Finding Joy in the Service of God

For our blog this week we would like to spotlight Sister Sri and Sister Iyu.
They are the newest members of the Magelang Branch.
Here they are riding the public transportation, the ankot mini, mini bus.
Sister Jeffery has to balance carefully as she crawls in and out of the ankots in a skirt.
We are excitedly riding together to the Hotel Trio for the baptism. 

It is a symbolic event that is the gateway
in our journey to return to our
father in Heaven

White whites for a day of purity.
Baptism is an ordinance of renewal and rebirth.  

The branch "family" waiting for the participants to dress and enjoying each others company.  We especially enjoy the company of the Ariyanto family.  Christine's visits are always a treat.  President Ari
 is a man we have grown to love and to trust.   He is a man who loves our Savior Jesus Christ and knows this church is led and guided by Him.  He genuinely loves people and everyone is his friend.  The branch is in capable hands. 

Some friends (Mickell, Kristi Li, & Yulianti) of a friend, Catherine Sadiyono, came visiting from the US and Jakarta.  We used our increasing knowledge of the Borobudur temple to act as tour guides.  We have visited here here at least a half a dozen times and still enjoy seeing the marvelous Buddhist structure.  A couple of tourists from the U.S.A. saw us telling stories and with our black badges they determined we were professional guides.  They joined our tour for 20 minutes.  We traveled on to Prambanan (Hindu temple) and Sister Jeffery tried to share a few stories.  Of course if you tied her hands she would be unable to speak at all, but the best stories were told by our English student volunteer tour guides.  See our last blog post for some of the stories.

Prepping for lessons.  Recruiting help from Amber.
This week institute class was a lesson on how the Book of Mormon is the Keystone of our religion.
Without the Book of Mormon in place the arch of the church falls.
With that fall, crumbles the wall of strength in our lives that the church provides.
And the arch was built as a passageway leading to heaven.
The ordinances of the gospel are available because the church is restored. With the fall of the arch, that pathway is blocked.
Our gratitude for the ordinances and gospel of Jesus Christ is strengthened by an institute lesson again.

We are in the process of justifying a larger church building when the lease comes up for renewal in a few months.  January was the month we kept track of the numbers attending to submit to headquarters.  One week the numbers were a little light until this family of 10 showed up.  They are visitors to Magelang from New Caledonia and the Lord sent them to visit us on just the right Sunday to fill the building.  Only one of them speaks English and one is remembering Indonesian, the rest speak only French so they didn't understand much from the meeting.  But they received the sacrament and blessed us with the numbers we needed on our report.

Our Stake President Budi Susanto,  has asked us to help
with the all Indonesia Young Single Adult Conference in May.
Now before you get too excited about the size, all Indonesia
is two stakes, a district and two branches on islands other than Java.
But we are hoping for attendance of 150, and we surveyed
the facility we will use.  It is a beautiful hotel at the entrance
of Mount Merape National Park.  Sister and Ari are sharing
enthusiasm for the event with our friend Timatuous.

Not sure which conference room we will need but there are plenty of sitting areas for "getting to know you" visiting. (That is the most important part of the event).  As with the many other events that we have organized in the past, we hope this event will strengthen everyone in whatever way they need.  We trust the Holy Ghost to lead the way.