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).