Hey, how's it going? That is exciting that some snow finally fell! Pretty late in the season haha! But better late than never!
That will be super cool for Grandma to seal Uncle Gene to her family! So exciting! And that will be cool to be able to go and see it! That is pretty cool all the stuff he did! I wish I could be there! I miss the temple! As far as people here going to the temple, it depends a lot on their economic status. There are people that go maybe once a year, or once every two years, and there are people who have never been, and people who have been once in their lives. So a lot of it just depends. But there are quite a few who have been, which is cool!
Well, this week has been pretty good! So, our mission standards of excellence are to get in 20 discussions a week. I have done that in Solo and Manado and Tangerang. But we have never been able to get it done in Jakarta, because we spend such long periods of time stuck in traffic getting anywhere, that it has been a struggle to get it all done. The traffic is killer here! We sometimes spend 3 hours in a crappy non-Air Conditioned bus that is falling apart as it idles down the road, but we don't go very far. Haha it has been a major learning experience on patience. And it has really slowed us down. Until this week! We finally broke the barrier here this week, and got 21 lessons in! So that was awesome! We were super excited! And we had a lot of little miracles along the way!
Right now, we have Pak B, Pak M, F, and Pak J all on date for baptism this month. And D and his friends K, N, and R (all from Africa) are still learning and progressing and came to church this week and we are just trying to find a time to meet with them and renew their date, because a few things came up and they weren't able to be baptized yet. But they are all excited, too! So there is a lot of good things going on! Oh, and we got another new foreign investigator this week! His name is C from Spain. He speaks English well, luckily! But it is fun, because now on my mission, I can say I have used English, Indonesian, French, and Spanish in teaching appointments. But my Spanish is very limited at this point, and my French...I think I can say 5 words is all haha! But it is still fun to try! So we have a lot of awesome investigators at this point and a lot of potential going on!
We had a miracle to get Pak J on date. Last week he pretty much rejected us, and we just sat there, took it, and then testified and challenged him to close with prayer. We walked out feeling that we had lost him, but over the next 24 hours the Holy Ghost worked on him, and he called us back and wanted to meet! So we have met with him several times since, he came to church yesterday, and we taught him last night. But at the end of the lesson he still wasn't sure about baptism, so we again challenged him to kneel and pray specifically about it, and during the prayer he got his answer. He opened his eyes afterwards and asked who it is that baptizes him. We told him it was up to him, but that we wanted him to commit to the 29th of this month, and he accepted! So that was awesome! The Holy Ghost came through and worked hard with him! Prayers are powerful, and answered in the way of the Lord! I know that much!
Other than that, this week Elder Tufaga, one of the Elders in our house, got Dengue Fever. So he has been in the hospital since Friday afternoon. We have been doing splits with him. And Sunday was my turn, so I didn't get to go to church. That felt way weird! That was the first Sunday I have missed in a long time! And it felt extra weird to not go as a missionary haha! Made me realize how important church is! But luckily Elder Tufaga is doing well and will probably get out in the next few days. His isn't as bad as mine was, luckily!
Oh, and this week these guys came around our neighborhood with these smoke blower things that kill mosquitoes and cockroaches and stuff. We asked them to spray inside our house, too, because we have a cockroach infestation. Well, after they sprayed, I swept up about 50 or more dead cockroaches from off the floor around our house...It was pretty disgusting! The smoke drove them out of all the cracks and they died in the middle of the floor! Gross! But at least they are gone for the most part now...
Well, I think that is mostly it for this week! Thanks for the emails! I love hearing from you! and I hope you all have a great week! And get some rest! Sounds like things are going crazy! I love things here, though! I am sad to see it going so fast, but there is still a lot of opportunities ahead the next few weeks! Talk to you later!
Love you!
Love Elder Wood
