:)

Another week has come and gone…man, time is really starting to go by fast. I’m still mad last week’s email didn’t work, but now I’ll be writing my emails in Word before I send, and just pasting and copying…so hopefully there aren’t any more problems with that. This week has been a little bit hard, just cuz I have a head cold now. Saturday it hit me pretty hard, so we came home early, but Sunday we were out ALL day, so I only really had Monday to try to recover…but even that didn’t last long cuz we had an appointment pretty far away, so we had to leave earlier in the day and were gone all night. Yesterday I only got an extra hour to try to get some extra sleep, and then again we were out all day…so it’s good, cuz we’ve been busy, but I might be sick a bit longer than I’d like cuz of it.
Last week was crazy…we had 2 deaths last week (which I wrote about one of them in the other email...ugh). We found out Thursday that a lady from one of the other branches had died, but her daughter and son are in our ward, so everything was done here in Jakarta. It was interesting to see the differences between us and them when it comes to funerals…dad, you’ll be interested in this. They bring the body to the church straight from the hospital, and they have a ton of people come and watch as they prepare the body. I wanted to watch, but we had one of our investigators show up for English class (which was cancelled due to the circumstances), and we thought it was better for us to do some English stuff with them rather than go to the “showing” upstairs, so I missed it. But, here’s another interesting thing…the family stays with the body in the church until the funeral. So the family was at the church nonstop from Thursday until Saturday. The place was an absolute WRECK when we cleaned up after the funeral…it looked like a tornado had gone thru the place. But the funeral was basically the same as a normal mormon funeral, except that at the end they have a line where everyone goes and gives their condolences to the family (they do that at the beginning and end, but the end was the big one rather than a viewing like we have in America). So that was interesting to me.
I’m not the only one who’s been sick…Sis Lie got sick last week after district meeting…like, she was throwing up and had a huge headache, so we stayed in that whole day too. You should’ve seen her face when she woke up and saw all the letters I’d written while she’d been asleep…haha, it was awesome.
Sunday was a crazy day…I was SOOO sick, but Heavenly Father has a funny way of helping us when we think we can’t do something but we do what we know we have to anyways…we’d set up an appointment with Lena, an inactive member who Jackie Larson asked me to go see, and it was FAR, and apparently there’s a bit of drama there, so we HAD to have a member of the relief society presidency go with us, we left after church and were gone all day. But I got 3 contacts…more than I’ve had ever in one night, I’m pretty sure. The appointment went well (hopefully!), but the very last leg coming home, I knew my energy was gone…but it was in perfect timing.
So I’m finding that I have a much easier time contacting men than women… which is really odd. But here’s why…I was telling Sis this the other day… with the guys here, they see me, a Bule, and they’re just excited that I start talking to them, and I can basically force talk about the Gospel and everything that I wanna talk about on them… whereas with girls, they aren’t as open cuz I’m only a bule girl. If I ask for the guys’ numbers, they LOVE it, but the girls get all skeptical and stuff. So… I’ve been getting more contacts lately, but they’re all guys. And we can’t teach guys, so we have to give them to the elders. So it totally stinks, but at least it’s been getting my confidence up. AND….this is wonderful news… I’m FINALLY starting to understand most things that people say on the bus! I’m still not too good in following other people’s conversations (like with members or investigators about things not related to the gospel, their family, or anything that is cute or funny), because my vocab is still so limited, but I have come SOOO far in the last 2 months. Today I was talking to one of the new elders from the MTC, and he’s so frustrated right now…all I could say was, buddy, I know EXACTLY how you feel. But don’t worry…if you endure this, and keep working hard, it WILL get better. I’m not sure if he believed me or not…but it really is true. Hopefully I’m done with my “transition” period, and the language will continue to come!
So the bad news this week is that Indri’s baptism got pushed back another week… so it’s not until January 21 because she didn’t come to church on Sunday, because she worked an all-nighter, and on her way to church she fainted and was taken to a hospital. She came to the church right before we left to see Lena, and she was sad, but she understood why we had to push it back. But she’s still doing great with the lessons, and we’re almost done. Just baptism and confirmation is left, and then I think we’ll start on Lesson 5 with her. Man alive…I love her! We had a lesson yesterday with her, and afterwards she followed us to 2 other appointments with members, and she chimed into the conversation and bore her testimony and everything. She’s also been doing a lot with the other singles in the ward, and she’s really enjoyed having friends that can actually go out and do stuff with her (we’re a little tied up as missionaries…), and they’ve been great influences on her, so that’s been awesome.
Mom, you’ll be proud of this…we had FHE with the first counselor’s family on Monday, and I had inspiration from above to focus the lesson on the 2 little kids in the family. It was AWESOME. Haha, funny, too… we talked to President Parmen about the time and everything, and he said that’d be great, and then we showed up to the house, and his wife had NO IDEA we were coming! Not to mention that President Parmen wouldn’t be home until after we needed to leave to head home, cuz they live quite a ways away. I told sis Lie, he’s a typical man :P haha. Anyways…I had the ideas for the lesson but Sis Lie did an awesome job of carrying it out (she is our mouthpiece most of the time). We read about Ammon and King Lamoni from the kids Book of Mormon, with pics and stuff, and then I bought a coloring book at a Christian store here, and so we copied 2 pics from that for the kids to color while we talked to Sis Parmen and got to know her. As unexpected as it was, I think it went REALLY well. And their little girl is ADORABLE! She is seriously so cute…I need to get her on video. Here’s an example…on Sunday, the Primary sang during sacrament, and she went up (she’s 3 BTW), and she turns around with this huge smile on her face, and her dress is sticking almost completely vertical with the ground…but up instead of down. And she’s just smiling all the while, and after about 20 seconds, someone in the front row went and pulled down her dress for her, but it was ADORABLE. Haha, she makes me laugh.
So today was pday, and we went to the ZOO!!! Holy cow, SOOO much fun! However, sadness mom! We found out that they ride elephants there a few days ago, so I’ve been all excited to do that, but then we get there and they only do it on Sundays and Saturdays! I was so sad! But I took a pic of the “boarding station” area so I could imagine myself getting on an elephant…someday. It WILL happen. But ya, it was tons of fun, and I got some pretty sweet pics and videos that you’ll be getting in the next few weeks, I’m sure.Well my time’s up…which is good, cuz I dunno what else to say. But I love you all so much, and thanks for all the love and support, as always! I hope things are well at home…know that my prayers are with you always~
~Sister Sara