January 4, 2016--MAGELANG

Mother most dearest of mine,

I love Magelang. I got here safely, only had a little trouble with figuring out the bus but it seemed like people got led to me who helped me find my way, it was really cool.

My new companion, Elder Vandyarto, is so awesome! I love him more than anything!! He's like an extra little brother. He is the most excited Elder I've ever worked with, he has so much enthusiasm its awesome. The first day we met, I asked him if he wanted to unpack his stuff and he said, "no, we can do that later. I just want to learn from you!" So we studied and then got right to work. Our house is super awesome and all the Elders are obedient and hard workers. The other companionship is Elder Eyre and Elder Wijaya. Elder Wijaya is from Bogor and I knew him before the mission :) He's just getting trained too.

We are loving Magelang and it is nice and cold here. [I think the temp ranges were 70-85 degrees, with high humidity...I guess that's cold to him now??] Earlier today we went to Borobudur, it was so fun. But there were probably 100 people who asked to take their picture with us. It was crazy. And the old ladies would forcefully wrap their arms around ours or try to hold our hand in the pictures. And then all these salesmen guys would try to force us into buying stuff we didn't want for 3 times the actual price. But the Borobudur temple was really neat, I have some pictures I might be able to send next week. :) You should look up the temple online, I guess it was built over 1000 years ago and it's some sort of Buddhist temple. What an awesome place!

This week was filled with miracles. I honestly feel that there are people prepared to receive the gospel in this place and that we can find them! The old elders left a great area book with everything updated so we havent had any troubles finding anything. Some of the members have been nice enough to lead us around and show us everything--members, investigators, all that stuff.

One cool little miracle: We were searching for people to teach and these kids already knew that we were "Elders" so we asked to see their parents and they led us to a house of this man who was taught by an Elder last year. He was accepting of the message so we taught him about the restoration and he was very good, it was cool how we were able to find him. We taught a lot of inactive members this week and Elder Vandyarto and I love them all. This branch has a lot of part-member families and part-member-inactive families to help.

The other Elders left behind a very nice investigator, her name is Ibu Y. She is the sweetest lady ever. I pray for her every day. She came to church this week and she has a date for baptism for the 24th of January. I think it is very likely that she will be baptized. We are trying to work hard to help her son and his wife also prepare for baptism. 

We love this area and although this branch is very small, we have hopes that it can become a ward before we leave it. The branch president's wife and kids are all strong catholics, and we are especially praying for them so that they can become members of Jesus Christ's restored church. They came to church on Sunday; these past few months they have been coming once a month, on fast Sunday.

I love you and I wish I could tell you more about the special feeling I have for this place and these people. They are amazing. My companion is the best, too. His excitement just needs to be directed and he will become the best missionary in the whole world. He has so much faith and just wants to talk to every single person. I love it!

Love you so much Mom, you are the finest mom a boy could hope for.

Love Elder Paskett