Minggu 13 - Lake Toba and a Pada Remaja (Youth Activity)

Monday we had permission from the Mission President to take the missionaries to Lake Toba because they really had been working hard and had had 6 baptisms in the last 2 months.  We met at about 2am at the church (we picked the Sisters up) so they could get their reports sent in and then we left about 3am and drove to Lake Toba.  It is an island that was created by a volcano in the middle of the Lake.  It is also the center for the Batak culture.  The drive took about 31/2 hours.  When we finally found where the ferry was we parked and then had to wait until the ferry came.

 The Elders getting ready for Christmas.  Elder Sutadiyono was pretty cold.  I thought it was wonderful.  It was so nice not to be sweating all the time.

The view from right where the ferry will be landing.  It was really beautiful.

This is our ferry. It docks right at this dirty place.  The cars and trucks get backed on so they can get off going forward.  The pack them on.  You can barely get between the cars and trucks. 

The ferry ride is about an hour long.  When we got off the ferry we went and found an out door museum and also went shopping.  Open stores lined the road ways. 

 We are sitting in a circle of statues.

 Sister Jibson and Elder Sutadiyono learning a traditional dance.



The Elders and Sisters along with Brother Manalu, our driver.



We then went to find another site with traditional houses and such.  It is where a king lived.

 These are the type of houses they lived in and people still live in these types of houses today.

 There is special meaning in the number of stairs the have leading to their homes.  Usually between 4 and 6 to say how many children they would like.  The small doors are so visitors have to bow down to the people who live there.

 This is where the Raja (king) lived.

A weaving loom in one of the houses.



These are some of the cloths that a woven.  They are the ones that go over the shoulder.

We then went to the top of a mountain and you could see lots of the Island from it.

 

 Some of the view from near the top of the mountain.  Those are ric padi's below.

 

Water buffalo at the top of the mountain

As we were getting ready to leave on the ferry these young boys kept asking for money to dive for.  As we drove home we saw lots of monkeys.  These came really close to the window of the car.  One sure looks like he has been in a few fights.  Because we hit lots of traffic it took us 5 1/2 hours to get home.

On Tuesday we spent some time at home doing some of the things we would have done on Monday, like laundry.  We then returned our rental car and spent the rest of the afternoon at the church. 

Wednesday we went to the Kantor Pos (post office).  An experience in it self.  You can't just buy stamps places, you have to go to the post office and get just what you need.  We went to Ace and Elder Tucker got some things so he could fix the sound system at church.  We then went to church.  Elder Tucker worked on the sound system and I ended up helping President Ronald make some food for the Youth Activity that night.  We stayed for the Activity and it was great.  It was about preparing for missions.  We had all the missionaries there, plus the Sister Trainers who were visiting.

 The youth played a game where they had to guess what word or words were being held over their heads.  They were timed.  They had fun with it.

 This is the food that they were given.  Elder got the recipe for the drink.  We will have to change it some at home as we don't have all the ingredients in the states.  Of course rice was the main part with the other put on top.

 

Sister Baunger (from Utah) was one of the Sister Trainers visiting.  She goes home in about 10 days.  In the center are Tinggi and Agus who are the young men with their mission papers almost ready to be sent in.

On Thursday, we met with our tutor and the sisters and sister trainers flew to Jakarta.  Sister Jibson is becoming a trainer and was picking up her new trainee fresh from the MTC in the Philippines.  We spent most of the day at the church.

On Friday we met with a study buddy and then went to the church for DDM (district meeting).  After that and our standard lunch on fridays we went with Elders Barrus and Sutadiyono to teach Jonathan, a member and his non member little brother.  We also stopped and visited a member who had joined the church in Australia and had come home when done with school.  Talked to him about coming to church.  We also visited a member who is here going to school and will be going home for a month for the holiday's.

Saturday we met the new Sister, Sister Hasibuan from the Jakarta stake.  We went with the Sisters to find a sister who's records had just been sent to the branch from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  She is from Medan.  She was not home but we got her phone number.  We then taught our English class and then went grocery shopping and went home.  Today we went to church.  Because we can't take anyone but missionaries in our car our driver brought his ankot with his children and we went to church in that.