E-mail from Sara

Keluarga Saya (my family),

Hopefully this gets to someone...Sorry Mom & Dad, I forgot your email address. Hopefully this is the right one. I'm sending it to Kellee just in case, though, so hopefully someone gets this and can forward it to whoever else. HOPEFULLY!!!APA KABAR!? (How's it goin?) Whew! What a first week! I'll try to answer Dad's questions as I write this. FYI, it's easiest for you and more fun for me if you send letters through DearElder.com, because it's an email for you, a letter for me, AND I get it the same day as you send it! Would you mind seeing if it's free to send DearElders to Indonesia? Cuz it'd be a lot cheaper for us to do it that way when I get over there. Anyways...moving on.GO UTES!!! I heard a few tidbits here and there about the BYU game ( I AM living in provo now...), but I hadn't heard any news about the U. I love it! And yes, Dad, updates on the scores is exactly what I'd like. Summaries of them would be nice as well :)Carter was right...they DO catcall Sis O. and I whenever we see them, but it's all in good fun. He seems to be doing really well, and I was especially impressed with him when he practiced the first discussion on us a few days ago. HE MEMORIZED JOSEPH SMITH'S FIRST VISION! I literally just sat in awe, then said, "I'm SOOO proud of you! That was AWESOME!" It totally messed up his train of thought, but I was just so impressed by it. He's doing really well here, seems to love it and his district, and I know he's gonna be a fantastic missionary.

Now...a bit about my district and companion. Sister Okamoto is from the LA area California, and she is FANTASTIC!! we get along really well. Our sense of humor is the same, and she laughs at all the stupid things I say. So yes...I keep saying them ;) She's really fun, and we think very similarly on lot's of things. We're both determined to be the best missionaries we can be, but she's even more so than I am, so she's always pushing me to be better and work harder, which is something I always need. I love her, and am glad that I get to spend 2 months of my mission with someone I get along with so well.My district is...well, here's a little scenario for you. Ya know when you go somewhere where you are assigned to a group, without any say to who is in your group? Kinda like EFY or a wedding dinner...anyways, there's always that ONE table that EVERYONE is laughing, having a great old time, and although you like your table, there really isn't anything wrong with it...but you still wish you were on that really fun table? Well, ladies and gentlemen, I'M ON THE COOL TABLE!!!! Haha, seriously, I watch other groups, and they get along and whatever, but our district is AWESOME!!! We have one guy who is always full of one-liners (he's actually our district leader...yay!), and Sis O. and I think he's a lot of the reason we all get along so well. But everyone is always included in things, we all get along SOOO well, and it's just a good time all class long. I love our class, because we're always laughing about something. Especially after long days where all of our heads hurt and we just wanna be done.

Speaking of which...the language! Oooooh...Belajar bahasa indonesia adalah sulit! (Learning Indonesian is hard). It's not awful...Like seriously, we have people going to Mongolia in our branch, and they're as far in their language as we are, and they've been here for over 2 months, so it's not a hard language...It just takes some getting used to. At night I constantly have words just flowing thru my head, and half the time they aren't right, and I know they're not right, so then I just say UGH! and try to fall asleep. haha. But its good. I'm learning so much every day, and seriously...my vocab has expanded about 100 fold since the day I got here (since I only knew 4 phrases before, haha.) Yup, lot's of words that I have to memorize or connect or whatever to remember them in Indonesian. It's been quite the experiment. Here's one example...body in Indonesian is tubuh. LOL...now try to come up with a way to associate those two words. It took Sis O's help for me to get one, but now I'll never forget it. HAHA!

Congrats to Austin on getting ordained an Elder!!!! I'm proud of ya, Cuz. Isn't it amazing having all the uncles and cousins put their hands on your head? There is no better feeling than knowing that so many people in our family stand ready and worthy to do such a thing for whomever might need it. Thanks to everyone for being so great and living their lives worthily.

And now I'm outta time, so I can't write anything else. Apparently it takes a few minutes to send this thing, so sorry to end so quick, but I love you all and can't wait to hear some more from you! I guess i'll write the rest of my letter today if I have time. Love you all, the Church is true!

~Sara

PS - mom...a jacket would be REALLY nice in the mornings down here. If you've already sent it, just ignore this, if not...PLEASE SEND IT DOWN SOON! oh, and sis o and I really like banana bread. I'm just saying...