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News Item: April Indonesia Newsletter from Pres and Sister Jensen
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| April Indonesia Newsletter from Pres and Sister Jensen | 23 Apr 2006 |
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Dear Friends, We hope that you are all doing well. It is nice to have time at home to write some things that have been happening here in Indonesia in the past two months. In March we started a more intensified emergency preparedness and security program in our mission. President Jensen's experience with food supply and emergency bags and plans were taught and implemented in each companionship. We were also visited and evaluated by 2 men from Church Security from Salt Lake City. They told us that compared to other missions in the church we were in the middle of the spectrum as far as safety for our missionaries is concerned. They seemed to be satisfied and pleased with the programs that we had set up. However, at the time, President Jensen was recovering from being sick with parasites. Good thing it is a common thing here because they know how to treat it. Unfortunately, it took him almost 3 weeks to get completely healed. His problem is that he loves to eat too much Indonesian food, especially when he is visiting the Elders. (Notice that Sister Jensen never gets sick) She blames President Jensen for washing his tooth brush out with the tap water which is a No No in her opinion. We have pretty much stabilized our mission force now with 67 young missionaries and 7 couples, totaling 81 missionaries serving. The president has had to release a few missionaries early to accommodate visa approvals for the new missionaries. In March when Elder and Sister Palmer left, we got a new Welfare Country Director, Elder and Sister Peterson. We have always been blessed with wonderful next door neighbors and they are no exception. Sister Jensen loves having a companion whenever she needs to go to the grocery store and also to show around this fascinating city of Jakarta. Sister Peterson is a first cousin to Ray Moon who was our neighbor in Mesa for 25 years. When the president attended the mission presidents training in Hong Kong he received word that the second week in April would be set aside for “General Conference weekend” for all 10 missions in the Asia Area. Fortunately, during the past year the president has had BYU satellite dishes installed in all the chapels. (The cost was under $200 a satellite.) Consequently, when we were informed that the BYU station would cover all the sessions of conference we were already set up. Although the attendance was not great, it is a start and everyone who came seemed to enjoy the conference. One of Sister Jensen's concerns for the past several months has been the appearance of our Sister Missionaries. The foreign Sisters have been inclined to dress down to not draw attention to themselves since they get so much attention as it is. Sister Jensen felt (as well as others) they needed to look more professional. She had fun taking them all to the fabric markets and choosing fabric to have suits and blouses made for them. Not only do they feel better, but they look sharp and have had lots of compliments. It was difficult this month for the president to have to tell two of our local missionaries, Elder Mulyanto from Solo and Elder Silalahi from Bekasi, that their fathers had died. He allowed both missionaries to go home for the funerals. In Indonesia the funeral is held the day after the death, so they didn’t miss much time away from their normal proselyting. However, the highlight of our last two months has been the 10 day mission tour by Elder and Sister Garn (Asia Area President). We met them in Medan (on the Island of Sumatra) on April 12. We held a fireside with about 65 people in attendance, (about 30-35 were non members). While there, the president was able to call one of our return missionaries who went home in March, (Elder Manullang) to be a second counselor in the Branch Presidency. We then flew to Solo to conduct zone conference with our missionaries in the Surakarta District, then the next day we flew back to Jakarta for another zone conference and District Conference. As usual our cook Ida prepared a fantastic Mexican lunch. Sister Garn said it was the best zone conference lunch they have ever experienced in the almost 3 years they have been in the Asia Area. Unfortunately, the president got frustrated and humiliated on the morning of District Conference. He was supposed to drive Elder Garn to the conference 1 1/2 hours early to meet with 3 inactive families with the District Presidency. But he drove to the wrong conference center. This was a very humbling lesson in lack of communication. We were told that it was the conference center near the Senayan Mall but later we found out that “near” in Indonesia can be 30 minutes away. It was in the Senayan area but not near the Senayan Mall. Fortunately, he was able to get Subandriyo on his hand phone and he was directed to the right place (but 30 minutes late). We had the largest turnout for a district conference...about 800 people were in attendance. On Monday we took a rare P-day and took Elder and Sister Garn to the Taman Safari up in the mountains near Bogor. It turned out that Sister Garn is quite a wild animal lover and had her picture taken with several animals. She even influenced Sister Jensen to have her picture taken with a baby tiger. It was a first in her life to experience because tigers remind her of a large cat and as many of you know, she does not like cats. Following our safari visit we drove to the airport and flew to Surabaya where we conducted zone conference with the missionaries and then had a dinner at the Marriot Hotel with the senior couples and the counselor in the District presidency and his family. The next morning we flew to Manado on the island of Sulawesi. As far as we know, this is the first time since the branch was organized about 20 years ago that a General Authority has visited this small branch. Elder and Sister Garn conducted a training with only 2 missionaries, which was also a first for them. The small branch had about 40 people in attendance to hear Elder and Sister Garn speak. Following the fireside they served the president's favorite Indonesian food - Dabu-dabu, (Indonesian salsa) fried fish, and Brenebon (an Indonesian bean type soup). We ended our trip by flying to Bali and spent a wonderful evening at a beach hotel visiting with two of our faithful local members and an investigator woman that we had invited. This was also a first in conducting a fireside and missionary discussion on the beach under a moonlit sky and with the sound of waves in the background. Yes, it was rather exotic. It was a wonderful trip. Elder Garn told us that the Indonesia Mission is leading the Asia Area in most categories of showing statistical improvement in establishing the church. Such as, increases in Sacrament Meeting attendance, Fast Offerings, tithing faithfulness, new Priesthood ordinations and retention of converts. The only area we are low in is the number of baptisms. We are reminded frequently of the theme of our old Mesa Arizona Central Stake, "Living the Gospel is Fun." What a wonderful experience this is. What a wonderful thing it is to be serving the Lord in this most interesting and enchanting country of Indonesia. We are grateful for our many blessings and for all of you who pray for us and support us in this tremendous assignment. May the Lord continue to bless each of you in your own families and responsibilities. Hormat kami, President and Sister Jensen |
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