Thursday, October 29, 2009

4 DAYS AND I'M OUTTA HERE!‏

Apa Kabar, keluarga saya!

My, how the weeks have gone by! In a little over 4 days, I’ll be on my way to Indonesia! We got our travel plans last Thursday, after I’d already written, but we fly from SLC to San Francisco around 8:30 on Monday November 2, then go from San Fran to Hong Kong – which is a 6 hour flight, then it’s from Hong Kong to Jakarta – another 4 hour flight…and get to Jakarta 2 days later, since we lose a day flying there. So what will be 1:15 pm in Jakarta when we land on November 4 will still be November 3 for all of you back home. CRAZY!!!! From there, we’ll meet with the President Marchant for a few days to get all of our visa info and stuff taken care of, and then it’s off to wherever I’m assigned. AHHHH!!!!! I’m so incredibly excited, but I’ve also never been more scared of anything in my life. This is going to be such a huge change (especially since I still don’t understand a lot of the language), but I know that it’ll push me a lot harder and be a lot more rewarding out in the field. But AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is sad too though. Half of my district is going to Malaysia/Singapore, so they leave Tuesday, along with the entire other district that’s going to there too. They have 10 people, and 3 of them are the other girls in my room. It’s really sad to think that I might not talk to some of them again, but hopefully that’s not the case and we stay in touch. Hopefully.

Anyways…moving on. Last Thursday we had Zone Conference, where a few of our teachers taught us about a few different principles. It was so good. They seem so much older and more mature than me when it comes to the Gospel, but one of the other Indo teachers is 4 months YOUNGER than me that taught. I just don’t think about that part ;) But it was really good, and some of the elders were talking about one of the talks where the teacher talked about being aware of what you’re doing in these other cultures that we’re going to, and he talked about the missionaries getting kicked outta Thailand for a long time because some stupid missionaries thought it’d be cool to take a picture of themselves as the head of an ancient Buddha whose head was no longer on the body. Apparently the missionaries in my district didn’t understand the severity of that action, because they were saying they didn’t understand what the big deal was…so I tried to explain to them that if a statue of Christ didn’t have a head on it, how would we feel if people from other religions were making of it and taking pictures with their heads on Jesus’ body…I dunno that they really understood how disrespectful that was, but I think they got how disrespectful I thought it was, cuz they didn’t talk about it anymore. Haha.

This week we’ve had several opportunities to teach, and it’s amazing how the Indonesian is really coming along as we teach. I’m remembering words a lot more, and although it certainly doesn’t make complete sense, I know I’ve come a long ways in 8 weeks. Sis and I have also been able to teach a few lessons in English (just to see what we add into those lessons to make them better), and those have been really fun, but they also show how much work I need to put into my Indo lessons… cuz I’m hardly personal at all in Indo, whereas I share several stories about my personal life when I teach in English. So I’m working on that.


Ugh. Sorry…I just got to my page about the TRC. I’d forgotten about that. So…Sis and I felt good about what we were gonna do Saturday in the TRC, but when we got there, neither one of us could really understand what Andrew was saying. We seriously spent the whole time trying to figure out what he was saying…once we’d figure out one thing, he’d say something new that we had to figure out. It was good cuz it was completely realistic and he was really just trying to give us an simple way to ease into the lesson…we just didn’t have any idea what he was saying. So by the time the lesson was done, we’d only gotten to faith in lesson 3. Ugh! He did tell me that I did the best job of trying to bring things back to the lesson, though, so I felt good about that. We did forget to bear our testimonies again, though. I really need to stop doing that…you can’t forget that!

Also last Saturday, when we went to the Old People building to clean more rooms, the girl in charge informed us (“oh woops, I didn’t tell you last week?”) that all the sick people had been staying in that building the week before when we’d been cleaning, but that that day they were all gone…but we were gonna be cleaning all their rooms. Holy cow. They were seriously so gross. Apparently they “bomb” all the rooms after sick people leave, which somehow kills all the bacteria, but they didn’t take out any of the masses of bags and boxes of leftover food from I swear weeks before…so Sis and I got to pick all that crap up and take it all out to the trash. Seriously tho…food from WEEKS ago is completely nasty. Just FYI in case anyone was wondering.

Our devotional on Sunday was WEIRD. It started out really good with this family singing a few songs and the grandma talking about the importance of music…and then the grandpa gets up and starts talking about how you can “prove that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet with science today.” He showed like 3 video clips that were “proof.” Don’t get me wrong…it was an interesting topic, but I didn’t think it was appropriate at all for a MISSIONARY devotional. Aren’t we going out to teach people that they need to know the Gospel is true through a small thing called THE SPIRIT?!?!?! That’s just my view on it tho. Sis liked it.

We had a meeting for international missionaries Monday night. Haha, it was awesome. I’m seriously going to the coolest place. If I’m ever put in Jakarta, it’s gonna be completely nasty and gross, but everywhere else…yeah. I’m pretty lucky. The dr was talking about all these precautions we need to take, how we can best take care of ourselves, and how to know if something is really wrong. I noticed that everyone in the room was going to a 3rd world country. Haha. I’m so excited.

Tuesday was awesome! We had Elder Perry come speak to us, and although it was no pounding Elder Holland talk, it was still extremely good. I didn’t realize he’s 87 years old or SOOO tall! During choir practice they were setting up the cameras, and they kept standing on boxes to make sure the camera would be right on him. Super cool. And he seemed SOOO nice. He took the time to say hi to a few people before and after, and was just so sweet. Loved it!

Part of my new language study plan is to listen to talks in Indonesian and try to understand what’s going on. HOLY COW! I have such a long ways to go. I pick up words along the way, but as far as actually knowing what the talk’s about…not a clue. I’ve started to read along as I listen, and that makes it a lot easier, but I’m still slow reading. The translator goes so fast, and I’m still 2 sentences behind working out something that was said earlier. But even just in the last few days I’ve noticed how much better I’ve gotten doing that. So it’s coming :)

Yesterday I hosted again…and made sure the girl I hosted was in the right bedroom. I hope. Haha. Her name was Sister Stope I believe, and she’s from Park City. She said she knew who Lizzie Kilbourne is, so that was cool. There were a lot of sisters that came in yesterday though. Yay for the sister missionaries!

Today Sis and I went and learned how to put makeup on in a small class the MTC has. They don’t announce it though, because they only have so many samples that they can give out. Ya, don’t worry…I have in my bag right now $200 worth of makeup! That’s more than I’ve probably owned in my entire life combined. Crazy stuff. I guess NuSkin donates it all the MTC, and then there are 2 sisters whose calling it is to help the sisters learn how to put it on and stuff. We’ll see if I can make myself look this good every again… if not, I can at least say that I have $200 worth of makeup that I could TRY with, haha.

Anyways, things are really good here on the homefront, but the next time you hear from me it will be FROM INDONESIA! Thanks again for all the prayers, love and support. I love and miss you all! Loves,
~Sister Sara

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