We’re in Bintulu now and there's
nothing else to do in this town for pday, so email it is! I think I’m
kind of in a twilight zone right now. It all started setting in on Monday.
I cried a lot. I think the part that's killing me is just leaving our
investigators and the members here. I’m so scared I’ll never see some of
them again. On Monday we were teaching the plan of salvation to Acha's
family, the part that's not yet baptized and I just started crying when we were
talking about the spirit world. They weren't sure if relationships from
this life would be remembered in the next, like we wouldn't recognize each
other. I bawled like a baby as I told them that's the one thing that's
bringing me comfort when I think about the possibility of never seeing them
again, I know that we will meet again after this life and that we'll still be
brothers and sisters. I mean it too. I trust in that.
I saw the last baptism of my mission
last Friday. Jong, Shoony, and Josie were baptized that night and it was
flawless. But first, contrast it to the baptism the night before to see
just how smooth it ran. Thursday night was Chris, Amanda, Shalinna, and Kapi's
baptism. We got the water heater going two hours before, right on time,
then started filling the font on time...but the stupid part was we left to
early to notice that the electric plug or whatever you call it wasn't
closing. So the font wasn't filled. And it wouldn't fill because
the water just kept going down the drain that wouldn't close. So we got
crafty and made our own plug out of plastic and a rock. Success. Then
the problem was no one was on time. But I guess that worked well with the
whole empty font situation. The baptism had to be pushed back about 45
minutes, and we were fretting the whole time, watching the water level slowly
rise. It doesn't sound to stressful I guess, but it was. So Friday
night we were smart early on and got the plastic stopper in on time. The
font was full on time. The baptismal candidates were on time. They
bore beautiful and doctrinally sound testimonies. The spirit was strong
lah. It was the perfect baptism to end on for sure. Plus, that day I
was buying an apom for dinner from a street cart we always pass. The lady
that sells them has been contacted by countless missionaries and is usually
pretty cold towards us. This day she started talking to us. She
told us that she's friends with sister Acha, and she wants to come to
church. What?! So we're going to visit her next week…or I guess
Sister Parker and her new companion will. I keep forgetting that I won't
be at the appointments we’re scheduling now. Weird.
Yesterday was one of those days where
the Lord just takes apart your plans and puts them back together the way He
wants them. We went for an appointment with Emma and she wasn't home, but
her housemate was and we ended up talking to her for a while and got her as a
new investigator. That opened up a big chunk in our schedule because we
were in the outer limit of our area, so it seemed out of the way and our next appointment
was going to be close by, but we felt like we should go back to Tabuan Dayak,
the area near the church where we are basically every day. We got to the
church and didn't really know what we were doing, so we started going around to
confirm some appointments for later in the evening. On the way, we
remembered Endaya and Nika, two less-active members we met almost two weeks
ago, and went over to see them. Only Endaya was home but she invited us
in and while talking we found out that only her husband was a member, she
hasn't been baptized yet, even though she wanted to a few years ago before they
moved back to their village. So we invited her to start learning again
and to be baptized and she said yes! It was awesome, she was so excited!
Then we went to our appointment with
Suzilin. We were nervous that she doesn't understand the need to be
baptized again, but before we could even teach restoration again, she told us
she needs to be baptized the right way and put herself on date!
Ok I’m out of time, sorry! What
a great way to leave my mission! I love you all! See you soon!
Sister Norton
HFI
HFI
Sunset in the jungle ... perfect picture to end with ♥
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