Familiar AND Uncharted Territory

 Oops, we did it again. We mistakenly made the assumption that Timor-Leste was merely a short pitstop and we would not have time to become attached to anyone or anything. So not so! We have already fallen in love with this little branch and would be blessed to stay here for the remainder of our time if we could. To know these darling souls and amazing leaders is to immediately love them.

    Janu's mega-watt smile lights up any room!

 

Sister Eden is a member from the Philippines. Her husband came to church on Easter (maybe for the first time? I'm not sure.) 

                 Orange you glad to meet them?! 😁

Sister Uber is the heart and hugger of the branch and a mother of 2 children. She works for USAid, her charity and good works extend to the macro level of the whole human family and to the micro level of the small branch family and her own family. She exemplifies to me all that is good about women and mothers.

The Harris's both work at the US Embassy. They and their 5 sons are core members of the branch and lend their strength and talents everywhere needed. Her parents emigrated from Laos to Minnesota. The natives adore her!

We share Eastern Idaho beginnings. They met at BYU-I

They hosted the entire branch for an Easter dinner at their lovely home. Despite the variety of ages, there was a feeling of unity among them all. They accepted us immediately as one of the family. Consider yourself--at home! 

           All the lovely ladies of the TL branch

             Some of the youth & Elder Dunlap

The YM & YW were gifted their own set of scriptures by President Uber. Now that's an Easter gift to treasure! 

         President Uber is uber-wonderful too! 

Zeni, a member, brought two of her friends. She is very good at inviting her friends to join in this small twig's activities.

Rob's idea for propping the phone to get a             group photo- a skate!

                Aaaaand cheese, the group photo!

We were on such a happy high after this event, we didn't even mind the next piece of news we received. Due to Ramadan, the Indonesian government pretty much shuts down and not much gets processed for a month. So any thought of getting our visa in a timely fashion to return to Jakarta was highly improbable. No problem! We are practically experts at waiting for visas by now and nothing phases us at this point of our mission. And besides, we love it here. But it does create an issue that we can only stay here legally 2 more weeks. So with that concern looming, Janu, took us to Immigration Centrale where we started the application for an extended 30-more day visa. The office felt like something out the movie "The Year of Living Dangerously" with men in military uniform everywhere but in actuality the Timorese people are very calm and peaceful. Only the setting looked ominous. One slight catch however- the Timorese government took our passports and now they are stacked in a large pile and said they would return them to us in 14 days with our 30 day visas. That made us a wee bit nervous. So we couldn't leave now even if by some miracle, a few non-Muslims showed up to work in Indonesia and processed our visas. You can't make these scenarios up! How bizarre to be waiting on two governments for two visas at the same time. Hah! But who's worried? Not us. Hakuna Matada, right?  Janu, ever the voice of optimism says that all will end well and we are sure it will. And hey, we see it as more time to be here to maximize all the experiences we can. We will be just fine if there are more delays. Waiting has become our new normal. It feels strangely familiar.

 We held a registration this week for our free English classes that offer certificates for those who complete the 16 week course. From the response of our casual conversation classes, we  hoped we could fill 2 beginning, 1 intermediate and 1 advanced class with a cap of 35-40 students each. To our utter surprise, we show up a half hour early to a large crowd of young people in our small courtyard that had all the markings of a peaceful protest.  

                  Have fun storming the chapel!

Elder Dunlap gave up trying to exert crowd control and talk to them about which level they wanted to register for. They were hard pressed  to get in that door!  A quick executive decision was made to add one more time slot and just not turn anyone away. So what if we have 80 enrolled in each class and only 40 chairs? Hakuna Matada! When everyone was done registering, we had 326 students enrolled! No lie!

It will be standing room only for the late comers next week but Janu assures us there will be plenty of dropouts and self-eliminators so it's all gonna turn out fine. But wow! This will be a marvelous and unique experience to teach so many bright and eager young adults! The few local members we have in our branch were brought in through these English classes in times past, including Janu and Zelia (his wife) and the Da Silva family. So we get the feeling things are gonna boom in this part of the vineyard. Dang! Now we're wishing we could stay to be a part of it all! 

We are cherishing these peaceful days here. Most mornings we go for long walks to soak in the beauty of the ocean front. 

While on one such walk, we found a local wood- carving artisan living in a beachfront shack.  Without any real searching or haggling, I found my Timorese lady with the pot on her head and some carved toys for our grandsons. (Sorry, no pictures of those, we want that to be a surprise)

                            Such serendipity!

     She even has a fanny pack in front like me

Traffic here is on the left side of the street just like in India and Indonesia. We are so completely oriented this way now, we will have a hard time reverting back to our old ways. But it's messed with my brain. I say right when I actually mean left and vice versa. Lord, help me and my aging brain. We've noticed a few unique things in our wanderings. People on scooters like to wear a shirt backwards over their clothes. Why, we ask? For wind, says Janu. Hmm... You'd think they'd be glad for some!

Their cold tolerance level must be even lower than mine. It's never cold outside in

 Timor Leste! 

Instead of autos or tuk-tuks for public transportation, Timor Leste has little minivans called microlets where you cram in about 8-10 people knee to knee. All the extras spill out the side door. You gotta wonder about the suspension and alignment. 

Rollin' down the highway, lookin' for adventure 

Born to be wild! No backward shirts on these free spirits! We love wind!

We knew we had to experience a microlet for ourselves and what was to stop us for only a 25 cent fare? Maybe it's never been attempted before because the passengers were trying so hard not to laugh and show their outward amazement at these crazy foreigners!

 

     They were accommodating but very amused.

Another use of our time here; with not a huge amount of duties to stress about, we've taken many trips to the Santa Cruz Cemetery and have become quite chummy with the sweepers and nearby street vendors. I've met super friendly people visiting graves of their relatives like this auntie and niece from Darwin, Australia. 

   And I see people praying for their relatives at the garbage pyre. Their prayers ascend to heaven with the smoke. It works for them.

And if you don't have candles for a vigil, I guess you use what you've got on hand.

                Cigarettes will work in a pinch

There are some pretty amazing monuments but this one takes the prize for sure. 

Though a wee bit odd, you gotta admit there's some incredible attention to detail to admire 

We try to go in the early morning when it's relatively cooler. Today, as the morning sun was shining directly in my eyes, I walked through a doorway made for shorter Timorese persons and whacked my forehead on a concrete slab. It should've knocked some sense into me! I was momentarily stunned but I rubbed it off and kept going. Then, as I went to move a plastic flower arrangement so I could photograph a gravestone, I was stung on my thumb by a mean wasp-ish looking insect. (Perhaps it was mad because the flowers were fake and wanted to take it out on someone?) Yow, again! It was throbbing mightily for a short time but then subsided, thank goodness. Now you may think I'm being a little over dramatic but I honestly feel there have been adversarial forces wanting me to give this work up many times. But I keep persisting, realizing nobody else is ever going to be driven to do this, especially in this remote country that is years away from having a temple built.  So far I haven't inspired anyone else yet to join Colette's and my 2-woman crusade in the Asia area. Nevertheless, we bought a local two week sim card on our India phone for this reason alone so I could continue to do this project and have the on-site data needed for GPS markings. Here's where things get strange. I'd taken nearly 800 photos on this phone at this cemetery and only 200 or so would upload but the remaining 600+ simply wouldn't budge. It just spun eternally. I would get app messages saying it's already uploading, but they weren't. Maddening!  I'd try uploading at home, fully juiced. I'd try at the cemetery on site. I'd turn my phone off and on, press every combination of buttons, all I could possibly think of to get the app to respond. Exasperated one morning, I sat down on a gravestone and said a prayer. My words were, "Heavenly Father, I'm at a standstill. If this work is not important to you, please let me know and I'll just stop. What I'm doing seems kinda pointless now.  But if there is any way you can help this phone of mine upload these photos, please intervene. Otherwise I'll stop because unless I can get the photos to upload, it is a huge amount of wasted time, money, and energy, so please help me know what to do. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen" Nothing amazing happened on the spot, so we drove back to our apartment a little beaten. I guess I'm really done. (I've said this before, right?) A little later back at home, a most unique message popped up when I checked the status that just didn't feel like it was coming from the app. It didn't have the language of computer speak. It felt completely supernatural, like a personal Liahona message only to me. It said, "there is a bug in the app. Clear the cache." That's it. How weird. I hadn't pressed anything recently to make that message appear. I didn't even know what it meant for me to do but I went to Settings and there was a place where you could DISABLE or DELETE the app,  CLEAR DATA, or CLEAR CACHE! There it was! Just the small concise instruction I needed. I would never in a million years have known to do that without that succinct prompt. And yes, the photos immediately started uploading and have been ever since. It's caused me to ponder in amazement. How did that "bug" get in the app in the first place? I don't get computers whatsoever so there may be a perfectly logical explanation to all this. But the bigger question I have is; who was assigned to help me by sending that timely message? A computer-savvy relative? A Timorese person who wants their name to be discovered and recorded?  All I know is the answer came as a result of prayer and in my state of fasting in a miraculous way and now my faith is strengthened in the power of prayer to receive answers from sources of wisdom higher than my own. Our Heavenly Father loves me and wanted to answer my prayers and have me continue.

 So it's all good. I love gathering Zion with my small contribution. It gives my life and my mission purpose and meaning. My dashboard tells me I've helped many unknown people find their ancestors already and that may be true but deep down in my heart, I do it because I know this work is important to Him and it's mine to do, that nobody else in this particular place or time can do it but me and I feel the Lord is happy with my offering and wants to help me succeed for his other childrens' sake. Now your particular work in gathering Zion might be raising a righteous child in the ways of truth or teaching a Primary class or transcribing names on a computer or taking names of your ancestors to the temple or sharing the gospel with a friend or seeking to know for yourself if the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true Church on earth so you can be part of Zion and His kingdom when the Lord comes shortly. (Whew, sorry for all these long sentences)  It's all the same work of saving souls and it takes all of us doing our part. The rewards, I hear, are amazing!! Take it from Janu. Take it from our prophet, President Nelson. Take it from the Lord, himself. 

For behold this is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. 

Moses 1:39

Be thou humble; and the Lord, thy God shall lead thee by the hand and give thee answer to thy prayers. I know thy heart, and have heard thy prayers...

Doctrine & Covenants 112: 11-12