his week I was home sick ( don't worry, just a cold), so that wasn't very eventful, but we finally got to a warnet that lets us upload photos, so here's a couple of things I saw this week, even though I was inside for most of it. Yesterday was also my 10 month anniversary... wow, the time goes by SO FAST!!!!! This is our toilet. You squat over it and then to flush you just pour in a bucket of water. It's pretty great. I found a little cactus at the supermarket for Rp. 9,990, so like, about 8 cents. I couldn't resist so I bought one. I'm still not sure what to name it... Juan, Hernandez, Pablo... hmm.... August 17 is Indonesia's Independence Day, but once August 1st hits, the flags come up and the city is filled with red and white. It's pretty cool. IT reminds me of America during Independence Day. Yay!
Hopefully next week will be more exciting! See you next week!
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Hello and happy Christmas in July! This week has been pretty good. Sorry there haven't been any photos the last few weeks, all of the warnets we've gone to can't do usb and we struggle. So this week was PLD again. It's a zone meeting with the mission president. I got to meet President Rowley for the first time! He's really cool and so is his wife. We talked a lot about having enough faith to find people. We need to believe in ourselves and also believe that there's someone out there that wants to hear our message. It was good.
We also have been blessed with a bunch of amazing investigators. Go figure with finding ya? They're all families, like a couple and a mom and son, and a family family. They all want to hear the gospel, and are all progressing really well. I'm so thankful for the opportunity to share my testimony with these people, I've seen how it strengthens their family and brings light in their lives. It's the coolest thing ever. Okay, my time's up! Happy Pioneer Day! Sister Stringham Hello everyone! This week has been pretty good. We went on splits with members for the first time in my mission! We went contacting but we couldn't find anyone to teach, but that's all right, they were still happy to help out. We're really trying to work with the members. We know if we work with the members they will gain our trust, be excited to do missionary work, and work ourselves will increase so much. We're really excited to work with the members. It's just... we don't have any investigators teach that they could fellowship. So that's our focus this week, finding people that want to hear our message! We have PLD this week so it'll be a little hard to find lots of time, but it'll be awesome! We're so excited for this week!
Something touched my heart yesterday at church. So the past little while I've been a little down because none of our investigators or less active members have been coming to church. But yesterday a less-active couple came in during the middle of sacrament and snuck onto one of the benches. We were super excited. And one sacrament meeting was over, we learned that the whole ward was too! Many of the members came up to them and shook their hands and hugged them and visited with them. It was the coolest thing ever. I could see the love the ward had for these two struggling members. I'm so glad people cared enough to talk to them and welcome them back to church. It made my day :) I've also been hearing many of the terrible things happening in the world lately. The world right now is pretty messed up and there's so much darkness and suffering. I've been thinking a lot about this lately, and I've decided that even though there is a lot of contention and hurt and suffering in the world right now, we can still make a difference. We can still be a light in the darkness. We can still make a difference, even when what lays ahead of us is so big. I know when each of us do the little things, we can brighten up the world, little by little. A smile, a compliment, a genuine act of kindness, can bring even the darkest days into the sunlight. Go out and make a difference! Sister Stringham This week has definitely been an interesting one. We started this week out by being on lockdown on Tuesday. There was a man who had the intent to blow up a police station at a stadium near our house. The police made it so he couldn't get into the police station but the guy himself blew up. Nobody else was killed. But, we have to be very careful when something like that happens. There are a lot of fanatics in Solo and can overreact sometimes. So to play it safe President Rowley made all of the missionaries in Solo stay inside for the day. So, we sat, and slept, and ate, and did nothing for a whole day. It was a long day, but we are all ok. No need to worry :)
On Wednesday and Thrusday, there was a holiday named Lebaran. It's kind of like Thanksgiving but for Muslims. Most other Indonesians have adopted the holiday too. So everyone goes back to their hometown and celebrates time with their family. It's right after Ramadan, the fasting month. It was weird, nobody was outside! Solo was almost like a ghost town. That also meant none of the people we wanted to visit were home either. But that's ok. One of the people we tried invited us in to see how Lebaran is in Indonesia. We got free food two days in a row! We also went to Mageleng for a zone meeting. We left at 6 AM and didn't get home until 1 AM because the traffic was so heavy because of Lebaran. It was really fun because we went through Jogja to get home. That made me happy :) Anyways, this week has been really good. We've been working so hard this week, it's crazy. Next week I get to meet my new mission president at PLD. It'll be great! l know Heavenly Father lives and is always there for us. He loves us and know each of us personally, I know He is always willing to care for us and bless us. No matter what happens He will give us strength and peace of mind. This I know. We can come closer to Him by doing the basics: keeping His commandments, reading the scriptures, praying everyday, loving and serving others, and staying positive. As we reach out to Him, He will reach out to us. Sampai minggu depan! Sister Stringham Just to let you know in the warnet (internet cafe) I'm in, there is a goat just chillin' around somewhere, but I can't see it so I'm kind of freaking out, but no biggie, hehe.
This week has been pretty ordinary. We worked hard to find new people to teach but still haven't been able to find anyone very solid. Our most potential investigator cancelled on us but never told us about it so we rode our bikes so far all the way to her house only to find out she wasn't in town. But that's o.k! Because we still love her and will come to her as long as she wants to meet. That's an ordinary thing that happens here so I'm used to it. I know that even though we don't get a lot of baptisms or investigators, the Lord is still blessing us and loves us even if we don't haveas much success as other missions. What's important is that I keep moving forward and work hard. That's all that is required. For P Day today America Edition we got a massage in the mall. It was pretty good. We also bought batik fabric for a meeting that will be at the end of July. Yay! One more dress! Nothing much else happened this week. I hope you all have a wonderful 4th of July! Sister Stringham Hi everybody! Last week for P Day we went to the beach! It was the first time I've seen the ocean on my mission, and I live on an island! It was so cool and the water was so refreshing. We're allowed to get in up to our knees, so yay! This week I also went on splits with Solo Jebres/Banjesari. They're the sisters on the other half of Solo. It was really cool, especially because I got to see my trainer Sister Antonio again. We got to be companions again, even if it was only for a few hours. We also worked hard this week, even if we didn't get a bunch of lessons in, a lot of people weren't available to meet when we went to their houses. This is me and Sister Solomon at the BEACH! Halfway across on the other side of the world is 'MERIKA. (is that still a thing?) There were also a bunch of pond things with eels and sea stars and hermit crabs. It was cool. I forgot to bring yackbar Vahl, so my nametag will have to do. We ate some es pisang ijo. Ice Banana Green, if you translate that. It was so good! Especially on a hot afternoon. And the most important thing that happened this week! I got to eat a taco!!!! Even though it was an Indonesian taco, it was still soooo good. It was on a little food cart that also sold kebabs. I wouldn't call it a Mexican taco, but Indonesian tacos are good too. Yesss!
Okay, have a good week everybody, have a great summer! This week we went on a zone trip to Prambanan. It's a hindu temple in JOGJA and it was my second time going there but it's ok, because it's really cool. It was super hot and we are about dead by the end, but it was a really good day. I got to see my child sister Xiao and hang out with my fellow missionaries. Above is my cheesy jumping shot in front of Prambanan. Not much else to say about that.. haha We walked around a couple of the buildings and looked at all of the statues of the Hindu gods. Maybe there isn't a temple here yet, but at least we got to see this one! Some of you might have heard that there was some flooding in Central Java. We are all ok and still alive! We were actually a ways away when it started raining. We were contacting in a mall and were about ready to go somewhere else when it started raining really hard. So we went back in and contacted some more. When we decided the rain was letting up, we went outside again and the rain started again! So we went inside again and contacted some more. Finally we decided to just brave the storm and went out to a dinner appointment. I think we were in the mall from 2:30 to about 6 jut talking to people. I hope we helped at least one of those people.
As we were riding home, the streets were flooded in some areas. The street close to our house was like riding in a river. I think the water was about halfway up my bike. What made it even worse was that the rain was all on my glasses so I couldn't see as well, but we both got home safely and our shoes are still wet. The house across the street from us was flooded. We offered to help but they didn't want it. The next day when we came to church we learned a lot of the members' homes were flooded as well. We offered to help but they all said no too. ok! It was still cool to see how even though their homes were flooded, they still made church a priority and came to church. Love you all! Sister Stringham This week in Solo we worked with Sister Winanto from the other 2 wards here. It's been really fun! We've been able to get out of our normal routine and meet some new people! These are the rice fields outside of one of the members' houses. It's so far away... t's a tradition in the mission to 'hancurkan' missionaries who have a birthday. AKA we egg them and throw flour on them. It was both Sister Winanto's birthday and Sister Solomon's birthday. Companions
I've had a couple people ask me what I do here as a missionary, because it's a little bit more unique than other missions. Since we are not allowed to knock on doors here, we find people by talking to them on the street, in the mall, on the bus, and something I call RT contacting. Every neighborhood is organized like a stake. The "stake" is called an RW, and there is a leader over the whole RW. Then, there are "wards" called RT, which each has it's own leader. Since we can't go door-knocking, we go to the RT and ask if there are any people who would be interested in our message. They'll either give us names or tell us it's a Muslim neighborhood and we can't go proselyting there. If we receive names we go visit them and ask if they are interested.
Another thing that's really important in our work is visiting less active/inactive members. About half of the members in Indonesia are Inactive. We come to invite them back to church and share a gospel message with them. It's cool to see someone come back to church all because they felt like someone cared enough about them to invite them to come back! Another thing we do is go to member families. We invite them to do missionary work to and be good examples to their friends, to share their testimonies. They also feel us a lot of food, so no matter what you can't go bad. Most cites missionaries ride bikes and can ride for maybe 3 or 4 hours every day. I've gotten really good at riding a bike! We also have meetings we go to and stuff like that. We do service projects too, but I haven't had many opportunities to do many service projects. The most important thing about missionary work is that we learn to come closer to God ourselves, to learn how to work hard and how not to give up. I've learned so much from my mission and am so glad I still have 10 months to go! Yesterday was stake conference. I got to sing in the Jogja choir, which was really cool and got to see all my Jogja peeps again, which made me so happy! Elder Wu (I think) gave a really good talk about ovrecoming our challenges and understanding why we have them in our lives. This week was pretty good. We found a couple that had been meeting with the missionaries a while ago but got lost when the missionaries moved to other cities. We went to their house a couple days ago and they said they want to get baptized. So, we asked if they want to get baptized on the 12 of june and they said yes! That's one of the coolest things that've happened on my mission. This is me at one of the members' house. They have a dear thing on the top of their door and I thought it was pretty cool... I got to see my 2 favorite new members in Stake Conference. Merry and Sister Endang, one of the best moments of the week! Sister Xiao also got some pretty awesome Indonesian makeup for choir. Yay!
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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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