Surprise!

 We are starting over again for the 5th time on our mission, (6 if you count the MTC).  Our hearts may be ready to expand to love more people but our brains over the last 19 months have lost A LOT of neuroplasticity! Maybe it's just that we're consistently sleep deprived and are having a small case of language and culture shock that's giving us some "fuzzy brain". We started the week by attending Stake Conference for the Jakarta area. Saturday evening session was held at the local church building and it was the most heavily attended Saturday session we've ever seen anywhere on our mission. The American Senior missionaries went out afterwards to dine one last time with the Wallworks to say goodbye to them, whose MLS assignment we'll be continuing on with (more on that in later blogs).

                          Bachelor #1 is mine 

                  The other lovely companions

Sunday morning meeting is traditionally so well attended they have to rent a convention center for the event, which was filled to overflowing again..                     This is only the early crowd

The choir to the side sang beautifully, many times harmonically, and always on pitch. Wow!

One awesome feature of the church meetings here is that every talk is translated into English and we blessed Americans get to listen to them over headphones. It truly helps us to stay alert and in tune with the Spirit. Other than some basic phrases, we won't be attempting to tackle Bahasa in 4 months, despite our initial intentions. We just don't have the brain capacity to do it at this stage of the game. Something's gotta give. We have observed the Indonesian Saints to be very strong in their faith and truly converted to Jesus Christ. They haven't clung to any overt cultural traditions but seem to have fully assimilated to the culture of the church and of Christ. Even young Brother Grace from the Congo had donned a suit and looked 3 years older from 2 months ago. He was sustained as an Elder during the meeting. How awesome is that? 

              Flanked by friend Elder Wallwork

We met so many happy smiling Indonesians but at this stage I can't remember a single name, except the one I wrote down- Hendra Pernawan, but no picture of him and his face is lost to me now. I was lamenting to someone that I'm not sure if I can remember more names and faces at this point. It's feeling overwhelming. Someone gave me the suggestion to take a small video of each person saying and spelling their name instead of a photo. What a great idea!! 

I was immediately drawn to two of our Iranian members in attendance, Mahdi and Farzad. I think I know why too. When I was in highschool, I made friends with 2 Iranians at Highland High- Siamak and Abdullah. They were very friendly to me but always had an allure of foreign mystery about them. That was during the time of the Ayatollah Khomeini and the protest of the Shah of Iran in the late 70's. I've always wondered about those two, and thought of them whenever I would read novels about Iran, thus, my continued fascination. I guess I'm rather amazed that these two are members of our church and not Muslims. They have been refugees for 11 years and are still awaiting the greenlight to travel to a country where they can shed their refugee status and work to earn a living. I don't know their full story but I'm grateful they found their way to Christ who can save them and the church that can befriend them. I've always felt a natural instinct to befriend the foreigner, ever since I was one myself in Korea, because I distinctly remember how it feels to be a stranger in a strange land and how comforting it was to be fellowshipped by members of the church.

                     Fellow citizens in Christ

Whenever we're feeling brand new to an area (or country), like we do now, we like to go a'wandering and get familiar with our immediate surroundings. Downtown Jakarta is so modern and beautiful!  It's so clean on most public walkways, it has a real Disneyland vibe. 

                        Flora sans rubbish

Our mission office is dwarfed by skyscrapers in every direction. It's the original piece of land the church has owned since the 70s and look at it now and what's built around it.

                      A David among Goliaths 

Next to our apartment we found a full fitness center by the tennis courts and inviting outdoor swimming pool. Wow, even squash courts.

                                 Just kidding

 Thank goodness we found an area we can publicly do some smooking. 

                    It's not unseemly any more!

We discovered a familiar taste of home practically in spittin' distance:

                             Root beer froats! 

Mid week, we were ho-humming through our regular day when we received a text that completely surprised us. Without prior notice, a certain family member was on a flight from Tokyo and headed our way: 

                                     Ryli!!!

We were simply floored! What a thrill to have a family member literally show up at our doorstep! Ryli, as you remember, pulled the same stunt in Salt Lake, he just walked in unannounced to the Familysearch Library. But halfway around the world was even more of a shock. His surprise visit was just the boost we needed to get us pumped up for this last leg of our mission. The President gave us "permissi" to have him stay with us in our apartment rather than at a hotel across town. He's been game to go exploring right along with us and even brave enough to try the unusual deep fried durien balls. 

                        Don't try this at home

Both he and I had Durien's Revenge afterwards so that's a one and done! 

President and Sister Tandiman took us all out for an Indonesian welcome meal one night, a much higher level of deliciousness than A&W

 Sorry guys, only the sisters made the photo op 

 I have a ton of pictures of our Saturday spent with Ryli at Taman Mini Indonesia, l will just add a separate travel blog entry instead of trying to include them all here. 

Sunday was the best day of all. Even though we got lost by giving the cab driver the wrong address and were a half hour late arriving to church, everything was amazing once we arrived. I made a new friend Sadia from Afghanistan in Sunday School and she sat with me in Sacrament meeting. She is 24 and wants to be a doctor and hopes to be able to leave Jakarta to attend school. 

9 year old Jeremy was baptized right after sacrament meeting. His father Freddy is Indonesian and was just recently reactivated so he could baptize his son. You'll  never guess where his mother was from? Korea!! Nomu nomu pangapsumnida! Suddenly, old vocabulary was flowing back into my brain as I tried to talk to her! Kyunhee became an instant friend today as well. She was from Kwangju, a city I served in as a young missionary. 

The baptism was the sweetest thing I'd ever experienced. Danny's primary class said the prayers, gave the talks, and played the piano. Sister Levesque gave the best talk about the Holy Ghost. The uncle spoke too and bore his testimony and invited his mother to join her family on the covenant path and be baptized. Sister Kyunhee, responded right out loud in front of everyone. " I will". Oh what joy filled my heart! They provided a Korean lunch of Duk, Pulkogi, Pap, Sushi, and many other things I'd forgotten the name of. Nomu Mashiseyo! 

                   And this is only the desserts!

And then to have Ryli with us at church to be a part of it all was the ultimate ice sing on the cake. He said the Primary songs were easily retrieved from his memory data bank. After a 19 years absence too. Crazy huh? 

The time with him has gone way too fast. We love Ryli so much and it has been such a blessing to have him here. We feel this same way about all of our children, all 8 of them!  We yearn to have even deeper connections with each one. For us, this was like the ultimate face-to-face, one at a time, parent/child date that we wish we could now repeat 7 times over. Ryli is so upbeat and funny and grateful and helpful. He translated all the Bahasa on our washing machine into English, helped restore our Internet, offered to fix the unreadable font on this blog. (Sorry, it's still bad, I'm afraid to mess with it because I can't remember my password I initially set it up with) But seriously, what an intelligent and handy guy to have around!  We've loved sharing our missionary life and our testimonies of the Savior and the things we know to be true with our son. If we all could accept it, Jesus Christ could be the ultimate glue and sealing power in our relationships with our family members. Simple.  And as our commitment to follow Him grows and as we make covenants with Him, so does our unity with one another. Christ is really the only One that can make good on the promise of Forever Families. But we have our part in it too. We have to want it. And we really really want it!

               Getting on the same wavelength 

...when he was a great way off, his father saw him...and ran, and fell on his neck and kissed him..."Bring hither the fatted calf and let us eat and be merry. For this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found. And they began to be merry. "

Luke 15: 20, 23-24