"The Time Is Far Spent,'tuk mengabarkan berita Injil di laut..."
CRAZY!!! That's all I've got to say. We are found again with hampers o'er flowing, and poor Bono working everyday... But, ya gotta know WE LOVE IT! I guess it's been a bit crazy in Carlisle, too. Emily goes to the gastroenterologist on the 26th of July. We are really praying this is something easily taken care of! She, Ty, and kids and John, Lynn, and kids spent this past Saturday workin' on the ol' homestead. Ty and John found a gianormous wasp's nest under the deck in the eaves. Now, Adam and Matt, I'll give you one guess what happened..... YUP!!!! Somehow, (probably with SOMEONE using a baseball bat), they upset those 100,000 wasps and were soon thereafter running for their lives. The score: John 2 stings....Ty 1 sting. AFTER the attack they found the wasp killer in the garage and took vengeance upon those over protective wasps. John, where were your brothers (or should I say brother since we all know that Matt is totally useless in a bee attack)and their baseball mitts when you needed them??? Oh ya, for Adam's sake we should say "been there, done that"! We are grateful that they were willing to put their lives on the line to spruce up the old place. We are grateful that Lynn went through the toys and threw out the broken leftovers. We are grateful that Emily ran all over Carlisle to get supplies for the "clean-out" and that she kept us apprised of headlines as they occurred! We even offered to let them order pizza on us...we didn't really get a response... they probably thought "PIZZA! Heck, we were thinking Red Robin"! Whatever, we are really, truly, tremendously appreciative for all the work done, and it is worth a Red Robin run.
Friday we journeyed to the train station to fetch our new Mission President and his wife. They had been here less than a week and were here to do their second Zone Conference! We got there a little early. We had been texting all morning to find out when the 6 missionaries were coming from Jogja, and how they were coming. So, as we pull up to the station we get a call that they are all there! So we STUFF the 6 missionaries and their luggage into our car and send them to the Kepatihan building to wait for interviews with the President. We give them some money and tell them to get a famous coconut drink from the Warung in front of the building. Then the Knorpps come, and get President and Sister Donald and take them to their hotel while we drop the APs at the Soepomo apartment. Then we go to Kepatihan to make sure everyone got there. Well, they are starving, so we took them all to Raja Ayam and we all have lunch; Sister Baantjer (Price, Ut.), Sister Situmorang (Jakarta), Sister Manullang (Jakarta), Sister Sheffield (South Ogden, brand new), Sister Suryani (Magetan), Elder Wiradi (?) and Elder Wood (South Ogden, brand new). Sister Sheffield and Elder Wood are from the same ward in South Ogden and got their calls within a month of each other. Soon, President and Sister Donald, and Elder and Sister Knorpp come. President starts interviews, Elder stays to make sure the missionaries don't do anything crazy, and Sister Donald and Sister Knorpp and I come to show Sister Donald where we live, and to visit for a while. We all meet again at 3:30 because ALL of the missionaries are going to play "foosball" (soccer), and they are all going in the 3 Senior couple's cars. President Donald wanted to go a see such a sight, so we go to the rec-center, and watch for a while, then we take the President to their hotel, and we go home. The Missionaries went to Sambal Solo to eat after the foosball. That means that everything they ate ranked an 11 out of 10 on the spicy scale.
Saturday was Zone Conference which is always a great experience. That lasts from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m., but we had to get all the missionaries back to the train stations and bus stations, and then the President still had interviews. Then we ran to the hotel. I'm sure they were exhausted. We also were asleep by 10, but awakened at 11:30 when our bathroom started to rain! It rained for about a minute from the light fixtures and fan and a new crack in the ceiling, and then stopped. We found a maintenance man and he came and looked and said "we'll check it tomorrow". How very Indonesian....
Today, Sunday, was testimony meeting. We got the President and Sister to Church, and introduced them around. We attended Solo 1, and then President had a meeting with the Stake President, so Sister Donald attended Solo 2 with us. They were ready to leave about 11:30, so we loaded up the car and headed to our apartment at Paragon, which was ON FIRE!!! It really was the kitchen at one of the restaurants (which evidently has done this before), but it was very smoky. All in all it was very exiting!!! We had the Knorpps and the Donalds and the APs and the Greenways for lunch, AND we managed to do this without setting fire to anything. This tiny apartment has seen a number of dinner parties. Between Sister Knorpp and I, we had not had a minute. So we just had tuna salad, egg salad, and ham sandwiches, with watermelon and pineapple, chips and dessert. The President and the 2 APs went with some of the Elders after lunch, and Sister Donald just now left the apartment with the President to get to the airport. We had a great visit! Busy weekend, but wonderful.
Thursday evening for English we played UNO with our students. But of course, it was not just UNO! We gave them each 10 pieces of candy, and told them we were playing English UNO, which means NO ONE is allowed to speak Indonesian. If they did, then the others can take a piece of candy. WELL...!!! The first time sweet little Ayu just happened to say "merah" (red), the 2 quietest of all the girls SCREAMED and LUNGED at poor Ayu. Here eyes nearly popped out... and that's how it went the rest of the night! In the end, Lisa and Erika the newly named "Shark Sisters" each had 19 pieces of candy. Some of the others only had 2! (I evened things up...) It was soooooooooo fun.
Wednesday and Tuesday were piano, but we also had English Tuesday evening. We worked on "across from, behind, next to, between, around the corner from, and we taught them Kitty Corner from". We drew a "city" with two main roads, and all the various necessary buildings...school, bank, library, hotel, post office, etc., on 4 sheets of paper all taped together and then we would call out 2 buildings and they had to say "The bank is around the corner from the library" or whatever. They always astound us at how smart they are.
Monday we had the Solo District at our apartment for a lesson on "Using Family History to teach the Gospel". The Knorpps presented a wonderful lesson and then the Elders and Sisters ate Sloppy Joe (made with 9 packages of ground beef- about 9 lbs., canned tomatoes, etc.), a large bowl full of chips, two water melons, 3 cans of olives, one sheet cake sized Wacky Cake, with Ice Cream, and chocolate sauce, and 6 liters of punch. They ate every single bit! Oh, and since we ran out of Sloppy Joe from my huge slow cooker, we also made up 3 cans of tuna salad. It is such an experience to watch them eat. Like a giant vacuum cleaner.
Now that is all the temporal stuff. We also had a tremendous impromptu discussion with some of the Elders about "keys" and the power and authority that comes with them. We heard from many missionaries and our youth share testimony today about their love and belief in the Savior. We were loved by the missionaries who are all so appreciative for what we do, and today in testimony meeting (because I think we will be at Kepatihan next fast and testimony Sunday) we share our testimonies at the Soepomo Wards. I had Sister Situmorang (reluctantly) translate for me at Solo 1. She is the only member of the Church in her family, and a very intelligent, spiritual missionary. Elder had Yos (reluctantly) translate for him in Solo 2. Yos is one of our youth, just barely 17, and he was absolutely amazing. Not everyone can translate. It is really difficult. Elder Watson is very good (he did most of the translating at Zone Conference), and there have been others, but Yos ranks right up there. It was a tear jerker, because we love him soooooooooo much.
Okay, so we are done complaining about coming home. Adam and Amy's sweet Cecily asked her mother if she could write me a Thank You note. Her mother asked her why she wanted to do that. Cecily said to thank Gramma for coming home. It must be time.
We love you all, and we especially love our wise Grandchildren!
Elder and Sister G.
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