Joy to the world!

Great week! I got to see the greatest fam in the world, and hang out on google :). Great things are still happening in Jakarta! For the second time in my mission I saw the Elders in my ward get a baptism yesterday, so sweet! Great way to finish this year. Our mission has seen so many miracles this year and will see even more next year! And it's because of FAITH! Our bishop called on Saturday night and asked if I would give a talk in the Indo ward the next day so I ended up giving a talk in the English ward, teaching gospel principles, and then giving a talk in the Indo ward! I never thought I would be so excited about giving talks..but on a mission I love it because it's an opportunity to get the ward more fired up about missionary work. We have got some super awesome member referrals this last week which we are so grateful for. This week we had a really cool experience. I met a man on the bus and talked for a bit about our purpose and message and then we exchanged numbers and got off. Anyways we ended up meeting at the church a few days later with him, his wife and his son. He is Muslim and just told us that he sees something different in followers of Christ and wants what we have. The lesson was really powerful and at the end the member who was fellow-shipping with us offered the prayer and asked if we could all hold hands, something I've never done before on my mission. The spirit was really strong as she offered the prayer and the mother just had tears streaming down her face afterwords. The spirit is real and the only way for someone to feel of the truth that the Son of God came into the world, atoned for mankind, and that in and through Him we can receive peace in this life and eternal life in the life to come. This year my testimony my Savior Jesus Christ has been renewed again. I feel closer to Him than ever before. I love Him. His truly is a plan of HAPPINESS. I am Happy because of His gospel and the opportunity to share it with my bothers and sisters in Indonesia. I could not have asked for a better year. 

I love you all and pray for you all!

With all my love,

Sister Reilly

No email from Sid this week, since she gets to Skype on Thursday for Christmas, but here are some pictures she sent us :)

Christmas

Merry Christmas! :) Nothin like the Christmas spirit! We have some super sweet investigators right now. One is Laura..she has three kids and her husband just left her. She was looking for something to give her hope and she found it...the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. She is just eating up all the lessons and her and her oldest son will be baptized the week after Christmas. I will skype next Thursday, so this may be short, but I just want to give my testimony about TRUSTING IN THE LORD! I have learned over the last few weeks especially how important it is to TRUST AND RELY ON THE SAVIOR. As long as we are trying to go through our days on our own strength, we can never succeed, but as we rely on our Savior to literally guide our every action, WE CANNOT FAIL. I have never felt the power of prayer so strongly in my life. HE HEARS, HE LOVES US, HE WILL HELP US, and he expects us to help our brothers and sisters. I hope this Christmas we can all reach out to help the lowly in heart. I know that I am literally nothing without Jesus Christ on my side and I can do anything WITH Him. As I have helped others grow A testimony of Jesus Christ or grow IN their testimony of HIM, I feel that MY testimony and reliance in my Savior continues to grow, and I couldn't be more thankful for that. Thank you for your prayers, I love you from way over here :) 

Sister Reilly

Christmas Spirit

Such a good week! Just want to give a quick shout out to MUM for the mini Christmas tree, it brings the Christmas spirit to our little Jakarta apartment :). From a pretty tough week last week we had some amazing things happen this week and we felt sooo many blessings poured out upon us. Jakarta is different than my first two cities, the people are busy, not as friendly, and not as open. The same things I did in my other cities aren't as effective here and we have had to find innovative ways to get to the people here. EVERYONE thinks we are Johova's Witness here and it's sooo frustrating. If they give us the chance to tell them we aren't they usually are WAY more open. So this week with our proselyting time we tried just talking about Christmas and asking if we could share a Christmas message. Then we would share "The Living Christ" with them and we saw way more success! 

The sad thing about Christmas here is that Christ..THE REASON for Christmas is completely taken out of it. Because it is a Muslim country, they still love the Christmas tree's in the malls, Santa and buying gifts, but you will never see anything about the real reason for Christmas...Our Savior Jesus Christ. 

I am glad we get to share about HIM, the reason. I love my Savior and feel the enabling power of His atonement in my life everyday. 

I want to tell you a little bit about Patrick. He is an African working here and we have been teaching him and his girlfriend with our WML in the English ward who speaks French. His ex-wife was Mormon and there was always missionaries at his house before, but he never wanted any part in it. He recognized us on the street and invited us to meet with him my first week here. Yesterday he was supposed to come to church but didn't show up and we had a feeling we should just go over to their place. He told us he was out partying all night and woke up at 12 and he that he wanted to change his life. He told us his life story and about how he has always had money to do whatever he wants, but he is not HAPPY. He has A LOT of changes to make and it will be hard, we told him that, but we know with the Saviors help he can. 

I still cannot describe seeing the change take place in people we teach. There is nothing that compares to seeing someone change there life through the gospel of Jesus Christ. We had some really awesome investigators attend church this week and we are planning to have a few baptisms on the 21st...no better Christmas present than that! 

Please pray for: 

Laura and her kids, Desti, and Patrik this week! 

I love my Savior. He is the greatest gift the world has and will ever received. He is the LIGHT. 

With Love, 

Sister Reilly 

one more funny experience from this week..we have now joined an old mens tennis group every Saturday at 6am. haha. They love us and this week I was playing with my usual 70 year old doubles partner and we had an awesome comeback and won 6 games to 5...anyways, during this game just about everyone outside of their apartment started gathering around to watch the game and the old guys kept saying..Sister Reilly, stop looking so serious...smile! it was so funny and Sister Akaiti was just cracking up the whole time hearing what people were saying. good times. there is actually a ton of potential with a lot of them and they are always asking us tons of questions about our beliefs and what we do.

VIDEO: HE is the GIFT

THE RAIN HAS STARTED!

Well, Jakarta definitely tested my patience this week! The raining season has started and I thought there was a crazy amount of traffic here last week...I was wrong. The streets flood like crazy and you can literally be in traffic from the afternoon until late at night. The work here is definitely harder than any of the other areas I've served in, but I know that no matter where I am, the Lords work will move forward! I'm glad my comp is up for whatever because I often just get up from the bus and say, "lets walk, this is crazy." haha! 

So a pretty cool experience from this week...we were proselyting in a shopping center type place and I just got this strong impression that we needed leave to go get on the first bus we saw. I turned to Sister Akaiti and asked if she trusted me and she said YA! So we left and got on the fist bus and we were just both praying that we would know what to do next...nothing came. We ended up just riding and talking to people on the bus and nobody seemed interested. It was getting pretty late so we decided we needed to just go back. I was feeling pretty confused at this point because I really felt like I had got an impression from the spirit. Anyways on the last stretch coming home a guy got crammed into the overly crowded bus (at night, the buses are like animal stalls) He saw the Book of Mormon and started asking me about why I was here. I explained and answered his questions and then I didn't say anything else. After a few minutes he turned to me and asked..."could I hear that message that your hear to share?" Long story short, he took the Book of Mormon and he's been reading and super interested! We are giving him to the Elders because he lives alone, but I just thought that was pretty cool :). Listen to the little promptings! 

We are still working like crazy here, trying to find people to teach, we are seeing miracles each day and I am so grateful to be taking part in the Lords work here. We will see amazing things happen in these to wards, I know it is true! There are so many people hungering and thirsting after the truth and we have and will continue to find them. 

I know that me Savior lives. 

I am grateful for this time of thanksgiving. I am so grateful for my Savior, my family, and my mission. I have SO MUCH to be grateful for, I can't express my gratitude for the many blessings my Heavenly Father has given me. I love you all and I am grateful for YOU! 

With so much love, 

Sister Reilly 

Jibs and Shefson going home and Thanksgiving!!!