Little things

We arrived at church today and immediately started trying to ensure that things would work well for the meeting.  Sister Porter instructed some young sisters to augment the seating that had been set out (which was good because we had a record-setting attendance of 81 people!).  She was working on the sound system when someone came up and said hello.  She shook his hand but then moved on to the next task.  It turned out that he was a church auditor, visiting from Jakarta. He asked us if we were happy in Medan and we said, "Yes!"  Then he asked us, if that was true, why weren't we smiling?

A great reminder.  It's a little thing, but so very important.  This picture is of us smiling as we peel rambutan, one of our favorite fruits, that were brought by a kind sister to church.

One of the little things that has been keep us busy (and not smiling enough!) has been the sound system in our building.  There have been mice or rats in the church, and they have chewed through some cables.  Staff from Jakarta brought a new microphone, but it died during last week's closing prayer.  It was thought that we needed a new amplifier, and indeed we wasted a non-trivial amount of time last week searching for a new amplifier.

But on Saturday, we went through a checklist and realized that the microphone battery was dead after less than a week.  We replaced that and did a bunch of testing for optimal settings.

Elder Porter has been fighting a cold all week so he went home, but I stayed for a baptism.  It was frustrating because one child kept running up and turning on the microphone and yanking it.  I tried in all languages to convince her not to do it.  Easy to see why the battery was dead!  And on Sunday, the foam piece was missing :(

Another little thing:  Elder Porter did an inventory of the chairs in the church a few weeks ago.  Some are chrome, some were painted (and are now rusting).  Church staff hired some people to repaint the painted chairs.  They also replaced the off-white vinyl pads on the seats on the stand, which look so much better.  But they are still in the process of painting the chairs, so we had to pull some from other places to have enough seating during sacrament meeting.



Speaking of little things, our apartment doesn't quite fit the definition of a tiny house, but it is the smallest place we have lived since undergraduate college.  I guess it's convenient that after I eat, I can easily reach to put dishes in the small sink without having to get up.

This was one BIG thing this week.  Elder Porter finished reading the Book of Mormon in bahasa Indonesia!!

We also had some great visits to members, gave a first discussion to an investigator, and taught two well attended English classes.