Second Birthday in Indonesia

Wednesday was Sister Porter's second birthday in Indonesia.  Last year it came just a few days after our arrival in Indonesia, and Elder Porter arranged for a cake when all the Indonesian misi couples had lunch at the restaurant of Sister Bertha.  Little did we know that her son would be serving with us in just a few months.

Sister Porter brought a cake to district meeting, which we do for all the missionaries.  See video.  But then we got a text from one of our English students that one who operates a cakery was bringing a cake to the Wednesday afternoon class for another class member whose birthday was that day!  They were kind enough to share the cake with me as well.  Elder Porter sent some young missionaries out for ice cream, and taught the children to sing Happy Birthday in English.  It was quite a rowdy fun time.

The young elders and some of the younger members and English class students have been going to the big park in town on Wednesday night after English class in order to play ultimate frisbee.  Elder Porter and I went along this week, not to play but to watch their backpacks and chat with people we meet.  Many of those who approached us were students from local universities who wanted to practice their English.  We had a long conversation with a trio of instructors at a program in tourism.  One of them had worked on Viking River Cruises.

Unfortunately, the game broke up when it started raining, and we waited 45 minutes chatting with people but it was still coming down hard: hujan deras.  When we finally decided to order a car to go home, we realized we had to wade through water almost up to our knees.  Miraculously, the car was able to stop in the deep water to pick us up.  It took more than a day for our shoes to dry.

We were so happy to get new sister missionaries in our branch.  Sister Jorda (left) is from the Philippines.  Sister Harmon is from the U.S. and was at the Missionary Training Center the same time we were, so it was wonderful to see her again and hear how her bahasa skills have improved.  Sister Porter took them out to lunch on Saturday.

We don't have many photos this week, because we often don't take pictures when we are making visits or teaching lessons in people's homes.  Partly to protect their privacy and partly because we are just too busy to think of it.  But we did give a Family Home Evening lesson for a family, and taught a discussion, and visited someone who was ill and another whose husband had to take a job in another city.

Another thing we spent time on this week is getting members and investigators excited about General Conference next weekend.  Yes, US Americans get it a week early, but much of the world enjoys conference the second weekend in April, after translations are made.  Also, the time difference is awkward.  We watched part of the "Saturday morning" session live at 11 p.m. Saturday night our time.  The afternoon session was at 3:00 am Sunday, so we are watching a rebroadcast now.  We made a poster for the bulletin board and flyers for the missionaries to hand out, and were delighted to find a picture of the globe that shows the world from our point of view.

Finally, a picture that shows Dr. Porter still likes looking at ants and is great at taking pictures of insects.  He got this photo of a weaver ant queen with his iPhone! It landed on our balcony 12 stories up. Weaver ants use silk from their larvae to weave leaves together to form their nests in trees.