Over Halfway

Just before Christmas, we passed the halfway point in our mission. As of yesterday, we have eight months left, and will try to make each day count.

There is no fitness center in this building, but the fire exit steps are available to walk on, and last week Sister Porter went up to the roof.  What a great view of the city.  And looking off to the south, I had a great view of the mountains.  On the one hand, I knew they were there because I have been out there.  On the other hand, I had never seen them from the city before.  And indeed, the rest of the week, there was only one other day that I saw a faint outline.  The other days there was too much smog/clouds.

Our wonderful Relief Society President moved last weekend, just like we did.  But she invited the entire congregation over to her new house on Monday night for a family home evening and dinner.  There was a great turnout.

The branch president gave a great talk about the new year, resolutions and goals.  He asked who had goals, and called on Sister Porter first!  (They do not cut us any slack at all for not knowing the language.)

I was able to answer that my goal is to read the Book of Mormon in Indonesian. I hope to finish by the end of July. I figured out a system a few months ago:  I listen in English via Mormon Channel while I read along in the gospel library.  Of course sometimes I get lost and there is a lot of back and forth with the sound file, but it works.  At the old building, I was doing this first thing in the morning on the treadmill.  Now I am doing it while walking around and around on the rooftop first thing in the morning:)

One of the great things about this apartment is a Western-style refrigerator.  Our old freezer had only a freezer compartment, that wasn't reliable and had to be defrosted at least once a month.  This one has a separate freezer door, into a frost-free compartment.  Yay!  And Elder Porter has filled the door with his favorite ice cream treats.

It took a couple trips to Brastagi, an expat-oriented grocery store, to refill our larder, because we gave away a lot of food on the day of the fire (to the young missionaries).

We had always suspected that Brastagi's customers included a lot of Chinese and this was confirmed by their huge display in preparation for the upcoming Chinese New Year celebration.  From our point of view here in Indonesia, the idea in Firefly about the Chinese being a universe-dominant language and culture rings true.

As the week progressed, things settled down enough that we were able to start holding our daily devotionals together and begin visiting people again.  Our English classes were well attended and fun.  It felt really good to be doing missionary work again.

On Friday, after a week of tripping over boxes and trying to decide about What Goes Where, we finally put all the pieces together.  We came home Friday night, turned on the lights, and it looked like a real apartment!

New Buildings

A lot of this week was about looking at buildings, both for a new church building and also for our new home.  Indeed last Saturday we spent looking at church buildings for six hours straight because the realtor was available and an expert from Jakarta was in town.  This rather mewah house was one of the five finalists.  Today Elder Porter gave a great powerpoint presentation to the ward council, showing them the map of the five finalists, many pictures, and a summary spreadsheet. They each listed their top three.

The previous Thursday, we started looking at apartments.  A local place, the Beatrix Apartment didn't quite have what we needed (no washing machine or parking garage), but it struck us as a very comfy place with a kitchenette and much more room than the cramped hotel room we had been living in.  It was also quite close to the church building; we walked to one of our appointments.  So we moved into there on Monday, and stayed until Friday.  Hot water in the shower, fast internet--perhaps we will stay there again when we come back to visit Medan.

At the Beatrix, every room is different.  I loved the rock wall in the bathroom and on our porch.  Unfortunately, the door to the porch was not quite mosquito-proof, but Elder Porter stuffed it with plastic bags to fill the gap, and after the first night it was much better.

We also visited a very well respected tower apartment, but the only units available were either an efficiency, or larger than our house at home.

Our driver had been away for a few days, so we asked him to come in on Monday, which is typically his day off.  We drove all over checking various leads, an at one point Elder Porter had him stop at a new building not far from the church.  We had driven past there often, so we had been watching the building go up, and it looked like there were people on the ground floor.

I confess that I was skeptical, but I was so glad we looked.  The marketing agent quoted us a price that was surprisingly reasonable.  Also, they were willing to rent for only the 9 months we have left.  Usually in Indonesia, one must pay for an entire year in advance, so this is a good financial deal for the church.

(Often, Indonesians try to charge bules more for things, but in this case they may have offered us a lower price because it brings prestige to their building to have foreigners living there.)

The apartment is very compact, with only a counter and stools rather than a table, a comfortable couch, and a television that only offers five Indonesian channels (we miss CNN!).

The kitchen has a great refrigerator with a separate freezer door.  There are two electric burners to cook with.  We fit our small microwave oven on top of the refrigerator.  The washing machine is on the balcony. 

The door to the apartment is gorgeous tall and thick wood, with an electronic lock.

No fitness center, but I have my hand weights and stretch bands, and the fire escape steps have an excellent rise and run and are outside, perfect for morning exercise.
There is only one bathroom, but a door between the sink and the toilet improves functionality and there is hot water in the shower.  We also appreciate the counter around the sink.

Of course our first question was about fire safety, and the fire alarm here DOES go straight to security.  We ran into the architect the other day, and he explained that the swimming pool acts as a reservoir for fighting a fire if the fire hydrant tank should run out of water.  There are smoke alarms in every room.

The building is called the Wahid Private Residences.

So we are trying to get over the grief of losing our old home and neighborhood, and get used to living here instead.  I try to bite my tongue when complaining about what we miss.

This is the part of the view from our balcony.  From our old apartment, those high-rise buildings at upper right seemed to blend together into one massive metroplex.  Indeed, we used to call it "Trantor" (a reference to the Foundation books from Isaac Asimov).   But from this new angle, they are clearly separate.  Most will be mixed-use with commercial below and apartments above, so there will be a glut of fancy apartments in a few years when they are completed. 

In between worrying about a new home and moving and measuring buildings for a possible church, we also resumed our schedule of teaching English classes and made a few visits to members.