"I have seen much of His mysteries and his marvelous power" Alma 10:5

What a fine adventure!  Four days in Malang!  We left Surabaya the morning of January 30th to make the 2 1/2 hour drive to the hills and canyons of Malang. On arrival, we met the 4 missionaries at the chapel to prepare for the day.  Before leaving on this trip, We had spent two days finding all the addresses on the map of Malang and marking the location on the branch roster. I then cut up the roster in strips and taped all the families in area "C" on one page, those in area "Q" on another page, etc.  I also prepared a list of the objectives for our visits to these members of the branch. We wanted to confirm and improve the addresses, add phone numbers, and find out where the members in each family are currently living.  We shared a scripture from the Book of Mormon, invited the less active members back to church, asked if they had a friend who might want to hear about a living prophet, and we took their picture.  It was well organized, now if we could only get the job done!  The Keplers took the elders and we took the sisters and headed out for an afternoon of finding/visiting.  We and the sisters tackled the "Black Spot" of the branch. This is where the branch president tried to visit to locate some members and they asked him, rather unkindly, not to come back. It's a highly concentrated area of Muslims.  We found them to be VERY helpful and friendly, but then, we are white and the sisters are so sweet, who could be mean to them?  We found the first day that 5 out of the 6 people on our list had moved some time ago, leaving no forwarding address.  The one member who was there was very touched by our visit and shed a few tears.  It was good that the sisters were doing this visit!

Now for the MYSTERIES-- on Wednesday, P-Day, we traveled to the city of Blitar and beyond, to Panataran, a wonderful archaeological site. The stone carvings were fabulous.  But it was pretty mysterious to us as to what their writing said.  Unfortunately, no help was available in finding out the translation. The dates of the Hindu temple and surrounding buildings is 1197-1369 AD.

The bathing pool, surrounded by fine carvings.

See the skulls around the base?  He's
carrying a big bat, I guess indicating
how he got all the skulls???

Elders Marsudi and Hernandez

Notice the exceptional hairdo!

Sister Nababan and Sister Tandiman

The man in the center is holding up the snake with one
arm and holding a bell in his other hand.  There were
eight of these all around the building.

         

This smiling fanged creature is doing the scout salute with both hands!

After our exciting tour of the temples, we
stopped at a roadside fast-food restaurant.
Nothing was wiggling in the bowl, in case
you're wondering.

Then came our MIRACLE!  We went to visit 3 families
that were on our branch list.  Mind you, we are over 2 hours
from the chapel...   We went to the first address and were
inquiring about the Prasetya family when a man rode up on a
motorcycle!  It was Bro. Prasetya!  He said, "I don't live here
anymore, but I just came to see my sister.  I'll take you where
I now live."  It was quite far away, but we got to meet his lovely
family and share a message from the Book of Mormon.  Brother
Prasetya came with us to look for the other two addresses, but
one had moved and the other wasn't a complete address, thus
unfindable.  What a wonderful blessing to be able to find
this family!

We stayed in Malang for 3 nights at the Merbabu Guest House and ate every night at the most wonderful French restaurant ever!  We had such delicacies (all beautifully presented) as asparagus chicken, chicken cordon bleu, spinach crepes, and Caesar salad.  The chicken dinners were a little more than $5. We'll definitely visit there again! We only wish we could move the whole restaurant to Surabaya. When we return to the states, we'll definitely have sticker shock, with such great meals for such a low price!

I bought 2 beautiful blue birds at the Pesar Burung (bird market).  I only wish I'd taken some photos of that place. We'll have to go back there sometime.  They had a whole block of just canaries! There were owls and bats, lizards and chickens to buy.  We even found two Leucopsar Rothchild, very endangered birds, on the edge of extinction that we could have bought for $2.50 each.  They are from Bali and there are very few left in the wild.  If we'd had more time, I'd have bought them and taken them to donate to the zoo.

It was a very productive trip as we try to clean up the branch roster to make it useable for the leadership of the branch.  We hope the map and the grouping of members will help them organize Visiting and Home Teaching.  Just eliminating the ones who have moved out of the area or died should bring up the Home Teaching percentages!