Service!

This week was different, lot's of service for the people effected by the volcano, it was so cool to be able to see how the church responded and was able to help so many people! There was so many houses destroyed and ash just piled up everywhere! We got to go into the actual village and unload 3 trucks full of food and supplies for them! Lia was baptized yesterday and it was so awesome! She bore her testimony after and the spirit was so strong, I love her! I spent like all my email time today sending pictures..so my email this week will mostly be through pictures :).

Went to the beach last Pday!! So sweet!

There was a craaazy rain storm and the streets were flooded in like 5 minutes! There were so many crazy kids playing in the water and asking me to take pictures of them haha!

Making packs/boxes of food for the people effected by the volcano and bringing it to them!

Okay I love you all, sorry if i didn't reply to everyone's email this week!!

Love,

Sister Reilly

Another week gone by again...ahh too fast! Some interesting things happened this week. One of the volcanoes really close to Malang erupted on Friday, so we had to stay in the house THE WHOLE DAY...it was no fun, I felt like a failure of a missionary haha. I got a lot of studying in that's for sure and read many conference talks which was good! How awesome is it that we have a living, modern day prophet and apostles to lead and guide us in these latter days? Luckily the next day we were able to go and work like normal! 

Last week I told you about Pak Hartono, who takes us to all his friends houses, Muslim and Christian, and yesterday we were following him on his bike to his friends house and he took us into a big red zone (Malang has a lot of red zones...places where we are supposed to avoid because it is dangerous..aka lots of fanatic Muslims), we just kept following him and when we got to his friends house, they couldn't meet! Pak Hartono's brother lived really close so he took us there and we met his family. His brother is really strong Muslim and has been to Mecca, and to our surprise he has read some the Book of Mormon and asked us for one! We had a Liahona magazine and he was loking through it, asking about temples and prophets haha, it was awesome! We want to go back and share more with him. Lia is all ready to be baptized next week!! She had her interview yesterday and is so awesome!! Unfortunately Ibu Diah didn't come to church yesterday...she says whenever she wants to be serious about getting baptized, she gets sick...I told her that is Satan trying to stop her from making to best decision ever haha. Ahh I love her so much and know how much she will be blessed because of this gospel, she just needs more faith than fear! Last week we shared a talk with her called Mountains to Climb, by Henry B. Erying, I read it and thought it would be perfect for her. It talks abut trials, and how throughout our whole life, we will have trials, big and small, but God allows us to be tried, to make us stronger, and strengthen our faith. Sometimes we have this notion in our heads that when we are doing what's right, life will be perfect and we won't have those trials, but that's not how our Heavenly Father works. When we keep his commandments, He WILL always bless us, but that does not mean we won't still be faced with trials and challenges. It talks abut the Savior and his life, he was perfect, without sin, but look at everything he went through. Look at everything Joseph Smith went though. We will be faced with challenges throughout our whole life, but this gospel gives us strength to overcome those challenges and make us even better than we were before! So bring on the trails and challenges :). Don't just survive, but thrive! A mission is full of them, but I'm ready for them, I know with the Savior we can do anything! He loves us and knows us better than we know ourselves, he knows our potential! Like I say every week, I love this work!! There is nothing better, I love these people and I love the gospel!! Thank you all for your support! I love you all!!

Love,

Sister Reilly

The weeks go bye too fast!!

Ahh, the weeks seriously fly bye, I feel like I was just here emailing! Another great week! So we've been working with Ibu Diah since my first week here and I love her so much. She knows this is the true church and it has just been a hard process for her to leave her other church and take that step of faith with baptism. We haven't given her a new date, we've just been having her pray about a date that she feels is right and she always says she is praying, but is not ready yet. The other day the Elders gave her a blessing, because she has a lot of stress and sometimes has trouble sleeping. After the blessing she said she just felt something peaceful, and different and she felt like Elder Headrick knew exactly what she was going through. We taught her a lesson after the blessing and asked if she was ready to enter the waters of baptism and she said she was ready! We were so surprised and so happy!! She wants to be baptized on the 23rd! We are moving all the baptisms to the 23rd. Ibu Diah, Leah, and the three sisters I talked about last week...Inka, Cori, and Fina! Ah I love them so much! Please pray for them as their baptisms approach! 

Last week I talked about the Muslim family that works in the Padang place and we love them so much. They have been reading the Book of Mormon everyday and have read so much!! The mother cannot read, so the older daughter, Ahyu, reads. We are working towards them coming to church next Sunday, it is a really big sacrifice for the mom, Ibu Majider because she would have to close down her shop and she has also never left it without someone watching it before. She has a lot of faith though, and I know the Lord will provide a way for her and her family!! We are working with some really awesome other families right now and I am so excited about that! I know the Lord has prepared these people! They are truly real seekers of the truth! Something really sad happened last week though that I forgot to talk about! We had been working with this Muslim family and we love them so much, the father had been working in Bali the whole time we we teaching them and he came home and told us we could not come back, he is really fanatic Muslim...ah we were so sad! That happens often here, there will be people who will want to learn, but a family member who is fanatic stops them, it is really sad. We are just grateful for the amazing people we have the opportunity to teach everyday. We are so blessed that the Lord has given us the opportunity to teach His children in Indonesia. Everyone needs this gospel. No matter what challenges or trials a person has, the gospel can help them. When we have faith in Jesus Christ and follow Him, we are blessed. I get to see that first hand everyday, in my life and through the lives of the people we teach. Heavenly Farther is just waiting to bless us, all we have to do is turn to him and put our trust in him. Through His Son, Jesus Christ we can be healed, comforted and truly changed. I know that any success I have on my mission is not because of my own strength, but because of the Lord's strength. When we are worthy and willing, He can and will work through us! I love my Savior so much and I love this gospel! I love you all! Thank you so much for the emails!!

Love,

Sister Reilly

One of the best weeks!!

Salamat pagi! Minggu ini saya akan menulis di bahasa Indonesia dan anda bisa menerjemakan jika anda mau membaca....tidak masalahkan? Just kidding :)

Such a good week! Sister Suryani and I have been praying that we would find more FAMILIES to teach and find more people that He has already prepared to receive the gospel and our prayers have been answered! We have been teaching 3 families this week that are so awesome, I love them! Earlier in the week we were looking for a place to get lunch and for some reason we ended up at this padang place that we has eaten at before and didn't really like, but we ended up there and started talking to the owner, and she sat down with us and just broke down in tears telling us her story. She has two daughters who are 9 and 12 and they are so cute, and her husband just took off and left her with nothing. She has this little food place now and lives there with her two daughters and pays for them to go to school. She can't read very well so her daughters read to her what we give them after we teach. I love them so much! They are Muslim so everything is really new to them. We have taught them three times and they have been praying together as a family every night! Ah they are so awesome! Also, we have been teaching three sisters that are living here for school and they are so great!! Inka, Cori and Fina. When we first met them, we asked what their hobbies were and they said reading the word of God...Sister Suryani and I just looked at each other and smiled haha! We give them two chapters to read from the Book of Mormon to read after we teach and they read and write down notes and questions for when we come back...they are so awesome! They came to church yesterday and loved it! We gave them a baptismal date this week for the 16th of February, we love them and are so excited! We had 5 of our investigators come to church yesterday and we were so happy! One of them was Leah, ah Leah is also so awesome. She grew up Muslim, but was searching for something in her life and changed to Christian, and then she met the missionaries in Jakarta and started learning with them. 3 weeks ago she moved to Malang to live with her family and work and she's been learning with us for 3 weeks now. She can only meet on Sundays after church, but she reads everything we give her and also comes back with awesome questions to ask every week. Yesterday she told us that for some reason, everything in her life always leads her to this church and she feels so happy when she is at church. She also has a baptismal date for the 16th! Were still working with Ibu Diah, she has been coming to church and praying about a baptismal date, we just need her to act in faith and see how blessed she will be because of it! Ahh I love our investigators so much! I love Indonesia and I love my mission! One of our investigators, Pak Hartono invited us to a wedding this week and was insistent that we came, so we stopped by and met so many people, it was awesome. I think the bride was a little mad because the bule was taking away the attention haha! Oops! Pak Hartono is Muslim and he loves to take us to all his Christian friends houses to teach them haha! 

Okay, the picture last week of the Newspaper...every Thursday we help sweep the streets with "DKP" which is like a big government organization that cleans the city of Malang and they asked us to walk in their parade haha so we did and we made it in the paper! It was so sad though, during the parade there were a bunch of different groups of workers who passed by the audience and nobody was clapping or anything and then when the 4 white people walked by everyone started yelling and clapping and cheering...it was so funny, but sad! One more crazy thing from this week...yesterday I killed a chicken with my bike! So sad! I was riding and this crazy chicken ran into the road and I tried to avoid it, but I hit it and it died...that also made it into the newspaper....just kidding! :) Also...I love this song...listen! Come unto Christ! 

Come Unto Christ

Love,

Sister Reilly