Chickens, Cicuks and Weddings

 This was our latest find at the grocery store.  No we didn't buy them but....

....Elder was surprised to find them on his dinner plate at Raja Ayam when he ordered Roasted Ayam.

This is Chomper, our little cicuk.  We haven't seen him much in the apartment anymore, probably because we keep it too cool.  He is alive and well in the hallway with several of his buddies.  He is about as long as your finger, tail and all.

Last week we attended the wedding of our driver's sister.  It was held in the chapel and she looked beautiful in her Indonesian wedding dress.  The couple sat in front facing us, with solemn expressions the entire time, while three speakers gave marriage advice.  The Bishop then married them in a very simple ceremony. There was a reception party outside with a full meal of typical Indonesian food.  Indonesia does not recognize a temple marriage as legal, so couples have to go to the temple after the civil ceremony.

We spent the majority of our time last week preparing family history training.  We are just about done with the second pass! 

We are getting lots of practice shooting from the hip.  We were asked to give talks in sacrament meeting during sacrament meeting in our visit to Semarang.  Three times we have been visting a ward's Family History class and they had an opening prayer and then just turned it over to us with no warning to teach the whole lesson.  Maybe if we understood the language better, we would know what is going on?????

It feels a little like the members must have felt when Brigham Young got up in conference to list the people who were being called to missions or to go settle some faraway corner of the West. 

Muslims and Mormons

Muslims

We drove to Semarang on Sunday to visit the ward there and check on the young Elder missionaries. All along the road we saw thousands of Muslims gathered for prayer. This weekend they celebrated Idul Fitri. This is a holiday to mark the end of the Islamic month of Ramadan, during which Muslims fast during the hours of daylight.Then they travel to their hometown and ask forgiveness for offenses to family and friends over the last year. Unfortunately, this holiday creates horrible traffic problems. There were 592 people killed in 3,000 accidents throughout the country with the mass exodus to hometowns. We made the mistake of planning our trip on that day. It took us 3 1/2 hours to go 68 miles through bumper to bumper hair raising traffic. Thank goodness we had an experienced driver at the wheel!  

Mormons

These are the fine young Elders in Semarang, just outside of their house. We brought them lunch and inspected their apartment for the mission president. We also had a chance to do some family history training with them in hopes they will use family history as a tool to interest non-members in the church and the concept of forever families.

At the Semarang chapel we were met by the Family Histoy Consultant, Bro. Hendro and a recent convert, Feni.  Bro. Hendro was so warm and friendly to us and spoke some English so we visited quite a while before the meeting and asked him if we could visit his Sunday School class after Sacrament.  He seemed fine with that.  In Sacrament we were asked to speak, not just bear testimony as usual, so we tried to take a little longer than our usual testimony.  Then Bro. Hendro took us to his class and sat us up front with the Bishop and turned the time over to us!  Surprise! The language barrier really gets us into trouble sometimes.  We will spend a Saturday in Samarang next month helping some members with New Family Search. 

This was another opportunity to train at a District activity at the Greenways apartment.  They have enough room for a small crowd and the missionaries love the taste of home they get there...sloppy joes for lunch! 

We've been surprised at how much we have been involved with the young missionaries....it's our car they like! Along with the Greenways car we can haul the entire district so we come in handy on a regular basis.  This was a Zone activity to the zoo in Jogjakarta, about 40 miles away.  We have learned that Batik shirts are the unofficial uniform for casual missionary activities.  Solo is famous for it's Batik fabric.  It's time to shop!

They grow 'em big in Indonesia!  Animals that is, not senior missionaries.

We finally got some training from our area family history leader, Bro. Tsai in Taiwan, with a couple of hours on Skype.  We now have an idea how we are to proceed with the training for the Priesthood Leaders in Indonesia.  He wants the training done in language, (Yikes!  How do we do that?) so we are trying to create a Power Point with excerpts from the only training manual we have that is in Indonesian.  With our limited skills and experience with Power Point and Bahasa Indonesian, the going has been pretty slow, but we are getting close to being done!  We have been blessed to have training and learning opportunities drop into our laps. These have been invaluable to our understanding of the needs here in Indonesia.  Our testimonies of the amazing plan of salvation that allows for all of our Heavenly Father's children to partake of the blessings of the Atonement continues to grow here in beautiful Indonesia.

Getting to Know Indonesia and It's People

Last week we had the opportunity to travel to Merapi, a live volcano 30 miles from Solo.  We snapped this picture from the car on our way up before the clouds covered the top.

If you look closely just left of center towards the bottom you can see the gray roofs of a village sitting below Merapi. We were told by the Indonesians who were with us that the people feel a kinship with the volcano.  They are very superstitious about it.  If they are not good to the earth, Merapi will erupt and hurt people.  They feel like they are part of the earth and that Merapi is just part of it all.  If they all work in harmony, Merapi will be good to them and they will have a good life. In 2010 the volcano erupted and destroyed a village but it is the eruptions that cause the land to be so fertile so they continue to make a living on the slopes that may someday be their graves.

These are the fun missionaries we were traveling with left to right:  Sis. Neis, Sis. Blake, Sis. Greenway, Elder Tessor, Elder Paryoto, Elder Go (red shirt), Elder Secrist, Elder Jameson, Elder Hendro, Elder Fisher and Elder Mocadompis.

We really enjoyed the sunshine and the clear blue skies, a rarity in Solo.  The horizon in town is always blurred by the haze.

By the time we were ready to leave the clouds had covered the peak.  It's hard to see in the photo, but there are terraced fields of tobacco growing right up to the lava flows.

We saw many people carrying their crops or loads of wild grass they had cut for their animals.  I wish I had a photo of the old women and the huge loads they carry.  We are a very "soft" people in comparison.

 

Motors, as they are called can carry huge loads of almost anything.  The people are very ingenious about making the most of what they have.

If you look to the left you will see a rack of tobacco drying on the side of the road.  We saw hundreds of drying racks on the winding road to the volcano.

These racks were everywhere as well.  They appeared to be a second drying of the tobacco.

We did some visiting in the compones (small neighborhoods) searching for lost members of the Banjarsari Ward.  This looks beautiful but the smell was very bad due to the river on the other side of the greenery.

Everyone throws their trash into the river and the sewer empties into it as well.

This was a friendly little family we met who directed us to a family we were looking for.  They were so friendly and proud of the little girl on the tricycle who had curly hair.  We were invited into 3 homes but I was not brave enough to take pictures inside.  The homes were mostly made of concrete with concrete floors and no furniture to sit on.  We sat on a mat on the floor of tiny little homes with no indoor plumbing and hardly any furnishings. 

One night we took a load of youth from the Jebres Ward to a farewell party for Suryiah, 22 yrs. old, who is going on a mission.  It was at Papa Ron's Pizza, a wanna be Papa John's.  Aster is on the left.  She has very good English and has been a lot of help to us.  She is a counselor in the Stake Young Women.

We finally got our car.  This is our driver, Purwono, nicknamed Franky by a previous senior couple.  He is 30 yrs. old, working on his thesis as an English major and is very helpful as a translator for us. 

This is Franky's family on the Indonesian version of a mini-van.  They travel all over town like this through the most congested traffic you have ever seen! 

Paris is 2, Sydney 4 and Karen is 6.  Yami is Franky's wife. We are so thankful to have Franky's help!

 Everyone here pretty much goes by one name.  There are no  surnames and almost no records, which makes family history research almost impossible!  We are working with a few people to submit family names for temple work while we prepare to do some training with the leaders here in Solo. We either use oral history they have collected from their family or some have pedigree charts if they are descendents of royalty.  Records were kept of men's names on the royal line, but no women's names or dates for anyone. 

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