

Going home!!

Former Companions

At a member's house and a bunch of his friends that listened to our lesson!!

Week 94 - Time Flies, Last Round of Zone Conferences, and A New Girlfriend ;)

Keeping track of time has become meaningless in the sense that it is flying by! I read Elder Peterson's email and have to agree with his statement that I wake up and it feels like I go to bed just an hour later! 

This past week was a crazy one! It was the LAST round of PLD's that I will have in the mission along with President and Sister Donald! The spirit was so strong and you would be surprised the things the spirit tells you after you have seen the same thing more than once. It is pretty hard to even think that it was the last round. We talked more about repentance and roll played teaching it better to our investigators. Other big topics that we discussed include: Bike safety due to all of the accidetns, obedience, Using our time wisely, the characteristics of Christ, and following up with ourselves to be on a mission and also our investigators. It was awesome, I loved every bit of it!

Last P-day before all of these conferences started, we had a pretty neat activity. As a district we went to a place called Taman mini. It is like an Indonesian Epcot kind of place. It has a lot of the traditional foods and housing for all of the different cultures here in Indonesia! It was pretty cool. We held snakes, saw some traditional clothing, and had a great time!

Other than that, not a whole lot happened this past week. We were just gone for most of it. Saturday and Sunday we were teaching people. We have one investigator that really wants to get baptized and do all of the right things. He has absolutely no money at all. He has made the decision that he will find himself work first and then when he has the means to make it to church more often he will get baptized! As a mission, 9 people were baptized this weekend! The work continues strong!

My beloved companion, Elder Hariyadi, finishes his mission on Wednesday and I will be receiving a new companion so look out for that! I have been with Elder Hariyadi longer than any of my previous companions totaling 4 months! 

Love you all!! 

Elder Hayes

APs and President Donald at the Airport

At Zone Conference 

Where is the tall white guy? - hahaha 

with a bunch of the indonesian missionaries

More Zone Conference Pictures

The Tallest in the Mission

The giant castle!

My companion and I

 remember these guys from Solo?? Just the best ayam bakar in Indonesia!!

More Pictures from Zone Conference

Solo Zone Conference 

My version of Titanic 

My new girl friend -- ;)  Just glad it wasn't a tight squeeze.

a style of house you would find in Padang. (no missionaries in that city yet)

found some traditional clothing of my companion's area in Indonesia!

Surabaya Zone Conference

Week 93 - Zone Conferences, Back to Futsal, Traffic, Teaching The Gospel Over Skype

The zone conferences are off to a start!! This past week was the first of the round here in Jakarta! Everything went very well and the spirit was there! We are super excited for this week because it is filled with traveling and holding other zone conferences. Tuesday and Wednesday we will be in Solo and then Thursday and Friday we will be in Surabaya!  

It was nice, I was finally able to play futsal. The day before the actual conference, President holds interviews and then at night, all the missionaries have time to play some futsal together. It is a nice way to get the mind off the stresses of the work. Last time I wasn't able to play anything because my foot was not in working condition. This week we will have more futsal and some basketball!

This past week, the ward organized a badminton activity on Saturday. We invited some investigators and 2 of them showed up. The two that are probably the closest with the ward yet rarely go to church! These 2 investigators are from a part member family and missionaries have been working with them for a while now. They know people in the ward, they know the missionaries pretty well just haven't gotten that spiritual confirmation. It was a nice activity to spend with them. They really enjoyed it and asked if we could do it again so the quorum President booked it again! Little by little we are working with them! 

As for other investigators, we picked up a couple new ones this past week. We had 1 investigator come to church yesterday. This is the investigator that always comes to church and has been coming to church for a couple months now, but doesn't really want to meet with us to learn.....I don't understand! In all reality, we have a good amount of investigators, the hard part is meeting with them all! 

We had an English class of 15+ people this week!! 3 of the students are refugees from Afghanistan and the rest are Indonesian! It was nice to have a big Englsih class! Here in Jakarta, the people that come, they usually already have decent English which is different from other places where they come and they don't understand a lick of English!

Other than that, this week was filled with MACET (traffic) and weather that was not clear! 1 hour it was blazing hot, the next we were in what looked and felt like Monsoon rains! The weather changes almost instantly!  My companion has his last hoorah this week as he will be finishing and heading home next week! It is a little funny, he is from Surabaya so we will be there.....he will most likely meet his family, come back here to finish up a couple things and then a couple days later return home. His group of missionaries will be going to the Indonesia wide young single adult activity the first week of May. They are all pretty excited! 

Crazy story! 

There is a lady that was an investigator in 2009. She moved to where there was no church so never was baptized! Recently she contacted the missionaries again and they taught her over skype and this past week right before she moved back to Bali she was baptized. It was a pretty cool story and now, we are going to try and teach her fiance who is from England over skype!!

I know the church is true, and the spreading of the Gospel continues on!

Elder Hayes

Elder Saudners and I! (trained by the same trainer)

Jakarta Zone Conference

A Little Office Fun

Sisters had a baptism!!!!! 

MACET - (Traffic)

More Jakarta

 Elder Hariyadi and I attempted to make our own Sop buah....not too shabby

Week 92 - Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, Feeling Like 'Fried Chicken', and Getting Ready for Zone Conference

Conference was AWESOME!! It went hand in hand with what we talked about in our MLC meeting this past week. There just is a special power when we hear it from the mouths of the Prophet and the Apostles. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir sums it up in one of my favortie songs:

"Come thou fount of every blessing

Tune my heart to sing thy grace

Streams of mercy never ceasing

Call for songs of loudest praise

Teach me some melodious sonnet

Sung by flaming tongues above

I'll praise the mount I'm fixed upon it

Mount of thy redeeming love

Here I raise my Ebenezer

Hither by thy help I come

And I hope by thy good pleasure

Safely to arrive at home

Prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love

Here's my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above

Jesus sought me when a stranger

Wondering from the fold of God

He, to rescue me from danger

Interposed His precious blood

Prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love

Here's my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above

O to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be!

Let thy goodness like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee

Prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love

Here's my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above"

Every time I listen to this song, the spirit just fills me. It applies to me so perfectly as well. 

A couple months ago, we received an online referral. We contacted him but he said that he lived in a certain city. Unfortunately, there are no missionaries in that city and the church is still far. Well, since that moment a couple months have passed. His name for some reason was still on our desks. When my companion and I were cleaning things up and calling referrals we found his name still in the pile. We called him again and he mentioned that he is now living in Jakarta. We set an appointment and visited him. As we sat down our whole discussion went to happiness and what true happiness really is. The spirit was so strong. This man told us the story that he was one day online just with lots of questions about happiness and ended up finding the church's website. This was a true miracle. He lives in the other ward's boundaries.....which we learned after visiting him! So we handed him over to the right missionaries!  

Another awesome experience was with one of our investigators. He called us on Tuesday night saying, "Elder, tomorrow I would like to meet." We set the appointment and he came. Our plan was to talk about repentance with him. In our MLC meeting that is what we really focused on, teaching repentance. We sat down and went straight into it. We went step by step how to repent and why we need to repent. The spirit was so strong throughout the whole lesson. This investigator at the end just broke down in tears knowing that this is what he needs to do. He came to conference yesterday and listened to every talk! It was so cool to experience this with him.

This past week the focus has been on repentance. In conference and in our MLC we have talked a lot about it as well as the zone training meeting that was held on Friday. The principle of repentance is so precious to me and is summed up in the lyrics above, especially verses 3 and 4. 

Our travels start this week. We have our PLD meetings and will still be talking about repentance. Our first one will be held here in Jakarta on Tuesday and Wednesday. Next week we will be traveling to Solo and Surabaya. The heater here is starting to crank up. IT IS HOT! I feel like I'm becoming "ayam goreng" (fried chicken) somedays! 

I love you all. The atonement of Jesus Christ is real! We can all repent because we all are "Prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love, Here's my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above." Have a good week.

Elder Hayes

look at these good lookin' studs

just some tasty Bubur Ayam!! (That porridge like rice meal)

just some classic tasty nasi goreng

Week 91 - Recognizing Tender Mercies, and a Bit of A Dry Patch

Selamat Pagi!

I think this week has gone by faster than Lightning McQueen in his big race. Also, Heavenly Father has turned up the heater here in Indonesia. 

I can't believe it is already April! We have a very, very, very busy month ahead of us. The zone leaders will be flying in today as tomorrow is our MLC meeting. We have been sitting down with President and preparing for it and the other things that will be taking place this month as well. It is just an awesome experience to be in these meetings lead by the spirit telling us what needs to go on in the mission. I am super excited for tomorrow and the beginning of all the craziness that will take place in these next couple weeks.

This past week, I listened to Elder Bednar's talk on tender mercies. That was a tender mercy in itself. I left the house that day just filled with the spirit and feeling really good. I know that tender mercies do not come randomly and are God given. Heavenly Father prepares us to be in the position to realize that what we are experiencing are tender mercies. Saturday's weather was a tender mercy for me. It was just an absolutely beautiful day. Even though the day didn't go how we wanted, things were still smiling. There was a tender mercy in sacrament meeting yesterday. I was sitting there pondering my testimony and the things that I've done on the mission. I was filled once again with the spirit with the most adrenaline rushed feeling that this church is true and there is no doubt in my mind about it. As we prepared for our meetings with President and talked about repentance and felt the spirit there makes up another tender mercy. The public affairs missionary couple put on a community event to watch the Messiah which the Mormon Tabernacle just sang. We were asked to help with the event by welcoming and ushering people. Listening to that music was a tender mercy and an awesome experience.

As of lately, we have been struggling with investigators. The progressing ones have gone away and the ones that we have, hardly can be contacted. We spend a lot of our time out trying to find people. This past week has been a tough one. We met tons and tons of people. The number that are actually interested in the Gospel I would say is close to none out of these people. My companion and I are praying and know that there are people ready, we just don't know where they are yet.

I know this church is true and is lead by leaders that the Lord has selected by his own hand. I know that the priesthood authority has been restored to the Earth through a living prophet. The ordinances and commandments are what we have to do to return to our Father in Heaven and if we fall, we have a loving Savior that has paid the price for our sins. Saya sangat bersyukur atas keanggotaan saya di gereja ini dan segala berkat yang datang dari itu. Saya tahu dan bersaksi bahwa Bapa Surgawi mengenal kita semua secara pribadi dan mengasihi kita. 

I can't wait to watch conference next week! Love you all!

Elder Hayes  

sop buah-- like a fruit soup (one of my favorite snacks) 

 just a neat picture

 a good ol' bajaj (a form of transportation here)

 there are Grasshoppers of unusual size here

my companion enjoying his sop buah! :)