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.
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