Last Goodbyes

Sister and Elder Jeffery visited Mt Sumbing for the last time.  Impressive volcano.  Impressive matching batik.  

Ariyanto's father-in-law, who has been bedridden for a while.  Elder Jeffery helped Ariyanto give him a priesthood blessing.  The primary caregiver is shown below with Sister Jeffery.  They are Christine's parents.

We certainly enjoyed knowing President Ariyanto and his fine family, Christine, Jessica, and Yeriko.

Our good friend, Tatok, came to Yogyakarta to mourn the passing of his mother, Sister Bambang.  She was a longtime member of the ward there who died suddenly. 

We looked around the group and realized how much we love these dear saints.  They have a love for one another and we are happy to have shared this mission time with them.

President Budi Susanto posed with all us Yogyakarta elders at Sister Bambang's burial.  The young missionaries are a strong and vibrant group of young men and women.   We have had opportunities to serve and support them in their service.  In so doing, they have taught us much. 

Our final institute class with Christmas event calendars.  We will miss this fun group who will undoubtedly be leading the Church in Indonesia in the not too distant future.

We made one final trip to the pasar with our friends the Bairds
It is a lively place in the mornings.
We love the vegetables spices chicken, fish or goat meats,

Yogyakarta's Young Women came to our house in Magelang to join with our few young women for a final activity.  It happened to be the celebration of the beginning of the Young Women's organization so we started with cake.  After a few fun games everyone got to decorate their own sugar cookie with Christmas colored icings and candies.  They asked if this was an American thing to do.  We reassured them that people all over were enjoying decorated sugar cookies for the Christmas Holidays.  The next day photos of pretty cookies were all over their Facebook pages.

Dino plus, Elders Jeffery and Brown enjoyed eating the efforts of the activity.  No leftover cookies here.

Sister Hesti was intimidated about driving her car up the steep incline out of our neighborhood, so Elder Jeffery (the now confident driver in Indonesia) drove the hill for her.

Tadaaaaa!  The Magelang Branch has moved into their new building.  Well new in the sense that is is a remodeled old Dutch home.  The church did a beautiful job in the construction and we are delighted to have a beautiful place to worship.  The last Saturday of our mission we held an open house.  The branch members invited their families and friends.  The missionary also distributed invitations and we even had advertisements aired on the radio.  We had over 200 people attend and we had a wonderful time together.

The new chapel is ready for meetings.  The first meeting was an open house though, complete with big standup posters from the public relations folks.  Visitors came from Surabaya, and Jakarta to help with the presentations.  Below Sister Rowley talks to our friend Ellen, who was baptized a few weeks later.

Even our moslem school teacher friend, Arif, drove up from Yogyakarta to see the new building and to say goodbye to the Jefferys for the last time.

Our neighbors came to see our new building and listen to the Hansens tell them about family history activities.

President Rowley introduced the public to the Church.  We had over 200 people attend, mostly not members of the church.

Branch President Ariyanto looks like he belongs in this new building.  He has worked harder than anyone to get this new building.

Bayu was the "master of ceremonies".

The branch choir performed "In our Lovely Deseret" after a single rehearsal.  It is their favorite song.  Sister Jeffery conducted and it sounded great.

Unfortunately Yeriko wasn't up to performing Javanese dance that day, but his teacher and a friend did share their talents for us all.  Quite a hit!

Visitors were greeted by Christine's smiling face and Onik looked on too.

The branch showed up for Sacrament meeting only the next day.  There were still a few things to workout with local officials regarding meetings.  Thanks Bairds for the picture.  Precious photo of the ones we love.  We are leaving them at the start of a new era of the church in Magelang.  "Good things keep coming".

One last meal with the visitors from Jakarta at Villa Sumbing, the nicest restaurant in Magelang.

On our final evening in Indonesia, we ate again Indonesian food with the Rowleys and other Jakarta senior missionary couples.  Yummy.  We also said good by to the Institute office staff all under Juswan Tandiman's direction.  They appreciated us being quasi CES senior missionaries.  What a joy it was for us to teach.
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For two years we have shared our testimonies of the gospel.  Our families that we have missed have been supportive as we have lived far away.  These wonderful saints of Indonesia have been patient with us as we have stumbled and bumbled with the language and culture.   As we have taught, fed, transported, entertained, and listened, our love for the them has grown.  Yet our testimonies of the Gospel of Jesus Christ have grown the most.
We appreciate the Plan of Salvation given to us by our Father in Heaven, the blessings of the atonement from our Savior Jesus Christ and the daily guidance of the Holy Ghost.
We believe that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is led by Jesus Christ Himself.  He has called prophets and apostles to lead us and each one of us has a calling to serve.
We are grateful for these two years we have been able to serve Him as full time missionaries.
Elder and Sister Jeffery