Monday morning I stretched out of the back of a black van in the parking lot of a beach at Anyer. The same parking lot at the same beach at the same Anyer that I stepped out into my very first weekend in Indonesia. The same coconut palms, the same pebbled patio giving way to white-sand beach. The same bayside-bungalows in woven bamboo and cheap abalone trinkets for sale at the gate, the same smiling caretaker at the cafe desk. And really, who's to say that black van this March wasn't the exact same black van of September? I walked right out of my flip flops and barefoot over to where Presiden was standing, hand raised above his brow to take in the horizon. Same turquoise sea. Same sleepy waves. The shattered peak of Krakatoa a smudge of blue shadow at the ends of the world. Presiden turned to me. "Anything changed since last time?" he said. I remembered how, last time, it was Sister Lily to my left, or how, last time, it was Elder Greenwell who pointed out the volcano's tip. But I shook my head. "Just me, Presiden."
And while my trip to Jakarta last week was a tricked-out time warp of its own, this weekend's afternoon at Anyer was a little too T.S. Eliot to handle. To end is to begin, only to end again in order to begin something else. And I know I'm dramatic, but there were some real goodbyes there, some real definitive endings. Elder Meek moved to Semarang today, clear across the country (though not completely off the island quite yet). Elders Supriyanto, Supriyanto, Effi, and Bayodo headed home for good that very night. It was Sister Mongan's last Zone Trip. It was a whole lot of implied sentimental if I thought too hard about it. So I tried not to. And it turned into one of those This Is The Best Day That I Love sort of journal entries.
Because, just after lunch (as the thunder rocked the ocean swells but before the rain began to fall), we took a walk. The original crew, plus Hewlett, down the beach to the furthest edge of the bay. It was a beach walk, just like any other beach walk—same sand, same shells, same errant child's toy washed up among the seaweed—but I think that's what made The Beach Walk. Because there I was walking and talking and laughing like I would any old day with any old friend; except, wait. I am walking in Indonesia and talking in Indonesian and laughing at inside jokes only six months old because (my word!) I actually haven't been here my whole life. I actually haven't had these friends for always. I actually haven't always been able to eavesdrop on foreign conversations, or follow a Jakslang joke. And the sky was steely grey across an ocean pale and rolling, the sand licking up at our ankles as the sprinkle turned to downpour and Krakatoa stood still. It was a moment. The moment where you realize you belong, and it is infinite and irrevocable as you stand at the start of the storm in perfect peace.
And then Supri yells at you to run, so you do, to where the rest of them sit along a wall under a tree, a surprisingly quiet cove along the rocks. And we sit there and think, and watch, and think again, and the grey world is not sad and symbolic but wild revelation. It is intimately public, like all the world is rejoicing in what we so quietly share. I started to think about friends. I started to think about happiness. I remembered the parting words of verse five in Alma 44—"yea, and also by the maintenance of the sacred word of God, to which we owe all our happiness. . ." And I started to think: that is why this exists.
Because that's how it works, then and there and here and now. Obey the commandments and prosper in the land. Sunday I was reflecting on the idea of rules making you free and what that really means, and I guess in that moment at Anyer, in the rain under the tree with my friends, my people, it kind of all came together for me. Because of this Gospel, because of the commandments we receive and how we choose to obey them, I am free. Not in the sense of wild irresponsibility, but in that steady stability that comes of knowing. That when I maintain the sacred word of God, I obtain all my happiness. Not some, not a little, not a day's worth or even a week—-but all. Because of choices I've made and the choices these Elders and those Sisters have made—we are free. We are alive in a perfect brightness of hope, the ability to step out into a world of uncertainty with the knowledge that our future is assured.
Keep the commandments and prosper in the land. Life is hard. The Gospel is not.
Okay. Getting over my romantic ruminatings for a lightning-fast bulletin of an update:
Sister Christensen has Dengue Fever. We had to leave her at Senopati yesterday and got word that she's in the hospital this morning.
So we're in a trio here in Bandung—Marno, me, and Atmi. Both our appointments fell through today. Same old, same old.
Still waiting for word on the Jakarta trip at the end of the month; am terrified they're going to break up the Sisters rotation and I'll miss SisLily by mere hours. Does this count as righteous desire and therefore something I can sincerely pray about?
Our kitchen/laundry/hallway/staircase/room-whatever-it-is has a leak in the ceiling and is basically falling apart. Our shower water comes out chocolate brown during rainstorms (ie, always). Our street must have flooded while we were gone and took all our garbage cans with it. I was writing in my journal last night and a cat walked in. I cried the other night because I thought too much about a becak driver. I am secretly coming up with a million different ways to meet up with Effi, Bayodo, and Supri x 2 before I have to go home. They're all from the same branch in Bekasi so who's to stop us from taking a boat out to Krakatoa together?
I am afraid there won't be a word for the way I'm going to miss this place.
Okay, time's long over and up and I'm out of here. Sorry there are no investigators to talk about or miraculous missionary moments to share—we're still working on that. But for now, as Elder Nixon likes to say, here's to another day in Paradise! I love you.
E.
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