Things are good this week. Well, I'm feeling better anyway. Thursday afternoon, I calmed down and got back to normal. It was strange before that: I couldn't concentrate very well or anything. I was getting ready to see a doctor, but then it went away.
Well, the weekend was awesome. Saturday morning, we watched conference, then ate, then had Douglas's baptism, then had conference again. It was a day missionaries dream of. Because of conference, though, he won't be confirmed until the coming Sunday.
We found an awesome dessert cafe this past week. Actually, I knew about it for a while, but I didn't try it until this past week. The Morreys took us to it. They had amazing cake and ice cream (I suspect it might be real ice cream- not milk solids and hydrogenated palm oil). I thought it was really expensive, but we found out it was not, so we decided to make that a regular P-Day tradition.
Juni and his family came to the Saturday afternoon session of conference. They were really intrigued by the chance to hear from a prophet (it's kind of lame that they came to the only session he didn't speak), and I think they enjoyed it. Well, I'm not really sure if they enjoyed it. We stopped by on Monday, and Julia wouldn't come out of the kitchen to see us. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but looking back, whenever Julia doesn't want to see us, I should know something is up. Juni wasted no time in telling us he discussed things with the pastor at UPC, and coffee was the most important thing to him, so he decided to be baptized in the church that let him still drink coffee. Sad day.
I suppose missionary work wouldn't be worth anything if you didn't suffer some casualties. A sentence from Jeffrey R. Holland is never far from my mind: "Salvation is not a cheap experience."
With that, we're kind of left with no one to teach right now. It's not a very comfortable time. But we're doing our best, and only stand to wonder what good may come.
Conference was so... I don't know the word. Good. It was so good. President Monson's plea for members to pray for those areas of the world where missionary work is not fully operative hit home. We're here among the Muslims and just a hop away from China.
Then there was Elder Wirthlin's counsel to laugh at frustrating times, President Uchdorf's message of hope, and President Eyring's reassurance that a difficult assignment is evidence of God's trust, and President Monson's hope for everyone to enjoy the journey, and don't always focus on the nonexistent future day when everything will be easy. It all seemed applicable to me. Elder Stone said it well "That was really nice of them to design priesthood session for me; I hope you enjoyed it also."
We'll have zone conference next monday, so I'll be writing then from KK.
I think my favorite part of the week, aside from Douglas's baptism and general conference, was family home evening with Jaimi and her children on monday. We went to their house to teach her how to hold family home evening. At the time, she happened to have her niece Marta there (she's Bebe's daughter- the one that came to Jaimi's baptism and really loves the church, along with her husband, but they're both out in the kampung (village); she's the same one who had malaria and we gave her a blessing in the hospital). Also, Marta's mother in law Marina was there. We had never met her before. Well, we started with a prayer. Jaimi asked Marina to give it. Marina gave a very eloquent prayer, which told us she was highly involved in her church. We continued to teach a little about eternal marriage and the importance of family, then had a game and a lesson. Jaimi's children were the most behaved I had ever seen them. They actually sat down and paid attention for the length of the lesson, and they almost made it the whole time without fighting or climbing up the pole in the middle of the room or throwing the blocks we brought for the game. Almost. The children are children, and I wouldn't want them to sit still for too long. That's no fun. For the lesson, we shared the message of the restoration to the visitors.
During the closing prayer, a thought came to my mind: There is no setting I would rather introduce someone to the church in than Jaimi's first family home evening. I felt the Spirit there, and think everyone else felt the same. Jaimi is the ideal portrait of a recent convert for this simple fact: she is doing her best to be better. She is no scriptorian. Her knowledge is limited. She isn't ready to be the relief society president or do any other big thing. But she's sure ready to be an assistant in primary, which she does faithfully. Her family isn't picture perfect, but the children are just a little better every week. She was such a good support to her sister in helping her stop smoking so she could be baptized (let alone the fact that she introduced her sister to the church in the first place). She has told me she wants to share the gospel with everyone, and that's very obvious when she brings family to church whenever they are in town.
Send my regards to Brother Randall. I don't think he was my Deacon's quorum advisor- it seems like he was there when I was either a teacher, or maybe even a priest. I really don't remember that well, though.
Well, that's all for this week.
Love,
Elder Muffler
Here is a picture of Elder Stone, Douglas, and Elder Muffler at Douglas's baptism:
Here is a picture of Elder Stone, Bibi, Jaime, and Elder Muffler at Bibi's baptism:
No comments:
Post a Comment