25 December2007 – Tuesday
Our second Christmas in Indonesia and although we love being here it feels completely different from being at home with the family. It will be good to be home next year and to have all our family around us.
We had our own Christmas morning and opened the packages from home – Jim and Kristy’s package of goodies, the Mitchell’s gorgeous new 2008 calender, and some material and a photograph book from the Subandriyos – and those we gave each other. I surprised Mary with at least one stocking stuffer – a really rich looking ladybug necklace. She got me two beautiful ties and some expensive material for making more ties. I also replaced her $4.50 purse with a genuine Hugo Bass (Indonesian version) one.
Sam picked us up and we went to the Selatan branch’s Christmas program. Once again we were amazed that so many families would come to church on Christmas morning. But as we thought about it, Christmas does not seem to be the family holiday as it is in the US. They have the family gathering earlier in the year during the Muslim holiday of ….. The program included almost everyone at one time or another. There was a Primary choir, a Seminary skit and song, the Single Adults sang, the elders and sisters sang – Teng and Bastian – Hinckley and Sadimin, a number of families took part and of course president Bob sang. Then there was Santa and finally lunch. I took a lot of pictures and some movies.
From there we went to the mission home and had a wonderful time with all the missionaries from the Jakarta zone. The only ones missing were the Marchants who were in Bali with some of their children for Christmas. There was lots of food – which the elders devoured to the last spoonful – lots of great conversation, a short testimony meeting to which I contributed a very short but to the point thought about our missionary work in Indonesia, and a white elephant gift exchange. Once again I took a lot of pictures of the gathering.
Four hours zoomed by and at that point they were starting to show the third movie from The Work and the Glory which we have seen a number of times. So we decided to leave and caught a cab back to our apartment. By the time we got home we were rather tired and so the rest of the day was relaxed. So another Christmas in Indonesia came to a happy and peaceful end.
In reflecting back the Indonesian Saints have an excellent way of blending the of remembering Christ’s birth, branch fellowshipping, and family sharing for their celebrating of Christmas.