First Miracle of 2019

New Year's Eve was such a delight.  Our branch had a laid-back activity.  We started at 3:30 p.m. watching the First Presidency Christmas Devotional, translated into bahasa Indonesia.  Then the guys grilled meat, a lot of meat.

We knew that three of the young missionaries would be leaving later that week, and some were asked to say a prayer or give a spiritual thought as we gathered in a circle on the floor to sing a few songs, bless the food, and begin eating.

We were told to each bring enough rice for our family.  We did.  Of course it wasn't as much as an Indonesian would eat. Learning to eat food that has been left out for hours has taken an adjustment.  But it is not like it has mayonnaise in it. 

It is common here to eat rice with one's hands, as is demonstrated in the video. 

We brought grapes to share with the branch.  Indonesians love them and so do we.

We got home about 8:45 p.m.  I remember because that is when the excellent Hong Kong-produced English news show NewsStream turns into WorldSport.  We did some studying and I went to bed about 11.

I was awakened around midnight by the sound of fireworks.  They were all over town, even our building over the swimming pool.  I think there were more displays in different places than during Lebaran (end of the Muslim fasting month).

But we had stuff to do the next day, so I told myself to go back to sleep.  And I did.  Sanford stayed up and enjoyed the fireworks.

It was 6:03 a.m. when I awoke again.  A loud sound had awakened me, popping like fireworks again.

I went out to the porch to see....but the porch was on fire!  The three air conditioning compressor are out there, and all were ablaze.  Not sure if the noise I heard was the freon tanks exploding or the glass cracking.

Because the glass in the window had already cracked, we were minutes away from the flames jumping onto the curtains and into the apartment itself.

Did I mention that we live on Floor 12, which is the 10th story after one accounts for unlucky numbers.

I woke up Sanford and grabbed my nightgown. I always keep it in the same place in the nightstand in case of emergency.  We ran out into the hall and he grabbed the fire extinguisher while I pressed the fire alarm.

A satisfying siren and flashing light went off, but we found out later that it doesn't go anywhere; we had to call building security ourselves.  I went back into the bedroom to find my phone.  Electricity was off, so I found it by touch.  It was charged 100% so power could not have been off for very long.

We kept emergency numbers taped to the inside of a kitchen cupboard.  I took it out into the hall to see enough to dial.  Unfortunately, in my haste I misdialed security.  I just knew they didn't answer.  So I tried the 24-hour Mechanical and Engineering number next.

While I was dialing, Sanford ran past me a few times looking for another fire extinguisher.  He used three fire extinguishers.  We had brought those grapes to church in a large pink bowl, which was still sitting out and got filled with water several times to finish off the fire. 

 Someone finally answered in Mechanical & Engineering, but didn't seem to understand my Indonesian.  I was saying "api" instead of "kebakaran," but it should have gotten the idea across.  I kept repeating the apartment number over again, and here they sometimes use "kosong" instead of "nol" but again, it should have gotten the idea--and ultimately did, because finally somebody did arrive after the fire was pretty much out.

One asked me for a broom and I knew that word and got it for him.  He was worried about cinders above the ceiling and used the broomstick to knock away the charred ceiling chunks.

They called the manager, who came and told us that we would have to pay for the repairs since our contract requires us to return it in the same shape we got it.  Yes, we are in a different country.

We called our mission president, who had reservations made at a hotel near the church.

I was in shock.  We were so grateful that it wasn't worse than it was, and when people left we knelt to say a prayer of thanksgiving.  Then we packed some bags for the hotel, and went out to see Mary Poppins Returns, which I thought might calm me down.

New Years Day evening with a member's mom

That night we had various commitments, one of which we missed and one that we attended, but did not tell people what we were going through.  Sometime in the afternoon we realized our electricity was off, which meant that everything in the refrigerator would go bad.  We worked in the dark, salvaging what we could and taking it to the young sister missionaries to enjoy.

The mission president instructed us to move everything out of our apartment, including our car.   This was complicated because we had given our driver permission to go home to his home village to visit his mom.  He would be gone a few days.

We took a few loads of stuff over to the young missionaries houses by filling the elevator and getting it down to the basement through much hitting the door-open button, hiring a large (6-seater) rideshare, having them go to the basement and load up, and relying on the young missionaries to help us unload.

I recalled that when a friend had been on vacation, her dad had rented a car and drove them up into the mountains.  I asked if he would drive our car across town, and he was more than willing and insisted on doing it without any payment.  (We realized later that we had provided him with two framed family photos, so maybe he wanted to pay us back for that).  For that last load in the car, we included both stand fans, a floor lamp, drying rack, etc.

The building management was upset at the appearance of our apartment (the black hole to the right on this picture) and immediately began replacing the balcony ceiling, darkened and broken glass, and repainting the apartment above that had been covered by soot.

But days later, they had not replaced the three fire extinguishers that we had used up.

The mission sent an engineering expert from Jakarta to investigate.  He checked over the wiring and couldn't find an obvious reason for the fire.

He is also fixing things at the existing chapel, including our sound system, which was down again last Sunday. He also came with us for six hours to look at potential new buildings.

In the midst of all the packing and cleaning, we somehow lost the remote to the TV at our apartment.  We need to relocate that if we are going to be moving out.

Hari Natal and the Week Between

On Sunday, December 23, Sister Porter had the opportunity to teach the Young Women.  Because of the proximity to the holiday, she threw away the manual and taught about four ways our church is  different from other Christian faiths, although we all celebrate Christmas at the same time.  These included our lack of crucifixes (we celebrate the living Christ) and the prophecies of Christ's birth in the Book of Mormon.  We gave each girl a gift bag with an orange, a chocolate bar and a Hello Kitty pencil.  They all opened the oranges immediately and the room smelled heavenly (or like Florida?).


We promised the mission president's wife that we would organize the gift exchange for missionaries in Medan.  We ended up doing this on the morning of Christmas Day.  Most of the missionaries were calling their folks Christmas morning, which was Christmas Eve in the states, although the sisters had made their calls the day before.  We put a missionary in each bedroom with the platform of their choice (Facebook, Hangouts, Skype).  We were happy that the wifi for which we pay so much held up to multiple video calls at the same time.

We also served breakfast:  hash browns, pancakes, eggs, grapes, apples, watermelon, rolls with Smuckers jam (grape and apricot).  After everyone was done eating and calling, we did the gift exchange, which was fun.  I got a sarong that I would love to have made into a skirt.

After the gifts, we showed them the video of Taking Root: The Growth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Indonesia a presentation by BYU professor Chad Emmett, who had served back at the same time as Elder Porter's first mission.

Then Sister Porter excused herself to take a nap, as she had not been sleeping well (we found out why later in the week).

That afternoon we visited a new convert, Sister Leni.  She is the only member of our church in her family, but they are all Christian.

Some of the young elders gave her this great necklace.  She is a great cook, and we had a good time.

On Thursday, we had to cancel some commitments because Sister Porter realized she had a horrible urinary tract infection.  We walked over to the nearby hospital's walk-in clinic, and because it was the second infection in as many months, the doctor suggested doing a test this time.  That would take more than an hour, so Elder Porter left and Sister Porter managed through the language and confusion to get the test results and medications and cross the busy street to walk home.  She also stayed at the apartment on Friday.  She had a lot of lesson prep for English classes in the new year.

Forgot to mention that Mother's Day is December 22 here in Indonesia.  It makes sense, since Maria is the most perfect mother to celebrate, and it means people only have to pulang (return home) once to honor their mother and celebrate Christmas.

We saw this advertisement at the mall, where we got several photos printed for people.  Even young people seem to like having a paper photo in their hand.

For many years, Sister Porter's siblings have enjoyed a tradition of getting together for a few days the day after Christmas (Boxing Day).  This year they went to Phoenix/Scottsdale Arizona and were kind enough to send a video.  They did some hiking which Sister Porter would have loved...but Medan is where we need to be right now.