Selamat Natal! Christmas Celebrations

The Big Event of the week was our branch Christmas Party.  Everyone was working on it, and we were expecting 120 people, when average Sunday attendance is only around 70.  We had made flyers for the missionaries to hand out, and had delivered some ourselves.

But that wasn't the only thing going on.  All the male missionaries had the opportunity to help a church member family paint their house as a service project.

Sister Porter did not go along because she was busy with the sisters in the hospital.  The young missionary who was hospitalized recovered from dengue fever enough to have her surgery for appendicitis on Monday.  It was scheduled for 10:30 a.m., and the hospital has wifi, so Sister Porter brought them two computers so that they could email their families as usual.  While they were emailing, Sister Porter finally got her flu shot (we had tried earlier but our nearby hospital didn't have the quadrivalent vaccine).

As she was leaving the apartment, the healthy sister who was staying with her companion called and asked for breakfast.  Hmmn.  It was our P-day and the pantry was bare; no eggs and no fruit.  We packed some cereal and I made a grilled cheese sandwich.  But here is the thing:  on the elevator, the Indonesians were holding their noses from the stench of the sandwich.  Seriously?  We had brought some durian fruit home a few days earlier, and that was okay, but grilled cheese was too stinky?

Throughout the week Sister Porter brought several meals to those sisters, including lots of veggies, french fries when the recovering sister was craving them, and a round of pizza.  We also did their laundry.  One afternoon Sister Porter stayed at the hospital with the recovering sister while the companion and a member went out teaching.

Our branch party was supposed to start at 4 p.m. on Thursday, December 20.  They have an expression in Indonesian, jam karet, which means "rubber time."  The event began more than an hour later.

Sister Onting was released from the hospital on Thursday afternoon, and it made quite a stir when she entered the church.

The sashes that the MCs are wearing are Ulos, a sign of respect in the Batak tribal tradition.  These sashes are worn at funerals, weddings and other special events.  They didn't wear them all night, but it was good to see local culture incorporated into the program.

The program included a lot of music (both congregational singing and amazing ensembles and solos), some spiritual thoughts, much involvement from the children and youth, and a drama:  a condensed version of A CHRISTMAS CAROL

Elder Porter had the lead in the drama.  This is Pak Scrooge taking time from counting money to tell Bob Cratchit that he can't have the day off for Christmas.  Before the action started, he was smelling and caressing the money. It's hard memorizing lines at our age, and we worked a lot on the cues.

 This is Jacob Marley.  Actually our wonderful driver.  He did a great job.

 This is the ghost of Christmas past, played by one of the Young Women.  Elder Porter is wearing his sarong under the bathrobe.

 The climax of the party was the arrival of Santa Claus.  They invited all the kids under 12 to come up to the stage, and Santa handed out bags of treats.  Santa was also played by a missionary.  He was very gracious with his time and stayed in costume while a lot of people took pictures with him.

Dinner was a fancy box dinner, handed out as people left, which saved on mess in the chapel.


During the week we were also spending time looking at potential church buildings.  On Saturday afternoon, we had the chance to get into a house that might work out, so that made us late arriving to a Batak church service to which we had been invited by the mother of one of our members.

We went to the Christmas service, ate quickly, and had to leave by 9:30 p.m. because we both had assignments to prepare (Sanford was speaking in sacrament meeting, and Colleen was teaching the young women).  So we gave our prize drawing tickets to our friend.  She got a new stove!  She said it was Sister Porter's ticket, but we assured her that she should have it.

Merry Christmas to all!