Dear Family,
The thing I love about time and travel is that all you do is board a bus or catch a train or flag down an angkot and then, in the space of only a few hours, you are There. Somewhere, anywhere, no longer Here but suddenly and entirely Elsewhere with a whole handful of new streets and scenes and stories to handle. What a wonderful world, you know? The adventure of simply moving a few miles and into something new, the never-ending hope of knowing that This does not always have to be the Only Thing You Know.
The thing I don't like about time and travel is that sometimes you end up in Surabaya.
Which is East Java's answer to Jakarta, and it's not pretty. The concrete alone could kill me; just miles and miles of crumbling office buildings and rusted apartment complexes, riverbank walls and city sidewalks. People, everywhere and poor. Barefoot and broken like the streets they sleep on. Closer to the equator, closer to the sun. The way you swear you can hear your shoes sizzling, melting in the pavement. Arriving at your usual Novotel only to find out that Mas A forgot to make the reservation from the office—-and this place is full-up for the night. Realizing that not only do you have to go back out into the fray, but that you have to go back out searching for a place to sleep in a city you don't know beyond one LDS meetinghouse and the French patisserie just down the street. Remembering that you don't really like traffic at all. And that coarse and crude curbside men don't help much, either.
Things I like about Surabaya: Meeting Sister Bajodo's aunt, who fed us first-class tempe and kripik from her tree-lined home in the "Singapore of Surabaya" before treating us to an afternoon at the Indo-famous Surabaya Zoo which certainly won't be earning any PETA awards any time soon but was nothing short of magical. Buying peanuts by the kilo in the parking lot; being welcomed by monkeys swinging and screaming from the trees above us; stepping into an unregulated and untamed Tarzan's jungle just inside the chained entrance. Feeding peanuts to free-flight parrots, a strangely-billed bird that hopped hazardously like a throwback from the dinosaur age. Watching giant sea turtles slip silently across an open pond, learning how they breathe and what they eat and how they move by long minutes of personal observation. Tossing peanuts into black bears' open mouths. Seeing monkey babies copy-cat their monkey mothers, wee deer learning to frolic and leap, the occasional street cat sitting just as nobly beside the cage of her jungle cousins. It was an afternoon of drop-jaw delight and endless exclamation—-I've never seen animals so active and alive in captivity. Even the guinea pigs were up and doing, trotting about their jungle enclosure to tease the iguanas in the next cage over. SisLily and I were very impressed. Finding a new hotel just a few streets over and even slightly cheaper. An eighth floor view from a mod-white room in the Santika. AC and hot water. Down pillows and a comforter. Taking a power nap as the sun set over the city. Arriving at the chapel to find all 8 Surabaya Elders in a semi-circle talk session around Sister Groberg, who is testing out the Indonesian she's learned in the six months since she got her call and then the last two weeks she's been official Mission Mum to us Indo-Jak kids. Talking to Sister Groberg myself, about families and friends and the mission and the country and the food and the people and the places and the history and the everything else ever in between because my word she's a talker, and I was grateful for it. Watching as the elders went in one-by-one to be interviewed by our new president. Seeing them come back smiling. Being called in to meet the man himself. Even though my stomach was turning like a tall ship under deep-sea storms.
President Groberg. I should probably write an ode here, if not the entirety of an Homeric epic. He's humble and soft-spoken, the very picture of pediatrician in his rimless glasses and concerned eyes. He's on top of not only this entire mission, but my own personal story. He came to our interview with a list of questions prepared for me. He opened that interview with a prayer. He prayed for me. He listened to me. He spoke to me. He makes you want to be a better missionary—-and then provides the training to get you there. He teaches. He shares. He challenges you and then corrects you and then challenges you again.
PLD, too, was stellar. It was solid. It was real. Even though I was called to speak again (four times and counting) and then asked to represent the missionary part to our training role play (teaching the Atonement, no less). Even that was okay. But best of all was President's training itself: a full hour of direct advice and teaching and application, followed by a group activity and personal examples to strengthen the specifics he'd just added to our Mission's mission.
The quick notes from the rest of my week:
We taught Ferdi again last Thursday, he called me Sunday morning to ask if he should wear blue or black slacks, and then showed up at church looking like any other member all over the world. "No," Sister Lily corrected me, "He looked like a leader of the members." And it was true. He'd even gone out to buy a tie for the occasion. In other miracles, Sacrament Meeting was stellar, even after a panicked moment of wide-eyed terror shared across the pews from Rhondeau to Liljenquist when Oma Irawadi was announced as the next speaker. Even the Asas-Asas Injil lesson on Eternal Marriage went like gangbusters, and as Pak Ferdi stood with Pres Tatik in the branch library perusing pictures of temples from all the world he just kept saying how he was "very, very interested. I will be back next week and all the weeks after."
Mas K, however, won't be getting baptized this week. Which is sad but a little bit expected since his family's been hard so I guess we'll just keep hacking at it and hope we'll get there eventually. The Rifais are doing well and tonight we're off to Oma Irawadi's to teach her non-member son. I'm happy, too, though SisLily's time is limited and she'll be off to Bandung by next week at the earliest. It's about time, I guess (she's been here nine months—-all the Elders kept on teasing her, asking when the baby's due, what she's going to name it, etc. Yeah. They're just hilaaarious) but it still feels sad so we're concentrating on just enjoying our last few rounds of badminton and reveling in the joy that has now been (almost exactly) half of our 18 months of mission together. Yes. It's a wonderful world, and a lucky one too.
The Church is true. I love you all and for always.
The thing I love about time and travel is that all you do is board a bus or catch a train or flag down an angkot and then, in the space of only a few hours, you are There. Somewhere, anywhere, no longer Here but suddenly and entirely Elsewhere with a whole handful of new streets and scenes and stories to handle. What a wonderful world, you know? The adventure of simply moving a few miles and into something new, the never-ending hope of knowing that This does not always have to be the Only Thing You Know.
The thing I don't like about time and travel is that sometimes you end up in Surabaya.
Which is East Java's answer to Jakarta, and it's not pretty. The concrete alone could kill me; just miles and miles of crumbling office buildings and rusted apartment complexes, riverbank walls and city sidewalks. People, everywhere and poor. Barefoot and broken like the streets they sleep on. Closer to the equator, closer to the sun. The way you swear you can hear your shoes sizzling, melting in the pavement. Arriving at your usual Novotel only to find out that Mas A forgot to make the reservation from the office—-and this place is full-up for the night. Realizing that not only do you have to go back out into the fray, but that you have to go back out searching for a place to sleep in a city you don't know beyond one LDS meetinghouse and the French patisserie just down the street. Remembering that you don't really like traffic at all. And that coarse and crude curbside men don't help much, either.
Things I like about Surabaya: Meeting Sister Bajodo's aunt, who fed us first-class tempe and kripik from her tree-lined home in the "Singapore of Surabaya" before treating us to an afternoon at the Indo-famous Surabaya Zoo which certainly won't be earning any PETA awards any time soon but was nothing short of magical. Buying peanuts by the kilo in the parking lot; being welcomed by monkeys swinging and screaming from the trees above us; stepping into an unregulated and untamed Tarzan's jungle just inside the chained entrance. Feeding peanuts to free-flight parrots, a strangely-billed bird that hopped hazardously like a throwback from the dinosaur age. Watching giant sea turtles slip silently across an open pond, learning how they breathe and what they eat and how they move by long minutes of personal observation. Tossing peanuts into black bears' open mouths. Seeing monkey babies copy-cat their monkey mothers, wee deer learning to frolic and leap, the occasional street cat sitting just as nobly beside the cage of her jungle cousins. It was an afternoon of drop-jaw delight and endless exclamation—-I've never seen animals so active and alive in captivity. Even the guinea pigs were up and doing, trotting about their jungle enclosure to tease the iguanas in the next cage over. SisLily and I were very impressed. Finding a new hotel just a few streets over and even slightly cheaper. An eighth floor view from a mod-white room in the Santika. AC and hot water. Down pillows and a comforter. Taking a power nap as the sun set over the city. Arriving at the chapel to find all 8 Surabaya Elders in a semi-circle talk session around Sister Groberg, who is testing out the Indonesian she's learned in the six months since she got her call and then the last two weeks she's been official Mission Mum to us Indo-Jak kids. Talking to Sister Groberg myself, about families and friends and the mission and the country and the food and the people and the places and the history and the everything else ever in between because my word she's a talker, and I was grateful for it. Watching as the elders went in one-by-one to be interviewed by our new president. Seeing them come back smiling. Being called in to meet the man himself. Even though my stomach was turning like a tall ship under deep-sea storms.
President Groberg. I should probably write an ode here, if not the entirety of an Homeric epic. He's humble and soft-spoken, the very picture of pediatrician in his rimless glasses and concerned eyes. He's on top of not only this entire mission, but my own personal story. He came to our interview with a list of questions prepared for me. He opened that interview with a prayer. He prayed for me. He listened to me. He spoke to me. He makes you want to be a better missionary—-and then provides the training to get you there. He teaches. He shares. He challenges you and then corrects you and then challenges you again.
PLD, too, was stellar. It was solid. It was real. Even though I was called to speak again (four times and counting) and then asked to represent the missionary part to our training role play (teaching the Atonement, no less). Even that was okay. But best of all was President's training itself: a full hour of direct advice and teaching and application, followed by a group activity and personal examples to strengthen the specifics he'd just added to our Mission's mission.
The quick notes from the rest of my week:
We taught Ferdi again last Thursday, he called me Sunday morning to ask if he should wear blue or black slacks, and then showed up at church looking like any other member all over the world. "No," Sister Lily corrected me, "He looked like a leader of the members." And it was true. He'd even gone out to buy a tie for the occasion. In other miracles, Sacrament Meeting was stellar, even after a panicked moment of wide-eyed terror shared across the pews from Rhondeau to Liljenquist when Oma Irawadi was announced as the next speaker. Even the Asas-Asas Injil lesson on Eternal Marriage went like gangbusters, and as Pak Ferdi stood with Pres Tatik in the branch library perusing pictures of temples from all the world he just kept saying how he was "very, very interested. I will be back next week and all the weeks after."
Mas K, however, won't be getting baptized this week. Which is sad but a little bit expected since his family's been hard so I guess we'll just keep hacking at it and hope we'll get there eventually. The Rifais are doing well and tonight we're off to Oma Irawadi's to teach her non-member son. I'm happy, too, though SisLily's time is limited and she'll be off to Bandung by next week at the earliest. It's about time, I guess (she's been here nine months—-all the Elders kept on teasing her, asking when the baby's due, what she's going to name it, etc. Yeah. They're just hilaaarious) but it still feels sad so we're concentrating on just enjoying our last few rounds of badminton and reveling in the joy that has now been (almost exactly) half of our 18 months of mission together. Yes. It's a wonderful world, and a lucky one too.
The Church is true. I love you all and for always.
Sister E.
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