User's Manuals

Our zone is finally complete, after a few weeks of being "bertiga" while waiting for Elder Mock to arrive from the Utah Missionary Training Center.  He is from Utah, although with roots in South Carolina.  Sister Onting is from the Philippines, Sister Dilianti from Eastern Java (but her family came from Timor Leste), and we have three Indonesian elders.  Elder Siahaan is from Java but has a Batak name and so everyone wants to tell him how they are related to the Siahaans.

On our Monday Preparation Day, Sister Porter had her teeth cleaned by Sister/Doctor Emma, who is a wonderful dentist.  Usually Sister Porter has her teeth cleaned every 4 months, so she stopped by the office during December after coming back from Jakarta, hoping to make an appointment, but they were closing for renovations. The renovations lasted two months, but look really spiffy. Sister Porter thought about finding another dentist or seeing one in Singapore, but we never got around to it, and Sister Emma did a great job.

Last Sunday the computer in the branch office did not want to connect to the internet.  Elder Porter did a call with church offices in Jakarta, and they suggested a USB WiFi device.  Elder Porter found one for sale, and asked Sister Porter to manage the installation because of her greater familiarity with the Windows operating system.

She had a great experience with the user's manual, holding her phone over the manual in Google translate, and seeing the translation through the camera.  Wow!  The translation was really helpful, and the installation was successful.

It also inspired Sister Porter with a theme to give a talk in sacrament meeting.  Our branch president sent a message on Tuesday night asking her to speak about the importance of reading scriptures.  So she told that story, and talked about the scriptures as a user's manual for our lives.

On Tuesday morning while Elder Porter was talking to the office in Jakarta about our computer issues, Sister Porter stopped by Clover Bakery for a cake to celebrate two birthday's during district meeting.  Unfortunately, the driver dropped her a block from the bakery and she had to ask for directions, and we don't like walking around with a computer.  But she made it safely and caught a ride back afterward, in time for the meeting.

A nice surprise that the sister training leaders were here from Jakarta.  And amazingly, we were able to get 12 slices from that little cake.

A lovely surprise on Friday night!  One of our investigators, who lives more than an hour away in the port city of Belawan, came to our English class.  We were able to introduce him to Elder Siahaan, as that is also his last name. Our friend went home more than an hour on a motorcycle without a front lamp.