Southern Coast of Java

Balekambang has to be one of the most picturesque places in Indonesia. This Hindu temple is on the island of Pulau Ismoyo, connected by a footbridge to the mainland.  August 11, 2012,  we visited a member of the Church who lives about 2 hours from Malang, near this beach. Good excuse for some wonderful sightseeing! 

Talk about beautiful white sandy beaches!

Elder and Sister Kepler came along with us for our delightful weekend in Malang and the southern beaches.

On the road to our next member's home, Rhama pointed out some clove trees growing along the narrow highway. We stopped and bought a small bag of freshly dried cloves from this darling woman. As Steve took a picture of the woman and I together, I surreptitiously snapped the picture of her feet. We wondered if she'd ever worn shoes in her life. What a delightful stop that was!

Our second beach stop was at Sendangbiru--you can see the island of Pulau Sempu in the background. While we were walking along the beach for a few moments, Rhama struck up a conversation with some local fishermen. One of them asked what the "bules" eat for lunch. When Rhama told them that we had bread and jam (meaning, peanut butter sandwiches) for lunch, the questioner said, "See? Just like I told you! They eat bread and pills, just like the astronauts and they get full!" So there you have it.

 

Trucks full of chickens are a common sight, as are motorcycles with huge loads. This one is carrying sugar cane. We're constantly impressed with the nice highways, although there are many that need work.

A beautiful mosque in the middle of rice paddies.

Beautiful East Java

There are so many beautiful places in Indonesia. We've been very blessed to do some traveling around the east part of Java Island. We sometimes look for lost and inactive members and sometimes we travel with the young elders for their P-Day.

July 25th we drove to the base of Gunung Penanggungan.
There are 81 old Hindu temples on this mountain. This is one of
the main temple/bathing pools.

Elders Hafen, Earls, Peter Johnson, Mongan, Gilbert, Radianto, Lopis, Garnett, AA Mongan and Subadi.

I know missionaries aren't supposed to have facial hair...
but P-Day has to be an exception, right? The man on the
left was our hiking guide. The handsome young men
 are Elders Earls, Johnson, Radianto and Lopis.

    

                                                                                             Who can resist such a great climbing tree?

These three pictures were taken at a great restaurant in Malang. The smiling fish below

was my lunch! The banana leaf-wrapped packet in the middle was rice, on right was salad.

This is our first driver, Ofni(right), and our 2nd driver, Rhama, in front
of our car (which we spend lots of hours in). They have been such
great sports to drive to all of these locations.



Air Terjun Cubanrondo, near Batu

 

We don't see many spiders, thank goodness, but this one's a beaut.

Service in Surabaya

June 9th, after three hours working hard out in the sun, the elders ate lunch and took a short nap. The project was to clean up the landscape, courtyard and entry of a school for the handicapped. The missionaries are Elders Garnett, Gilbert, Lopis, Earls, N. Mongan and AA Mongan.

June 27-29 we helped with the Surabaya District Youth Conference in Batu. What a fun time for all! The youth learned how to use newFamilySearch, some cooking skills and in the evening Elder Seiter taught a class on avoiding pornography.  We arranged for Camile Murri to come and teach the youth some line dancing. They loved it, especially the cowboy hats!

NewFamilySearch instruction, with all the kids dressed up in Sunday clothes for the class. 

Cooking classes, yum, yum!  

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For several Fridays, all 10 young elders and the 2 couples have worked to 

clean neighborhood parks. The Surabaya mayor heard about our projects

and came to see these "bules" (white foreigners) for herself.

These cute children in front joined in the clean-up project at their soccer field.

From left to right, back row: Steve, Brother Waluyo, Elders Hafen, Lopis, Kepler, Garnett, Sister Kepler, Shara-Dee,

one of the APs, Elders Radianto, Subadi, Mongan. Front row: Elder Gilbert, an AP, Elder Johnson, and Elder Earls.

Elders Gilbert, Martoyo, and Simanungkalit and Shara-Dee helped with our zoo service.

We've been volunteering for two weeks now, helping to clean animal enclosures, 

feed some of the animals and now, renovations. Below are the before and after pictures.

Steven, Elder Coleman and Elder Simanungkalit cleaned up after our painting. The

missionaries got one teaching contact out of our service this day!

After the painting, Elder Earls, Elder Coleman and

 I got to feed the sun bears and then the zoo restaurant fed

us delicious soto ayam (chicken soup).











The next week, August 20th was Idul Fitri, the biggest holiday in Indonesia. Most people have the two day holiday off work, many have the whole week off and most businesses are closed.  We again volunteered at the zoo, to help with their big crowds.  First we prepared food and helped feed several of the animals, then we put wrist bands on visitors to the zoo. It was great fun and we heard later that we were on TV!  We had seen a television crew filming us as we worked and then they interviewed Elder Earls, asking where we were from, what we were doing in Indonesia and why we were volunteering.

Sister Kepler and I got to wash, water and feed the elephants! I bet you didn't know the babies love bananas and eat them with the peeling on. Elders Coleman and Seiter helped prepare the food and delivered it to the deer, elk and hippos!

Elder Radianto puts a wrist band on a park visitor. We were kept busy doing that for a couple hours straight, as fast as we could work. We learned how to say "Have fun" in Indonesian so we could send them on their way. The children enjoyed giving us high 5's. In two hours we saw only one white couple from Italy come through the line. No wonder we are often stared at--we're not the norm.