Monas and Mexican

We started the week with our annual branch conference.  Mission President and Sister Mackay arrived on Saturday, spoke at the branch conference on Sunday, and stayed over Monday to visit potential new buildings (the lease on our existing church building is up at the end of the year).  We enjoyed having them come over to our apartment for dinner, the first guests we have entertained here because missionaries are not supposed to have members into their living quarters.  It was so nice to be able to speak English and have it understood, and to understand what they said as well!

Sister Porter was plagued by health issues throughout the week.  On Monday night she vomited, which is very rare for her due to stomach surgery.  But things were just that bad.  On Wednesday morning, the day we were supposed to leave for Jakarta, she had a case of galloping diarrhea.  Elder and Sister Porter both had nasty colds in Jakarta, which led to laryngitis for Sister Porter.

We arrived a day early to be sure to make a chiropractic appointment, and used the morning to visit the national monument.  Since Indonesian, like most languages, has the adjective follow the noun, it is Monumen Nasional, commonly shortened to Monas.

We had visited Monas briefly on our visit to Jakarta in 2015, but we didn't have time to wait for an elevator to the top or read about every diorama in the museum at the base.

On this trip we had time to do those things. Reading about the multi-year fight for freedom and unification, we wondered how they could conduct the negotiations to create a country, without a common language?  What a task to gather people from 10,000 islands, with 700 languages. We found it interesting to see dioramas depicting both Catholics and Protestants as patriotic supporters of Indonesian independence.

We arrived at Monas before 10 a.m. and had only a short wait for the elevator to the top.  There was only one other group on the elevator with us, a dad and his daughter, who was very shy toward us.  I said, "Jangan takut; kami punya delapan cucu," and she did peek out at us.

From the top, there is a great panoramic view of Jakarta, hindered by the smog of the city.  The rectangular building in the lower left of this picture is the new U.S. Embassy, which was under construction at the time of our last visit.

We decided to stay at a more upscale hotel than the adequate place that we had used last time.  The breakfast at Hotel Harris was spectacular; they cater to visitors from all over the world, so I had an omelette as well as veggies every morning, bread pudding, a chocolate croissant, fried fish, and melon juice.

However, the hotel did not have an ironing board, which is a common amenity in most USAmerican hotels.  We found that if I had ironed Elder Porter's shirts with spray starch (which we don't usually do, but did specially as trip preparation) and then steam them in the shower, they were acceptable without ironing.


Another treat at this hotel:  There was a bathtub.  Sister Porter took a bath every night we were there.  There was also a well equipped fitness center.  And the bathroom sink had hot running water, a true luxury.

We spent one evening visiting the Schmids, a couple who have been newly transferred to Jakarta and will be teaching English using the same course that we have been enjoying for our twice-weekly lessons.

The hotel was in easy walking distance to the church building where Friday's zone conference was held.  It was an excellent training session, very inspiring. 

We already posted on Facebook a picture of some of the Mexican food we enjoyed at Amigos Cantina in the Bellagio Mal.  So in one week, we got to have two of the things that were on last week's list of things we missed from living in USAmerica!

We also ordered dessert at the Mexican place, and were blown away at the quality of the Key Lime Pie.  It passed the common authenticity challenges: yellow instead of too-common green, and a pastry crust instead of heretical graham cracker crust. Not sure if it was key lime juice, but it certainly had that combination of sweet and tart, with a creamy filling.

During our time in Jakarta, Taxi drivers asked us where we from, and were surprised when we said, "Medan."  We had to explain that we live in Medan now, but were originally from America.  However, at least two of our drivers were from our island of Sumatera, moved to Jakarta for what they hoped would be a more reliable job and a better life.

We nearly missed our flight back home because the wrong gate was listed on the electronic board.  Fortunately, we heard the final boarding call in Indonesian and we made it in time.