More splits, new temporary companion, training complete. Happy birthday to me!

Hello y'all,
How has everyone's week been? Mine has been good like usual. Well this week started off good, I gave a lesson in our district meeting about obedience and I felt like it got everyone pumped. But then after that meeting there has been a slight problem in one of the companionships and now I have been with Elder McKeon this last week and this upcoming week. Elder McKeon and I had a good time together and worked hard. I also went on some splits this week. I went on a split with one of my Zone leaders Elder Hansen last Wednesday and it was great. We meet some new people that have good potential and worked hard. Then last Friday I went on another split with one of the new missionaries Elder Supriadi. I went to his area and we rode our bikes far and had some failures and it rained on us a lot but Elder Supriadi kept a good attitude and we had a great day all in all.

Yesterday was the last day of training for Elder Anderson and Elder McKeon! So now they are all grown up and ready to serve!

Yesterday was also my birthday! Thanks to everyone who already wished me a happy birthday! I had a great day. We went to church and went to the farewell meeting of 2 future missionaries in my ward who are leaving on their missions in a few days. Brother Timmy is going to Japan and Sister Mongan is going to Australia. It was an awesome meeting and the spirit was really strong. The 8 missionaries in Tangerang sang the Army of Helaman song at the meeting.

Sathees is progressing great and loves the church, his plan is go get baptized this next Sunday! He just needs to make more friends in the ward.

Well I hope everyone has a great week! Bye!

- Elder Hymas

Sathees and I

my birthday lunch

Military fair, and rainy season might have started?

Selamat Pagi semuanya!

This week has been pretty good. I guess nothing really too exciting happened this week. We just have been meeting with some investigators and members. We have a couple investigators that are really close to baptism they just have to show some faith and come to church with us and keep their commitments. Hopefully soon we shall have some success with them. One thing I want to start focusing on is working more with the members and getting their support. Missionary work is a lot harder then it needs to be when you don't get help from the members. If all the members got excited about missionary work and helped us more the work here would maju!

So it rained a tiny bit last Saturday and it rained a good amount yesterday. So I think/hope that the rainy season is starting here in Tangerang. They tell me that it should have started like a month and a half ago, so it is pretty late this year. The rain has it's ups and downs. The good thing is that it gets a lot cooler and it feels really nice. The bad things are that we get really wet and have to wear rain jackets. And also lots of people will cancel on us because it is raining and that isn't too fun. .

Well Elder Anderson and I are doing great. He is on his 12th week of training so that means that this is his last week and we will be an official missionary trained by Elder Hymas. That is quite an achievement.

Right now we have one investigator with a baptismal date for the 13th of December. If he just goes to church and the members are nice to him I am sure that he can get baptized. Also Sathees (which is the other companionship's investigator) is doing awesome! I love that guy so much. His plan is to get baptized on the 22 of November.

We had a zone meeting in Bogor last Friday and it was great. We learned that we should be more brave and open our mouth more and contact more. So we had a "Real-Play" which is like a role-play but real. they told us to all go outside for like 20 minutes and try to get a contact. Elder Anderson and I got 4 contacts in those 20 minutes, pretty cool. We got the most by the way too. It was cool to see that if we really try, we can gave a lot more success, who knew?

So in at one of the malls in my area there was a military fair thing. So I took a few pictures with the tanks and guns they had there and talked to some people. It is pretty cool, they give people free tank joy rides so maybe I can get one later.

Okay well that is about it for this week I think, I love you guys!

- Penatua Hymas

Splits and Mall Cops

Hello all,
This week was good. We weren't able to get much appointments in with people because some things just didn't work out this week, that's okay. We spent some time proselyting in malls. Proselyting in malls is pretty tough sometimes, but it is air-conditioned so that is nice. Sometimes I wish I could go door to door and knock on everyone's door like they do in America and other places. I is tough to proselyte here sometimes. We just gotta find or make opportunities to talk to random people but we can't make it look to obvious and we gotta be careful. The other day we got in trouble with some guards at a mall because one of the Elders in my house left a Book of Mormon at the ATM in the mall and the management of that mall was not happy at all about it. They accused us of planting it there for people to find and this and that and other trickery. It was just an accident but they didn't believe us. I don't even see how it is wrong if we did want to plant it there in the first place, who cares? All that it is going to do is save souls. Anyway so the management told us that we are not allowed to do that anymore at that mall but I don't care and I still go because I am cool with some of the guards and that is my favorite mall to proselyte in. I think it is pretty silly how people can get just so upset about what we are doing here. Once I gave a flyer for our free English class to a lady after talking with here. Then I went on the escalator to go upstairs. While I was on the escalator I saw this guard running over full speed to that lady and took the flyer from her hand and questioned her a bit, he looked mad too. It was just an FREE ENGLISH CLASS FLYER for goodness sakes. This kind of stuff happens all the time just because some people hate, and if you haven't noticed I don't like it haha. Well anyway this is supposed to be a religiously free country so they can't stop me.

I also went on some splits this week because I am the district leader and that's what they do. I went on a spit with Elder Chou on Friday and we have a fun day. We rode our bikes like mad men but we had a few lessons and met with some members. we probably rode our bikes like 25 miles that day. On Saturday I went on another split with another Elder because he wasn't getting along with is companion and needed some time to get himself together.

Oh yeah and apparently there was a bomb in one of the malls we usually go to at the same time we were there. It didn't go off I think but I heard that someone died. We got pretty lucky. So there is like no one in that mall right now because of that scare haha.

Okay I hope everyone has a great week!

- Elder Hymas

It is hot here

Selamat Sore!
This week has been pretty good, not too eventful but that's okay. Elder Anderson and I are working hard like usual sharing the gospel. Elder Anderson and I get along just fine, we are pals. His language is getting way good, he is improving very fast. He will be fluent like me in no time! :D

On Wednesday I went on a split with one of the new Elders in our district Elder McKeon. He did a great job and we taught well together. We ate some Ketoprak for dinner that night, it is pretty good stuff.

Last Friday was one of our investigator's birthdays so he invited us to eat with him, right after we shared a lesson with him of course. He then took us to a nice Japanese restaurant and bought us a lot and paid for it all. And then he took us to the grocery store and bought a ton of groceries for us haha he wouldn't take no for an answer.

Yesterday at church there was a person that came in by himself and he wasn't a member, so we went and sat next to him. He was a really nice guy named Hilman. He was looking at BYU online and saw our church so he decided to check it out and see what it is all about. Well he liked what he saw and had a good time. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he said he wants to come again next week! I think he has some great potential so I am excited to meet with him again.

Sathees also came to church again yesterday and had a great time. He doesn't understand much of the Indonesian so I had to help him by translating some. Sathees is such a great guy. I love him.

Today we were invited by this member who lives right in front of our house to eat with him. There was 6 of us that he took out today. He is really rich and has been to most of the countries in the world. We ate at a really nice Chinese restaurant and then ate ice cream afterwards. I am grateful I have had a lot of food bought for me this week because my allowance for this month is already all spent so I would starve otherwise haha.

Oke I hope everyone has a great week!

- Elder Hymas

Week 63 on Mish, PLD

Hello all.

This week has been a pretty good one. We did some proselyting in the malls and teaching people and going to meetings in Jakarta. The malls are actually pretty okay for proselyting. What we do is we sit on the bench in front of a grocery store in the mall. I am on one side and Elder Anderson is on the other. People will go up and sit next to us and we just start talking to them, and sometimes they will start first and talk with us. We gave out some copies of the Kitab Mormon this way and meet some cool people.

We meet this one guy who lives and owns a hotel in Kalimantan and he told us if we ever go there we can stay in his hotel for free haha. I also met and taught a preacher from another church. He was actually a good guy and just wanted to know about Mormons and I corrected some of the lies he has heard. I got his number and will try to meet with him again later this week.

We also talked with the man from Sri Lanka again named Sathees. He was able to get the Book of Mormon in his own language so that was awesome. He opened up to us about his hard life. Well I guess in Sri Lanka there are lots of problems and fighting and it is dangerous. The gangs or the resistance asked Sathees a few times to join them but he wants to be a good person so he refuses. So now they just tell Sathees that if he doesn't want to join them they will just take him and force him, this makes him pretty scared. One day he was riding his motor bike and 2 guys pulled him off and with a gun to his head stole his motorbike. Then a few days later or something that motorbike was used as a bomb to blow up a government building. So now our friend Sathees has a lot of police at his house and they think that bomb was from him, he is telling them he is innocent but they don't believe him. Sathees is then sent to prison and is tortured for some time. After a while he ends up able to leave Sri lanka and go to Malaysia. But he is not about to get a job because they are afraid he is a terrorist and he is scared they will send him back to Sri Lanka. So he moves to Indonesia on boat. But the boat breaks down at sea and he is stuck on the boat in a small room with a lot of people in it for about 6 months. He finally gets to Indonesia but is still unable to get a job and is pretty depressed and lost. He applied to move to Australia but got denied. Then he applied to move to American and have the interview and all and had to wait 3 years and just a few months ago he found out he got denied again. His life is just really sad and unfortunate and full of trials and sorrow. Sathees himself is so genuine and kind it just breaks my heart to see tears running down his face as he tells us about his hard life. He wants nothing more than to just find peace and belong, but he is close to giving up because he has tried and it has been taken from him so many times. He expressed to us that he wants to become a Mormon and is willing to do what it takes because he has felt that peace he has been searching for so badly at the church. Please pray for my dear friend Sathees as he tries to find peace in this world.

We also taught a person named Pak Pri, we have meet with him a few times and he seems pretty interested. We made a goal with for a baptismal date in a few weeks so we will keep working with him.

This week was also had PLD which is the zone meeting with the President. It was awesome like usual and President Donald taught us a lot of stuff. He told us becoming perfect takes some time. We must survey large fields but cultivate small ones. Which means we see the whole picture but work at a little at a time.

Well today we are going bowling again for P-day and I am going to destroy the other elders like usual. I hope everyone has a great week!

Salam kasih,
Elder Hymas

All of my MTC group was at this zone meeting except elder Lieske 

Me and Elder Zollinger meet again at PLD

I founds some wonderful brats and they are delicious. They only cost Rp 107,000 

Going to the mall

This week has been good. I became the new District Leader here a week ago and we are all doing great, I am a born leader. Well we watched conference yesterday and it was amazing like usual. I really liked the talk about the surfers and the barriers in the ocean. At first they were mad at the barriers but once they realized that those barriers are the only thing from keeping them from getting devoured they started to change their minds about them. Very good message I think. And I also liked the talk about covenant keeping women haha.

So we meet with Pak T's family earlier this week and they are doing awesome. We taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ and they loved it and had great questions. Pak T told us that he already believed in the Book of Mormon and knows that it is the word of God and it is true. We made a baptismal goal for the 1st of November with them.

I have another cool story about a guy named Sathees. He is a refuge from Sri Lanka and he moved to Indonesia a few years ago and lives here alone. He doesn't really know Indonesian and he is still learning English. It is really hard for him to get a job here too he says. Anyway he wasn't having the easiest time here and got a bit depressed, I think he must have searched about how to be happier and find peace on the Internet or something. But he saw that the Mormon Church is a place where you can get peace and that the Mormons are always happy so he founds our number online I think and started texting us. Well we meet him yesterday and he came to church with us and watched conference with us. He was super happy to meet us and wants to meet again and learn about Jesus Christ because he doesn't know anything because he is Hindu. He lives in the other Elder's area so we will give him to them this week and get him started on the path to peace. A cool miracle this week.

We also spent a lot of time proselyting in malls in our area. Our new area is just a big city and expensive housing complexes that we are not allowed in. So pretty much the only place to proselyte is public places like the mall. The malls are really big and nice and there are a bunch here haha.
Okay well that is about if for this week, take care.

- Elder Hymas

New DL in town

Hello everyone!
This week was great like usual. This is my last week in this area, I was only in this area for one month and now Elder Anderson and I are moving together to the other Tangerang ward in the other mission house and I am going to become the new district leader. I will rule with an iron fist... just kidding haha but I will sure do my best! The new house we are moving to is the nicest mission house in the mission so that is a plus.
I was sick a little this week but now I am feeling better, Elder Green was really sick the other day so I stayed home with him and watched over him. Elder Green is a really awesome missionary and we talked a lot.
We also went to Bogor again for another Zone Meeting there. It was a good meeting and we learned about giving and following up on commitments. Most people will not act or don't know how unless we help them by giving commitments.
Last Thursday I went on splits with Elder Pujianto who is the DL right now and is going home tomorrow. He is a great elder and doesn't seem too sad about going home in a few days haha.
The elders who are replacing us in Tangerang 2 are Elder Chou (who is in Tangerang 1 right now) and a new elder. The new elder is Dede from Magelang who just left on his mission. I knew him in Magelang and he is super cool.
We get to watch conference next Saturday and Sunday so I am excited for that. How was conference? What was your favorite talk?
Well I don't have much more time today to email. I hope everyone has a great week!
- Penatua Hymas

A huge burger!

Elder Green in a packed train

Our Tangerang 2 house