Kevin has now been out over 9 months. I cannot believe how fast time is passing. I miss him terribly, but I wouldn't have him anywhere else. His time in Manado was wonderful. Thanks to modern tecnology, I was able to "friend" several members of the branch and they were so kind to keep me informed of what was going on and to send me pictures of Kevin. I will post a few here and hope that you will see the joy Kevin has, as he is serving his mission in Indonesia.
But first I will post past emails.
November 30, 2011
Howdy!
First off, WHAT IS THAT NASTY THING GROWING ON MIKEY'S FACE??? eeish, he needs to shave!!! hahaha
It looks like Thanksgiving was awesome. Dad was rockin the rec specs again. The rolls looked amazing as well. Good to hear the Broncos are still rollin, the hail mary sounded sweet! The trip to Bunaken was awesome, it was the first time I have ever seen white sandy beaches and clear ocean water my life, it was definitely worth the trip.
I have finally got the pictures of our house sent, hopefully you all enjoy them. sweet toilet eh!?I also sent a picture of me playing soccer with some kids last tuesday as we were waiting to teach.
This week has been great. Novita's mom has pretty much said it is fine if she gets baptized, so the week before christmas is the planned baptismal date! The Lord has really blessed and strengthened Novita through all of this, and she is super excited.
Om Fery is comin along... we tried watching the Joseph Smith movie with him to help him understand about Joseph Smith, I think it helped out, he came to church again. The smoking thing is still really hard for him, but he has gone from 2 packs a day to one pack which is definitely an improvement.
Hendra and Moviyani are doing great as well. I love their family. They have a desire to change and do what is right, and they are working hard to make those changes.
I am excited for my Christmas package!! I am not sure when I will get it either... But either way it will be enjoyed.
I am super excited for next monday, hahaha, I can't remember if I told you all last week, come I get to be santa claus on monday!! it is going to be so funny. We are going to go visit less active members, members and investigators! There will definitely be some pictures sent next week from it.
We had a wild monday night this week. We got done with one teaching appoitment and we had to head straight to another one right after it that was like an hour away. The traffic was SO BAD, and so it took forever to get to where we needed to ride the next angkot. We finally got there, and realized that all of the angkots were already full, and that everyone was walking because of it, so we had to speed walk for like 2 miles to get to the next spot we could ride an angkot, then we finally got to Hendra's house, but a member needed us to come to her house that was another 20 minute walk, so we walked ther and met with her for 20 minutes, and then we walked 20 minutes back to hendra's house and taught them... Ugh we were sweating like crazy and worn out. It was definitely an awesome day, hopefully that's a good story of how awesome the missionary work is in Indonesia!!! I love it.
Welp, I hope you all are doing great, The church is true, Thomas S. Monson is a prophet. Don't forget to read your scriptures and say your prayers.
I love you all,
Have a great week!
Kevin
These pictures show his kitchen and bathroom. As he said previously in an email, he showers from a bucket, and that IS his toilet! Those are pretty good living conditions in that area!
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Howdy Ya'll!
First off, I have to say that the football bowl games this year are super lame, except that Alabama is in the National championship. looks like this was a good year to miss. It sounds like the last game for that senior class was pretty cool, I cried a little bit inside at the thought that Kellen Moore will never play again on the blue... :[
It's also lame that BYU turned down the Big East bid... That could have been a lot of fun to watch BSU and BYU play every year, but oh well they still will next year right?
I am glad you liked the pictures of the house, I am pretty much a complete convert to the Indonesian toilet, I especially don't miss TP... haha sorry if that is a little gross. there is an american style toilet in the house but I already pretty much gave that one up unless I am feeling super lazy, I prefer the squatter.
The Santa Claus event was sooo hilarious. The culture here with santa claus is that they decorate a pick up truck and then santa claus rides in the back of it with a bunch of other people, some of them painted in all black. a lot of People here actually call santa claus, senter claus (not sure why), and the black people are senter pete. most kids are deathly afraid of the senter petes, so we didn't have one. Nonetheless it was still a day full of tears, as well as laughter and smiles and in true Indonesian fashion, rain. We got soaked. We went all over the place and visited a lot of members/ investigators and gave the kids some candy/ snacks. I will send fotos next week because this computer isn't letting me upload fotos.
The work has gone pretty well this week too. Novita is still set for baptism, she is very excited as are a lot of the members. It will be a great day for sure. Some other great news is that I have survived another round of transfers!!! Hopefully I will be here until january, but 4 american missionaries are going home the 19th so I might get moved. But I am liking my chances of staying here. OH! One of my friends from my BYU ward just got here too last week! His name is Mardi Mulia, I am super pumped that he is serving here, he is actually 1/2 or maybe 100% indonesian but grew up in Utah. We already planned on serving here together when I got my call. haha
Om Ferry is still doing the same... It is the worst though when we come to his house for a lesson and he is playing chess with his friends and smoking cigarettes like crazy. He still wants to get baptized, I think this will be a huge challenge for him to quit, because he has been smoking since around the age of 15, and everyone here smokes, so when people just relax, they smoke, and they give their friends cigarettes as well. He is still not doing as well with church attendance which makes it even harder.
We taught a less active member this past week that has a pretty amazing story about her baptism, when she got baptized, she was taken into the police office and questioned about the Church, the BoM, and they made her pray with them to make sure this wasn't satan's church or something... The missionaries were often prohibited from coming to her house when she was an investigator too. It is amazing to me how much a lot of these members have gone through to join the Lord's church, and yet they fall away and become less active so quickly. Undoubtedly it all returns to scripture study, prayer and going to church every week. Once we justify not going to church for one week, it become easier to miss the week after that, and then we just won't go at all. So don't quit reading, praying and going to church!!!
I love you all, have a great week.
p.s. I am excited to hear about the changes in the stake!!
Love,
Kevin
December 14, 2011
Howdy ya'll.
Hopefully it has been a great past week for you!!! BSU in the big east?? SWEET!
As far as the phone call goes, President Groberg said we can call on the 24th, 25th or the 26th. Also, our pday is getting moved next week until saturday the 24th so we can finalize it then. I already kind of forgot what the time difference is sooo sorry if I mess up and call at like 7 in the morning your time. I was thinking on christmas day ya'll have church early in the morning so it might be better if I called on the night of the 24th here, or morning for you. I am not sure what system I will use, but it will probably involve me just calling you all, me and elder kujanpaa might buy an international sim card together that can be used for cell phones here which should be pretty inexpensive. Oh yeah, we can talk for one hour so hopefully that is enough time! haha :]
This week has been a little different, wednesday night until saturday Elder Subadi was sick so we spent a lot of time in the house... I definitely did not enjoy that. So the mission work was a little bit slow this week, so forgive me for not having much to report on! The good news is that this sunday will be novita's baptism! It should be super awesome. Everyone is really really excited. The Lord has really known what was best for her in all of this, and hopefully her faith has strengthened from all of this as much as mine has. I have really seen first hand the fulfilling of 1 Nephi 3:7. The Lord always prepares a way for those who want to keep his commandments. On saturday night Novita was still a little unsure that her mom approved, we invited her to pray before asking her mom again, the next morning we got an SMS saying her mom was in full support. It was awesome.
The names of the Stake Presidency sound familiar, but I can't seem to remember the faces. I bet it is kind of weird to have a new stake presidency! I am sure they will do great.
I am glad that the family is still doing awesome. I miss you all, but I don't want to come home so it is the good kind of miss. haha
OH! here are some of the Santa Claus pictures, as you can see, smiles and tears... :]
Welp I love you all, I don't know how to express how grateful I am for our family. In the words of Hot Rod "You are number one!"
The Church is true, don't forget it.
Dengan Kasih,
Kevin
December 21,2011
Howdy ya'll!
So it turns out the Office told us wrong, and our P day is normal. But I dont have very much time today, and also we get to talk soon, so this one will be kind of short.
Yes! on Sunday Novita got baptized, it was super awesome. We had a lot of leaders from Jakarta here too for a christmas event at the church the friday before it too, so there was a lot of people at church on sunday to support her as well. It was just a really great experience. She is going to be a huge strength for this branch.
Ok, I will call you all on the night of the 25th, morning of the 26th for me around 7 pm your time! I am also very excited! I got my package this week too and I kinda already started eating some of the candy... hehe :] Hopefully I don't get fatter this week.
Welp, sorry this is very short, but I love you all! Oh! there are also some pictures on here from our P day today, we went to a member's sister's garden, orchard, I am not sure what the word is, and ate as much durian and manggis as we wanted. IT was awesome. we also got a pineapple and a bunch of rambutan out of it. and bananas.
The Church is True!
Love,
Kevin
This is Kevin playing Santa ( rather scary beard) to the children and neighborhoods. It is quite the tradition and he had a BLAST, as you can tell by the look on his face!
December 28, 2011
Howdy!
Well, my email will be super short today too since we talked on monday. It was great to hear all of your voices. Everyone sounded super great. I was in complete shock that the little kids actually talked to me and weren't shy... but then again I am the favorite uncle so hehehe.
No word on transfers yet, I might know by next wednesday, but I am not completely sure. I am about 90 percent sure I will be moving though.
Things are still just going great. Christmas was a little rough on the missionary work, but it is picking up again this week.
The Church is so true, it is just amazing to me how blessed we are to be able to be members of Christ's Church and be able to following the teachings of a living prophet who receives revelation daily. We truly are on the path to Eternal Life and it that confidence brings great joy.
I love you all,
Selamat tahun baru and have fun preparing for Mikey's wedding!!! GILA!
Kevin
January 04, 2012
Hey hey hey,
Sounds like things are getting pretty busy again for you all with the wedding and what not! How exciting!! BYU's game sounded pretty sweet. Super cool finish. So the first news, as far as I know I am not moving yet. so probably another month or so here! I am very excited if that is the case, if I do in fact move, I will still be excited. We are actually going to surabaya this weekend for PLD so it should be nice to se what Java is like again, I have pretty much forgotten it. The work has still been a little slow, but stil good. and for the record, I never want to eat cookies again! A cultural thing here is that from christmas until the end of january, anyone that comes to someone's house has to eat cookies... Meeting at about 3 houses a day means eating a lot of cookies and also drinking a lot of soda, which has resulted in the addition of 4 kilos to my body, not to mention that last sunday we got fed 4 lunch/dinner 4 times. yeah... it has kind of been killing me! Oh and New Years was rediculous here. About 2,5-3 hours of fireworks and music starting at 12. I could not sleep at all. haha
Besides the over eating and stuff things have been great, we are just tryin to keep on keepin on. Hendra is doing well. he came to church on sunday and it was super awesome because Moviyani (his wife) bore her testimony and it was awesome. both of them are trying to make changes in their lives and I think the "new year resolution" thing has kind of motivated them to do so. Hopefully they continue to do well.
Om Fery is still comin along... slowly but surely is the secret with him. WE are trying to invite him to have his wife meet with us too, but no success yet. Hopefully he will be better with coming to church now that the holidays are over.
Well... I don't really have much to say today... the Church is true, Thomas S. Monson is a Prophet, and the Book of Mormon is the Word of God. Hopefully you all will continue to read it!
I love you all,
Kevin
Oh yeah, selamat pernikahan Mikey dan Valerie!
For those of you who know Kevin, he is a HUGE Alabama fan. I am sure having his "Tide" in the National Championship game while on his mission was tough. I am not much of a Bama fan, but have to admit, amidst the controversy of that game, I cheered for the Crimson Tide, for my son!
January 11, 2012
The national champion is...
Roll Tide!
That is sweet that they won. I was pretty excited, I am also glad that Mikey's marriage and what not was good. I will be honest it was a little bit of a bummer not to be there, but I had a super great weekend too. On Sunday after church we headed to Surabya, and when we got there I found out that I was not moving to Tangerang but staying in Surabaya. My new companion is Elder Mulyono from Solo. He is a stud. He just finished getting trained. On Monday we had PLD, it was super good, it was a ll about developing Christlike attributes. It was really refreshing and there was a lot of things taught that I am going to need in this new area, especially patience. I am not sure how big zones were for Mikey and Jeff or Dad, but our zone conference consisted of 4 elders from manado, 8 from surabaya, 2 from Malang and 2 sisters from malang as well as 2 senior couples, So not really a lot of people, but it was fun to get together with a lot of missionaries after not really seeing anyone else for 6 months. Jawa is so much different than Manado, so I am trying to adjust to that. It is just way more like what you would expect in Asia. haha I don't know how to explain it, it is just different. Oh yeah, I am on a bike now too. Surabaya is the second biggest city in Indonesia, so we have a lot of area to cover each day too. There are about 7 million people in Surabaya and 8 missionaries. Tuesday was the first day of bike riding in over a year and a half and it kicked my trash. I am so sore today. pretty much everyone here is Muslim, of all the people we talked to yesterday maybe one was Christian, well only one asked what church we were from. So that will make things pretty interesting. It is definitely going to take a lot of hard work and patience in finding people to teach. From the sounds of it the best tool is service, we are supposed to do 4 hours of service each week, a lot of which is teaching english. There are 2 branches here, and each branch has its own building.
I am sorry to hear that mom is not feeling well, cepat sehat! I bet it is fun having mel and the boys around, say hello to them for me!! My last few days in Manado were nice and busy, it was definitely a little hard to leave that place, but I am also very excited for change. Luckily Elder Jameson from my MTC group is heading up there so I know the investigators up there are in good hands. Oh yeah... I almost forgot to say that I am also in the same house as my friend from BYU, Elder Mulia.
Welp I don't really know what else to say... The Church is true. I know that I am doing the Lord's work, and even though this new area is not going to be easy, I know that He is preparing people to receive the Gospel, so I will just have to patiently work hard to find them. The Book of Mormon is true, Don't be lazy and miss out on the blessings of reading it!
Love,
Kevin
These are pictures of Kevin on his last day in Manado. I know that all the people he met there will forever be in his heart. This was an amazing place to begin his missionary journey. I want to thank all the people who treated him so kindly, and became my friends through Facebook. I will never forget you, and pray that we can stay in contact.
January 18, 2012
Wow, this week really has flown by. Thanks a bunch for the pictures! Everyone looks so good. and really different too, especially the little kids! They are HUGE! I probably won't even recognize them when I come home again. Mikey and Valerie look good. I am super pumped for them! I am still confused how he pulled of such a great girl like that. haha
Surabaya has been great this past week. The work here is soooo slow right now, and from the sounds of a lot of the missionaries here it is going better than usual right now, Haha. I don't want to make it sound like I am complaining or anything, but lets just say we taught less lessons than the amount of days in a week. It is definitely a lot different than Manado in that aspect as well as almost every other aspect haha.
The weather has been very very rainy lately, we spent two afternoons in a row looking for the addresses of old investigators in the pouring rain. That is kind of tricky way of finding new people to teach, because it is so islamic here, we definitely cant go door to door and we can't really say much about the church unless were asked about it first. So we ask a lot of people for directions and try to start up conversations with them, and then hope they ask us why we're here. A lot of the muslim people will tell us where christian people live too, which is really great. We two new investigators through that.
So mom asked what are the major differences between here and Manado. Surabaya is a lot more city, Manado was a lot more country/ hills/ green. Manado in a few ways had a lot of people that were not well off, Surabaya has it's fair share of wealthy wealthy people. I have seen a lot of BMW's and Mercedes, I don't think I ever saw one in Manado. The local language here is javanese... I don't think I will ever get it figured out. It is ridiculous. But pretty much everyone here speaks indonesian just as well so it isn't a problem, except their accent threw me off for the first little while but I am almost used to it now.
The branch here is kind of struggling. It was shocking how empty church was on sunday. There was probably about 25 people. So there is a lot of work to be done here, with investigators as well as less active members.
Well, I am sorry if my emails seem like they are getting shorter and shorter, each week is just a blur, it goes too fast. I am already planning to extend if I can....
Haha that was just a joke, i don't think mom would like that too much. But then again I might do it if i could. hehe
I just love the mission, it is so hard, but I just get so much satisfaction from doing the Lord's work. The Church is so true! Each day as I read the Book of Mormon I just feel my testimony grow so much stronger and it just gets me excited to go out and share with others. I really hope you all are reading the scriptures each day, even if it is just for a minute. JUST DO IT!
I love you all so much!
Kevin
I don't find the humor in his remark about extending! Am I missing something? I am kidding. I suppose if it works out and is the right thing to do, I would support it. I am not convinced that extending is always the right thing, but we shall see. We have 15 months to think about it:)
So that's it, I am caught up for now. Kevin is growing and maturing and I look forward to his emails each week. I am excited to see how things go in this new area.
Jakarta Time
