I love you momma :) You know, this week, I taught Elder Sinaga and Elder Sadiyono how to say this: "I wish my mommy was here so she could kiss my boo-boos." You were on my mind :) Although, I am happy to report that I do not actually have any boo-boos!!
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I love that quote about prayer. Prayer is so powerful. And it is all about strengthening us. This week, we really learned about the power of prayer when coupled with fasting. There's one member in the ward who is not active--and we visit her often. She has four sons, one of whom recently received his mission call to serve here in Indonesia in January. He hasn't come to church since I've been here, I think because he's been working. But we've been encouraging the mother to come to church with us, to no avail (yet). A few weeks ago, her little son, Luiz, who's about 2 or 3, became sick. He had a fever and he was taken to the hospital a few times. We gave him a blessing a few weeks ago, maybe the day after he first got sick, but he hadn't gotten better this week. So, we came and shared a message with this sister, and then I felt a spiritual prompting to recount the story of the apostles and how they couldn't perform a miracle, but Christ could. Upon being asked why they couldn't do it, Christ told them that they needed to fast. We asked her if she believed there was power in fasting--and by her response, it was clear she did. So we determined to all fast for little Luiz the next day, and the next day, he got better. It was really miraculous. God doesn't always answer our prayers so immediately, but for some reason He decided to reward this sister's faith the very day we all began to fast. So cool. Keren sangat. ("Very cool") It was really amazing to see that this week.
The ward here is really big (compared with other wards in Indonesia). Each week, there's something like 75 or 100 that come (that's a rough estimate). There are many more that are inactive, but we're hoping to change that! They had Elder Sadiyono give a talk yesterday, and I think they typically have a missionary speak in sacrament periodically. They don't have us do too much, we just help out if a member asks for it. For instance, last week, Elder Sinaga taught gospel principles class, and we all sing in the choir with the members. The choir is really fun. This ward is surprisingly good, and all their songs are in English because they're preparing for when this 70 [church leader] will come in December.
This week we also had a meeting in Jakarta with our zone and with President Donald, and I really like him. We're setting some pretty high goals for this mission. For other missions, it's maybe not very high of a standard, but we're hoping to change the history of Indonesia as a mission. This next year we hope to get more baptisms than has ever been accomplished here. I think we can do it. The goal is for each companionship to get 2 baptisms per every 3 months. Elder Sinaga and I are going to do it. I'm really starting to love this place. It's not so different and scary anymore :)
I love you family!!! Tuhan Berkati, ("God bless")
Elder Paskett
^^ This is a picture from PLD this week! (which is our zone meeting with president. The acronym is indonesian and I'm not sure what the L means)
The pictures below are mostly self-explanatory, which is good, because there were no explanations attached!
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