A baptism and Koto Tua

I love you more than...CAMPING!

I've gotten to be such a city slicker these days, I need some good camping! And I'm telling you right now so you can hold me accountable: I will not die before I get to be a river rafting guide! Ok sorry, that was random. Sister Sheff's random brain...

Cleaning the Baptismal Font

One more random thing... Wanna hear some of my personal theories? I decided Indonesia is where the tower of Babel used to be. Like for reals. The oldest city in the world on record is apparently in Java. There are over 500 languages STILL spoken and yet no one can figure out the root of Indonesian. It's got a mix of Malaysian, Dutch, English, Arabic, Fijian, Javanese, Tagalog, Portugese... you name it! SO that's my theory... It makes so much sense right?

Bro Hanking, the younger brother of Sister Lely, me and Sister Olsen

But we had a great week OBVIOUSLY! IBU LELY GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!! I still feel like Lely's baptism was a dream. Did that really happen? It was such a delightful day. The whole chapel was just glowing. And to see her little brother (also in his late 60's) baptize her after he has been trying since the 70's to get her to learn... it was just fantastic! Now we just need to keep that momentum going before her confirmation. I don't know why that whole week in between just scares me so much! Well anyways, we are going to be bombarding Sister Lely with the Spirit before this Sunday.

 

Sister Lely's baptism and "all the girls"

My personal goals this last week were NO EXCUSES! NO WHINING! And I'm loving that goal so I think I'll stick with it. I just need to keep a light attitude and soak up every minute of my mission. Not let whiny missionaries get me down you know :) I am so sick of whiners! So many excuses, so many "I hate..." phrases, so many negative thinking phrases... Instead we should “Fix it up, wear it out, make due or do without!” I think we need to take responsibility for what happens and never convince ourselves that our investigators are any less than golden! Don't let me ever complain ok? I hope that I can make that a strength of mine and a standard for those around me.

All I can say is Heavenly Father is seriously blessing us! We couldn't do any of this without Him. This will be another week where we only have 3 days in our area and so we NEED to be guided in using that precious time. Later this week we head to Surabaya!

Mission leadership council last week

 Hey I need to head since we have a good P-day activity planned but I will try to hop back on later and finish my email :)

Love you lots!

<3 Sister Em Sheff

P-day

I’m back. So today we went to Kota Tua (old city) and took a ton a pictures! I also realized that I skipped a few weeks when I sent you all those pictures last week. I'll send what I can next week since the card reader won't work. 

Riding bikes through Koto Tua

Does this jeep look familiar?

I loved all your pictuers from this week! Joshua is so huge! And I was laughing sooo hard! Your email was great this week! I love all the little tidbits of everyone’s life! BYU won! Elections, ACT... Mom lunches! And I love that you met all those “Indonesians” at the get together at the Johnsons! Will you take a picture of all the RM's that you meet? Parker, Lauren, Bransen. Andrew: with the ACT math part, seriously, do the easiest problems first and just mark C for the impossible ones but circle them so you can go back if you have time. Memorize a few of those standard equations and you will be great! I loved the Dad Quote about prayer! I really need to be better at that! I think that is already one of your strengths Mom and I wish I could say it was one of mine. Thanks for your prayers for Lely everyone, and Jacob especially! It really helped!

WOW! You bought tickets! Now what? Haha I just kinda picture this magically working out without us having to plan anything... oh yeah... life isn't like that. Well lemme know what you have for suggestions!

I guess that's all I can think of!

Never be weary in well doing! Make me proud :) Sheffield's do hard things! Suck it up buttercup! CTR! Take luck! There's a fly in your eye!

<3 Sister Emily Sheffield

better late than never

Love  you more than...

REESES! and TRAIL MIX! :)

Sorry this email is late! What happened is that the internet shut down in the mission home while I was writing the email so it was not able to send or save and until now the internet at the mission home wont work! So don't worry, I'm alive and all is well! Haha :)

SOooooo hows it going? I love that you got to go to the homecoming and meet everyone! How was the missionary/family's get together? And how fun to take a quick trip up to Island Park aka heaven! :) I have been praying for you all soooo much this week. Not sure why but this week more than ever I just really have been thinking about us as a family. Even across the globe, I know we are still eternally tied! And Heavenly Father is definitely keeping an eye out for each of us.

Well the highlights of the week were going to Medan on splits, making a music video for fib and then an awesome lesson in Sunday school.

MEDAN! It is so fun to get to see into another missionary's world for a minute and see their work. I learn so much from these Sisters and their investigators! We also met some wayyyy cool people on the plane and even gave away an English book of Mormon! Sister Believe goes home soon so it was nice to catch up with her as well. I went on splits with Sister Wigand and she is SOOO cool! She was at BYU-H before the mish!

I also loved that we made that Come Unto Christ music video (I assumed you saw it haha mission moms and all) and it already has so many hits! Facebook is growing! It's getting better and I'm starting to like it more which brings me to the next highlight...

WE HAD THE BEST-COMBINED LESSON YESTERDAY! The AP's taught the whole ward about how to use social media to hasten the work and if you could felt the spirit in that room... I think every ward in the world should have a lesson about it. During that lesson we had all the members with their ipads and smart phones and they were liking our pages and sharing it with friends and the talk from Elder Bednar about Sweeping the earth as if a flood of goodness... SOOOO great! I really enjoyed it!

We are seeing some great things here in Jakarta! Our members are figuring out how to be better missionaries and we are learning to be better with our time online!

SIster Lely is still planning on being baptized next week but it will take a lot of prayers. PLEASE pray for her! I couldn't bare to see this not go through. She needs this and her family needs this. I think it's been a rough time for her since she decided to be baptized, but man, the blessings are just going to overflow when we can stick through to the end. :)

"The great end of education is to discipline rather than to furnish the mind; to train it to the use of its own powers, rather than fill it with the accumulation of others." -Tryon Edwards

I think at this point of my mission, I have gathered a lot of information. Lots of things that I've figured out and yet I need to get DOING them. SO my goal for the last few weeks is to be a DISCIPLined DISCIPLe :) I feel like sometimes you get this testimony building experience and "level up" on one idea... maybe prayer for example but then after a while you have to learn and grow more with prayer. We are never done learning. Ya maybe we have already heard it all before but now we are hearing it again and need to be better about the DOING.

PS I just talked with Tasi, Auntie Amy's cousin, a few days ago! Smalll world :) But anyways she says that they will be in Jakarta on December 10-20 if we wanted to stay with them it would be best during that time.

I love you so much and it kills me that I can't send a ton but I hope you have a spritual "level-up" week. Pray for us here in Jakarta. Its a real transition period and its gonna take some strength :)

Haha I always want to end my emails like we end lessons... "ada tambahan lagi atau pertanyaan yang mau disampaikan? Kalau tidak ada..." 

LOVE YOU! Make me proud! :) Brush your teeth! Take luck! Give everyone a hug for me!

D&C 35:24

<3 Sister Emy-emy-emy-emy-emy-emy Sheff

No letter... but a picture is worth a thousand words

Family Home Evening with the Subandino's (emeritus 70)

At an investigators house (above the sewer... very humble circumstances)

Do you have these in America? It's called a Tongsis (tongkat narsis... aka a selfie stick)

Trying to catch a taxi in the rain after P-day... every single week! Seriously if Janice's theory is right,
my husband will be soooooooo attractive from all this rain

Eating with the district

Teaching some little kids

Me and Sister Allred (she is going home soon)

Last picture with my old companion Sis. Allred

First picture with my new companion Sis. Olsen at Pasar Baru

In Medan holding the durian fruit

New project idea: Build one of these awesome side carts

The Medan district (the elder in the middle with a blue tie
and not folding his arms is my Ogden friend, Jamie Stokes, cousin)

We found this last night "one mission, one for all" cool eh?

Filmed a couple of "music videos"

Love you more than...allllll the packages in the world. 

I just got yours today! I was glad to see the pasangan (the match) for my sandal... but Sister Donald loved the granola (I gave her a snitch) and she was wondering if you give away the recipe. (PS I sent a letter with Sister Allred so maybe you will see her soon and can ask for it. Hopefully she doesn't eat the candy first! Haha)

Monas (monument Nasional)

Lets seeeee... did I tell you our email time got cut? So I am even more stressed about what to write! I tried to take notes in my planner so I'll give you the highlights.

More Monas 

~Last p-day we played futsol and I got a good ol’ knee scab. I think my legs are always bruised and scabbed but I seriously LOVE playing futsol!

~Lely is doing well and getting ready for her baptism! She said the other day that she has been feeling a little bit (what is it in english......) like wavering? But then she also said that she can see how Satan is going to try and stop her from being baptized. AMEN! We made invitations for her to give to family and friends and passed some out in Relief Society. I think it helped reassure Lely that she can do this and it will all work out in the end. I know the LemPer (Relief Society) was so excited for her decision and already planned the musical number! 

~This week they had the final decision of whether or not Jokowi would become president later. AKA no one wanted to meet with us on those days. But we had some fun proselyting! 

1. We rode a bus as far as we could and then rode back. Just talked to people like usual haha.

2. We went to a sidewalk and Sister Olsen and I just sang hymns and passed out pamphlets/cards. Haha it was so fun! It was hilarious that some people would hear us singing then run up to take a card and yet others would start to grab one from us until they saw a picture of Christ then turn away. Either way, effective or not, I think we enjoyed a break from the norm.

~Vita... we had a terribly heartbreaking lesson with her. I don't know if she really has the desire to keep learning or get baptized. It is the worst feeling in the world to see people start to fall back when you have seen their potential. Maybe this is just not her time. But I love her tooo much! Ahh #missionaryproblems

Me and Vita

~FUNNY STORY! So on Friday night we got home like right at 9:30 and were trying to unlock our door when the key broke in the lock! Well no one is open that can fix it so we had to take a taxi over to Senopati (mission office) to sleep, but President and Sister weren't even home and we didn't have anything to spend the night... no toothbrush... no change of clothes... haha it was awkward and weird but nice to sleep in a good bed eh? Anyways the next morning we finally got someone to come over and fix it and they changed the lock in like 5 mintues... Too funny!

~We had a lot of people at church on Sunday (4) and two of them are Muslim. I love how much Heavenly Father blesses us. I don't know if I deserve all this but you know it has nothing to do with me. This is between Heavenly Father and our investigators. I am just lucky enough to help teach them more about the truth. :)

~For P-day today we filmed a couple "music videos" for our youtube page... look out for those later! :)

This next week we are heading up to Medan! We are going to try to get to all of the sisters in these next 3 months. I'm excited to see everyone again!

My spiritual message of the week :) Sister Olsen was sharing this idea with me the other day. Christ called fishermen. He needed people to cast in their bait and wait for those interested to come and listen. But all of the fish have been caught. Now He calls hunters! We have to find the people who are ready. Long gone are the days of easy fishing, now we must get to work and find the elect. Those who are searching for the truth. Not easy but so much more fun right? :)

Love you all! I hope that school went well the first week and that you are getting used to waking up to an alarm clock again ;)

Give everyone my love! ONWARD EVER ONWARD!!!

<3 Sister Sheffield