I love you more than "roti bakar"

September 29, 2013

OHHHHHH MYYYYY GOSHHHHH! I was about to send my email and the whole thing just deleted! I tried to hit shift + A but I hit ctrl + A and it is ALLLL GONE! OH MY GOODNESS! I was completely finished with it! 50 minutes worth of email time! WHY DOES STUFF LIKE THIS ALWAYS HAPPEN?!?!?!

Well there goes allllllll of my email and explanation for the week. SO I am going to have to make this really short and just summarize.

Kawit was baptized by his son (and newish member) Bro Winoto. It was really special to see it. Also in church Hastu was confirmed. But with all these baptisms, we have to start finding new investigators. We had an investigator from the hospital pass away this week and it was sad but not really because I know she is learning with even better teachers now in heaven. But it seems like appointments are cancelling left and right and our bikes keep breaking and things keep happening. Mission life, but we are emotionally and spiritually, doing much better this week.

Thank you for your prayers and fasting. I feel like I am just learning to cope better this week until I hear about the prayers and fasts in my behalf then I realize it has nothing to do with my ability to cope at all. It is the faith of others.

Missions focus on basic doctrine and layer up your testimony. President called an impromptu Zone conf. this week in Solo (P.S. Sis. Jibs got transferred to Medan last week so I wont see her again... sad ya?) and asked us to bear our testimony. He said a testimony is something you know and how you know it. I have been thinking so much about that this week. There has never been a point in my life when I didn't know this church was true. But here I am learning WHY it is true for me and HOW I know it/apply it. Like with the story of Peter walking on water which has been a favorite of mine since I was a kid, but now I am just starting to be able to put myself in that situation and see that Christ will always be there to help us, but we have to have believe. We have to have faith to call to Him. Or with prayer, I was studying about the word Amen which means firm/true. Christ was referred to as the Great Amen (Rev 3:14) cool ya?

After losing every picture from August, I realized that maybe more important than pictures, are the lessons I am learning. What I write in my journal. What I teach, who I serve, and what I learn to help my future family too. (thanks for the thought about manna Dad. I am really going to work on that!) But we had some funny times this week when Elder James flipped over his handlebars again, when 2 people gave back pass-along cards when they heard "mormon" and when we had bike problems 4 days in a row so we have been stranded and walked up and down Jogja and had to double up on bikes.

Dad: you are my hero to have the job you do. What a spirtiual talent to be able to serve others in a field where life is fragile and sad things happen often.

Mom: I love that you met Pres. Utchdorf and Sister Dalton! And God uses us to bless other people, even the former YW general president!

Andrew: On the ACT, all the questions are only worth 1 point so do all the easy ones first and just mark the hard ones C. If you have time, go back to the hard ones.

Joshua: You get an officer jacket at Mt Ogden? Too cool!

Sam and Jacob: sheesh I feel like that is my life too! Congrats on the wolf though! Keep up the soccer and score a goal for me!

So sad to hear about Grandpa Sheffield. He and grandma have too much service left in them to get sick! I will be praying extra hard for him (them) this week.

Give everyone my love! Sorry that my luck has shortened my email this week!

<3 Sis Sheff

PS I thought about some more Christmas ideas so even though this is late remember this for when Andrew serves or something. Photo calendar, dry mixes of favorite cakes/cookies and pretzels/nutella. Just not gum :)

P.P.S thanks for the pictures!

We visited the Gembira Loka Zoo last week and here are some pictures

Sister Believe is terrified of snakes so she just held my arm haha

Don't worry, I still followed my mission rules and didn't really kiss it

Elder James with the snake (his mom will love this)

E is for elephant

and E is for Elders too

The sisters at Gembira Loka Zoo

Elder James - forward this to his mom

This is the biggest spider I have ever seen! It should have a cage of its own