Back home!

Well, i'm back in indonesia, and i LOVE it! haha. i missed all the happy and nice faces all over the place. i might've even missed the creepy guys who spend all their time on the side of the street...well, maybe not really, but i am happy to be back :)

as it ended up, sis and i spent the rest of our time in singapore checking out the sites on our own. we tried talking to as many people as we could, but we didn't focus so much on making that our focus like we had on Tuesday. it was fun, we got to see a lot, and people were a lot more open to listening to us when we weren't stalking them, trying to get their phone numbers. i also got a few new shirts, and i wore my chinese one to church on sunday, and the indos FLIPPED, they thought it was totally awesome that a bule was wearing that here (indos wear chinese clothes fairly often here, but rarely do bules). and yes, i also got a few things for you all...i might just send it home by ship in the next few weeks. we'll see...elder subandriyo had already left before i got home, so i didn't get a chance to send anything home with him, but oh well. as is life. some fun things sis and i did in singapore were: Chinatown, Little India (chinatown indian style - where we actually found the coolest lady...we referred her to the office, but she got SO excited when we mentioned that we believe we have a prophet on the earth today - hopefully something comes from that!), and we also got pics with the merlion and rode the huge singapore flyer (biggest carousal in the world...i dunno if that's the name you'd use for it, but it's a bigger version but the same idea as the London Flyer). so ya...we had some fun :) and altho i felt like a bit of an apostate missionary by the end, it's made me work even harder since i've been back.

oh, and funny story...so when we were in the airport in jakarta waiting to get out, the guy behind us was a bule, so i started talking to him, and he was an italian teacher. so, we talked for a bit (the elders helped me out while sis moved to another line...she must've seen what was coming before i did), and after we all got thru the line, we were waiting for sis, and the guy came over to say goodbye - so he shook the elders hands, then shook my hand, and then pulled me in for a cheek to cheek touching thing that they do here, and apparently in italy too....AHH! i seriously had no idea what to do, it happened so dang fast! and of course the rest of the time we're in the airport, elder hall is going off about how i'm going to be sent home, and la la la, but seriously - i've always wanted to go to italy, but THAT was awkward. i hope all italian people aren't like that. ugh.

Saturday was an awesome day to come back to... we had 2 appointments, and one of them was a girl who started talking to me in the busway a few weeks ago, and we've already met with her twice since then, and we have another appointment for next week. she really likes to learn about other religions, but doesn't really have a set religion for herself - however, i think she's pretty fascinated with our church, so hopefully we can continue helping her. she has a few questions - and not just the usual questions, but GOOD questions, like the one from yesterday was about grace and mercy, and if we have grace and mercy, what does it matter what we do in this life? she KNOWS there's more to it, but i think she's just trying to see what we think about that. so i've been doing a bit of scripture searching this morning, and i'm ready to answer her FAR better than i did yesterday (i just stumbled over my words - i hate it when i don't have scriptures to back me up!). but, i also hafta wait until next monday :( but oh well, i'm excited for it, and to see where things go with her. the biggest problem right now with Raz is that she lives so far away - about an hour or two from the church by busway if there isn't any traffic. so we'll see how we can help that...

we also met with ibu edi and her family again, and discussed Joseph Smith a bit more. we wanted to watch the Restoration, but their DVD player is broken, so that didn't work out so well. they're such a good family, and certainly good friends, but right now i'm a bit frustrated with their progress (cuz there is none really). they like to learn about what we believe, but there really isn't any desire to join our church, i think. so we might be dropping them here pretty soon...which is sad, cuz they really are good friends that are REALLY good people.

sunday, cherie came to church! so i taught her gospel principles, but we aren't meeting this week cuz they have their spring break, and her family is here from the Phillipines, so we'll try to set up an appointment for next week. we also had one of the elder's contacts randomly show up to church on sunday, and we have an appointment with her today. she also lives really far away, so we'll see what happens there, but if she came one week simply after only meeting a missionary, hopefully she'll keep coming!

we tried something different on sunday for our tracting...we walked thru OUR neighborhood. i talked to pres marchant last week, and he says we have too many people who live far away from the church, and he wants us to really start focusing more on getting to know people in the area around the church. so i started with our neighborhood, which was REALLY fun to get to know the people better that i see pretty often. i'm just sad to say that it's taken me 5 months and the idea from my mission president to do. we didn't contact anybody, but we did put out there that we're missionaries, and that we're here if anyone needs anything.

monday, we went with the millecams to visit 2 families in the branch that are a little less well off - one of the ladies is a single mom with 6 kids (one a brand new baby), and so they brought food with them. it was a quick trip for the Millecams, but we stayed after they left and shared a message with one, and i helped write a letter in english for the other. so it was productive. then we met with a referral (Siska) from one of the primary kids in our branch (Krisma. they're friends, and Siska has been coming with Krisma to church the last few weeks). i think i told you in my last email that we got permission (almost begging) from Siska's mom to start teaching her, and so we started really simply with God is our Heavenly Father, and your family is important. we then gave her a picture BofM, and read about the stripling warriors with her. she's 10, and she's REALLY smart, but i'm still afraid that the scriptures are a little bit over her head, so we gave her the first 4 stories in the picture BofM to read before we meet again next week. she seems really excited about learning, and once we get her sitting down (she is a VERY active child), she's really on top of things. her mom and older sister also have a lot of questions for us, and although they haven't sat in on our lessons yet (well, lesson...), hopefully they'll start soon, and they can learn right along with Siska. we already gave her sister her own BofM to start reading from, so hopefully she starts and has even more questions next week.

the rest of the week has been pretty quiet. sis lie is sick (from the AC i think in our room - we've been having a bit of a problem with someone liking the room WAY too cold, and now people are getting sick, people's tempers are flying a bit, and life is great! haha...we've found that if we just leave that one person alone, the rest of us can still have fun together, and it's no problem whatsoever :), so yesterday we only met with Raz, and today we're just going to senopati to try and figure out what we wanna do for this fireside in a few weeks, and then we're meeting with Valen after that. and for the rest of the week, i don't wanna start making appointments if sis lie is still sick...so we'll see what happens. but things are good, and i'm loving life in Jakarta again! i'm SOOOO happy to be back here! thanks for all your love and support, i miss you all so much (i even had a tiny bout of homesickness the other day...yes i still get that every once in a while - but it's gone now, so no worries)! LOVES!~Sister Saraoh, real quick, i guess there were MAJOR changes before we got back with the bule sisters getting moved - out of the 7 of us, only 3 of us are still in the same area, and yes that includes me and sis. so...sis and i still hafta get our kitas before we can leave the city, but after that, everything is up in the air. sis mongan goes home this time next month, and sis, me and lie have all been in jakarta long enough that all of us could get moved, altho that'd be stupid after how much success we're finally starting to have here - but yes, we'll see what happens in the next month. i think i'm at least here until after this fireside, since i AM in charge of it, but who really knows. everything in this mission is NEVER sure. but i'm happy where i am now, and that's what's really important :) LOVES!
Sister Sara