Living legends

 It's been a week with bits of this, that, and the other. But a few things stand out as legendary.

 We watched another session of General Conference for our Sabbath services as a branch. We were bold and issued an invitation to our Advanced and Intermediate English  classes to join us for it and explained it would all be in English but would provide a good chance to practice their listening comprehension. We asked for an RSVP, simply because one of Pres. Uber's many talents is baking. Last week he brought cinnamon rolls and caramel corn. They were legendary! This week he made chocolate chip cookies and cheese rolls! But only two of our many students sent a notice that they wanted to come. Imagine our joy when 5 showed up, only one being one who'd RSVP'd!  Is there a future member,  missionary, or branch president in our midst? You never can tell at this point.

The brother on the end came the week before but does not attend the English class. The other 4 are our students. Hey, where are the girls? 

Jack stayed after to talk.

They were all troopers to stay and listen the full two hours, though I don't know if they comprehended all that much. We always pray they'll feel the Spirit somehow, when the choir sings perhaps, or a prayer, or in the English words they might understand. 

An unofficial branch activity this week was a "Girls Night Out" with 3 of the 4 Da Silva girls. Their mother is the RS Pres and they truly are the pioneer family of Timor-Leste. Sister Uber chose her favorite local restaurant that's run as a vocational training center for young women and the food was par excell'ance! She wanted us missionaries to talk about our previous and current missions in natural conversation to germinate the idea of the young women possibly serving missions themselves one day. We also all shared about how we met our husbands and our temple marriages. It was truly a special evening spent with these darling gals.

I'm guessing the food was probably the fanciest meal they'd ever experienced in their young life. We hope the memories of this night will stay with them. And who knows if we planted any seeds? That's what we're trying to do. 

We had yet another chance to eat out this week because it was Sister Snow's birthday so we helped her celebrate by feasting at an outdoor rooftop restaurant. The night and view couldn't have been more spectacular. 

She is a real joy to serve with and we have been blessed to know her kindness and pleasant demeanor. She's also an awesome cookie maker! 

Sister Snow has lived most of her married life in Caldwell, Idaho. We all were pretty surprised to see this T-shirt on one of our students, advertising her home state.

It made no sense to any of us, even the owner of the shirt was clueless what it meant. 

Potato Variety Awareness Day maybe? 

With the Lallitans, we enjoyed a few more group outings this week. One was a memorial dedicated to the two Nobel Peace Prize winners in Timor-Leste's quest for independence. Our tour guide was John, a very friendly fellow who spoke excellent English.

Then on P-day we ventured to a cultural arts museum, dedicated to preserving the weaving traditions of the Timorese people. Every village has its own distinctive "tais" pattern that the natives readily recognize. The government doesn't want these skills and arts to die out with the modern generation so they created this museum and we had two excellent tour guides explain all they knew about it to us.

"And they did have fine-twined linen and they did work all manner of cloth, that they might clothe themselves from their nakedness"

I was quite fascinated by what I was seeing and wondering how these motifs began in the first place. Where do their cultural stories and traditions originate? It's pure speculation on my part but I was seeing ancient temple motifs; seraphim, the brazen serpent on the pole, and the Tree of Life. Could they be a remnant of the house of Israel? I love to think so. Look at the king and queens' crowns too.

The tour guide told me the bulb looking thing represented the King's sacred house and throne.

        I'm seeing 3 Degrees of Glory here with even more divisions on the highest level.  

We also became familiar with a Dili legend of a young boy being rescued by a crocodile by riding on his back.

The details of the story are vague to me due to my poor memory but much like our Timpanogas legend of the Sleeping Indian Maiden, if you look at the mountain ridge surrounding Dili, you'll see the snout and body of the legendary crocodile.

                              Can you see it?

                Easier to see in storybook form

The beaches here are unique in that there are no gulls whatsoever. I think I read online that the pigeon is the National Bird for Timor-Leste but we would vote for the chicken. Who needs alarm clocks with these early risers? We have many free range roosters and hens and chicks running freely on our apartment property. (Believe me, they are funner to watch than hear.) We've watched the adolescents get their crests as they've matured just in the 5 weeks we've lived here. They really have beautiful plumage in an endless variety of colors.

This week's lighthearted gravestone find was quite by accident. I was transcribing some people and I have come to the realization I will never stay caught up. So I was trying to delete some illegible ones and this one caught my eye and made me smile. Even though it's hard to decipher, I had to show it here as proof.

His name is Melgipson, born in 1989, but the little guy only lived 3 months. Australia is TL's closest neighbor and Mel must've been famous everywhere. Be careful who you name your children after! 

 

 This week Elder Dunlap got a sourdough start from President Uber and after 18 months of flop loaves on our mission, he finally found his groove and produced his best loaf evah! 

                   Now we're rolling in the dough

                    Even the bread was happy!

But what horrible timing.  For two weeks now, the Lallitans have been living in 2 different hotel rooms while we occupied the 2nd missionary apartment. But the writing is on the wall. Our time is soon coming to leave this place. Waah! We were informed by the mission that Elder Dunlap's visa is processed and now they are working on mine so it might not be too much longer. We figured the Lallitans should get settled into their permanent landing spot and we should be the vagrants. So we volunteered to vacate early and live our last days as squatters. We went out looking at every possible hotel and temporary apartment in Dili. It was like house hunting, I loved the experience and fell in love with every possible place, even the sketchy dives and the remote locations, just imagining living like castaways on a deserted island. (Girls just love to play house with the boys they love!) The feature we were looking for most was a kitchenette where we could cook meals for ourselves rather than eat out. Of all the places we looked, we finally found the best one 500 feet away. Seriously! It has almost everything we asked for in prayer except a convection oven but gratefully, we live close enough to our old place, we can walk there to bake our bread. And breakfast is included here! The Lord is often in the details of our lives if we'll ask Him to be. 

                Perfect for our temporary needs.

So we don't know when our last day is but we are preparing our hearts for another separation. Even our computer took a crash and decided it couldn't go on. How can we teach English now without Power Point?  Maybe it will resurrect. We know we can't stay here longer than our extended tourist visa which expires May 15th. So we're facing the inevitable end of a beautiful chapter of our mission. These days have been nothing less than legendary and never to be forgotten. 

"Wherefore, as ye are agents, ye are on the Lord's errand; and whatever ye do according to the will of the Lord is the Lord's business.But all things must come to pass in their time."

Doctrine and Covenants 64: 29, 32 

Resistance was not futile

 Feeling more settled in our teaching duties, our schedule wasn't nearly so hectic this week. Initially we were helping the Snows with crowd control and they did the same for us and we were practically living at the church all day, every day. Our attendance numbers have dropped to a much more sane amount, just like Janu said they would, and we are all managing on our own, so that's freed up ALOT of time. We are finding the existing curriculum still needs a fair amount of tweaking for our personal style of teaching, so every day, we work on our lessons together and make revisions and additions. But being with our students is still the BEST part of our week. Oh and did we mention two of them showed up to church and watched Conference with us last Sunday? Yes!!

                 Half of our Intermediate class

  The other half of the class in our 

backwards L-shaped room

This allowed us a little more free time this week to get "oot and aboot" and see a little more of Dili, since we never know when our time is up here. Our free day was drizzly and gloomy, very appropos for what lay ahead. We'd heard bits and pieces of the history of Timor-Leste from various sources, but we felt a tug to visit the Resistance Museum and learn more about it for ourselves. The museum is not geared towards English whatsoever, it's presented in their native tongue of Tetum and translated into Bahasa and Portuguese with English as the 4th option near the bottom. We found ourselves crouching to read every entry. 

Not ESL more like EFL

 I won't be sharing a comprehensive overview of the Timorese saga in this blog. It is 26 years long for one thing. Suffice it to say, it is the same story of man's inhumanity to man and the utter horrors of war. Nor can we share any part of the exhibit in pictures as they didn't allow photography inside the museum. These are only the picture windows on the outside of the building.

While I was enjoying my comparatively carefree life from 1976-2002, the people of Timor Leste were battling for their lives and their independence. They gained their independence from Portugal in 1976. 9 days later they were attacked by Indonesia. All of the photos and images we saw had the vibe of the Viet Nam War era that we were much more familiar with. The clothing looked straight out of Cuba with their leaders looking akin to Fidel Castro. Two exhibits impacted us profoundly. First-TV footage captured by a journalist of a massacre that happened right in the Santa Cruz Cemetery where I've been doing my volunteer work. Through pained, half-closed eyes we watched people running for their lives and crouching behind tombstones to avoid being shot at. It was so horrific and brutal at times, I had to avert my gaze. There is a memorial to Max Stahl in the cemetery, the journalist who captured the footage and lost his life doing so. All this time, I've felt like I've been treading on hallowed ground and now I understand why. It was the very scene of a massacre of innocent civilians, the defenseless men women and children of Timor-Leste. If you've ever been to a Holocaust museum, you know the feeling I'm talking about. It crushed our hearts to witness this senseless brutality. The other heart-breaking display was of the personal items and clothing remains of 6 young resistance fighters; their ratty clothes and sneakers, their soles practically falling off. They did not have the backing of a first rate national military to give them uniforms and rations. These were young men who some might call renegades but with a devoted cause to fight for their country and families. We learned the US did not help the Timorese in their fight for independence against Indonesia for there was suspicion they were being helped by the Communists but from what we read, it seemed no country was helping their plight at all, it was so rag tag. But somehow they just kept fighting this ongoing war until 2002 when they were finally declared independent from Indonesia. One young man's name stuck with me because it was so unusual- Procopio. The rest of the names slid off my brain like eggs on Teflon.

 The very next morning after our museum visit, we ventured out early to the cemetery to photograph gravestones. I came to one grave and there he was- the very same young man I learned of the day before- Procopio. 

           His name means "progress" in Greek

As if this wasn't coincidental enough, I then took the time to look at his full name. No way! Rego is Joel's last name too, our Indian convert son in Bengaluru! What uncanny odds! Both of these young men with Portuguese ancestral ties, with the same family name, and about the same age I'd guess, one who was given all the blessings of the gospel, the other gunned down in the prime of his life. It all came full circle for me. When they say God is in the details of our lives, I have every reason to believe it's true. I'm praying that these names I record in the cemetery are those of these brave young men and their families, martyrs who gave their lives for the eventual freedom of their country. These names and lives have not been forgotten and will someday fuel their temple, where their sacrifices will not go unnoticed by our Heavenly Father. I know this country is years away from having a temple but I had another crazy vision. If our church architects can convert a burnt down Tabernacle and transform it into the House of the Lord, what could they do with this deserted, half built church in the heart of Timor-Leste? 

                               It could happen

              Is anything too hard for The Lord?

So now when we meet these very special people everywhere we go, we see their resilience and special heritage. The Lord's eye is on the sparrow, the people who the world forgot or deemed insignificant. Though we were ignorant of them only a month ago, we know the Lord has a beautiful story of redemption for them. 

       The bright smiles of the gift shop ladies

                       The innocent children 

                       The wonderful students            

              (Look! Elder Mehta's twin brother!)

And when we see these statues and murals around town, it means a little bit more to us to know their history and their fight for independence.

     the price they paid to become a free nation

and to break free from the shackles of oppression 

Whew. Heavy stuff. On a much lighter note- Here's an exciting discovery we made this week: A mere block down from our church, we saw what looked to be an Indian restaurant.  We ventured in and met Noor Islam, the owner of the place. He was from Bangladesh and spoke excellent English but he claimed Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi food is all pretty much alike. Really? We took him at his word. And so we ordered Chicken Biryani, Paneer Curry and Garlic Naan bread and immediately knew he was telling the truth. It was so delicious to be eating Indian food again and in Timor-Leste no less! I've made this point before, you don't miss something til you don't have it for awhile. It made us very homesick for India and our old life there. Noor even had our favorite snack on the shelf to buy. Moong Dal! 

         They look like Rice Krispies but they are not rice bubbles! They are a crunchy lentil, "rich in protein" and make a great salty snack. What a find for us! (If we could market these in the US as the healthy treat they are, we could perhaps make our fortune.) They claim to have the same amount of protein as 500 grams of spinach. Touchè, Popeye! 

 

And to hail back even further to my first  mission in 1985, here was another find:

                      Pulkogi flavored chips! 

 Apparently there is a Timor-Korea connection

We celebrated the end of our work week eating out with our fellow seniors at Castaways, an open air restaurant across the street from the Timor Sea. 

            Oops, wrong photo of tired porkers. 

                         There's the right gang!

While we ate, the mosquitos had a heyday on my legs. I'm paying the price today for yesterday's fun and relaxation.

So here's the lessons learned for our life:

Most times, we must put down our weapons of war and beat them into plowshares and become peacemakers. But sometimes we must pick them up and resist evil, to fight to defend freedom with our very lives if necessary so that future generations can have the blessings we didn't. May the Spirit guide our actions to know when to do which. 

Therefore, my beloved brethren, let us resist evil, and whatsoever evil we cannot resist with our words, yea such as rebellions and dissensions, let us resist them with our swords, that we may retain our freedom, that we may rejoice in the great privilege of our church, and in the cause of our Redeemer and our God... Give unto them power to conduct the war in that part of the land, according to the Spirit of God, which is also the spirit of freedom, which is in them. 

The words of Pahoran to Captain Moroni

 found in Alma 61: 14-15

 The Book of Mormon

Should We Stay or Should We Go Now?

 

 The days of long walks on the shore, of morning workouts in our makeshift gym, and Rob's swims in the community pool have suddenly ended. We shifted into turbo gear this week and gratefully, we were spiritually fueled for the rigors. The plan for the next 2 week's branch meetings is to listen to General Conference  but we decided we wanted to hear the talks and announcements first-hand rather than in trickles from memes on social media all week. So we set our alarms to wake up to listen to it live. Our Timorese time put the sessions at 1:00 AM and 5:00 AM Sunday and Monday mornings to listen to Saturday and Sunday sessions. How utterly untimely.  We knew we'd be listening to them again in church with notebooks ready to record impressions, but this time we decided to just lie in bed in the dark and only listen to them, not watch. It was a very ethereal experience to hear the words of Apostles and Seventys of God pierce the darkness and enter into our minds and hearts, just like we often hear the words of the Spirit in our heads after a bedtime prayer. Amazingly, neither of us fell asleep while listening which we always seem to do when we listen in the daytime! We were in a pretty alert state yet very relaxed too, like one gets in when meditating. It was very unique for us. We would totally recommend this! Try it sometime yourself and perhaps you'll experience what we did with hearing the word of God without any visual distraction. (Caveat: Get just enough sleep beforehand so you're not drowsy or all bets are off!)

Shaking off our sluggishness the following days, we plunged right into teaching English Classes between us and the Snows. The Snows teach 3 classes on Tuesdays-Thursdays and we teach 2 classes on Wednesdays-Fridays but each couple helps the other because of the sheer sizes of the classes. We come home pretty drained on the days we don't teach because it's the longest stretch from 8am-5pm with only a little peanut butter and banana sandwich to fuel us. Add into this schedule a daily Mission Prayer Meeting (Doa Pagi) at noon our time, (10:00 for Indonesia). Additionally, the Snows have been tasked to teach Bahasa and English to the missionaries 4 times a week in that mid-day time. Honestly, I don't know how they are holding up doing it all but they are Super-Troopers! Their organizational skills and technology know-how keep us all running smoothly. With our teaching and curriculum development backgrounds, this kind of work suits our strengths well. A little experience in theatrics has proven helpful too. The 2 days we teach, we come home very hoarse but completely floating on air like we did after our evening English classes in India. These young people are so absolutely wonderful! They are humble and happy, without guile, so sweet and eager to learn and participate. Could you ever ask for better students? It's every teacher's dream! They are the hope of the future of Timor-Leste. Our hearts and arms are expanding to love them all, I think we're about to burst with joy!

       Balbina and a cheerful photo bomber

         Young people everywhere want peace

              Breaking into Partner Practice

The Timorese love to sing with gusto whether it's "If You're Happy and You Know it" or crooning Brenda Lee's soulful hit "I'm Sorry". They are also eager to pray with us before and after each class, almost like it's the norm not the exception. Our last class topic was all about learning to give apologies and ask for forgiveness. Many times we can weave our beliefs of the Godhead and gospel teachings right into the curriculum. And we're living in a place where that isn't taboo to do. (If only, America) We love living among these people, we haven't met a grumpy or impatient one yet. It's breaking our hearts to think our time here is limited. Is there really no way we can stay?

Unfortunately the holiday is over. Ramadan is Rama-done! There is one mosque in Dili and we just happened to drive by it after a morning at the cemetery and see all the people spilling out of their worship service. We weren't even aware of the Muslim population in Dili until then.

                                  Dili Mosque 

             All the lovely ladies in their finery

We don't see the long black dresses here like we saw in India. These look so much cooler for a humid climate. Have we mentioned before that it rains at least once in the day or night here? As Rob says incredulously every time- "wow, it's really chucking it down!" 

Right across the way from our apartment enclave is an open area. Our own local Muslim families had gathered for a meal to break their fasting. There was feasting and chanting for many hours. 

But you know what this means don't you? It means the Indonesian government is back to work and our visas may now get processed. Noooooooo! We're not ready!

My work at the cemetery has been progressing but I bet I've maybe only done 1/6th of the entire place. Gee, if only I had 6 more months here. 

I never know what surprise visitors I'll run into. Hello Kitty!

           A friendly family paying their respects

Still, I'm always a little nervous when approached by someone, wondering if they're going to be angry with me for intruding in their sacred space. As if. Like I said, we haven't met an angry one yet. This man approached me but he spoke no English, I spoke no Tetum except "Bon Dia". I showed him the Billiongraves app and he seemed to understand what I was up to but then he gestured to me to take his picture as if to say, "I am a living monument. Make a record of me." So I did and he seemed quite pleased. I shook his hand and he went on his way. Our encounter struck me with the thought that every person on this earth wants to be remembered by others, to know that their life mattered to someone else. All Lives Matter. I am astounded when I try to comprehend that God loves us all as individuals, as his precious children. But there are just so darn many of us! How is it possible, Lord? I need not wonder, He's got the whole world in his hands! And he only asks us to love all we come in contact with, the you and me brothers and the you and me sisters. 

       Help us Lord to love them all as you do. 

(This photo is from India, the only teeming masses photo I could find) 

So we know it's improbable we could stay on here but still, we hope for more time. Praying for red tape, for once. Another senior couple- the Lallitans arrived on Thursday because of their 6 month restriction in Jakarta. So now there are 3 senior couples here in Timor-Leste and they are staying temporarily in a hotel room until we vacate our apartment. That's hardly ideal for them. They are called as Humanitarian missionaries and will work on water and medical projects during their stay, some that are already in the works with Brother Janu and they will help with the English classes when their time permits. Here's another dilemma that Elder Snow pointed out. As a medical missionary, he's met with some local doctors to discuss the level of healthcare available and found it is completely sub-par. How can we possibly send our young missionaries here if there are no adequate medical services? But what about seniors then? Hint: We subsist on prayers!  

Metaphorically speaking, it's like putting 50 Band-Aids on a gaping wound. 

So there are still things that need working on for the gospel to grow here exponentially. The obvious solution? What if there could be young local missionaries? They've lived their whole lives with their medical system. What's the big dealio? Well, someday, it will happen. In the meantime, we couples will keep prepping the fields so the harvesters can come. There's been many before us and many will likely come after us. We are all mere mortals and old ones at that and can only do so much. I'd like to wave a magic wand to make it all work but we have to leave the details of our lives to our Author who weaves all our stories together. Personally, we can't imagine doing anything more suited to us back in Indonesia than what we're doing now, as a few of the students are starting to ask when our church services are and if they could attend. We'd like to put down some roots in one place and make some lasting friendships with them like we did in India. Alas... 

The way we see it, we haven't really lived among Muslims as the predominant religion as yet, and that may be something the Lord would have us do to round out our mission experience. Another missionary couple leaving at the end of April, who we assume we'll pick up their duties, helps out the small outlying branches on many different islands and are constantly traveling from place to place. That suitcase life would also make it hard to establish deep roots in any one place. You just get going and it's time to move on. Kinda like what we'll experience here. So maybe we are only called to be seed planters and dung-ers for now. Just work the soil and plant a few seeds. The Lord surely knows all our strengths and is VERY aware of our weaknesses and limitations too so we'll leave our destiny in His very capable hands. 

Until then, we'll continue to love and laugh our way through this season of our mission. More funny microlet trips. More cemetery work. Even grocery shopping can be an amusing multi-store challenge. There is no one store that has it all. The Portuguese store has the best bread. The Super Mercado has pretty decent produce but no mangos or avocados. MeiMart, the Chinese chain has the most affordable groceries and meat. There are tons of Australian products on the shelf and some from Singapore too. Everything but their produce is imported from somewhere else. 

                              Yep, mostly air

                                         ???

The closest market in walking distance from our apartment right on the edge of the pier has very little to offer except a small tender mercy. Bulk ice cream that they scoop for us. We can buy a cup of chocolate ice cream for 50 cents. This is our Bengalore Juicy equivalent! Yea for cheap ice cream treats! 

The Lord truly knows the desires of our hearts!

It's standard procedure now to welcome in the new missionary couples with a beach dinner and complimentary sunset

Rockin' the Cas Bar

This one's for you, Lallitans

Wherefore, go ye and preach my gospel, whether to the north or to the south, to the east or to the west, it mattereth not, ye cannot go amiss. 

Doctrine & Covenants 80:3