Elder and Sister Jeffery: Magelang in the Mountains

We spent a morning with the elders cleaning the local town square. It's not that it was that dirty, but folks quite enjoyed seeing these Caucasians working at getting it cleaner. Yet service is an important purpose of our mission here. and it takes many forms.We were serenaded by the cutest band of children from a local elementary school. The teachers played the xylophone, the kids the drums and marched.

We stopped by the church in Jogyakarta to pick up a guide to take us the hour beyond there to the Winoto's home where we sat on the floor to enjoy talking to them about family history. They will be going to the temple as a family in September. Our driver is particularly impressed with their dedication to travel over an hour and a half each way to church every Sunday. Their son, Fajar, was the president of the seminary class too, so during the school year they make the journey on Friday nights also. Below you see the road we drove on to get out, Sister Winoto road ahead of us to show the way. Roads are very tight around the houses.

Traveling around Java on the way to Stake conference and zone meetings it's faster to take the mountain passes, so most of the next pictures are of scenes along the way. We try to get pictures of the volcanoes because they really are impressive. At one spot we felt on top of the world as we could see 5 volcano peaks from the same spot. The little funny guy looking at the Indonesian greenhouse is a car air freshener.

We can buy plenty of cheap, fresh vegetables here in Magelang because it's grown in the rich volcanic soils.
The fields are tucked into every nook and cranny of the mountainside. Yummy green stuff. Jenn you are going to love it here.

Mel got the munchies, so he looked at buying a 3 foot bag of unknown crackers. Fortunately reason prevailed and he got a smaller bag which was quickly consumed. It's not going on the shopping list for next time though, crunchy but not much flavor.
Mel spent the trip converting our Apples to Apples game Book of Mormon version into Indonesian. Our friends Bayu, in white, and Rossi, in the blue, helped out with translation. Rossi is learning about the church and it was a fun time talking about people, places and terms from our favorite book.

The Jogyakarta ward choir sang for Stake conference. As we looked at the choir from the second row we thought we might know some of the participants. The longer we looked the more we recognized until we had identified all but 5 or 6. The director, Sister Peni, was a joy to watch. She danced as she directed this wonderful sounding choir.

The room was filled almost to capacity, but we didn't take pictures until it was over of course. It's quite a change from 40 years ago when Mel attended the Central Java district conference of the church. The three women below were there with him then, all 40 years younger, Lilik, Budiatmi, and Endang.

We came home by bus with the rest of the Magelang branch. 38 of us attended including 9 investigators.

Elder and Sister Jeffery pose with a newborn baby whose father below is the Bandung branch president. Ani, the mother,has stayed in Magelang with her mom for a couple of months and will do her recovery here too. We understand the challenges of taking care of 3 toddlers and appreciate mothers everywhere to are brave enough to handle it. Ciaria is a beautiful reminder of those we left behind and the Lord's tender mercies to allow us to meet our 4 grandchildren born last year.

We really don't have to leave the city to see the volcanoes. This picture was taken less than a mile from our house. No we don't have an airport that close, the plane is an attraction at the amusement park, as is the hungry dinosaur below. But, maybe Sister Jeffery should have been an actress in Jurassic World.

How many city workers does it take to lift one log into the back of a truck? We don't know the answer to that question as we didn't wait to see if they actually made it. Aside from the truck, there isn't any log moving machinery in evidence.

Food processor Indonesian style, since it's made fresh and specifically to our tastes Sister Jeffery didn't have to worry about it being too spicy.

Here come the volcanoes in earnest. Merapi, Merbabu, Sumbing, Sindoro, Ungarang.
OK some of the peaks pics weren't worth publishing due to clouds.
There is some great footage on Youtube of the 2010 eruption of Merapi.
Meanwhile all is quiet now and we just love the views.

Zone meeting in Semarang where we get to retool as missionaries.

We got to eat at a mall, so we ordered beefy noodles which reminded us of our favorite noodle house in Beijing.

When leaving an investigator in Jogya we turned down a small gang or alley. The prior week we'd done the same without incident, but this week their was a gathering for a funeral. As you can see for over 100 yards in actually two directions the alley was lined with motorcycles. Elder Sumanungkalit got out of the car and moved the ones that made it absolutely too narrow for us to pass. Then we passed the hundred men sitting on a wall who'd been watching us move their bikes. Finally we got past it all and Mel jumped out to take this shot.

Sister Romero on the left decided to draw all the district missionaries for us on the white board. Now the whole world can see her caricatures of Elders Keller, Sutadiyono, & Sumanungkalit, plus Sister Zabrinskie.

The Magelang missionaries are trying to start a sports night tradition. Only one other church member showed up for footsall, so we played 3 on a team. As you can see even the old man is moving faster than the camera can capture it.