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
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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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