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Hellllooooo everybody, this has been a great week in Jogja. Sister Antonio and I have found a lot of success in our wok this week. We decided to be more obedient, more aware of the minor missionary rules that maybe we hadn't totally been following, like waking up at exactly 6:30 or studying the scriptures for a whole hour like we're prompted to do. So... we tried harder to do those things. And we really did see a change in our missionary work. We found 13 new investigators this week, almost all of them referrals. We had many lessons this week and one of our investigators accepted the invitation to be baptised on March 13. A lot of really good things happened, just because we decided to be a little better, to strive a little harder. And that can be the same for anyone, if you try to actively come closer to God, or truly try to be a better person, miracles will come. Of course God is going to help you if you reach out to Him, to be a better disciple, to be more obedient to His commandments. I know that all is going to work out in the end if we all just do our part, to be our best. Nothing can help us the most than being obedient, because God has promised us blessings if we obey, He will not shortchange us or forget us, He will always give us far more blessings than what we sacrifice to be obedient. A member fed us... QUAIL!!! I've had quail eggs here before, but not an actual quail. It tasted like chicken, shocking, right? We had a little too much fun with their disembodies heads. Sorry, little quail... We ate a mystery body part, still not sure what it was, but yummy nonetheless...ENAK! Today two Elders in our District are moving. Our District Leader is moving to Manado (jealous) and the other is going to be a district leader in Surabaya. So, we get two new Elders this today. Selamat datang! Sister Antonio is probably going to move at the end of March, so I'll be sad... WE ate our of coconuts the other day. Apparently it's really healthy. And it's really yummy too! We were waiting for our food. My hair's crazy as always.
Hello everybody!!!! This week's been great! I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of this mission thing... So, I've been asked about the Merapi analogy a few times, so... here it goes! (taken from my journal Jan 25) "A few days ago, as we were riding the bus, we notices a GIANT mountain outside the city. It was Merapi, the volcano! I've been here for two months and hadn't even seen it, and neither had Sister Anotnio, who's been here for 3 months or so. So... why hadn't we even seen Merapi before? I mean, it's a BIG volcano, and you can see it from pretty much anywhere in the city. Maybe it's because of the smog or cloud coverage, or maybe we simply just didn't look up. Maybe the buildings were just in the way, Nevertheless, Merapi has always been there, and has been long before Sister Antonio or I have served in Jogja. So, I made an analogy with this. Merapi is like Heavanly Father. He is always there, He has never once left us. Like Merapi, we can't see Him or His hand in our lives a lot of the time, but that doesn't mean He, or Merapi, is not there. With the clouds and smog of life, it makes it difficult to focus on God, sometimes maybe we just fail to look up when He is in fact within view. And, once we finally gain sight of God in our lives, it's important to alsways remember those intances, never forget, 'oh, there's Someone out there who loves me', kind of like, 'oh, there;s a giant active volcano outside the city', even when we can no longer see it, or Him. Faith is not seeing, but knowing, believing, and remembering what is not seen." Sister Wuri, a wedding make-up artist in our ward, taught us how to make fancy hair for weddings. It was cool, except since I'm the only bule, she didn't bring hair accessories for brown hair, so... I used the black hair... it looked cool nonetheless. This is me and a bush... nothing much else to say. I named it Elder Bush, because... Kenapa Tidak? Why not? This is me, Sister Atin, Sister Antonio, and Sister Nanik. We had a Family Home Evening with Sister Nanik last night, and it was really fun. Sister Nanik had a stroke a while back and has had some health problems, but she still manages to come to church almost everySunday, even though it's expensive to get transportation to the church and back. Sometimes she even walks to the church, though she can barely walk. Her faith is truly amazing. Earlier today it rained SSSOOOOO HAAAARRRDDDD. I was almost afraid it might flood. It was so loud and the electricity from the church all the way to our house was out. I was afraid we weren't going to be able to email today because of the power outage, but we found a Warnet with electricity, so it's ok.
Hope you all are having a great time wherever you are, I'll send something more interesting next week! Mari! Sister Stringham Selamat sore semuanya! This weeks been a good week. We've met with a lot of people and met some new people too! Nothing too exctiting is going on right now, but for P Day today we went to Borobudur, the biggest Buddhist temple IN THE WORLD!!!!! It was cool. Of course, we can't go to Boroburdur without Yechbar Vahl! The view was amazing when we got to the top of the temple. You could see for miles in every direction. It was so beautiful! Because it's Chinese New Year today, there were a lot of people there, but it's good, that means there were a lot of cool people to talk to! A lot of students from far-away schools were there to practice their English with native speakers. Since I'm a bule, a white person, a lot of students came up to me and practiced their English with me. Some of them were as far away as Jakarta. It was cool. When you leave the temple, there are a lot of markets near the exit. They have some really cool things for cheap. Also, there are people trying to persuade you into buying their products. They crowd around you and try to get you to buy their souveneirs. Since I look like a tourist, they especially crowded around me. It was a little crazy! But it was fun, I could tell them 'no' in their language or try to bargain with them. I bought 2 of these cool bamboo picture things that I thought looked pretty awesome, so I got them for a good price. When I handed my money to the guy, he said 'o, are you a muslim?' and I told him, no, I just thought they looked cool. Then, when I showed everyone the cool thing I just bought, the Indonesians said, 'oh, that means Mohammad and Allah in Arabic'. Oh.... that's ok, it still looks cool and it will always remind me of the culture in Indonesia. Haha! Until next week!
Sister Stringham! We had a PLD this week, it's a meeting with all the missionaries in the zone with the mission president. IT was good. We got to sleep a night in Solo and play soccer and hang out together. There's nothing much to say about this week.... hhhmmmm.... what happened this week? Yesterday we went to Brother Ponijo's house to celebrate his birthday. We don't actually know when his birthday is, and neither does he! We cooked food for him and brought a cake and shared a little spiritual message. I love Brother Ponijo! He's funny and very humble. He's about 75 years old and was baptised only a few years ago, but he still loves to learn and feed us rambutan, even though he doesn't have a lot to give. After we visited Bother Ponijo, we went to the hospital to visit The bishop, he just had a kidney stone removed. Yeah... nothing of great importance happened this week. Life's good in Indonesia, still hot, still humid, rains pretty much everyday and the people of Indonesia still inspire me to be humble and grateful for what I have. Selamat Februari! I can't believe how fast time is going, in one week I will have been on my mission for 4 MONTHS!!! In another 4 months I'm going to be almost halfway done. See you in 14!
Sister Stringham Even when I'm in Indonesia, I can't escape the tyranny of East High School. Haha! Oh, and I heard Highland won Freak East! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYY! Hail HIghland HIgh, da da da da da da da daaaa! On our way to Klaten, a city just outside of Jogja, we rode a bus! WE got to see all the rice fields and actually got to see mountains. If you closely enough, you can see the base of Merapi, it's HUGE! You can actually see it from Jogja, but because of the smog or clouds, we only saw it for the first time this week! I have an analogy for that, maybe I will share it next week if I have time. This is the Winoto family. They just came back from the temple in the Phillpines. They live an hour and a half away from the church and they still come to church every week and for other church activities. They are AMAZING! Me, Sister Anotonio, and Sister Atin on our way back from teaching some new investigtors.
Sorry I can't write a lot to day, my hour's already up! Till next time! Sister Stringham Sorry there aren't any pictures here this week, both Sister Antonio and I forgot our card readers at home.
This week has been fairly well, not the best, but that's okay. This week there was a bomb in Jakarta. We in Jogja don't know much of what happened, but I know there was a bomb in a mall and there are a few casualties. We are ok, Jogja is far away from Jakarta, but we still have to be really careful, can't go to places like McDonalds or western-type places. But it's ok, nobody has acted strangely or done anything out of the ordinary in Jogja. This week we tried finding people, because there's no one to teach! What we do is go to a neighbourhood and ask the neighborhood's leader if there are any Christians that we can teach. So far we've tried and haven't really found anyone super interested yet. In one neighbourhood we were told by a very angry man not to come back again "Jangan ke sini lagi"! and threatened us, Even though we already had permission to go there. It's ok, we won't go back, we won't risk it. Yesterday as we were going to an appointment, I couldn't breathe! I kept breathing and breathing and it felt like no air was filling my lungs. I freaked out a little bit, but once we got to one of the member's home, Sister Atin, I rested and my breathing stabilized. I'm ok now, my chest is just a little tight. I called the mission doctor and he doesn't know what's happening with me, from the syptoms I gave him. Tomorrow we are going to the doctor. I hope it's nothing too serious. I almost fainted! Today we bought batik to make into dresses, it's going to be so cool! For those of you who don't know what batik is, look it up, it's so cool. It originated where? JOGJA, super awesome and super cheap here. I'm really excited. I hope everyone is all good in Utah or Europe or Madagascar or Texas or wherever you may be, stay safe and always remember who loves you the most. (answer=Heavenly Father) Love you all more than anything, Sister Stringham Well, it's officially been 3 months since I left home, time's gone by so fast! This week we've been trying to find new people to teach, but it's hard! Most people work all day and then once it's night time (only 6 pm) and people come home, it's not very safe to go into the neighborhoods and contact. So, we've decided to go through the whole ward list and go to everyone's house and get referrals, hopefully we'll find someone to teach! We can go to the same people as we have been, but we don't have any super interested investigators right now and yeah... we have very few people to teach. So that's been our week, searching. I've been asked a few times about the members in Jogja. This is one of my favorite members, her name is Sister Wuri. She's a returned missionary and she does make up for weddings. If you son't know how cool that is look up Indonesian wedding makeup. Her husband had a stroke sometime ago and is very limited in what he can do, she's a great example of a faithful, charitable person.Many members are so loving and are always willing to help the missionaries. Many members have to go a far, far way to come to church, because it's like a whole state coming to one church. I love this ward, they are so nice to me even though I can barely understand what they say to me! These are 2 of the missionaries that are BRAND NEW! That's right, I'm not the newest missionary in Indonesia anymore! They knew pretty much everyone in my zone at the MTC and so we had a lot of people to talk about! They are doing great, they're both seving in Malang, a very cool city, but there's no sisters there! They're also white-washing, so they're first city is going to be hard, but they'll be great. It was cool to meet them, I've been praying for the new missionaries for a while and I've been so excited to meet them and welcome them into this amazing place. This is the most important part of any email I will ever send. REUNITED AND IT FEELS SO GOOD! Since it was zone conference, we got all of our packages, and the new missionaries brought over Yechbar Vahl and some awesome notes from Sister Ahlstrom, Sister Leydsman, and Sister Shoendorfer! I love you guys!
ZTM (Zone Training Meeting) was in Solo, and it was cool to see all of the missionaries in Jawa Tengah Zone. The amazing thing was, I could understand almost all of the Indonesian spoken, if I could concentrate hard enough. Last ZTM I couldn't understand one word, and now it's almost everything, it's so cool! It's crazy how much you can learn in just a month. This week we celebrated New Years Eve! Wow, 2-15 has gone by so fast! I can't believe all the crazy things that happened this last year. I graduated high school, I worked at an amazing store, I went on a MISSION, and so many other great people and adventures made 2015 a great year. 2016 will be so amazing to. This whole year will be spent serving the Lord, doing what missionaries do. It's going to go by so fast, and a year from now, I'll almost be home! I hope all of you had a great New Years. I slept. WE had to go home early because it can be dangerous being out late on a night like New Year's Eve, but we got home all right, but there was so much traffic, it was like 4th of July traffic the whole way home! This is me, eating Cumi, aka squid. IT's so good, it basically tasted like a fish stick in a curly fry form, it was ENAK, delicious. And yes, I cut my hair, really short, because I've been so hot growing my hair out. Ah, I feel so much better now! This is Brother Punijo. He lives a far ways away, but I love going to his house because it's outside of the main city. When we go to his house, I feel like I'm home because it's wide open, there's not a lot of people, it's green! IT makes me happy. We also ate RAMBUTAN! The greatest fruit on earth. It's that hairy fruit on the table. It tastes kinda like grapes, and when you open the fruit, it's white. It's so yummy, I could eat rambutan all day! We got stuck in the rain, so we found shelter as soon as we could. It usually rains everyday, but for the past few weeks, it hasn't rained very much, it's felt kind of like Utah heat. A couple days ago, I got super tan because it was super sunny, there were hardly any clouds in the sky. I like the rain though. When it does rain, it's usually for a few minutes and then it's done, so we were trapped for only a little while before we went on our way. The woman behind Sister Antonio is Sister Atin, she's a favorite of the missionaries because she always cooks food for us and goes on visits with us, she's super awesome, even though for the most part I don't know what she's saying. :o Sister Nainggolan was transferred to Solo on Wednesday, she'll do great there. So now it's just me and Sister Antonio, and it's been the first time I've been in a companionship, since I've always been in a tripanionship. It's taken some getting used to, but I think it will be a good companionship, we'll be doing some great things in Jogja together!
INDONESIAN TIDBIT Fast food places here are different than in America. They are more like a Sizzler's or Olive Garden type of restaurant than a cheap place to get food like in America. They have nice tables and decorations and they look very modern. The food still tastes the same, but places like KFC, McDonalds, and Pizza Hut are really nice places to eat here. Bagus! Till next time, Sister Stringham |
AuthorHOLLEY STRINGHAM: Salt Lake City, born and raised; returned missionary from the Indonesia Jakarta Mission.; a simple folk aimed on changing the world Archives
October 2017
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