Tuesday I went to the Dentist to get my teeth cleaned. Normally I wouldn't even attempt it. To nervous of what we would end up getting. I have been in to many hospitals here. But since our Branch President and his wife are both Dentists and they are very clean and he is even alittle compulsive I was good with going. Sister Emma cleaned my teeth. They wouldn't let us pay them and we tried several ways to do it. She kept saying it was her way of serving. I feel bad though because they just opened their practice about a year ago. We went with Elders Headrick and Sutarno (Elder Davies was ill, and Suwarsid stayed with him) to visit with the Mendrofa's, the Elders had received a letter with photographs to deliver to them from their son. He will be back home in a few weeks from his mission. Then we went to Daniel and Jese's new home, they moved closer into the city and Jese's school, but Jese was off at a Warnet (computer room). On the way back to the church we looked for the residence of the Bangun children, we had visited with their mother on the phone a week or so ago, she is working in Batam, Riau, the kids were all off at the Warnet, but we visited with their grandmother. After we got home we went to dinner at Coffee Box. Elder tried to finish up the quarterly report, but couldn't get the system to let him into the area where he could finish it.
On Wednesday President Rico didn't show up again for presidency meeting. So Elder got on the computer at church and got the quarterly report submitted, also spent some time working on addresses and contact information in MLS. That evening we went with Elders Headrick and Suwarsid to see Bang Eka. Then we received a SMS (text) from Sister Ezra that she would like us to stop by the hospital where her older brother was. Her brother has been ill for the past couple of months, and went to Malaysia and was in the hospital and on medication there for a while. Then returned to Medan, and hasn't continued to improve, so he is back in the hospital, but appears that he has given up on recovery, and has decided or has no desire to eat, so he was being tube fed. On the way home we took the Elders to dinner at Koki Sunda.
Over the past few days we have figured out where 3 additional members of our branch live. Each set of elders located one, and I located the other, but only one lives in Medan, another a couple hours out of town and another in Riau. We again went to go visit Bang Eka this evening with the Elders.
On Friday was DDM, and because it was Elder Headrick's birthday this week, he bought Pizza from Pizza Hut for lunch for everyone with the money his parents had sent him. That was nice of him to want to treat the whole district with his birthday money. After lunch Elder took Elder Headrick and Suwarsid to visit Sister Ezra's "brother" we know of no relationship, other than they share the same last name. Turns out it was a wild goose chase. The information they had for the address put us in the wrong area, so they called and rescheduled visit for tomorrow. Elder Tucker and I them met with a couple of YSA for another class on PEF, I did most of the teaching. Elders had appointments with Steven (scheduled to be baptized this Sunday) and Lui (inactive member) who's address is listed (at a kost) as just across the street from the church, but in reality he lives at his parent's home, which turns out to be the house we thought Ronald Efendi Sinambela and 2 other members lived. So while they were in the building Elder Tucker and I also took some time to visit with them. We made a quick trip to Brastagi, but only got a few things since we are headed to Jakarta next week.
We got to the church, on Saturday, at about noon to get the water running for the font, and so if anyone showed up to help clean the building (Relief Society assignment today), some showed up but they were there for institute class which began again today. So Elder Tucker and I swept the building, but never did get around to mopping the floor. Elder also managed to get all of the trash gathered up and he burned what could be burned, since they haven't bothered picking up what has been out in the receptacle for the past few weeks. Elder had Bro. Manalu take the Elders out to visit with Sister Ezra's "brother" who was at home but had taken a turn for the worse, they are trying to force feed him but not being very successful. Then on their way back they were able to stop by and visit with Albert Lie. The traffic was so bad it took them an hour and a half to travel the 5 or 6 kilometers from his house to the church this afternoon. We had about 18 in our class, and 6 or so in the beginning class. We hung around after English, so we could go visit with a former investigator who was taught a year and a half or so ago. We got there at about 7:30 and met a member of the branch there. Nefi, he didn't know where the person was we were supposed to meet, but introduced us to a family who welcomed us into the house (We still don't know whose home it was). After introducing us to the family, Nefi took off, and we didn't see him for the rest of the night. During our hour and a half visit, we visited with the heads of at least 5 families all were born on the Island of Nias, and moved to Medan for school, employment or just to go to the big city. About 10 minutes or so before we had to leave the person we were there to meet arrived, he was just getting home from work. Each of the families or heads of families we spoke to were interested in learning about the church, and its teachings, and gratefully accepted information, books and or literature that we were able to leave with them. The Elders were able to make some follow up appointments and only time will tell if it was anything more than polite interest or not. Elder said that it may be a stretch but this reminded him of some of the gatherings you read about where the Lord has prepared a people to hear the gospel, and brought them and his servants together so they could be given the opportunity to hear and learn the good word of God. In his heart and mind that is exactly what he thinks happened there this evening. Hopefully a number of teaching opportunities will result for the meeting. On our way home we called an ordered food from Nias, so we could pick it up and then get the Elders to the church, and turn the water off for the font, and let them get home on time.
Today I ended up with none of my primary people there so I asked Dearly, a young single adult to teach the lesson. She is also one of the councilors in the Young Women. So we kind of taught together the first hour and then she left for Young Women and I had the 5 boys by myself the last hour. They colored pages having to do with the lesson and they asked if they could see pictures of temples on my computer so we looked at them and read a story out of the July liahona. After church we had a baptism. Steven was baptized. Then after that Elder had to go up stairs and finish tithing and such. We then came home for the rest of the day.
Steven with Eders Davies and Sutarno and Pres. Rico
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