Minggu 42

This week we were a little busier.  We have started trying to go to the pool for me and the exercise bike for Elder 3 times a week.  So this week we went on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.  On Tuesday we went to the Elders house and I did an inspection and Elder fixed one of the beds.  The slats keep falling out so the Elder in that bed had to try not to move at night or he would fall through.  Then we spent the rest of the day at the church.
We went with the Elders on Wednesday to deliver a letter to the Mendrofa family from Elder Mendrofa who is serving in Bogor from our branch.  His family doesn't have access to email so he sents his letters to us and we see that they get delivered.  He returns home in August.  We had a very good visit with his mom, dad and younger brother.  We then left to deliver a letter to Jese who was going home to the village for a few weeks as he has a break in school.  The letter is for permission for him to be baptized.  We just made it with about 2 minutes to spare as he was on the street waiting for the angkot to take him to the bus station.  It was very much a miracle that we got there in time and actually saw them.  We then went back to the church to wait for Sister Zabriskie and Sister Sheffield (one of the Sister Trainers) to go visit a referral.  When we go to her house we were told she was not home.  We have been before but have not made contact yet.  So we called Sister Believe and Sister Allred to see if they were done with their appointments.  They were so we met them for dinner.  We have wonderful Missionaries in our mission.

 Out to dinner with the Sisters and the Sister Trainers and also Mei who is almost ready to turn her mission papers in.  Sister Zabriskie, Utah, Sister Believe, Manado, Sister Sheffield, Utah, Mei, Medan, Sister Allred, Utah and Me.

Thursday we went and bought a new bed frame for the Elders apartment.  The one that Elder had to try and fix months ago finally broke again.  Poor Elder Headrick kept having the whole frame collapse on him at night.  Doesn't make for a very restful sleep.  We then went to the church to wait for the Sisters who needed to use my computer to finish something in the missionary portal for her training.  They didn't show and finally texted that they wouldn't make it so we decided to leave and go to Brastagi (the grocery store we go to) and do our weekly shopping.
Friday was DDM and lunch.  After we went with Elder Headrick and Elder Suwarsid to meet with a family, the Hutepea's,  who were having some problems.  Four out of the five kids are members and the youngest is taking lessons.  The parents just split up and it has been rough.  The parents are not members.  The mother and the 2 youngest are staying with some of her family about an hour, hour and a half away.  The two older daughters were visiting and the decided to visit a shaman(or that type of person) and he told the one girl that she had lots of ghosts in her and she was possessed.  They called the Elders about it and so we all went out to see what needed to be done. They are very superstious here and truely believe in ghosts.  As far as we could tell she really was fine so the Elders gave her a blessing and spent some time talking to her.  We think she has been really stressed and that has been manifest in some of the things that this guy told her, like not sleeping well, etc.  With her parents splitting up and just graduating from high school and here they have big tests they have to take after graduation if you want to go to college and get any kind of government help to see what you qualify for.  Most can't afford it if they don't get help.  Who wouldn't be a little stressed.  Elder Headrick is giving her information from our stress books for her to use to try and relax some.  We then dropped the Elders off at their next appointment and we went to the church so the other Elders could use my computer since we haven't yet felt ready to leave the new TV at the church yet.  They showed the restoration video to an investigator named Steven.  He has a baptismal date of 27 July.  After the lesson we headed home.

Our driver coming back from fishing while we were visiting the Hutapea family.  You can tell we are out aways from the city.

Saturday we went to the church and I did some cleaning and Elder Tucker worked on getting the steps to the Baptismal font painted and ready to use on the 6th of July.  We had English with about 12 students.  It went pretty good.  One of our Muslim students brought us these little hard wafer like things that she said you fry and sprinkle with salt or other seasonings.  I think she makes them at home.  There are lots of home businesses here.  When you fry them they kind of puff up some and expand a little.  They are pretty good for a snack.  Kind of like munching on chips.  She said they are sweet potato.  After English we met with Ali and Masi with the Elders.  The Elders struggle some to teach in English and they struggle to understand it all but it is the only semi common language there is.  Ali would like to be baptised.  Hopefully everything else will fall into place so that He eventually can.  They try to come to church every week.  We then tried to visit at Ibu Merry's and Toyo and Roni's house.  They were not there and we found out they were having family problems between the three of them.  Hopefully they can be resolved soon.  We took Elder Headrick and Elder Suwarsid out to dinner since there was not enough time to come up with another appointment.
Sunday Elder Tucker taught the 5th Sunday combined meeting with everyone except the primary.  We also had Joyce and kevin Herefa come to church by them selves by angkot.  Kevin is taking to lessons and said he wants to be baptised.  We just have to get them to keep coming for awhile before that and get them committed to keep coming.  Mom and Dad are not committed to do that yet themselves.  Stanley and Cindi Hutapea also came from where their mom and they are now staying.  So glad they made that effort.  We would love to get mom to come also.  She is much more open and receptive now that she is away from her husband.  I just hurt for so many of these people and what they have to deal with just to survive.  They are so wonderful.
We had the missionaries over for dinner.  We did Eggplant parmesean.  Eggplant is found easily here.  I also made rolls and we had fresh green beans.  They have lots of green beans here.  I also found some Philidelpia cream cheese that I bought and used the chocolate pudding that Dani sent and made that layered dessert.  I don't have a hand blender and they don't have cool whip so I found whipping cream and beat it in the regular blender.  It worked quite well and quickly also. The none Indonesian missionaries really appreciate having these kinds of meals once in a while.  Rice and noodles can get old if eaten everyday and it gives their stomachs a break from the hot, spicy food.
Tonight two of our Senior missionary couples went home.  The Lisks and the Williams.  The Lisks were our office couple and they are not being replaced any time soon.  We are down to 5 couples in the mission and the Mission President and his wife.  Three of us are doing Member support although only two were called to that.  The others are Humanitarian/Welfare and a native couple who is doing PEF which is what we were called to do.  We have many branches that could use the help and training.  We do have a couple coming in for a year next month to do Family History.  We need couples so badly.  About a year and a half ago they had at least 9 couples.  Please think about it and pray about serving.  It is so rewarding and such a wonderful experience.  We need seniors so badly all over the world.  We love you all.

Minggu 41

Well it was a really slow week.  Elder went to the church monday for about 5 hours while workers were there trying to make parts of the building more secure after we were robbed a while ago and they fixed the two places in the ceiling where the robbers went through it to get to the locked office.  I did my normal monday things like washing and some cleaning and then I made three loaves of banana bread and about a dozen muffins.  Most of the time at the places we shop they only have big bunches of bananas that are already priced so that is what you get and it is hard for us to go through all of them before they start going bad.  I ended up taking on loaf to District meeting on Friday.
We bought a new book shelf for the Elders house.  The one we are replacing is leaning sideways and they use a bottle to make it stay more upright.  Elder went over to their house on Wednesday to put it up and on his way home he stopped and got a haircut.
I spent most of the week working on my talk for Sacrament Meeting that I gave today.  It was based on a conference talk so that helped and then I had our tutor on our last week help with the translation of the parts of the talk that were not quotes.  Since it was in Indonesian I pretty much just read it.  I think it went ok.  I also spent time working on things for English class and Primary.  I never know if or how many children there will be or if we will have our two that don't speak indonesian and just a little English.  Also I never know if the Sisters who have been called to help will show up or not.
After District meeting on Friday we ate lunch of course and then we did things at the church and then we were supposed to go with the Sisters to meet with a referral who they have been trying to see.  They have spoken to her sons but she works and wasn't home during the day.  We didn't have an appointment but were just going to drop by.  While we were waiting at the church for them a member (about 24yrs) dropped by with a friend from work to meet the missionaries.  We visited with them for a while.  The friend spoke pretty good English.  She asked about us so we showed her where we live in Arizona on the computer and also some pictures of our family.  The people love to look at pictures of our family in America (and Canada). So when the Sisters showed up we decided to stay and talk to this gal since she was here and willing and we didn't even know if the other person would be home.  So we basically got to know about her and then the Sisters taught her about the restoration and the Book of Mormon.  She committed to read and pray.  She couldn't come to church today because she had to work but hopefully next time.
Saturday we met with Ali and his family before English.  They are learning but it is slow and hard for them to understand everything because they are being taught in English because they don't know Indonesian and we don't know Persian.  The wife is muslim but has lots of questions and is the one who speaks the best English.  Ali wants to be baptized but we have to wait for government things to happen first.  They have become good friends and want to keep in touch after they finally get to go to another country.  We then had English and then went grocery shopping since we were out of almost everything and we wouldn't have another chance until Tuesday.
Our numbers were really low today in Sacrament meeting.  We were at about 46.  That is not good. We will have to keep working to get them to come.  There is a flu type thing going around and I know of at least 6 who weren't there because of that so hopefully next week will be better.
Our daughter Erin and family are moving back to Arizona this weekend.  Thank you to our two sons who were able to fly to Houston and help them drive to Arizona and Thank you to our son and his family who were willing to come live in our house for about a year.  I am glad you made it back to Canada safely.  I have wonderful children and children-in-law and of course the grandchildren.  I have truely been blessed by them all.  I love you all so very much.
Of course I can't forget my parents and parents-in-law and all of our siblings and siblings-in-law.  I appreciate all of your love and support.  Thank you and I love you all also.

Minngu 40

Monday Elder Tucker took the young missionaries to Bukit Lewan or as I like to call it the Orangatang Jungle.  I did not go as last time I was in lots of pain by the end with my bad back. They were able to get one of the same guides we had before.  I stayed home and did laundry, etc. and enjoyed some quiet time.  When Elder Tucker got home we went to the resturant next to our apartment.

 Everyone in the jungle

 Our missionaries are awesome.  Even in the jungle our missionaries take time out to talk about the gospel and share pass along cards with those they meet.  With our fearless District leader leading the way.

Elder Tucker decided to climb this tree part way.  It is growing on the side of a mountain so if you went to the top you could see almost forever.  It is very tall as you can imagine from the size of the trunk.

The rest of the week was pretty normal.  Wednesday we let Sister Zabriskie us my computer at the church to work on one of the assignments on family history, for new missionaries.  We then went out with the Sisters to a couple of appointments.  Some of them were not home so we didn't have as many as we had planned.

Thursday Elder had Presidency meeting at President Rico's fathers office which is next door to his and his wife's dental office.  I waited in another room while the met.  We then went to the church for a little while.  I am speaking in Church on the 22nd so I have been working on that.  I emailed our tutor with a few paragraphs that I had translated myself and using google translate.  When we met for our last meeting on friday he helped me with them.  We will see how it goes next week. After District meeting on friday and lunch we went with out with the Sisters to see if a member was still in town.  She has been telling us for months that she is going back to Malaysia to work.  Her father said she was in Malaysia but she was moving home next month to work here.  We will check again next month.

Saturday we stopped by Pres. Rico's office to pick up the CPU that the church offices in Jakarta sent us to replace the one that was stolen.  We were really hoping for a laptop that we could just remove from the building each week but oh well.  He had also bought a new monitor, TV and projector to replace the ones stolen.  We have not left the TV or projector at the church yet, until we can make it more secure.  We then had English class.  We are using a new 16 week program that Sister Gong in Hong Kong put together.  It has been hard because it is written for intermediate level English speakers and here the commitment level to come every week is not always high.  We do have about 10 who are there most of the time.  But we do get new students just about every week.  If they all showed up we would have about 33 students and that is way to many.  We are learning from this and will make some changes next class.  After class we met with Ali and his family and one set of Elders.  Ali's wife had been told about a month and a half ago that she had cancer.  They were really upset about this as we met one day for a lesson.  They talked to Pres. Rico and he told them to get a second opinion.  I have been told here that you should always get a second opinion.  So I hadn't heard much else about it but I had heard she had started treatments.  So, anyway when they came to class today they just blurted out that the cancer was gone and it was a miracle and it helped because we had been praying for them and we were such great friends for listening to them and praying for them.  We are so happy for them.  We finally got English Books of Mormon for them and a waiting for a Persian Book of Mormon to come.  It will help with their understanding of what is being taught.  They were so happy that today they brought these cookie type things filled with dates to church for everyone after church.  They gave Elder Tucker and I our own little container of them to take home.  They were very good.

When we got home Saturday night we skyped with our granddaughter Shelby as it was her 8th birthday and she was being baptized that morning.  12 hour time difference. We are happy for our grand children that have made the decision to be baptized.  We love our family so much.

Shelby with the scriptures we gave her for her baptism and in the dress I made before we left from parts of Erin's wedding dress for all of her girls to wear on their baptism day.

Happy Fathers day to all of the wonderful fathers out there.

Minggu 39

On Tuesday we picked up the Sisters to help them locate the address for a referral they had received. We discovered the name to the street they were looking for and looked it up in the map book, there were three streets with the same name, but were able to figure out the correct one, but it took a long time to actually locate it.   Once we found it we spent about an hour visiting with the two adult sons of the person they had received as a referral.  It was a pleasant visit, left some literature on the family and the Plan of Salvation, also made arrangements to contact them again, when their mother was home.  Dropped the sisters off so they could meet up with Mei Naingollan and teach a young lady.   That evening we went to see about purchasing a new Tablet (ended up getting the same one that Elder had lost on Saturday.  Wednesday we met with the Language training administrator assigned to us, and had our final meeting with him, and shared our thoughts about the program and possible changes or improvements they might make.  We were asked.   Elder met with Pres Rico for Presidency Meeting, then we went to Jalan Aisa to look for a new keyboard for the building.  We had Brother Manalu go into the stores to check pricing so we wouldn't get the Buleh price. None of the shops had the unit we were looking for, in fact the last store we checked told us it was not available anywhere on Sumatra.  That evening Elder called Bishop Agus, who told us we could buy any one of several units available.Thursday on our way to the church we stopped and bought a keyboard piano. When the Elders showed up at the Church for a teaching appointment we had them move the keyboard into the church.  We met with Novita to help her get her LDS account working again, then helped do a little family history with her.  Ali Reza and family came by to visit with a couple of the Elders, but as they were not there we visited for about an hour until the Elders were there and had finished getting some information printed off upstairs on the computer.  Visited with the Harefa's, had a good visit, and also got Elder Sutarno and Davies introduced to the Surumaha, and Nidianus Harefa families.  The Elders are planning to try and teach in both the Harefa and Surumaha homes.  At about 8:30, on our way home that night we were going to stop and get some dinner, but got a text asking if we could stop by the hospital to visit Sister Desni whose condition has taken a turn for the worse, she was back in ICU again.  Because she was in ICU we only sent up the Elders to go visit, and give her a blessing.  The Elders did not think she would be alive more than another day. On Friday early morning we recieved some text messages informing us that Sister Desni had died at 4 AM.  We  attended DDM for about an hour, then Elder went with President Rico to visit the family of Sister Desni.  It took them a while to figure out where the family was, as there was no one at the one location we knew about.  Got back to the church about 3, just in time for DDM to have finished, they went for quite a long time in their meeting.  We then assembled the piano.  This evening we went to Brastagi to do a little shopping. We needed bread just in case for Sacrament on Sunday. 

The funeral for Sister Desni is scheduled for today, Saturday.  We finally showed up at the families' home for the funeral, we visited for a while, then after the family had finished meeting, and had the body placed in the coffin, we went into the home and were able to address the assembled family and shared what messages and words of comfort we could.  At this funeral of the 6 people in our group Elder and 2 of the young missionaries were asked to speak, this time Elder did manage to share his thoughts in Indonesian.  We then took the young missionaries and dropped them off at the church, then Elder Tucker and I headed to the Grand Asten Hotel to see President and Sister Donald.  As we were traveling there we got a text redirecting us to Pres. Rico and Sister Emma's dental office as Sister Donald decided to have some dental work done while they were here.   So while she waited to see Emma, we visited in the lobby of the office.  I am going to have Emma do a dental cleaning for me in the near future.  Later we left Sister Donald at the office and took President to their hotel, and Elder Tucker and I went to the church to get set up for English & a disciplinary council.  I left to go spend time with Sister Donald and President Donald and Elder finished up about 7, and met up with us and we had dinner together in the Hotel Restaurant.  It was really nice to just visit with another woman who speaks your language and just hang out.  We don't get that here often because we are out by our selves and don't get visited very often. Then we called it a day and went home and got ready for church.

Today we had only 2 children in Primary and they did not speak Indonesian at all or English very well.  They are the kids of Ali and Mesi that the Elders are teaching.  Pres. Rico took President and Sister Donald to the train station so they could take it to the airport so we got a taxi home.  A fairly quiet evening sending emails to the branch missionaries and working on this, etc.

This was taken today after church.  Elder Tucker was upstairs doing tithing.  President and Sister Donald (Australia), Elder Davies (England),  Elder Headrick (Ohio) and our new district leader, seems like a very on the ball, hard worker, Elder Sutarno (Solo), Elder Suwarsid (Bakasi), Sister Believe (Manado), Elder teases her about being short, myself and Sister Zabriskie (St. George, Utah) and only been in country about three weeks.  She is doing really well with her language.

Minggu 38

On Monday Elder got an email from Pres Donald informing him that he will be coming to Medan the 7th & 8th of June, and if Elder would take care of scheduling a disciplinary council.  So he had to figure out the language for the invitation.  He thought it was going to be easy until he discovered that his "LDS.org" password expired Sunday night so he din't have access to the Indonesian language handbook.  And it was Tuesday night before he could talk to anyone there as Monday was a holiday.  Our passwords expire every six months now because as PEF missionaries (even if we are not doing the PEF work) we are considered non paid church employees, and because we don't access the church employee email we have we never see the notice that it is going to expire, but at least we were able to catch my password before it expired.  Elder asked the Branch Pres. to take a photo of the section of the handbook he needed. He should have it by morning.

Tuesday we did an inspection at the Elders house, it actually looked better than it ever has, they have even made progress in getting a window repaired that the owner claims was broken by elders playing ball in the house, the only problem we have with that is that there are bars on the inside of the windows and there is no way they could have broken it that way, but we will go ahead and take care of the repair, it is a big window, about 3 feet by 6 or 7 feet high, but they don't use safety glass, it shouldn't be very expensive.  One of the Elders kept saying he didn't think it was fair that we were going to repair it, because he knows Elders couldn't have broken the window, and it was broken before he got here.  It has probably been broken for years, but we have no way to know how it was broken, he was okay with it getting repaired after we told him that we didn't expect him to help pay for the repair. Elder Davies and Elder worked on translating from Indonesian to English the Family Proclamation, as that is what we were going to visit about with Ajai, his mother and younger sister at their new address, so we read and discussed the proclamation with them. 

On Wednesday  Bro Manalu was asked to come get us at 10:45, but he didn't get here until about 15 after, (15 minutes late is normal) he was working this morning and the police pulled over for something and because he wasn't wearing a helmet and didn't have the vehicle registration with him they confiscated his becak, apparently he found one of the few officers in town who wouldn't accept a Rp 50,000 bribe then and there, so I gave him an advance on his pay of Rp 300,000, he said it was going to cost Rp 350,000.  After dropping us off at the church he went to the police station to try and get his becak, because Thursday was a holiday, after several hours he returned and said that he would have to go tomorrow the get it, we never found out why he was unable to get it today.  Elder had Presidency meeting with Pres. Rico today.  At 5:40 we headed to the Airport to pick up the sisters who were scheduled to arrive at 7:35 pm, it's a good thing we left early it took us a long time to get off the toll road, because there was a long line of traffic there. we managed to get there about 5 minutes before they were scheduled to be there.  The arrival board listed them arriving at about 8, so Elder Tucker and I went to the A&W to get something to eat.  Airports here are just like home, costs more that elsewhere. Rp 96,000 vs Rp 133,000 at the airport.  We finally saw the Sisters waiting for their luggage at 9 and we got them home by 10, then we headed home.

Thursday - with the recent break in we have been asked to make the building more secure. The door gate only took a half hour to get so it was easier to slide, as Elder had worked on it months ago, its problem is the locking device is not functional.  The gate for the window took several hours worth of work but finally got it to close, it also will need some additional work to get it to lock.  In mid afternoon we walked down the street to the home of Harto Simanjuntak (cousin of Augus) to celebrate his recent High School Graduation.  Sari, who used to attend English class was there so  wehad a nice little visit.  As we were walking home Elder noticed a man doing some welding at the Wesley House (hotel), and managed a conversation with him, that ended up with a schedule for him to come down to the church and see what he needed worked on.  When we got to the church we sent Bro. Manalu to go visit also, and to get himself something to eat while he was there.  The welder showed up a little after six, gave Elder a price (Rp 300,000) and we scheduled his return for 2 or 3 tomorrow.  Finished up at the building and headed for home.

On Friday we had DDM meeting and it was Elders turn to teach out of the Missionary Stress book, so we talked about relaxation techniques, the same information it cost him to get for a $100 Dr. visit.  Had Padang for lunch. The missionaries coming to Medan all want to have Padang here.  Elder Tucker and I don't care for it all that much, so we don't have them put the Padang spice on our rice, although Elder does have his chicken marinated and grilled with it, and he enjoys that but it is a little spicy for me.  At a little after 3 the welder arrived to go to work on the gate.  We are sure he would never get his procedures approved by OHSAS.  He did a much better job than had been done previously, Elder doesn't think the hinges will end up breaking again anytime soon, but there is always the chance the gate will rust and fall apart before that.  Since a couple missionaries had stopped by, Elder had them help get the steps we use for the font out and got him to repair the broken steps on it for only an additional $50,000.  Now all he needs to do is wire brush off all the rust and paint them with an epoxy paint.  The job took him a little more than 3 hours, for less than $35.

 The arc welding setup

Welding on the gate with his daughter watching

Saturday in the early afternoon Elder worked at wire brushing rust off the stairs for the font, with the wire wheel in the drill motor he bought earlier.  We then set up for English class, there were only 17 there this evening, we were just heading out of the building and Elder decided to clean the large window near the front of the chapel, as there was WD40 on it from working on the security gate.  As he was headed in to get his bag and head for home, a couple of guys came up on a motor bike looking for a donation for something.  Well they were a little overbearing in their request, and Elder only had Rp 5000 in his wallet.  They wandered into the building, Elder followed, and thought he stayed with them, and finally gave them the little he was willing to share, then headed for home.  After we had been home he reached for his tablet in his briefcase, well it looks like they managed to get a little more from him than he planned.  We guess they slid it out of the opening in the front of the case, without Elder noticing.  So we will have to see what he can replace it with here.  Oh well,  we didn't feel comfortable when they wanted to walk into the building, but he didn't want to be rude either.  Guess he should have been a little more observant than he was, he said.

Sunday during Sacrament a Sister (who is certifiable-an has been) was listening to music on her phone.  Before church Pres. Rico had asked her to please use head phones if she was going to listen since it wasn't appropriate at church (she likes to sing to it also and sings very loud).  So during church she didn't turn it off but kept the headphones in.  They could still hear it up on the stand.  Twice Pres. Rico had to come down off the stand to ask her to turn it off.  She even had it going through the sacrament.  She is an interesting person.  In Primary we had 5 boys today.  I am working with a young new convert in her early 20's to have her do music with the children.  Our small one room for primary does not have a keyboard or anything so it is really hard to do music without music.  I usually know the tune but can't keep the tune when I try and fit the Indonesian words with it.  So I talked to Elder today as a member of the Branch Presidency and asked if we could get the old, heavy keyboard that didn't get stolen after they got the new one for the chapel.  He thought it was a good idea.  I can then at least do a melody for them to follow and we can do it slowly as they are learning.  They music on my tablet just goes to fast and it is hard to stop and pick up in the middle.  Could be interesting since I am really not a music person.  We had the missionaries over for dinner since we have two new missionaries.  Elder Headrick (Ohio) is great and is our new district leader and Sister Zabriskie (St. George, Utah) is a brand new missionary from the MTC in Provo.

 Agus and Tinggi at the Manilla MTC with some of their group

 Elder Panjaitan with his trainer, Elder James, at the mission home.  They went to Bandung.

 Elder Sinaga with his trainer, Elder M. Johnson, who Tinggi knew from when he had served in Medan.  He went to Bekasi.

 The sunrise as we were going home from taking the Sisters and Elder Costner to the airport for transfers

 Another one of the sunrise