Rekan baru, dan pekerjaan terus maju :)

Well....it's been a week. haha. not much happened before Sister Sari got here on Friday - we went and picked her up, and then the other sisters went to teach an english class, and we got lost in the center of the city looking for a grocery store, HAHA. yup....that's what happens when you put 2 new people together (especially without a cell phone :P). sister sari is a pretty straight-faced person, who's darn focused on the work....and just goes right in and does the work, which i like. i didn't even have time to explain how to try and contact people with her, cuz she started talking to people herself. she joined the church in Hong Kong, and for 6 years has been used to the hong kong mission....which is WAY different than the indonesian mission. but because they're so strict, she's super strict, and actually has a hard time seeing the rest of us just chillax in the nice, indonesian way (which...before i never thought i was too much of a chillax person, but i guess indo's gotten to me more than i knew....). it's been different trying to get out of my indo habits to get right with her strict orderness, but she's also pretty patient with me, so that's good.

anyways...so that girl we taught last night is TOTALLY awesome. she's from manado, and she was totally freaking out, "WHAT!?!?! what is this kitab (holy book)? how come i've never heard of it before? can i read it? what?... it's can tell me about what happens after death?" ya...she's 17! and come to find out, after the lesson, she literally lives down the street from us...literally, down the street and around the corner, and BOOM! you're at her house. so cool....we're gonna walk to church together on sunday :)

another fun story was our lesson with Fifi, who is muslim and just married an inactive member (the marriage that happened on Christmas Day), but who's mother in law joined the church in hong kong before coming back home, and basically has devoted her life to learning about the gospel (she's about 55 yrs old, and she actually was working on putting her papers in to serve a mission, but then her son came home, after about a year where sis zizi didn't know where he was, with this girl and they had to organize the wedding pretty fast and stuff....), and now sis zizi (pronounced, seesee) is pushing for fifi to get baptized.

oh, and another investigator that we met my first week here, sari and i FINALLY went to meet him (we were an hour late, cuz we went to a member's house first and that went long, and he was NOT happy about that... "westerners are ALWAYS on time"...which again reminded me that i have some bad habits from the last 14 months here...), and he'd WRITTEN down all his questions that he had for us! it was awesome. most of the questions were pretty typical and good (who is joseph smith, what was his background like, what year was the BofM published, etc...), but he did ask about polygamy which was fun to answer (he pulled out scriptures from the bible about being married to only one person, and trying to a little bible bashing in a nice, more welcoming way), but that's one that i myself still have a hard time explaining (like i understand it...but to explain that? impossible without a testimony first), so ya...begitulah. but it was good. i really feel like our teaching pool is getting more and more effective. and all 3 of these people said they'd come to church on sunday, so COOL!

bro paulus is funny...we read the joseph smith and oliver cowdery account of when they recieved the aaronic priesthood from john the baptist, and he was just silent... which never happens....and then he explained that he needed to read it a few more times to fully understand it ("maybe a problem with the translation or something..."), so this week he's gonna go read it again in his forest that he works on, and next week we'll go over it again. haha. he really does just make me happy. AND he's selling me FRESH MILK which is actually GOOD, and not the crappy gross stuff that they sell in the stores here. so i'm happy with that :)

today we're going to buy material for me to make my kebaya! i still dunno what color to get, but it's gonna be pretty. what have i learned this week? that ALLL our experiences are to prepare us for experiences that will come, so that we will be able to bear those hardships better than we would've been able to otherwise. i know the last 14 months have prepared me for the patience and knowledge that i've needed and will continue to need with sis sari and our investigators. crazy how patient i've gotten...i really do feel like a COMPLETELY different person as far as my level of patience here (altho it could still get better, i'm sure). but...it's true. tomorrow we head to surabaya for zone conference, so that'll be fun to get together with other missionaries and learn more about how i can become a better missionary (cuz now i can actually apply what i learn :P). I LOVE YOU FULL!

~Sister Sara

ps sorry kel, happy bday last saturday, and ben happy bday 3 weeks ago. i send ya'll letters, but always forget while i'm on here...so sorry! but know i love you :)