PLD House arrest

Hello,

This week was pretty good. PLD was good and we learned lots about being good missionaries. we learned that attitute is very important and also that your relationships with others is vital, especially with members in the ward you are serving in.

I am not moving cities, I had my interview with President Donald and that went good. I am staying In Magelang for probably another 3 months, but I am getting a new companion because Elder Widigdo is become the new Zone Leader in Solo. 

The plan was that our investigator Hendrik to get baptized yesterday, but there were some problems that arose. Hendrik and his family own a small billiards place and they take turns managing it. On the morning of his baptism all of Hendrik's family went out and he was left with the responsibility to watch over the billiards place. He was stressed and didn't know what to do because his family needs the money that the billiards place brings in. But then he decided that he has to just close down the billiards place so that he could go to church and get baptized. It was a great sacrifice on his part and all was going well. But then right after church another problem came. Right when church ended about 11 people from the Jawa Tengah immigration office and the Magelang Police Department came to our church and started taking a bunch of pictures and demanding our passports and temporary ID cards of all the white people there. We gave them what we had, which was just copies. They weren't quite satisfied with the copies though and wanted our originals which were kept in Jakarta. We told them that they could get here but it would take a day maybe. So until we got the originals we were put under house arrest and Elder Zollinger and I stayed at the mission couple's house last night. Also if the originals didn't come in by 11 o'clock in the morning today, we would be taken to another city where their office is to wait there. 

Jakarta sent some big wigs of the church here in Indonesia with our original passports and ID cards early this morning and they came in time with the originals before 11. So we met with the immigration people again today and showed them all of the original paperwork and talked about a lot of stuff. They seemed happier with that and I am free again. 

I guess this is kind of abnormal behavior by the immigration people. We are thinking that someone isn't happy with the growth of the church here or something. Anyway it was all a fun little adventure and hopefully there isn't any more problems in the future. 

Hendrik's baptism with happen next Sunday and he has asked me to baptize him, so I am looking forward to next week, hopefully it all goes a bit more smoother than yesterday haha.

Okay have a great week, 

- Elder Hymas