Food, Fever, Fun, Four Months in the Field.

This week we had official church visitors from Jakarta in town from early Tuesday through Thursday morning.  Their mission was two-fold: to look at potential sites for a new church building (our lease is up in January and we need a chapel that will seat 100) and to scope out some possible humanitarian service projects for LDS Charities.  That's how we found ourselves at a few Muslim schools being mobbed by kids who were thrilled to hear a native English speaker and see a white-skinned person.  After a while we decided that our role was to divert the rather loud mob of kids so that the visitors could work with the school officials.

We started the week with a party on Monday.  One of the branch members had moved to a new home, and asked that missionaries come by to bless the house.  It was a privilege to be asked to help in that way, and Elder Porter did a great job of asking a blessing on the home and all those who live there.  It is an hour out of town, which is a lovely peaceful setting for raising kids (we hope it will not hinder their ability to attend church in town).  The mom of the family asked us to stay for the wonderful lunch she had prepared, and by the time we left, we realized we could not make it back into town in time to meet the other young missionaries who were picking up a newcomer at the airport.  So we ended up taking the young elder who was with us directly to the airport, and the other elders met us there.

Church visitors in action.

It was only 12 hours later when Elder Porter headed back to the airport to meet the Jakarta visitors. After checking out the first two church buildings, they stopped for lunch at a pork restaurant, a real treat for people from Jakarta.  However, Elder Porter's digestive system was not feeling well, he ate very little, and ultimately I had to prescribe a course of Cipro.  Yes, the package said it could only be taken with a doctor's supervision, but it is sold without a prescription.  I've been able to order Pravastatin (cholesterol drug) through the internet without a prescription.  This may ultimately end up being a big problem for the Indonesians, but it is convenient. And not having gastrointestinal upset for four months was better than we expected.

Between his tummy trouble and the early airport trip, Elder Porter was tired by Tuesday night.  But we got a message that a church member had asked for someone to go give a blessing to her younger brother, who was in the hospital.  So we contacted a young man who had just been ordained to the Melchizedek priesthood, went to church where Elder Porter taught him about the procedure, and then went to the hospital to give the blessing.  Elder Porter asked me to give a prayer first.

 Before we left church that night, we saw that the elder we had taken to the clinic last Saturday was still feeling bad and needed to go back to the clinic for blood tests.  The test for dengue fever is not valid until the third day.  This elder had done a good job of treating the early symptoms himself using only Paracetemol (Tylenol), and avoiding Ibuprofen or aspirin, which can increase risk of developing the hemorrhagic fever that is the real concern with dengue.  But now he had a rash, so it was time for the tests.  His rash was something of a pink flush rather than the blotchy red rash sometimes seen with dengue, and he did not have the muscle aches that some get.  But the blood tests showed it was clearly dengue, which they call demam berdarah or DBD.  He was immediately hospitalized and hooked up to an IV.  The IV helps prevent progress to the severe forms of the disease. Fortunately by Saturday evening he was able to be released from the hospital and was back at church today looking rather chipper.

We were busy trying to copy the test results each day and send them off to the mission president's wife, who is the new medical coordinator.  They were also reviewed by the area doctor in Hong Kong.  We also talked to the elder's parents by phone and video and message, trying to explain the context and provide updates.  His appetite returned sooner than sometimes happens, and we offered to pick up a pizza on the way to a visit.  However, a massive rainstorm hit, and we were 30 minutes late picking up the pizza from Pizza Hut.

On Saturday we made a few ministering visits and that night there was a motivational speaker about preparing for the jobs of the future.  On Sunday Elder Porter helped teach the 5th Sunday lesson about Ministering, and we had six people at our English class, where we finished up study of the Articles of Faith.

NOTE:  We are on a different island than yesterday's earthquake which made news in the USA.

Colds in the Heat

When we came to church on Wednesday, we found an ant mound in the Relief Society Room.  Elder Porter was successful in baiting and getting rid of them.  He was also doing some tests at the home of a church member.

President & Sister Mackay in Medan

Last week Sister Porter was tryng to recover from a cold.  She managed to give a talk in sacrament meeting last Sunday about service. She wrote the talk the Sunday before, the day it was assigned.  And she worked on it, smoothing and cutting a lot, on the flights to and from Jakarta.  But in Jakarta we learned that our mission president and his wife would be in attendance in Medan!  Talk about pressure.  They had a very successful visit, meeting with the younger missionaries on Saturday and then enjoying meeting members after church and visiting some potential sites for a new, bigger church building. Sister Porter went home right after church and went to bed.  Elder Porter caught the cold partway through the week.

On Monday, we went shopping at Carrefour, which is an international grocer and often has foreign foods.  But no dill pickles!  It had been out of the other store where we had found them earlier.  Fortunately, later in the week we were near a large Brastagi store and found some pickles.  Yay!  We bought two.  They also had Coke Zero, a rare treat.  They have wonderful fruits and vegetables so it seems trivial to complain about the Western foods we cannot find.

Another thing we haven't been able to find easily is dental floss.  Stores will have a huge aisle of toothpaste and mouth rinse--but no dental floss!  I wish I had brought more Glide from home.  Speaking of dental issues, Colleen has to have a cleaning every 4 months because of dry mouth issues.  I went in for a cleaning at an office with a good reputation, and the dentist said that it was rare to see someone with a full mouth of teeth at my age.  Indeed, he said he never saw a patient my age.  He seemed to do a good job of the cleaning-- for just under $21.  So we now have a place we can go for dental care.


On Saturday, one of the young missionaries was sick.  Our afternoon appointment was cancelled, and his companions had other places to go, so we took him to the clinic at the hospital, and then took him home and fed him American food until the other missionaries were done teaching.  There are three of them until Tuesday, when a newcomer is arriving here for training.

It has been really hot out lately-- fewer clouds in the sky perhaps. Most of the heavy rainstorms have been at night, and from the 10th floor we have a panoramic view of the lightning.

First Zone Conference

Last week we attended our first Zone Conference.  Although we are off on the island of Sumatra, we are actually part of the Jakarta Zone, so we had to fly to the island of Java for the meeting.  Transportation for the young missionaries is provided while seniors need to make their own arrangements.  We flew into Jakarta on Wednesday, to ensure that we would be there safely for a chiropractor appointment on Thursday.  The city was very smoggy as this gray picture shows. 

That night we had dinner and went shopping at the Grand Lucky store, which is noted for expat foods.  Not only do they have Amercan and Asian foods, but also German. We were able to find (1) Knorr powdered mashed potatoes and (2) dental floss.  We also bought some of the local fruits including a very yummy manggis.

We stayed in Tebet, a neighborhood of South Jakarta that is near the stake center where the Friday meeting would be held, allowing us to walk to those meetings.  We stayed at an Amaris hotel, an Indonesian two-star chain.  It had a great bed, a simple clean room, but no iron.  We hung Elder Porter's shirts in the shower to steam and they were okay (I had used spray startch ironing in preparation for the trip).  It had a great breakfast, with melon and an omelette station and vegetables and chicken, but no European pastries.  That was all to the good, since in Indonesia the pastries often look good but seldom taste as yummy, so it saved us from extra calories.  Like all good hotels, they provided bottles of water, since tap water is not safe for drinking.  Elder Porter especially enjoyed the brand of water provided.  :-)


On Thursday, we rented a car and driver for the morning and headed down toward Bogor, to the Indonesian Institute of Sciences.  When President Subandriyo found out Elder Porter's former profession, he insisted that we should meet the wife of the new stake president, who is an expert in butterflies.  Dr. Djunijanti Peggie had studied at Cornell and the British Museum, so her English was excellent.  We enjoyed seeing her butterfly enclosure and the insect collection.

He also met an ant expert and it was a very nice break from our usual concerns.

We got back to town by noon, rested a bit because Sister Porter was coming down with a cold, and then headed off to the chiropractor appointment.  When we were first considering a mission to Indonesia, we were sanguine about being able to serve in Indonesia, because it seemed that there were multiple chiropractors in every large city.  Three in Medan.  However, in late 2016 a woman died after being treated in a chiropractic clinic by someone who was not properly trained.  And a lot of expat chiropractors run into visa issues.  So we used the trip to Jakarta to see an Indonesian chiropractor who was trained in Australia but speaks perfect English with an American accent.  He seemed very good.  We had arranged our flight schedule to allow for another adjustment on Saturday morning, which he did suggest and so we were glad that all worked out.

The chiropractor was only minutes away from the Mission Office, so we walked through the city.  We arrived early for our interview appointment and were welcomed by the new mission president and his wife, Greg and Shelia Mackay (MAK-ee) who we got to meet in person for the first time.  We shared our opinions about the new church building and future of young sisters in Medan and trust that they will make the right choices.

Friday morning we got up promptly and headed out to the 8 a.m. zone conference.  It was held at the building where our daughter's English-speaking congregation met when she lived in Jakarta, but we had never visited before.

It is so well landscaped, and an oasis of greenery and flowers within the busy city.  There are four huge royal palms.  They also have a full basketball court in the back, albeit on concrete.  Basketball is increasingly popular here, and some of our Young Women play.

The meetings were a spiritual feast.  We were taught the importance of loving those we serve.  We also practiced giving short lessons and using the scriptures to teach of Christ.  The mission president and his wife also shared some of the lessons they learned at their president's seminar from the general authorities of the church.

We had Krispy Kreme donuts for morning snack and Dominoes pizza for lunch.

We were amused to see the simple answer that the Jakarta saints came up with for wheelchair access.  Instead of an elevator that needs inspections and reliable electric power, they built this metal ramp to bring people up to the chapel.

Below is a picture of those in attendance. We are on the first row on the far left.  To the right of us are the Jensens, the office couple who were so welcoming to us when we arrived an do a great job of handling routine administrative matters.  To the right of them is the new mission president and his wife, then the Grants who are in Bandung.  The elders serving with us in Medan are Suranto and Ostermiller on the top left and Harris and Smart in the middle row, second and third from the right.  The sisters above the Jensens are Sisters Daclan and Brush, the last sisters to serve in Medan, who are now in Jakarta.

Our flight home was cancelled, but they got us on another flight, and we made it back home Saturday evening in time to prepare for Sunday meetings.

Football and Fruit Drinks

The new mission president's wife has arrived, and has taken over the health care duties.  We talked early in the week and she is up to speed and has a degree in health care; she will do great.  It was so peaceful to have a p-day this week.  No calls from missionaries and no emergencies in the branch, so we got to go to a museum, the Tong A Fie mansion.

Of course as we started to leave, we were surrounded by schoolgirls who wanted a picture with us.:) We also had lunch at the nearby Tip-Top Restaurant, so total immersion in the dutch colonial period.

We also stopped at the 96 Bakery and bought some cashew brownies. As it happens, we didn't open the box, and it was a good thing, because we ended up taking it to District Council Meeting (DCM) the next morning.  It turned out that we have an elder who is going home in 10 days, and they decided that next week we are NOT having DCM because we are all going to Jakarta for Zone Conference.  It is our Porter tradition to bring brownies for an elder who is heading home (not just a transfer but a true pulang). I had a small piece and it was So Good.  It was the first brownie I had eaten in Indonesia that tasted like chocolate rather than sugar, and had a proper crust on the top.  So we went back later in the week and bought one for ourselves.

On Wednesday when we walked into church for Engish lessons, someone was playing America The Beautiful on the piano.  It was the only recognition of US Independence Day.

This picture was taken as we were leaving a kampung after teaching English.  I wanted to pull over and take a picture of the boys playing soccer with kerbau  (water buffalo) in the background.  Two of the huge water buffalo are visible in the upper left of the photo.  But others are covered by grass.  Sadly, the boys stopped playing and ran over to say hi when they saw a white face in the car.

Our big meals are often at mid-day because we are out teaching and visiting in the early evening.  One day we had broccoli puff, made in the rice cooker.  No oven.

Last week we had taken a friend from church out for lunch, and Sanford had a fruit drink of orange and pomelo juice.  It was so good and refreshing and not overly sugary.  I have been leery of the fruit drinks because on our last trip to Indonesia in 2015, I got sick after drinking an iced fruit drink at a Malaysian restaurant.  But that drink last week was so inspiring that I bravely tried one this week:  an orange and mango concoction called "The Pochohontas."  Not sure where they got that name, but it was good.

You know how when you call a customer service number in the US, they often say press 2 for Spanish?  I was on the other side of that choice this week.  Our local bank's customer service said to press 2 for English.  And both times I had to call, the people were incredibly helpful.  We can now pay our fast offering online, as well as paying our internet bills and putting money in the account for our rde-sharing service (like Uber).  It has been a hassle learning all the steps, but hopefully will save time over the next 14 months we live here.

Introvert and Extravert

This week was a reminder that all talents are needed in carrying out the Lord's work.

Lots of dogs during a visit

We did a fair number of visits with people who were going through rough times, but we don't feel comfortable sharing those pictures, of course.  One thing that did happen at the hospital was that as we were talking with the folks whose family member was recovering from an operation, they kept laughing in amusement because Elder Porter would occasionally put his arm around me.  We didn't think of our ourselves as a publicly affectionate couple when we lived in Florida, but the norms are so very different here, that yeah, apparently we are pushing the envelope for public display.

We also made some visits to drop off framed family photos and talk about family history.  We made another visit to learn about the history of the branch from a couple who were in the original cohort of members and had saved some photos and documents.  We found the original permit to organize a congregation from the local government in February 1995.  I had heard that it might have been 1994, which would mean the 25-year anniversary would be next year and we could help put on a party.  They should definitely have a party in 2020, but we will be gone.

So all those visits were the extravert side of things.  The introvert became valuable because I was able to prepare a report for the new mission president's companion about my three months as the mission medical coordinator, and share what I learned.  I hope it will help her. Once that assignment is no longer on my plate, I intend to use the extra time working on the language.

Another introvert success was that I explored the different kind of bank accounts available and what would be needed for an expat to open one, so that we went to the bank to open an account, I had all the documentation that was necessary.  So we do have an account but haven't yet figured out how to do the online transfers that will be necessary to pay our phone and internet bills, etc.  One step at a time, I guess. A lot of senior couples do not open a local bank account, but they don't have to pay for internet, etc.  Also, our church is now allowing us to pay fast offerings online, with a local account.

There were 50 people at our second English class on Thursday afternoon, if you count those kids inside and people on the porch looking in.  It was a challenge in classroom management, but overall worked out well.  I downloaded a new app that allowed me to slow down the songs that we are teaching.

The sun was setting as we headed back into town, looking over the aquaculture ponds and native trees.  It offered a few minutes of precious peace and communing with nature before we hit the brutal city traffic again.

After our Friday night English class, the branch president asked if we could provide a laptop for the branch movie night the next afternoon.  MOANA!

I agreed that we would help, and the next day while Sanford was in a branch presidency meeting, I checked all the connections with the projector and learned how to run speakers separately while the video goes through the projector.  I also downloaded the software needed to run the movie from a USB drive, what they call a "FlashDisk" here.   It was a version with subtitles in bahasa Indonesia.

The movie night was held in the small room used for Relief Society and it was well attended.  However, there was a glitch in setting the time....it was originally announced at 4 p.m. but because of a conflict had to move to 5 p.m.  How to entertain the folks who had showed up at 4?  Well, one of the early arrivals was an English student who is a refugee from another country and does not speak Indonesian.  So we went with a few episodes of Studio C, the famous "clean" comedy sketch ensemble from Brigham Young University.

Our technology worked well and everyone enjoyed it.  And the audience here could perhaps relate to the story of islands and boats more than they could something like "Frozen."