Today, which is preperation day, Elder got a text message from Pres. Donald telling us that he had received from Salt Lake and forwarded via TIKI Mei's mission call to us. So it should show up some time, We haven't let Mei know yet, because she will go crazy waiting until it comes. So we will have to check with the managers here to see if any packages show up here, they are not the most timely in getting in touch with us when something arrives.
On Tuesday we checked at the Security desk and office at the apartment to see if we had any deliveries from TIKI. They said there were none so we headed to church for our District Meeting this morning. After doing some things at the church we went to the store and did our shopping for the week. Elder checked back with security to see if they had received anything... nothing.
Just before leaving the apartment on Wednesday, to go to the airport, to pick up the Lewis' (Family History Missionaries) who are here for 5 days or so to help people work on their family history, we stopped at the security stations to see about any deliveries, Elder also had to respond to a number of texts so we could try and locate where it was, because it was supposed to be an overnight delivery, which would have put it here yesterday. We got the Lewis' picked us and a couple of more texts and telephone conversations on the delivery. We dropped the Lewis' off at their hotel, and headed back to the apt to see if the package was here, after talking to all the security and office staff with no success so we parked the car and went up stairs to wait. Just as we were getting settled in, Elder got a text message from security that they had a delivery for us, so he ran down stairs and picked it up. We then contacted Mei so we could arrange to drop it off this evening. We asked Lewis' if they wanted to come with us to when we gave Mei her call and watch her open it. They said yes so we picked them up, went to dinner and then to Mei's. She is going to stay in Indonesia. She is happy but would of been happy anywhere but her mother was really glad she was staying in country. I don't have all the pictures from this week yet so I will post some of them next week.
Today we left early to take Elder and Sister Lewis on a trip to Samosir Island, we arrived at the ferry station at 10:45 and the ticket window had just opened, so we bought our passage to the island, and waited for boarding time. Once on the island we went to Stone Chair Village, and learned some of the history of the village, and of course had to walk through the gauntlet of vendors setup on the exit route. We made it through with Sister Lewis only making a few purchases. Then we went to the Samosir Villia Resort to check in. The whole setup was quite nice, total price for our room $62, VIP rate with AC, and a lovely view out over the lake, where you could see the island ,and the mountains along the shore on the other side of the lake. Once checked in we tried to do a little sightseeing but there were no guides at the 2 sites we went to. So we hit the shops along the way out from the historical sites. We bought some gifts to bring home when the time arrives. After our shopping we headed back to the hotel to have what we thought was going to be some western style food. It turned out to be anything but. Elder Lewis and Elder Tucker both tried the hamburger, it was nothing like a hamburger, they shared with us and none of us were ever able to figure out what it was. Sister Lewis and I ordered deep fried Snapper, well it wasn't a lot better than the hamburger. We ordered desert, fried banana and chocolate, we have a fried chocolate banana in Medan that I think is great, but this was completely different, this was 3 pisang gorang, and a small dipping bowl full of melted chocolate. The desert, while unexpected turned out to be pretty good. There was a shop selling wood carvings near the resort, so after dinner we all walked down there to see if we could find anything of interest, before we finished Elder ended up with a carved chess set and an attrative nativity scene. In all our time here in Sumatra we had never seen a nativity scene, so we got one from Solo, based on Javanese tradition, but now we were able to pick one up that was more representative of Sumatra. We were all pretty well beat, so at about 7:45 called it a night, well we started hearing music at about 8, went up and watched an hour's worth of Batak dance, and listened to the music. Sister Lewis and I were brought up out of the audience to participate. At 9 we truly did call it quits for the day. Pictures next week.
We took it slow and had a restful morning. We had breakfast at the hotel and then we decided to drive around the island. We stopped at a Batak museum on the east side of the island that is in a traditional Batak house that now is also part of a Catholic school, and then we returned home through Kabanjahe, it took a little longer, but was a lot more fun than returning home by the ferry, the same way we came. We got home about 6 in the evening.
Samosir has a statue of Christ also
On the side of the road this lady is with her children and some goats. Notice the load on her head.
This is the Museum we went to. A traditional style Batak building. School children are out front.
Some of the school children. They all love to have their pictures taken by and with Bule.
Today we spent the whole day working on family history with members of the branch and others who wanted to be able to enter their information. While on Samosir, and while visiting with Mei's family we collected some charts depicting the genealogies of families here in Sumatra, many of the families here have them because they know they descend from the families identified in the chart, they list about 8 or 9 generations of information. The only problem is that while their ancestors kept very accurate information, there is a gap of about 6 generations to the people living today, and very few of those living today can identify their grandparents by name, and a good number of those have no way of finding out what their names were because the connections have been lost over time. It is fascinating to see the charts but sad that the actual connection of generations has been lost. In the evening the internet stopped working. We thought maybe because we had so may computers going and connected to the internet. When they youth and others went to play futsal we left and went to dinner and then took the Lewis' to their hotel.
Some of the people at church working on FamilySearch. Samuel, Sister Lewis, Loisa and President Yosep, our new Branch President and wife, who we are going to the Manila temple with in June.
Today at Church the Lewis' did a 5th sunday prestentation. Alot of people, especially the youth wanted to get on but the internet was still not working. They got a technician out and the modem had stopped working. So we will have to meet with them in the next few weeks and teach them how to use FamilySearch. The Talambanua's were confirmed today. It is so exciting to see these young families starting to join the church. If the branch can do a good job friendshipping and getting them involved I can see them being good anchors in the branch. We have lots of youth and Young Adults but we need the families also for stability. We had the Lewis' over for dinner after we finally got home at about 4:30. We had a nice visit and she is going to send we some of her pictures and videos and I still need to get copies of Elders pictures off his phone. I had a great time visiting with the girls after church. Pictures next week. Sometimes when you are in the middle of an experience you don't see that you are making a difference, but it was nice to know that someone else could come in who has been to all the other wards and branches in the country and see that we had made a difference in the lives of the branch members and others. I am so glad we are able to serve Heavenly Father here at this time.
Elder and Sister Lewis with the Talambanua's and their friend and nieghbor girl after church
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