Hari Idul Fitri or The Fast is Over

A new missionary arrived in Magelang last week, Elder Tufaga.  He's a half Samoan, half Tongan from Hawaii, but his aunt lives in our Euless, Texas First Ward.  He was around enough Polynesian languages in his youth that Indonesians tell me his Bahasa is so good and his features are such that he can pass for a local here.  He's a little on the tall side for an Indonesian though.  Sister Jeffery enjoys having the boys around, including 4 real Indonesian ones, but having Deborah to sweeten the mix is great. 

We spent the evening before Idul Fietri at the town square where things were quite exciting.  Fireworks, food, friends, and  a small train for kids to ride around in circles, this time on a track set up on the sidewalk.  Elder Zollinger left the next morning for Bekasi, we will miss him.

All night preceding Idul Fitri we heard a mixture of  announcements, talks, and prayers from the Mosque in our neighborhood, plus fireworks were going off throughout the night.  We have a cement alley by the side of our house,, with our house making up one of the walls.  This makes an excellent place for reverberating noisy firecrackers, so it has been well used throughout the Moslem month of celebration.  We awoke to the sound of a crowd gathered virtually in our front yard.  No they didn't have pitchforks come to expel the foreigners, but instead they were in their  "Sunday go to meeting clothes" lined up in the pattern you see here from our balcony.  They listened to the preacher for a bit then each person went through the line greeting everyone else to ask forgiveness of their neighbors and wish them a happy Idul Fitri, minal aidzin wafaizin.  Yes it's those words that I couldn't translate from the poster last week, my Arabic isn't up to par.  A touching tradition which members told us we should have participated in.  

Mel went out teaching one day with Elders Zollinger and Hymas which enabled them to split for appointments.  Although they were in a threesome all week, the missionaries here taught 20 lessons with investigators and 10 to members, by far the most in the zone.  Notice the boy, Dito, sitting next to Elder Z.  He's perhaps the tallest Indonesian that we've met.  I guess there's some Dutch ancestry in the family.  His mother, on the far right, lives in Jogyakarta and asked Elder Jeffery to come visit her there, so we are seeing more advantages to being assigned to work in both cities.

Elder Zollinger teaching a lesson to a man who is a becak (bicycle taxi) driver.  This man has had several lessons, all sitting here on the side of a busy street.  But during this one he reviewed the parts of the Book of Mormon that he'd read the prior week and told about his prayer asking about it's truthfulness.  Yes, the Holy Ghost can testify anywhere!

The Petrus, Vincewati, Glen, and David family all arrive at the Church so mother and son can study piano and English from the Jeffery's.

This aging scholar is still interested in discussing the Book of Mormon with Elder Hymas as his sister and nephew look on.

This is what it looks like for some on their way home from the market.  Sister Jeffery has not yet taken home a live chicken for dinner.  It's a holiday week here so the shopping trips need to include food for plenty of relatives. 

Our final set of pictures here are from a YW's activity in Jogyakarta.  Of course there is always food involved and Sister Peni enjoyed it as much as we did.

Sewing dresses is turning into quite a project.
They purchased white cloth and the
 activity started with cutting and then wrapping
 it in patterns so it can be dyed, batik style.
  So it will be a several week project
before they all have matching
dresses for a Sacrament meeting program.

Nia used the occasion to celebrate her mother Sister Wuri's birthday too.

Sister Jeffery was particularly pleased to get the YW from Magelang together again, Lili and Anita.  Anita has moved to Jogya, so this was a chance to get her introduced to girls there.  The other girls here though are actually visitors who came up from Solo on the train to play in Jogya for the day.  Holiday time is when they can take advantage of being together, The one with the glasses on her head is Bishop Catur's daughter.

Okay the branch president (Ariyanto) is befriending the look-a-like of the new president of the quorum of 12 apostles.  We express our sadness of the passing of Boyd K Packer and support for Russel M Nelson as the new president  of the quorum of the twelve.  Elder Jeffery is occasionally accused of looking like this 89 year old great man, kind of a compliment and a diss at the same time.   

Our trip to the big city ended up with an hour to play, so we went to the Mall, the first that Lili claims she's been to.

Cabang Magelang means the Magelang Branch, so here we have the President of the Magelang branch and the Young Women's president of the Magelang branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.