Many Meals

Our meals with a meaning began on Monday.  For P-day we went out for lunch at a certain restaurant at the Sun Plaza mall.  A waitresses there is a friend of ours who is also a new convert to our faith and a student in our English classes.  So we go there now and then.  We also went to see Toy Story 4.  (Yes, senior missionaries are allowed to see movies.)

On Tuesday, Sister Porter left early for District Meeting and stopped by the Clover Bakeshoppe, which we (and the missionaries) think have the best cakes in town. We always try to do cakes for their birthdays and brownies when people head home.  This is his first birthday in the mission field, and he ended up getting two cakes.  A new member also brought a cake for him the next day.

On Wednesday, we had dinner at McDonalds because it was near the park where the missionaries and young members play Ultimate Frisbee and also make contacts with people hanging out there.  The weather was perfect and we chatted for a bit with people wanting to practice their English.


On Thursday, we had plans to bring a US American dinner to our friends, who had all three children away at the youth conference.  We had been looking forward to it all week.  But Wednesday night, we found out that staff from church offices in Jakarta would be arriving on Thursday to look at a proposed new building for the church.  So we had to cancel.  We went to dinner the the Lima (5) Rooftops Bar since it was near the new building and a friend works there.  It is very luxurious and expensive by Medan standards, and has a great view of the city, including the night market.  Our branch executive secretary expressed interest in coming to see the building, so we sent a motorcycle to collect him from church and treated him to dinner as well.  We walked from the restaurant to the new church building to get a sense of the neighborhood.

On the way back, our young friend mentioned that his mom was working nearby.  We were happy to hear that because she had been working on the far side of town, where we rarely go.  On Friday, for dinner we went to the restaurant where she works, 7 days a week, from noon to midnight.  She as happy to see us and was able to take a few minutes to visit.  She also had three children away at the youth conference this week.

Our Friday night English Lesson was about US American holidays.  Sister Porter wrote a lesson about the holidays and the colors associated with each holiday.  It was a lot of fun and we sang "Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer."

On Saturday, Sister Porter accompanied the young sister missionaries to visit a young woman that they had been teaching off and on for some time.  Sister Porter had met the mom before, and it was a chance to reconnect.

She is from the Batak tribe, and taught us how to make one of their traditional fish dishes, for which they are famous.  Including using the torch ginger flower plant that I haven't quite figured out how to cook.

She is an amazing cook.  We all helped clean onions, cut beans, etc.  She worked in the garlic and peppers in the blender WITHOUT A LID – and not a drop went astray.  I was so impressed.

Of course the stew was served over rice, with fruit (pineapple!) as a dessert.  The sister missionaries washed the dishes.

After that incredible meal, we returned to church where Elder and Sister Porter gave an English lesson, attended a baptism, and then sat to wait for the youth to return.  They were supposed to arrive at 7:30 p.m. and it was after 9:30 p.m. before the first car pulled up. We arranged for rides home for several of the youth, and our driver took his own children home before returning our car to the apartment and going home on his motorcycle.

Of course today's Sunday service consisted of the youth telling stories of the conference and sharing their testimonies of Jesus Christ and the gospel.

We found ourselves with a few minutes free in the afternoon one day this week, and went to a favorite store that sells stuff from all over Indonesia.  We were astonished at how well this woman could play this uniquely Indonesian wooden instrument, and struck by her choice of songs after noticing our name tags.  Do any of the grandchildren recognize the song?  Email us if you know.

Utter Chaos and Complete Joy

UKR stands for "Untuk Kekuatan Remaja," or "For the Strength of Youth." It is an Indonesian-mission-wide youth conference.  (It's not just the country; there are three recently baptized young people from Timor Leste who will also be in attendance.)

This past January, the first time during the year that the Young Women met, Sister Porter had to teach the lesson without any warning.  The family of the YW president simply did not show up.  Perhaps there was rain and their house flooded?  Anyway, although Sister Porter did not have an advance plan, only three YW attended, and she used the opportunity to tell them about the youth conference that would be coming up in June.  We went downstairs and looked at the pop-up poster, we consulted at the map to see where it is being held (on the island of Java between Semarang and Solo), and we talked about the theme for the year and played them the video with the theme song.

It has been great to have a goal to prepare for; the youth have taken it seriously and have focused on spiritual goals during several activities, and we read from For the Strength of Youth every week.

The cost is being handled by the Area, based in Hong Kong.  The instructions in January were clear that we could invite less-active or even non-member youth who have been attending regularly.  Our branch is one of the smallest and most remote in Indonesia, but we sent 19 young people.

There was some last-minute angst.  The young sister who had surgery 10 days ago was well enough to travel.  Some of the youth are still in school and the conference provided excuse letters for the week.  But those weren't available until Wednesday, and on Thursday we had to take some out to a family an hour away.  However, our tire was flat, and so it took a while to make repairs.

On Wednesday, it rained horribly and only two people came to English class.  Rather than teach the next lesson in the series, we taught a back-up lesson, which happens to be about weather, very appropriate.  We did not go to the park to watch the young adults play Ultimate Frisbee; we felt fortunate to be able to make it home safely.  In the picture, we were inching along our street in 6-8 inches of water to our apartment, which is on the left.  The columns in front of the foyer form a W shape, for "Wahid Residence."


Today is the day for the youth to leave for UKR! Our branch president is going as a conference counselor (the male counselors have to be returned missionaries). He is 26 years old and single, but he is very wise.

The flight was scheduled for Sunday at 11:00; the airport is a solid hour away. He invited them all to come and spend the night before, young men and young women sleeping in different rooms.  A married couple (whose three teens are all going) spent the night as chaperones.  It isn't a hardship to sleep on a tile floor with only a woven plastic rug, because many of them sleep on concrete every night.

We are so excited for them!  They are the future of church leadership in Indonesia.  One of our children had her heart touched, and made life-long friends, through attending an Especially for Youth Program, so we know what a profound experience this can be.

People started arriving in the afternoon.  There was an enthusiastic ping-pong game going on while Institute was meeting off in a side room.  But then there was a Relief Society activity at 6 p.m., so they had to put the table away while the sisters used the large room.

Later they practiced their dance & song for the talent show.  People washed hair, took photos, played music and generally hung out.  There was a formal meeting around 9:30 p.m.  Everyone was in a circle and the Spirit was strong as final plans were discussed.


After the meeting was over, some started to settle for the night, while others were still eating.  We were glad to see that someone had actually used the wooden chair-protector that Elder Porter had made some months before for the rice cooker.

We were up late signing notes and assembling all the bags that we had prepared for the youth who were going.  They included snacks for the trip, including hard candy for the take-off and landing.  Also colored pencils for marking scriptures, and the girls got burgundy hair scrunchees.  At the time, I had also bought a purple hair tie in the same pattern, and gave that to the YW president.  Since she also has a daughter who got one of the red ones, it will save confusion around their house in the future.  (A reflection on the financial status of these girls:  One gave her bag to her little niece, while another let her mom pick out some treats.)

We arrived back at church by 6:45 a.m., and the branch president decided to start the sacrament meeting a bit early because everyone was dressed and ready.  It was very impressive that there were two young men who could bless the sacrament, another who played piano.  It was a short meeting and then they changed clothes for travel.

The night before, we had a solid plan of who went in what car.  But somehow it all fell apart.  In the end, our car had only two young women, four parents, a niece and me and the driver.  And I wasn't quite sure that we'd gotten all the youth on the way.

I was going directly and we arrived first.  The rest were taking a Grab car only to the nearby shopping mall, where they could pick up a direct bus to the airport.

Elder Porter stayed back at the church to conduct the main sacrament meeting.  We had 31 at the special early-morning meeting and 43 at the usual time, so a pretty good turnout over all.  We got two new missionaries this week, so they spoke.  There was a confirmation, and the Relief Society President and Executive Secretary spoke so it was a full meeting for those in attendance. 

Since I have been to the Medan airport many times, I know my way around and could warn people about the initial security scanner just to enter the airport, and then show them over to the Citilink desk.  We found a place to put all our luggage, which was a lot because we had packed luggage for the originally assigned youth.  I directed them to the rest room. None of the youth had flown before; most of their parents had not, and so I took one mom on a little tour, showing where they would arrive next Saturday.

It took a while to check all the luggage.  The parents and I walked the group over to Security, stopping to take this picture.  At the last minute, our branch president said to wait, grabbed my phone, and had me step into the picture (upper right).  After we dropped them off, I showed the parents where we could watch them going down the escalator after clearing security.

These are our girls going down the escalator.  The one carrying a big bear is the one who just had surgery.  The one in the back looking at paperwork is the female counselor.

Probably at least one is looking at her phone, but they have to surrender the phones at the conference.  It is a device-free zone, although they promise to have lots of photographers.

Below is a video of the youth practicing their "Tor Tor" dance, traditional of the Batak tribe.  (Remember, if you don't see the video, you may need to click on the title of the post at the top of the email.)

P.S. We heard that the plane has landed and they are on a bus to the conference site!

One wedding, two critters, three hospital visits

On Sunday, we had record attendance of 102 people at sacrament meeting, because of all the visitors who came to attend the wedding on Monday.  We were so happy to help with the wedding for Padlin Simanullang, the son of one of the families in the ward.  He is the younger brother of Sihol, the driver we had in Bali who was so wonderful. Sihol came to the wedding and it was his first trip to Medan in many years. This is the luncheon after the ceremony at our chapel.

In this picture, our (tall) mission president is in the middle.  The sash that Sister Porter is wearing is an Ulos, a sign of respect in the Batak tribe.  Our diver Brother Manalu is on the left.

Sister Porter left the luncheon alone, and went straight to the hospital for help with her urinary tract infection.  The antibiotics did not seem to help until Friday, so it was a pretty miserable week.

On Wednesday, we found out that one of the young women was having surgery.  She has been sick on and off for some time, and had a growth on her leg removed.  Elder and Sister Porter visited Wednesday night to give a blessing before the surgery.  The family said the surgery would not be until 11:30 a.m. on Thursday so we could come in the morning, but it was convenient for us to go that evening before, and we were glad that we went then, because the surgery was unexpectedly moved up to early Thursday morning.

We went back to the hospital to visit her on Friday with some young missionaries, some young people from church, and some treats for mom and patient.

Sister Porter is wearing a visitor's pass.  We had to leave an ID card, and they accepted my Florida driver's license. On Saturday, we used our car to get the patient home from the hospital.

From time to time we see rats scurrying around the church, often into or out of the kitchen.  Elder Porter purchased some rodent traps and caught two of these animals.  We're not really sure what they are exactly, but they do not look like rodents.

Elder Porter also fixed the kitchen faucet in the young elders' house and the curtain rod in the Primary room at the church.  His ability to fix things before they grow worse has been a blessing.

On Wednesday after our 4 p.m. English class, we had our driver drop us off at the McDonalds, (where we haven't eaten in perhaps a year).  Then we walked over and joined the young missionaries at the adjacent park, where they play Ultimate Frisbee and welcome all who might come by. . We don't play, but we talk with people, and students often need a video-taped interview with an English speaker for their English classes at the university or high school. We helped one group that way.  The weather was perfect and it was a pleasant hour.  We also met three young Muslim people who are art teachers, and they were interested in English class.  They came on Friday night!  I don't know if they will attend regularly, but it was certainly a good opportunity for them to visit our church and have a positive experience.  Our friend Mei was still talking to them as we drove away, and we were late leaving because Sister Porter received a blessing of healing for her infection.

With just two day's notice, Sister Porter was asked to speak in sacrament meeting today.  The topic was the 12th Article of Faith, and she managed to pull off a 10-minute talk.  It was her first time using the Notes function of the Gospel Library phone app to give a talk.  She had all the scriptures in one place so that she didn't need to waste time clicking through to find the various references.  This was particularly helpful since the Indonesian language Bible is not part of Gospel Library due to local copyright.  But she could paste the verses into the notebook.

Sunday meetings were happy because of the baptism of someone who has been attending with us for many months, but sad because two of our young missionaries are moving.

Closing with a few videos from the wedding.  The choir was from our branch, and although the numbers were low, the sound was powerful.  The other video is of the wedding reception line.  (NOTE:  If you are reading this on a phone in response to an email, you may need to click the post title at the top for the videos to appear).

Graphic Gospel, and Grace

This year our church curriculum is focused on the New Testament.  Earlier in the year we brought the "individual and family" manual to people.  This week as we made our visits, we brought copies of the church picture books, which tell the Bible stories in simple language but with citations of the actual scripture reference below each picture.  We also showed a video from the life of Christ, from our church's excellent collection.  Many, but not all, are available in our language here, and it is touching to see their faces as Jesus speaks bahasa Indonesian, which of course he does.

These books are very special to  us, because this is one way Sister Porter learned bahasa Indonesia.  When we started in 2013, she could barely struggle through one picture.  By the time we got ready to leave, she could read through an entire story and some verses of the Alkitab.

One single sister lives with her extended family.  Although she is the only member of our church, all are Christian, and the nieces and nephews gathered around and took turns reading.

These stories are a powerful tool because illiteracy is common among middle-aged people or those raised in a remote village or island.  Indeed, one of the benefits of the new missionary communication policy is that some of the parents of missionaries do not have access to email, either because of lacking internet or the ability to read.

Last week everyone in our branch leadership was stressed because a great family in the branch had planned a wedding for their son, and had already sent out the invitation.  But it turns out that our branch president could not take time off work to perform the ceremony!  He is going to be a counselor for the upcoming youth conference, and has needed to take time off for that.

So who to perform the ceremony?  When we were in Jakarta, we tried and failed to talk a bishop there into coming over (he is originally from Medan but has not been back).  A counselor in the stake presidency will be a guest, but counselors are not authorized perform marriages.  So our mission president Greg Mackay stepped up and offered to make the trip.  This involved re-working a complicated travel schedule.  We are so grateful that he was willing to come!  His kindness is our grace: "...it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do."(2 Nephi 25:23)  President Mackay is in the middle of this photo, and his bright red superman cape is hidden in this shot but very real to us.


On Friday, Sister Porter realized that she was coming down with a urinary tract infection, the third since October.  She isn't totally opposed to taking antibiotics if it was a specific drug for the particular infection, but she was disappointed that when she went to the klinik in December, they did not do a culture but simply prescribed a broad-spectrun antibiotic.  Cipro is available without a prescription here, and in a few years the population is going to be at high risk of antibiotic resistance.

So she is using this instead.  There was a pilot study in the U.S. that showed promise and a full-scale clinical trial in England.  The infection seems to have turned the corner.

We are finishing our second week off from teaching English, but did teach an advanced class on Saturday for a few of the Young Single Adults.



Because of the wedding tomorrow, we had record sacrament meeting attendance today of 102.  The bride is also of our faith, and family from Bogor came.  It was fun for them to meet our Young Women, since our girls are rather isolated and don't know the youth on the island of Java.


Two weeks from today, they will be flying directly to Yogjakarta.  Many of their parents have never traveled by plane, so it will be very exciting.


The break-the-fast dinner that we reported on last week was featured prominently on the church newsroom for our country and made the local news:

The reason we are taking a break from teaching English is the Lebaran holiday, when many people travel home to their village.  It is the end of the fasting month and local mosques sang and celebrated with fireworks.

New Friends, Old Friends

For months, we had been planning a trip to Lake Toba and the island of Samosir.  There are not flights every day, but we had figured out a very effective plan of flying to the little airport there, then directly on to Jakarta.  However, all those plans were cancelled when church public affairs contacted us about setting up a break-the-the fast dinner for a group of Muslims and Christians.  This is the fasting month of Ramadan, and it was a great opportunity for community outreach.

Last week we found a restaurant and paid the deposit.  Folks in Jakarta handled all the invitations, and we ended up with 40.  We didn't really have room for that many, but some of them came a bit later.

We tried to smile and engage, and I connected with a woman down the table, who turned out to be the president of the women's auxiliary.

Our presence seemed to have made a difference, so we were glad that we had stayed.

This week we also received delivery of the baskets that we had ordered from a sister in the branch who does a great job at making such things.  She also made an extra smaller one.  These are very lightweight, so we will definitely be able to bring them home with us.

We flew to Jakarta on Wednesday, in preparation for the Zone Conference on Thursday.  Wednesday night, we had the opportunity to visit Pak Suharto, who was Elder Porter's first mission companion in Indonesia, almost 44 years ago.

Our kids grew up hearing the story about how Elder Porter was so frustrated that he couldn't understand a thing at one of their first visits.  Then he realized that Elder Suharto had been speaking Javanese to the family, and not the bahasa Indonesia in which Elder Porter had been trained.

There are many regional languages throughout the islands of Indonesia, and back then young children did not learn Indonesian until entering school.  Now, however, they are learning Indonesian in the home, partly as a result of cross-tribal marriages and also because television is in Indonesian.

Suharto was so mentally acute; he helped Elder Porter to recognize some of the folks in that epic photo with President Gout and President Rowley.  He had other photos and told stories.  He takes pride in being the first member of the church from the city of  Malang.

As one can see from this photo, his wife and children are Muslim, but Suharto attends church and has been to the temple.

We traveled to that appointment by a car ride, that ultimately took two hours, so we decided to try the train on the way back.  We were successful in changing regional trains once, and the second train that continued on to Bogor was full by the time we got off at the Tebet station in Jakarta.

Google was great about guiding us and we made it safely to the train station near our hotel.

Since it was already 10 p.m. by then, we had planned to call a car to take us the last 1.3 km to the hotel.  But then we saw this bemo, a vintage three-wheeled motorized cab that we have only seen in Jakarta. We were able to hire him to take us to the hotel.  The driver wisely dropped us off at the back entrance to our hotel so we did not need to go the extra 4 kilometers on one-way roads that would have been required to reach the front entrance.

Great zone conference.  Lots of things to consider.  For the young missionaries, the highlight was getting smart phones.  They can now use What'sApp to communicate with members, and order their own Grab cars.

Missionaries often make matching garb for their district for zone conference, but we've never been included before.  But this time they made a tie for Elder Porter.  The elder on far right actually made the ties!  Very impressive.

We spent the first night in a hotel so that we could take advantage of the excellent gym for Sister Porter to recover from the negative effects of flying/driving.  But we spent Thursday and Friday night at the mission home with the Mackays, our amazing mission president and companion.  It is also in easy walking distance from the chiropractor.  It takes one visit to loosen things up and then a second appointment a few days later to put it back into place.

This picture was taken after returning back on Saturday.  It shows what a prime piece of real estate is occupied by the 2-story mission home.  It must be very valuable, with major high-rise office and residence complexes on all sides.

The youth in our branch are getting ready for their For the Strength of Youth conference in a few weeks.   It has been fun watching them practice!  Here they are learning a line dance: