Is it Pday already?

Another amazing week in Indonesia! The weeks go by so fast and I feel like I learn so much and grow so much every week! This week we have been working a lot with Dewi and her son, and also Ibu Sity and her family. Both of these families are Muslim and amazing! It is a slower process with teaching them because everything is so new to them, but the spirit is so strong whenever we teach them. As we ask them to read and pray, I can see them change after every time we come back. A lot of Muslim people have this perception of God being this harsh being that they need to be almost afraid of and when we share with them about the true nature of God, that He is our Father in Heaven and we are His children and tell them how much He loves them, it is amazing to see how true and comforting that is to them. He truly loves each and everyone of His children and wants to hear from them. Not in a memorized prayer, but in a prayer from your heart, communicating with Him like He is a friend, in our own language and in our own home. We don't need to go to a mosque or learn a new language to communicate with Him. He is always there just waiting to bless us, and all we have to do is turn to Him. He send His only begotten son, a Savior, to Earth for us so that we could be free from the burden of sin and guilt and become clean through Him and return to our Heavenly Father again. He has a plan for us, and through His restored gospel we know, with exactness that plan. Where we came from, why we are here and where we are going after our life on Earth. I get to share that with the people here, what is better than that? I love this gospel and my Savior and love my mission! Sister Suryani recites this quote almost everyday before companionship study and I love it…

My Missionary Commission

by Elder Bruce R. McConkie

I am called of God.

My authority is above that of kings of the earth.

By revelation I have been selected as a personal representative of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He is my master and He has chosen me to represent Him--to stand in His place, to say and do what He Himself would say and do if He personally were ministering to the very people to whom He has sent me.

My voice is His voice, and my acts are His acts; my doctrine is His doctrine.

My Commission is to do what He wants done; To say what He wants said; to be a living modern witness in word and in deed of the divinity of his great and marvelous Latter-day work.

How great is my calling!

How great is my calling? I love you all! sampai Minggu depan!

Love,

Sister Reilly

These cute girl asked Sid to sign their shirts, but instead she signed pass along cards to give them :)

Look closely, Sid is in the newspaper for Mormon Helping hands!

Time is flying!

This week was great, we just got to work! No conferences or trips to Surabaya! This week we have been working a lot with a new investigator, Dewi! She is a single mom and her husband is not really around, her son is 6 and is really cute! Dewi is Muslum and we've been teaching her about Jesus Christ and the restoration of his gospel and she is so excited to keep learning, she loves it. Our first lesson with her, we asked her to try to pray at the end, and helped her with how to pray. She said such a simple, amazing prayer and she started crying after and said she felt so happy, and felt something she has never felt before. We helped her understand that was the Holy Ghost...ah it was such a cool experience. She works every Sunday, but she is going to ask her boss today to have Sundays off so she can come to church! We actually know her boss and he loves us! We met them both because they work at this little pecel (type of indonesian food) place that we tryed a couple weeks ago and we've come back multiple times because it is our favorite place now! Her son goes to a Muslim school and after she prayed the first time, her son said, "Mom, don't pray like that, it's bad!" So sad! We need to help him! One other story from this week...the other Sisters have been working with a part member family to help get the two kids baptized. They are 13 and 9. They had a date set for yesterday and then on Saturday they called and cancelled. The Sisters were crying and were so sad. Sister Suryani and I had the idea to call Daniel and have him go over there with the Sisters and help them understand that Satin often try's to stop us before we do something great! I forgot to explain last week that Daniel moved to Blitar the week before his baptism which is about 2 hours away from the church. He catches a train at 4am to come to church now. So they called him and he came all the way from Blitar to help them and...they were baptized yesterday!! So awesome! Daniel was also confirmed yesterday and Ibu Diah was also at church so she got to see that! Okay I'm out of time, but I'm still loving it and I love you all!!

Love,

Sister Reilly

The greatest feeling in the world!

Yesterday we got to see Daniel be baptized! I've never felt happier in my life than I did when I saw him be baptized. So many of the members were there and were so excited for him. He bore his testimony after he was baptized and he just looked so happy and bright! I love him! His life is truly changed because of the gospel in his life. I am so grateful that Heavenly Father trusted Sister Suryani and I enough to teach Daniel. I will never forget yesterday! I want that for everyone! The branch is excited about missionary work and the work is truly moving here now! Next week the Elders are having 2 baptisms!! We are so excited! Yesterday was also really sad for us though because Ibu Diah didn't come to church. We had been fasting and praying for her, and she didn't come, so we were really sad! I still have faith that she will be baptized though. She knows this truly is what she wants in her life, but she just needs to act in faith and trust that The Lord will bless her. We have some other great investigators that we are hoping to give baptismal dates this week. This past week we went to Surabaya again on Wednesday and Thursday. President Donald came and interviewed all of us and taught us. It was awesome, I love him so much! He talked about making promises with the Lord (like Russ told me on Skype). Also, we got the news that Sister Suryani will be moving in Febuary :(. I'm way sad about that! But she has been in Malang for almost 6 months! I can't imagine having anyone else as my comp! We are taking the president's challenge and making promises with the Lord to have certain things happen before Sister Suryani leaves. We are using the rest of our Pdays to just work until she leaves and also waking up at 6 so we can go out earlier everyday! This week we were riding our bikes and it started raining harder than it ever has before and the street was flooded in like 10 minutes! We happened to be close to a referral's house that the Elders gave us so we rode there and her house was being flooded. There was about 6 inches of water in her house because her ceiling was leaking, so we just started helping her. We got a bunch of buckets and spent about an our just shoveling water out of her house, it was so sad! But she was so grateful and so nice. I know the spirit led us there at that time to her and comfort her, and that was a really cool experience! I'm still loving every second and there truly are miracles happening here in Malang! I love the Savior and I love having the opportunity to teach others about him. This truly is his church and his work and it is the greatest work there is!!

Love,

Sister Reilly

2014!

Salamat town baru! Happy New Year! Wow, this week flew by! We had some difficulty this week meeting with some of our investigators because of New Years, but it was still a great week...just more opportunities to find more people and talk to everyone!! We had a party in our branch on Tuesday for New Years and we really wanted our investigator, Ibu Diah to come so she could get to know more of the members and just feel more comfortable, and she came! We had asked some of the ladies in our ward to try and befriend her and they were so awesome when she came. She had an awesome experience and we were so happy! Then we had a lesson with her on Saturday and our goal was to get her to come to church...on time. Last week she came, but she was really late and missed the sacrament because she went to her church before. She really wants to be baptized, and she knows this is the true church, but she is really tied to her old church and has many friends there. We talked to her about the gospel of Jesus Christ and focused on faith. We asked her if she would come to church again this Sunday and she said she would come after hers again. Then I just felt the spirit telling me to be straight up with her. I just told her, if this is the true church, then what else matters? I told her I know it was difficult, but if she is going to be baptized, she is going to need to leave her church. I told her that she would be so blessed if she trusted in the Lord and just came to His church this week and she promised us she would come. She came, and she was even early! It was such an awesome testimony meeting and she said she felt so happy there. It was awesome and we are so excited to see her be baptized on the 19th! Daniel had his baptismal interview yesterday and is ready to go for his baptism this week!! Yesterday in gospel principles he was answering all the questions and sounded like he had been a member his whole life! He is so amazing, we love him!

We are teaching two Muslim families right now and this week we had the idea of watching "finding faith in Christ" with them. That was so awesome! With both of the families the spirit was so strong. It is so amazing to be able to talk about the Savior to them and build their faith in him. Nothing is better than this work. Everyone needs the Savior in their lives. No matter what trials or challenges we have in our life...we can find hope and peace through Jesus Christ. Our burdens can be lifted and we can see change in our lives if we just turn to him. I love this gospel and I love these people and I love my mission!!

Sister Reilly