On Monday we flew to Jakarta for Zone conference. After a short visit with Lucherinis, Lewis & Sister Donald we all, including Pres. Donald walked to Outback for dinner. There were some in the group that claimed we walked through the outback to get there. We took an obscure alley down the road from the Mission Home, and then hiked through a wet and muddy field, that was full of goats, and as a sister reminded us it was also full of goat marbles, to use her phrase. We met Bishop Woodland and his wife at the restaurant, he is the current bishop in the English speaking ward in Jakarta. We had enjoyable visits during dinner. We walked back through the outback to the mission home and caught a cab with the Lucherinis to go check in at the Park Lane hotel, which is near the Lucherinis apartment.
Tuesday we visited with Seth and his family on skype, it was a fun visit. Elder & Sister Lewis came to the hotel, she and I headed to a nearby restaurant at a mall for a brunch with all the young sisters and Sister Donald. It was alot of fun to just have the zone Sisters together. Elder Lewis and Elder Tucker caught a cab and went to Senopati. He spent some time in the mission office studying and visiting. While visiting with Sister Donald, President invited Elder into his office and they talked for about an hour while Sister Donald and I continued to visit. After we got back to the hotel we had dinner at the Hotel Restaurant, Rivas, then once in our room we reviewed and made some last minute changes to the power point for our presentation tomorrow. Sari's mission call arrived yesterday, so we get to take it back with us to Medan.
On Wednesday we went to PLD. When we got there President told us our flight had been changed from 7:30 pm to 5:20 by the airlines, so he told us we needed to make sure we stayed in our time limit for the presentation. We were scheduled to present after lunch, well at about 10:45 he announced we were up to present. We were both happy with the way our presentation went. After lunch Elder was visiting with President and he mentioned that it must be hard to work in such a small branch for as long as we have, and that the only other couple in the same situation was Elder and Sister Welch who have been here 18 months and go home on the 5th of Feb. After explaining some things that Elder Tucker and I could do if we were in Jakarta, he asked if he thought we would be interested. Elder didn't think I would be but I am so we are trying to decide and hope to skype with President soon to get more details. Our new district leader flew back to Medan with us. While in Jakarta we found out about transfers on the 3rd. Elders Barlow and Zollinger will both transfer. We took a taxi to the airport, and flew back to Medan.
The two Jakarta Zones at conference
On Thursday Mei canceled her time to work at the church, because she had the opportunity to do some work for Pres. Rico. so she may try to come tomorrow. When we got to church, Sister Sinaga was there to pick up Sari's call to take home so Sari could open it with her family. We commented that we would love to be there when she opens it, so she invited us to join them. We had the sisters go buy all of us some lunch. The sisters took off to do something, while they were gone, their investigator came to the building, so I joined her in the foyer and visited with her while we waited for the Sisters. I then joined the discussion. In the evening we headed to the Sinaga's and waited for Sari to get home from work, we visited for a while, then she got home and opened her call, she was very surprised and a little nervous, we have been saying all along that she might end up outside Indonesia, and sure enough she is going out of the country. She said she was going to New Zealand and would be speaking English. After we looked at the call we discovered that she was actually going to the MTC in New Zealand, and would be serving in Perth, Australia. Headed back to the church and dropped the sisters off, so they could go visit Cindy who is being baptized on Saturday evening. We then went to Brastagi so we would have some food in our apartment.
Sari opening her mission call. Her brother is serving in Indonesia right now.
On Friday we arrived at the church and Bro Sutarno (from Solo) and a couple of his workers were there getting things started on the building, we visited about the work that needs to be completed on the building. At about 2pm Elder started filling the font for the baptism, in anticipation of their successfully completing their interviews. If we didn't start now the font would never be full in time for the baptism tomorrow. Mei came and did some work around the building this afternoon. We were hoping Sari(the investigator) would come to her keyboard lesson, but again she was a no show. We have not seen her since before Christmas.We stayed around the building until both interviews were complete.
On Saturday we had our branch mission leader meeting, then I had one keyboard lesson. We also had English class but we ended early for the baptism. Our 5 o'clock meeting didn't start till about 6, because Lukas fell asleep at home and was late for the meeting. But we were finished with the meeting in time for them to install the stabilizer. But their 15 minute install took almost two and a half hours. The guy doing the installation worked on the lines where they come into the building to see if he could improve the connection, to increase the power coming into the building, it may have helped a little but not enough, the power is still cutting in and out. We got home a little after 9 tonight.
Sister Mintono and Sister Edwards with Cindy and the two sisters (Mei and Elisabeth) who introduced her to the gospel.
All the missionaries with Cindy and Lukas before their baptisms.
Today the power situation sure made meetings fun. It kept shutting off and then coming back on. Made for a very humid day. It was heavy with rain. After church it finally did rain. I gave two more keyboard lessons and then because of the power problems it took a long time for them to get their computer work done. We got home about 4. A neighbor has a bacuk and offered to take us home instead of calling a taxi so we took him up on his offer. Elder met with two other youth who are about ready to start their paper work for a mission. Vince will be done with school about the middle of may and so will Elisabeth but she will have to wait until she is old enough in September.
Elder Barlow and Elder Zollinger with the Sinaga Family (Sari is in the Black Jacket)
Elders with some of the youth and young adults.
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