Elder Bednar's Visit

Halo Keluargaku,

Well, Elder Bednar's visit was absolutely awesome! You were right, he came here right after organizing the first Stake in Indonesia, which in and of itself would be really awesome, but the talk that he gave us was absolutely awesome too!

The meeting was with Elder Bednar, Elder Pratt (of our area presidency), President Clark and all of their wives as well as all of the missionaries from West Malaysia, Singapore and Sabah. So all and all I'd say that there was about 100 people there, which made the meeting feel pretty small and intimate. It was awesome to see how Elder Bednar taught. He's a master at the art for sure! The whole session though basically just revolved around Elder Bednar asking us questions, and then us asking him questions! He taught us all about the pattern of teaching people by the Spirit and using questions inspired by the Holy Ghost by demonstrating it by example right there in the meeting. It was awesome! Other highlights included an apostolic promise that someday in the future we'll be able to look at the church in Malaysia and see that we were "laying the foundation of a great work" and that in the future the church is going to be a *lot* bigger here. He gave some great marriage advice, saying that we should "look for a woman who will reverence her womanhood" and who understands her role in the plan of salvation, and also taught us all about how to end a mission right. And all of that on top of teaching us what he actually came to teach us about teaching by the Spirit and helping people be agents for themselves in learning. It was a spiritual feast for sure!

So that was *awesome*, but this last week we had not only that, but also a great experience with meeting a Chinese family as we were out door contacting who is absolutely awesome. Again, it was one of those times that we were really surprised to be immediately invited into the house to share our message even though it looked like they were just about to head out. Well, we shared our message and I'm not sure entirely how much of it they understood, but at the end of the lesson they told us that they'd be praying as a family not more than five minutes before we came about a health struggle their father is going through and they really felt like we'd be sent there at just that moment as an answer to their prayers and as a comfort. It was awesome, and the best part is that they came to church this last Sunday. So, we're going to keep working with them for sure. Apparently the husband is going to Indonesia for about a month this week though, so that we'll be a struggle, but we definitely have a great start on good things happening with this family.

So in short, it's been an awesome week! We've received a lot of blessings from the Lord and I think that this is only the beginning for this area. Missionary work is more fun than ever. I was comforted to hear Elder Bednar tell us at the conference that we should basically be more lost about how to do missionary work on our last day in the field than we were on the first day (emphasizing that we just can't do this work on our own), which was a big comfort because sometimes that's a lot how I feel. But it's a blast, and I'm loving it!

I'm so grateful to be a member of this church. I know that it's true now more than ever. It was so powerful to get to hear Sister Bednar bear her personal testimony that her husband really was who he claimed to be. You know that she knows him better than anyone, and it was so cool to see how powerful her witness was. I love the church and I love the chance I have to come and share it with everyone else!

Thanks so much for your support. I'm so glad to hear that everything is going so well at home! I love you all so much!

Love you!

Elder Blissett