On Monday we took our P-day and had the Elders and Sisters over for breakfast so that Elder Costner could call home for Mothers day. I was able to talk to my mother and all of our kids and grandkids today or else yesterday or last week. It was wonderful. Miss them so much. We also studied, cleaned, relaxed and ate.
Tuesday we spent the day at the church where we cleaned a little, Elder did some computer work as we had a family move from Semarang Branch and it looked good initially, but based on what he saw in the records, he is guessing they are inactive and their residence is about a two hour drive to the east, over on the coast. The power went out at about 4. We stayed at the building just in case someone stopped by, but finally at about 6 it was getting warmer than either of us cared for, and Elder didn't want to set up the generator, so we headed for home. We thought we would walk to the Sun Plaza, and see if they had a book I could read in Indonesian and have a copy in English also to help learn the language. Just as we were walking over the river outside our apartment, I asked about it maybe starting to rain, and Elder didn't think much about it, as he didn't think it really looked like rain when he looked out while we were in the apartment. Not more than 10 seconds passed and we felt a few drops, then within 30 seconds, the sky opened up and poured rain on us. Fortunately a becak stopped just in front of us so we paid for a ride to the mall. The book I got to read was "The Lightning Thief", thought you would like to hear that Brody. While we were at the mall we also got a pizza at Pizza Hut for dinner. Walked to the front of the mall to leave stepped outside and it was still pouring, so decided to catch a cab and head for home.
Wednesday Elder had Presidency meeting with Pres. Rico at noon, then Elder Tucker and I went with the Sisters who had scheduled 5 appointments out in the Mandala area. First with Cindy & Chaterine Hutapea, who were not home, (I think they went to church to attend Seminary Class) so we taught their parents and older sister. We then went to see Sister Ezra, she also was not home. Visited with a fairly new investigator, Tiraimin. We had a very good discussion covering about the 1st third of the plan of salvation discussion. She had a lot of well thought out questions, which the sisters, (for whatever reason) wanted me to be the one to answer. We then headed to Nuramauali who is the sister to Tiraimin from the previous appointment, on the way there the sisters asked what Elder thought they should do with her as an investigator, I suggested that if she is still unwilling to do any of the things they ask during the week between visits, I would think it appropriate to let her know that they cannot continue to visit and teach until she starts keeping some of her commitments, because it was just occupying their time and not the best use of it. Well today she said she didn't have time to meet, because she was busy and had a lot of work to complete, but that she had completed her assignment for the week. The last thing we did was teach Ririn (Bro. Manalu's daughter) and her friend who has been coming to church with her the past two or three weeks. He does live in quite humble circumstances, as Elder understands, it is a house he put together a few feet back from the train tracks, there were 8 of us in the room, and sitting on the floor we occupied most of the empty space, it looks like there are three small loft type areas for the kids to sleep in, and he and his wife get the floor below. But because it is an illegal residence, they don't pay any thing for it, and theirs is just one of the many that line the tracks.
Thursday, Went out to visit with the Mendrofa's and deliver their letter to them. Elder Tucker and I went without taking the young missionaries as support. We thought we might just drop the letter off and leave so they could read it, the whole family was home so we ended up going in and visiting for a while. Surprisingly we were able to communicate on a few different subjects in Indonesian, without having the young missionaries for support. Late that afternoon we took Elder Davies and Suwarsid (who were on splits) to a scheduled appointment to visit with Bro. Simanjuntak. We got there and found no one home, or at least no one was answering the door. So we waited at the door for a while but finally gave up and went back to the car. As we were setting in the car, his neighbor, (she is Bro. Simanjuntak's sister-in-law I believe) rode by on a motorbike and waved to get our attention, so we had the Elders go visit with her and see what she knew. She told us that Bro. Simanjuntak was headed home, and would be their shortly, so we waited to see if he was going to come. He did so we visited and the Elders shared a brief message they had prepared and turned the remainder of the time to me. Concluded our visit with him and his second son, who usually joins us when we come by. Bro Simanjuntak's older brother from Bekasi (suburb of Jakarta) was also there (in town for the funeral the previous week) and listened to what we had to say. The Elders then concluded the visit, prayed and were ready to go, so I thought I had waited long enough and asked his brother if he knew anything about our church, to which he responded "No, what's the name of your church?" So with that we were able to move into a discussion about some of the church's teachings and share a copy of the BOM with him. He lives in the same area where Elder Costner is being transferred to next week, but he may live an hour drive away from the church, that may sound like a long distance but in Jakarta that is not necessarily true, it took us about an hour to travel a few kilometers to our hotel in a little heavier than normal traffic. After we got to the car the Elders and I had a discussion about not missing opportunities to see if someone is interested in learning about the gospel.
Friday we met with our tutor for about 45 min., then we picked up Elders Costner and Davies to go to University of St. Thomas (a Catholic University) to be guests at an English class. Our assignment was to spend the class period responding, in English, to questions from class members. And of course the many photos that needed to be taken before and after the class. They love taking pictures here and what are called selfies. They are always doing that. When we left, the girls who had invited us (students in our english class) gave us two small cakes and me an Ulos, which is a traditional Batak cloth that is draped over the shoulder or shoulders during ceremonies, ie: weddings, funerals. They also tried to give us money but we said we did not need money and we were glad to help them. We then headed to the church for our weekly DDM, followed by lunch at about 2:00 and the cakes. That evening Sister Tucker and I went to the Medan Fair Mall to see if we could get a desk chair and bookshelves for the Sisters apartment. We also stopped at the DVD store that the missionaries kept telling us they liked to get a TV Program series in English with Indonesian subtitles. We ended up getting 3 seasons of "Eureka" so we could watch as occasion allows. As we entered the store the two employees said hello to us and said we must be Elder Costner's friends. So I ended up visiting with them and a married couple, who were also looking for some DVD's, about the church. Ended up getting the couples contact information so the Elders can schedule an appointment to visit and teach them, and also provided contact information to another customer who joined in the conversation. We stopped at an electronics store and purchased a portable power source to charge phones or other electronic devices that need power. Then got the chair and bookshelves and headed for home and dinner.
In the class room. Some of the students, waiting for class to begin.
They all wanted their pictures taken with us. Elder Davies was the hit though. Some of the girls almost swooned when he was introduced. It was quite funny. He was so uncomfortable. He had most of his pictures taken with his hands up because they wanted to hold his hands or hang on him.
Coming back from finding a bathroom. Anywhere we go they give you at least water to drink if not soda or juice. Getting better at waiting when at all possible.
The girls who invited us to come to their class. 5 of them come to our English class, also. It is a pretty large campus.
On saturday we spent a couple of hours helping the Relief Society sisters clean the church, then Elder moved tables and set up the class room for me to be able to teach my English class today. I spent some time going over some files that Sis. Imelda asked me to review. They were assessments from here school she has to do in English. I had spent most of my spare time this week working on the new English lessons and getting ready for Primary. Elder had a 2 hour meeting scheduled with the Seminary & Institute Director for Indonesia, so he could do In-service training with our two teachers here. So I was completely on my own for English today. The two English speaking Elders taught a beginning class to about 5 or 6 students, and I had about 18 in my class including the 2 Indonesian Elders. It went quite well. I think they liked playing go fish the best once they learned and got the hang of how to play. The basic instruction in the In-service lesson was on the pride cycle in the BOM, Elder is not sure if Sister Imelda (who had to teach a 15 minute lesson as part of the instruction) intended to try and get a message through to a brother who was to be in attendance and is struggling with that issue or not, but it was a well timed message. Bro. Paul Simanungkalit continued the theme using 4th Nephi for his source. We then closed up the building and headed home for the night. So for a week that was fairly slow in getting started, after Tuesday we were able to make some meaningful contacts and spend our time in more than preparation for teaching opportunities we have coming up. After we got home Elder had to focus on the language he was going to have to use to conduct Sacrament meeting tomorrow and I went over final preperations for Primary and typed and printed the Sacrement meeting program.
Sunday we took a taxi to and from church. Our numbers seem to be struggling these past few weeks. We are back down in the 40's for attendence. We have lost some of our newly baptized members who have had to go back to their villages. We are trying to stay in contact with them through facebook and texting. Giving them encouragement and suggestions. We had no children show up today so I met with the primary people for a few minutes and told the new music person I would show her some ways to teach the songs next week and gave her her own music book. I also showed her the app she could download to hear what the songs sound like. Our Primary room has no keyboard or anything. They have never taught the kids songs before. They just pass out books to everyone. Anyway we were all able to go to sunday school and Relief Society. We hung out after church for a while and visited with some of the youth. We talked about how important it is to get an education. We then went home and relaxed. We were out of bread and hadn't made it to the bakery so I decided to make some. It came out pretty good but the knives we have kind of cut it. We watched some BYUtv global that I can get on my computer. Hope everyone has a great week. We love you all.
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