High adventure

This mission is high adventure not because of the jungles that we spend time in but because of the things we have to do all by ourselves without having any experience.

Thursday was registration day for new English students. In the past we put up a sign in front of the church advertising the classes. This year, not wanting to turn anyone away, we only advertised on our Facebook page. We hoped to get a response close to the 80 classroom spaces we had.

When we showed up about a half hour before registration time we found a group of about 200 people assembled outside of the church.

We open the gates and let them all in. The numbers kept growing rapidly as the real registration time approached.

We had a staff of about 8 volunteers to help us register the people. We had two desks set up by the front entrance each desk staffed with two volunteers. The volunteers would interview the applicants to place them in the correct level of class.

It worked out fine for a while but the press of people kept pushing into the building and we had to keep encouraging people to back up to give us room to register. Once inside they would register and then exit through the back door. Unfortunately one of our staff had the idea of registering the intermediate and advanced level people through the back door. This cut out our exit. We then were able to find an exit out the back door of the building through a small gate.

All this was working fairly well until we quickly ran out of registration slots. Then the people at the front and the back door came flooding in the building hoping to get a registration spot. We did our best to announce that registration was over and everybody had to leave the building but people just stayed there. Fortunately it was a very civil group. There were no bad feelings or inappropriate behavior it was just that the building was completely full of people and the way out was only through a very small one person at a time gate at the back of the church.

As this was happening Cheryl and I looked at each other and wondered how could we have gotten ourselves into this. Here we were inside of our building surrounded by a crowd that ended up totaling over 500 people who just kept milling around. Fortunately, it turned out just fine. Eventually we got everyone out of the building. Then we were able to get everybody out of the church grounds and lock the gates. At about 5 we left the building forgetting that we announce that registration actually went to 6:30. I then started getting phone calls from the people who were waiting outside of a locked gate asking where we were. We felt bad about the whole thing.

In both of our registration days we filled up 180 slots. This gives us a class size of about 30 which through attrition will get down to about 20 average attendance class in a few weeks

We've decided that next registration, for new student enrollment, we will not put up the sign, we will not advertise on Facebook but we will only accept referrals from the existing students.

Fortunately nothing was taken in the church. The only thing that was damaged was one of the front outer doors that got pushed upon too hard when the crowd of people pressed up against it. The screws came out of the door jamb and the door fell off its hinges. It can easily be fixed.

This is part of our investigator family. It's a family of 7 and their only transportation is one motorcycle. In order to get to church he makes two trips and then still one or two of the family members have to take the local bus.

These are all but the two younger children from the family that is investigating the church. They are very wonderful, capable and a very spiritually mature family. They accept the gospel they believe it. The challenge has been that the two parents have already been baptized in another church and they do not feel the need to be baptized again. The other children have not been baptized so they have accepted baptismal challenges.

The missionaries from Indonesia have been teaching them via Skype. Lately the emphasis has been on encouraging them to pray for Heavenly guidance if they should be re-baptized. As we have been doing the last few weeks, we visited them in their home and brought the computer so the missionaries could teach. The parents announced that they have prayed and their prayers have been answered and that they would all be baptized.

The mother, Dominguez, is very spiritual and she says that she occasionally has dreams that are answers to prayers. This seems unusual in today's world where those things aren't talked about very much. However, they are quite normal and usual in recorded scriptures including the restoration of the church. In Her Dream she was told that she and her family should all be baptized.

So in 2 weeks they will all be baptized. The mission president will visit and do the baptismal interviews and after filling our font, that takes two days to fill with our water tank and water pump the baptism should take place.

We took this picture so the mission president would know how big the family is so that he can bring the appropriate baptismal clothes for them.

Also good news this week, our other investigator Janu said that he and his live-in fiance would get married in April. Both of them are very anxious to join the church right after that.

Our non proselyte mission has become very interesting.