Family,
The quicklist: I talked to American-boy-physiotherapy-kid yesterday and came off the conqueror. Sister B's back, but in Bandung; President Groberg's Miracle No. 39139 in only one month's time at the head of this mission. Man, that guy's good. This Sunday I heard one of the better (maybe best) sermons of the year—at a Lutheran church. And turns out Pak Ferdi has a legit badminton court in his house. Where we (Marno, Me, Elders, Pak Ferdi) played match after match all this morning. Afraid I took far too much pleasure in making them sing the Star Spangled Banner after my every victory*.
So, from the top down:
Joseph was back in our Bhakti Luhur classroom but this time I had the high ground. Knowing I would be speaking in English before the fact made all the difference, and not only did we hit it off and teach an A+ of a lesson together but I took the chance to share the gospel, too. Ha, take that, last Tuesday! We actually ended up having a really good conversation in between the two-hour teaching block, and while I didn't have an English BoM to send him off with, I do keep English pass-alongs in my pack so here's to hoping www.mormon.org can get him going in the right direction. And maybe most bestly of all? He asked questions. Logical, direct questions. At first it really threw me off but once I got back into the rhythm of my country's conversational style it was exhilarating. Bless the boy. Only 17 and carrying on a conversation. Remarkable.
Sister B's return happened just this week, when President reminded her that she at least needed to meet with him once more since he's the only one who can officially release her, anyway—and I guess somewhere in between that morning's flight to Jakarta and the afternoon interview, he convinced her to return. We out here in East Java were all rejoicing—but then laughing to tears seeing only the night before we'd acted on strict orders from B. herself to relegate all her left-behind belongings to Bhakti Luhur. As in her entire missionary wardrobe, including shoes. Um . . . whoops. On the bright side, she did get reassigned to Bandung—Indonesia's Shopping Capital!—and what a better way to get back underway than a little retail rehab?
As for the sermon, that would be Sunday, 5:00 p.m. at GKI Bromo—the Lutheran congregation that Pak Ferdi attends. We're still not seeing eye-to-eye on the whole Plan of Salvation thing, so when he asked us to come and see where he's coming from after Sunday's Sacrament Meeting we called to clear it with Pres and then met Pak Ferdi later that night. The preacher/pastor/pendeta/I don't know what anyone's called anymore was a woman in her late forties, a slim, classy, intelligent-looking lady who also had a very grounded sense of reverence about her. We were greeted at the door by her colleagues, serenaded by a youth chorale group until the chapel had filled to capacity, and then were edified by an hour's worth of scripture and study straight out of Christ's Sermon on the Mount. Aside from just being really grateful I could understand everything, I was also very impressed with the content, delivery, and spirit I felt there.
Lately I've been thinking about redemption or, rather, the verb to redeem. I know dad does this a lot, too, so it's not anything particularly new but it does take on a different depth when one starts to make it their own. Mostly I've just been musing on definitions, the power of a prefix, the idea behind the etymology . . . honestly I don't think I could, at this point, communicate any clear sort of conclusion at all but I will say that I am grateful for a gospel so simply complex and deeply definite. I am grateful that there is a difference between being forgiven, and being redeemed, and grateful for the Book of Mormon which leads me line upon line to better understand and internalize that difference.
Also along this line of pondering I have come to realize that my thinking is very language-driven which I think is one of the reasons I still find it hard to express my innermost feelings in Indonesian. A lot of the connections I make are linked by the English definitions, synonyms, and idioms behind them—conditions that have little or entirely zero value when making the crossover to Indonesian. Like, above? What does the idea of redemption mean when you contrast it with such daily phrases like to redeem oneself (i.e. Sister E actually talking to Joseph this week), or to have at least one redeeming quality (as in thank goodness Relief Society at least taught out of the Ensign this week), or newspaper-praise of a redemptive story (B. being one). There's a lot to be said for a native tongue, and while Indonesia's got its plus-points, too (here, for redeem, we use the verb for "to pay ransom for the release of a captive") I'm afraid my heart's already taken.
Oh dear. At this point I'm just rambling, aren't I? Ya, sudahlah. To sum it all up: I can speak English! And I also really rather adore the language, too. Badminton's top-notch, props to B. for an honorable return, and hurrah for Israel! The church is true. I love you.
Next week from August,
Sister E.
*lest you think my pride past propriety, this actually only happened maybe at most three times, and certainly not after Pak Ferdi called his Manado friends over to play and, oh yeah, MALANG'S CITY BADMINTON CHAMPION. She was fierce. She was intense. She was ah-may-zing. When I grow up I want to be her.
The quicklist: I talked to American-boy-physiotherapy-kid yesterday and came off the conqueror. Sister B's back, but in Bandung; President Groberg's Miracle No. 39139 in only one month's time at the head of this mission. Man, that guy's good. This Sunday I heard one of the better (maybe best) sermons of the year—at a Lutheran church. And turns out Pak Ferdi has a legit badminton court in his house. Where we (Marno, Me, Elders, Pak Ferdi) played match after match all this morning. Afraid I took far too much pleasure in making them sing the Star Spangled Banner after my every victory*.
So, from the top down:
Joseph was back in our Bhakti Luhur classroom but this time I had the high ground. Knowing I would be speaking in English before the fact made all the difference, and not only did we hit it off and teach an A+ of a lesson together but I took the chance to share the gospel, too. Ha, take that, last Tuesday! We actually ended up having a really good conversation in between the two-hour teaching block, and while I didn't have an English BoM to send him off with, I do keep English pass-alongs in my pack so here's to hoping www.mormon.org can get him going in the right direction. And maybe most bestly of all? He asked questions. Logical, direct questions. At first it really threw me off but once I got back into the rhythm of my country's conversational style it was exhilarating. Bless the boy. Only 17 and carrying on a conversation. Remarkable.
Sister B's return happened just this week, when President reminded her that she at least needed to meet with him once more since he's the only one who can officially release her, anyway—and I guess somewhere in between that morning's flight to Jakarta and the afternoon interview, he convinced her to return. We out here in East Java were all rejoicing—but then laughing to tears seeing only the night before we'd acted on strict orders from B. herself to relegate all her left-behind belongings to Bhakti Luhur. As in her entire missionary wardrobe, including shoes. Um . . . whoops. On the bright side, she did get reassigned to Bandung—Indonesia's Shopping Capital!—and what a better way to get back underway than a little retail rehab?
As for the sermon, that would be Sunday, 5:00 p.m. at GKI Bromo—the Lutheran congregation that Pak Ferdi attends. We're still not seeing eye-to-eye on the whole Plan of Salvation thing, so when he asked us to come and see where he's coming from after Sunday's Sacrament Meeting we called to clear it with Pres and then met Pak Ferdi later that night. The preacher/pastor/pendeta/I don't know what anyone's called anymore was a woman in her late forties, a slim, classy, intelligent-looking lady who also had a very grounded sense of reverence about her. We were greeted at the door by her colleagues, serenaded by a youth chorale group until the chapel had filled to capacity, and then were edified by an hour's worth of scripture and study straight out of Christ's Sermon on the Mount. Aside from just being really grateful I could understand everything, I was also very impressed with the content, delivery, and spirit I felt there.
Lately I've been thinking about redemption or, rather, the verb to redeem. I know dad does this a lot, too, so it's not anything particularly new but it does take on a different depth when one starts to make it their own. Mostly I've just been musing on definitions, the power of a prefix, the idea behind the etymology . . . honestly I don't think I could, at this point, communicate any clear sort of conclusion at all but I will say that I am grateful for a gospel so simply complex and deeply definite. I am grateful that there is a difference between being forgiven, and being redeemed, and grateful for the Book of Mormon which leads me line upon line to better understand and internalize that difference.
Also along this line of pondering I have come to realize that my thinking is very language-driven which I think is one of the reasons I still find it hard to express my innermost feelings in Indonesian. A lot of the connections I make are linked by the English definitions, synonyms, and idioms behind them—conditions that have little or entirely zero value when making the crossover to Indonesian. Like, above? What does the idea of redemption mean when you contrast it with such daily phrases like to redeem oneself (i.e. Sister E actually talking to Joseph this week), or to have at least one redeeming quality (as in thank goodness Relief Society at least taught out of the Ensign this week), or newspaper-praise of a redemptive story (B. being one). There's a lot to be said for a native tongue, and while Indonesia's got its plus-points, too (here, for redeem, we use the verb for "to pay ransom for the release of a captive") I'm afraid my heart's already taken.
Oh dear. At this point I'm just rambling, aren't I? Ya, sudahlah. To sum it all up: I can speak English! And I also really rather adore the language, too. Badminton's top-notch, props to B. for an honorable return, and hurrah for Israel! The church is true. I love you.
Next week from August,
Sister E.
*lest you think my pride past propriety, this actually only happened maybe at most three times, and certainly not after Pak Ferdi called his Manado friends over to play and, oh yeah, MALANG'S CITY BADMINTON CHAMPION. She was fierce. She was intense. She was ah-may-zing. When I grow up I want to be her.
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