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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 |
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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