My Week:
For whatever reason this week seemed to be a mix of frustrating and funny. Let me explain:
As a missionary making daily contact with each person being taught is crucial, especially in a place like Tangerang where many people have irregular work schedules. This week there were multiple days that despite our best efforts, daily contact could not be established with the people my
companionship is teaching. Resulting was a decreased number in lessons, and poor follow up with people who are in the process of making big changes in their lives.
At one point I was so frustrated that I asked my companion “Why do these people even have phones (plural because in Indonesia it is common for one person to have more than one phone) if they don’t ever answer them?” Elder Suranto and I kept giving our best efforts and making the best of the
situation.
Aside from being a bit frustrating, this week has also been funny. At the end of a lesson someone asked to take a photo with me. While Elder Suranto was taking the picture this person kept shouting “You have no skill. The picture doesn’t look good. Take another picture.” Not sure why this guy was so serious about having his picture taken with me, but it was really hard to keep a straight face while he was yelling nonsense.
While teaching English Class, I came to the realization that while most of the students could understand what I was speaking in English, they had no idea how to spell. In the spur of the moment I turned English Class into a spelling bee, grabbed a dictionary, and made the students write down
words as I spelled them out. What happened was a fun game where the word “gravitate” was spelled “jreiteti.”
Yesterday in Sacrament Meeting a new member gave a talk. What was supposed to be a five minute talk turned into a fifteen minute talk as this new member, who is 17 years old, told of how he spent 8 hours in a single day playing a video game and that he promises the ward that he won’t play video
games again. Then he started talking about a dream he had, a natural disaster, more about his video games, and on again. A good half of the congregation was keeping down laughter during the talk.
My Week:
It has been a week since General Conference, and I am learning more and more from the messages presented. I invite everyone to continue to study the recent words of the modern prophets and learn from them. I know that God has spoken to us, and that he continues to speak to us through President Nelson.
Elder Allen
