30 May 2008 – Friday

A rather interesting day for us. Other than doing some things by e-mail we did not do much in the way of missionary work – or at least nothing connected to our ERS call. We spent the morning working on getting things sorted and packed. It turned out that we really did not have extra room in our luggage – in fact we are going to be way over as far as size is concerned. The weight should be fine.

We were going to go to China Town because President Marchant made if sound like a must. We invited the Walkers to go along and they were happy to join us. Unfortunately it turned out either we never found it or the President’s idea of a great place to visit is very different from ours. We ended up going to some obvious tourist trap that was basically shop after shop of cheap goods. We only stayed long enough to take a quick tour. On the positive side we had a great time talking to the Walkers and we got to see some of the country we had not seen before.

The Walkers suggested that we eat at a place only a few blocks from the mission home. It was quite good and not too expensive. I had a good piece of salmon and Mary had French Onion Soup. Again the chance to talk to the Walkers was the major feature of our late lunch.

I then made a major mistake. We were heading back out to Tangerang to go to the Sadiyono house for a farewell get together. I decided that since it only took 45 minutes to get near there on Wednesday and Sam said it should take about an hour tonight, I decided that 75 minutes would get us there right on time. Unfortunately we were a little late getting out the door and the traffic was terrible so it took almost 2 hours and we were an hour late. Since we were the guests of honor everyone had to wait for us.

Once we got there, things went really well. We had a great Indonesian meal – the beef was the best I have tasted since we were here and the watermelon was perfect. After eating Agus and Chatrine sang for us, gave us a couple of beautiful presents, and then Chatrine sang a poem that she wrote for Sister Pier while Agus played his guitar. Their were tears in both sisters’ eyes. We then took lots of pictures and said our many goodbyes. We have become great friends with this family and hopefully some day we will see them again. We also said goodbye to Elder Prause and Elder Laki – I told Elder Laki to keep studying English.

While we were finishing up, Elder Herman got a call from the Bautista’s. Their daughter had to go to the hospital and they wanted the Elders to give her a blessing. We volunteered to take them in our car and save them 45 minutes to an hour getting there. Elder Herman invited me to join them and I was happy to do so. It seems their daughter has something that causes her temperature to fluctuate between 99 and 104 degrees. On the positive side she seems to want to play at times and is eating well. Elder Djarkodi anointed and Elder Herman sealed the anointing. It was good to see and hear the Elders use their priesthood.

After the blessing we said goodbye to the family and we took the Elders to their home. Once again we got to say goodbye for now to a good companionship. The trip home took less than ½ the time of the outward trip. Even so we were not home until after 10:00 and it did not take us long to do a couple of things and then go to bed. The Lord truly blessed us today.