Week 20: “He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.” Matthew 10:39

I am certain we have always known this statement by Christ to be true but never  before in our married lives have we been freed from life’s burdens to focus exclusively on others. I remember this feeling from when I was a 19 and 20-year-old missionary in Berkeley and San Francisco, but from the day I was released in December, 1972, the daily necessities of getting an education, building a great marriage, having and raising children, nurturing a career, providing for my family
and serving in the church consumed all of our time.

It’s a wonderful blessing to be able to devote our time exclusively here in Central Java, Indonesia to thinking only about others. When we think about what it took to create the conditions where this is now possible we realize that it only happened with many years of planning and preparation. We have been blessed to have great children that are supportive and self-reliant. We had great employers that provided great experiences and wonderful church leaders that helped provide opportunities for us to develop and strengthen our faith.

This week we spent several days preparing a presentation for the young missionaries in Central Java on how to rescue a choking victim with critical life techniques we all need to know in the case of a life-threatening emergency. Neither Sister Miller or I are professionally trained in this field but we are good researchers, learners and willing teachers. We put together a fun workshop, taught it to the young missionaries and have been asked to do it again next week in Jakarta for another group in West Java.

This week we assisted in a discussion presented by another senior missionary couple for people interested in family history research. Documenting family history in Java is substantially complicated. Names have few standards. Many people do not have a last name and others take on the last names of other people they select for a variety of reasons. Like everywhere else, people love their families and making the effort to document family stories and a family tree “turns the hearts of the children to their fathers and the hearts of the fathers to the children”. We will continue in the coming months to find ways to support local members in this important work.

Teaching a new member and two investigators how to research their ancestors on "Family Search" the church's database of now billions of individual records

The highlight of the week was a two-day church stake conference for Central Java. Members from Semarang, Magelang, Yogyakarta and Surakarta all met at the Novotel Hotel Ballroom in the city of Solo. It is good to feel the strength of numbers. A choir of about thirty young men and women on tour from Brigham Young University came and gave a one-hour devotional prior to the beginning of the conference. This was exciting and wonderful for everyone to listen to the beautiful harmonies of well-trained voices. We heard speakers from our Stake including an area leader of the church from India who was assigned to speak at our conference. Along with the young missionaries, it was great to share this Sunday session of conference together with many, many friends and investigators.

A sister who lost her husband in an accident. Her son takes piano lessons from sister Miller

A wonderful three generation family 

The man on the right is the recent convert with the new leg and everyone to his left he has recently introduced to the church. Two of them hope to be baptized this month. 

This is Elder Williams, an area church leader from India that presided at our conference. He was a mission president's councilor to a man that was my first mission companion when we were both young missionaries serving in California in 1971. 

I had to include this week a picture for my good friend Greg Wahl. Every where we go we see Wahl clippers hanging from the countertops in shops. This picture is from in the small shop of a member in their home. Everyone loves Wahl Clippers in this country!

We are grateful for this special time in our lives that we can focus on learning to better minister to the needs of others. We love the Lord, our family, the people in Indonesia and all our friends.