CIREBON

OUR FIRST VISIT to a humanitarian project began early May 20th as we boarded the train for a three hour ride to Cirebon.  Brother Subandriyo, the service center manager,  and his daughter, Diandra went to guide and interpret for us.

The country was beautiful, miles of rice paddies, dormant volcano's, villages and many, many people.

On arriving in Cirebon we secured a taxi and drove to the NU Muslim school where we met Mr. Najib, the school principal.  We reviewed the work to refurbish the 3 toilets and discussed additional work necessary to complete the project.

 

Najib was so gracious to invite us to eat lunch with his family and the school English teacher.

After lunch we were able to talk to some of the students in their English class, they were delightful!

Back in Cirebon, we stopped at a batik factory where we watched the workers painstakingly painting wax on the fabric prior to dying it.  Batik is an ancient art that the Indonesian people are famous for.  Each area has their own beautiful distinct patterns.

This was a great experience to travel out of Jakarta for our first visit to a humanitarian project.  We love Indonesia and it's people.

A few days later, President and Sister Donald  invited us to meet them for dinner at the Outback Steakhouse.  We absolutely couldn't find a taxi, so we consoled ourselves with dinner in our mall that is across the street from our apartment. A&W root beer never tasted so good!

CALLED TO SERVE

Elder and Sister Mitchell:  You are hereby called to serve as missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  You are assigned to labor in the Indonesia Jakarta Mission.  Your primary assignment is to labor in the Indonesia Welfare Humanitarian Country Office as welfare services missionaries.  It is anticipated that you will serve for a period of 18 months. 

We received our call to serve January 8, 2015 and another great adventure quickly began. 

Preparations began in earnest as we started to tie up loose ends with the business, get more shots, buy clothes and supplies, visit the dentist, doctors, ophthalmologist, receive training from the church welfare specialists, start language training via Skype from the MTC in Bahasa Indonesia, and start saying good bye to our children and grandchildren.  

All of our family, with the exception of Jeny's family who live so far away, were with us Sunday April 19th as we were set apart.

April 20th came before we knew it and we reported to the MTC.

And so we began a two week supercharged learning curve at the MTC.  We were blessed to meet so many senior missionary couples who became our good friends and an inspiration to us as we began our service.

Our PMG district, Grangers, Paynes, our instructor Brother Teusher, and us.

Elder & Sister Howard who are called to serve in Ethiopia and were trained in Welfare/Humanitarian

with us our second week at the MTC.

Waiting for our 30+ hours of traveling to begin.

After flying to Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and arriving in Jakarta we were excited to find President and Sister Donald waiting for us at the airport, just like they said they would.

They took us to the mission home and allowed us to stay with them our first night in Indonesia.

They are delightful people and we immediately came to love them

Our first day in our office with Elder Jones from Wickenburg.

Our apartment, the Sudirman Towers in Semanggi, Jakarta.  Our apartment is in the middle about 1/3 way up.

Our apartment includes the use of a beautiful pool and great exercise room which we enjoy every day.