I love you more than...

...singing "when Daddy comes home" Happy Fathers day Dadio 

June 15 2014

This is a typical "nice" Indonesian Street
(our very posed but quite hilarious picture of us sister missionaries)

I love singing about when Daddy comes home :) Plus I love you all the grains of rice in the world times the stars in the universe plus to Kolob and back and times infinity! I don't have time to write enough about what I have learned from you Dad and how much I love youso I will have to send a letter soon :) HAPPY FATHER'S DAY! I love you forever, I love you for always, as long as forever, my daddy you'll be. Glad to hear your back east trip was nice and that you all are having fun! I hope it felt like a good little break.

Me and Sis. Allred with Pres. and Sis. Donald at M.L.C. (Mission Leadership Council)

So some updates...

Sister Allred and I really were Assistants to the President's Wife this week! President surprisingly asked us to accompany him out to Surabaya for the weekend (640ish kilometers away in east java) for District Conference out there (they don't have a stake yet). They JUST opened that area for sisters 2 weeks ago so we went out there to check on them and to do a quite quick exchange with the sisters on Saturday. We left Friday at noon from our district meeting and then flew with President and Sister to Surabaya and then flew back late last night. It was so fun! I really enjoyed that area and working with the sisters even just for a few hours. I have missed hearing Javanese too haha. The other fun part was that allll th missionaries from East Java came in to attend their Conference so we had 10 sisters in 1 house on Saturday night. Haha ya and 2 showers so you can just imagine. I think that is the record breaking number of sisters in one area at one time if you add the two mission couples and Sister Donald. I really liked getting to see everyone (AND SISTER JIBSON!) and I liked all the talks from conference.

Me and Sister Jibson at the Surabaya District Conference

One of my favorite talks was from President Narko and he gave an analogy about Mangoes. Mangoes need a process to become delicious. It starts as a flower, then a young greet fruit then after some time becomes ripe and sweet. There are people who want to try to speed up the process themselves and pick the green fruit. But it will never be as sweet as if it had stayed on the tree. We are the same way. THere is no quick road to celestial salvation and exaltation. We need a process. It takes time, work, patience, effort and dilligence. We can't think we are ever done.

The last MLC group

Also a talk from President Kusumarmanto about the reason we fast and how part of it is to FEEL hungry and to motivate us to give that money as fast offerings to the poor. Indonesians are in very humble situations and so tithing can be a huge sacrifice here but he said that when we think "i'm hungry or I get headaches" remember that tomorrow afternoon you will eat again and be full but if you don't give fast offerings, that person will stay hungry. Serve those with even less than you and you WILL be blessed.

President asked all the missionaries to come up front and sing Armies of Helaman (Tantara Helaman) which was so cool too! I got to play the piano for that.

Lets see.... what else...

OH HENY! So, the sad news is, she goes home this Friday and after prayer and counsel, she will not be baptized before flying back. Hopefully we can keep teaching her over skype and send her a bunch of reading materials and in a few years if she moves to Jakarta or members move to her island, then she can be baptized. We are a little bit heart broken and it will be hard to say goodbye.

With Heny, our sweet investigator

We had an amazing lesson with Lely. A few weeks ago I shared my experience about praying about whether or not to serve a mission and how I had postponed asking for so long because I was afraid of the answer. She said at this most recent lesson that she feels the exact way. We all know that she knows she needs to be baptized but she said she told the Lord she needs some time. I can see her progressing and we love how much the spirit is working in her heart. AHHHHH we just need to get her to church and to start acting more!

Vita is alright. We caught her drinking teh (tea) and we are still working on modesty. I think she is going to really progress once we get facebook and can start strengthening her through that whole side of life. She loves her Facebook haha.

Our Bishops family

Funny story... I gave away my crocs. It was pouring rain and we were walking home in the muddy streets from the bus stop which is really far when we passed a girl and a random motorcycle driver looking down into a sewer and with muddy arms. The girl only had on one croc and it was obvious she had slipped and the other fell into the sewer. SO I asked her if she wanted one of mine... or both! And since we were almost home anyways I just walked home barefoot. The funny part is that I look like this crazy white person with muddy feet walking home and I feel bad that those crocs were muddy and already so worn down that they were slippery but I really really hope it will end up with her calling us and saying she wants to be baptized! haha or even just wants to learn would be nice too :) annnnd now I need new crocs...

In Suryabaya (Jawa Timer ... East Java)

The highlight was definately the trip with the Donalds. It was soooo fun and we felt so spoiled. We teased each other all weekend long and had a blast. I love them so much and I am so lucky to be with them and Sister Allred. Like a little family away from my family. (only this time I'm the youngest child haha). The low point was having to call Heny and tell her she won't be baptized before she goes home.

Flying home with Sis. Donald

I loved your email and all the updates! It's funny because E. Wood was here and we kept shouting back and forth accross the office "did you hear about the wedding?!" "did you know my family got bee hives?!" "Did you know?!" "GUess what happened!" haha. Like twice the emails in the same ammount of time!

Oh a few more short stories!

Elder Wood, from my home ward (in the red tie), with some of my MTC district reunited

Sister Allred got bit on the eyelid by a mosquito while praying at an investigators. So the investigator starts whipping out all these natural remedies for her swollen eyelid haha it was pretty funny.

We met some cool people on the airplane and at the airport. One was a muslim lady whos husband just passed away 100 days ago. But get this, she used to live in america and knew the missionaries in texas! She said they were some of her only friends and even threw her a baby shower over there. We gave her a plan of salvation pamphlet and the last conference issue of the ensign and are going to try to meet with her when she gets back from Surabaya.

Anything else?

...

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!!!! Wow you're going to Lake Powell? No having fun! You're not allowed to have any fun without me.

Try reading your scriptures under the star light. That would be so cool.

Give everyone hugs from me ok? And give Dad a big sloppy jalopy kiss and bear squeeze dog pile hug for Fathers Day!

Kasih dan sayang,

Sister Sheff