The Joy of Missionary Work

Hello everyone!!

We had a great week this week. Lots of fun. One highlight of the week - we rode bikes!!!! So much fun. So on Sundays there is something called "Car Free Day". Pretty self explanatory, but one of the main roads is closed off to motor vehicles. So we decided to take the extra bikes we have and it was awesome. Then we rode the whole day. It is a whole different experience biking in jakarta!! We think we may be the first missionaries to ride bikes in Jakarta haha. All the members were quite impressed. We were riding right alongside motorcycles and cars and trucks. We felt like we owned this city (which we basically do). I'll put pictures in the drive!!

Other highlights...

There was a family from Vancouver Canada, the Sala family. They are a family of singers and they came to Indonesia to do a series of firesides. We went to that with some investigators, which was really fun! Turns out the know Paul and Amy Jensen really well. So that was really cool to meet someone who is friends with my friends haha such a small world. IT was really fun to watch them sing though. They invited everyone that new the EFY theme song "Come Unto Christ" to come up and help them sing, and no one was getting up, so just like you taught me Mom, I jumped up and ran to the front. In the end, I was the only male singing except for Brother Sala haha. Fun day though and then three of those investigators that went to that showed up for church on Sunday too.

We've been working really hard on transfers this week because there are quite a few going home (including my beloved ex-comp Elder Johnson) and we have 15 new missionaries. FIFTEEN!!! Really excited about that. But we've been putting some serious thought and prayer into that because we know how greatly it affects God's children here in INdonesia. It's been difficult to balance everything, but one wonderful thing I was reminded of was the joy of missionary work. It is such a wonderful experience to be a missionary and to help bring God's children closer to him. We were talking to President Subandriyo about how we as missionaries should all be happy and joyful. Sometimes we get stuck on how hard missionary work is, and yes we do work hard, but we sometimes forget to see the joy in the work. It's so important to remember. As I've tried to focus on the joy, it has helped me through some times that could have been quite rough. But the Savior always carries us through.

Anyway really good stuff this week. We have been blessed with so many wonderful investigators that it has been pretty difficult to find the time to teach them. But we are trying our best and I have seen over and over and over again how the Lord blesses, supports and helps them beyond the abilities of just Elder Nordwald and I. It is pretty amazing.

Hope everyone just had a wonderful day. I testify that God is a real being. He does live and we are His children. Never forget why we are here on this earth. God does love us in ways we don't even understand.