Family Dear:::
Another bullet point to add to the list of Indo is the 1800s/1900s (albeit this is like the one Kenneth Grahame imagined and Walt Disney exaggerated): angkots are like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. For the most part they are to be completely trusted (and really, Indonesia wins the Defensive Driving award) but you never really ever know what's coming next---today the Ledeng-Kelapa took a sharp turn into an empty parking lot and up through an off-road neighborhood before screaming back into streamline traffic and a series of whiplash stops and starts. Occasionally your journey is interrupted for a gas station detour, where all 2--17 passengers will idle in the back while the driver hops out to top up the tank and chat a minute with a cigarette before getting back on route. If you ride at night, after the sun's set and the roads are clear of too much traffic, they speed. I don't know exactly how fast, because I'm not really motor-smart or possessed of any inner speedometer, but sometimes I feel like we're flying. I push the windows open and stretch out my legs (because no one else is in the angkot, not this late at night) and Sister Atmi does the same, while silently praying "belum menikah, Tuhan. Belum menikah" (I'm not married yet, Lord!). The angkot that just got me here covered 10 minutes in 5, plus threw me a good foot along the bench when it lurched to a second's standstill to dump me out at the curb. Yes. It is a daily wild ride (though I still think the Disneyland version is even scarier).
Anyway. That is not how I intended this email to start but there wasn't going to be any dignified way to segue into it anyway because
I HELD A BABY TIGER
( !!!!!!! )
I know. I'll give you a minute to squeal/dance/sing/applaud, because I needed some recovery time, too. It was all just very unexpected, you know? Because usually there aren't baby tigers sitting at the side of a city road, and even if there were I don't think anyone would be well advised to pick it up and cuddle with it. But this is Indonesia, and sometimes that means we have entered an entirely different dimension.
It was all completely illegal, if you haven't already guessed that. They sell pets along the street outside of Bandung Indah Plaza, normal pets like Persian cats or golden retrievers and the requisite handful of hamsters and mice. Except that this week . . . could it be? The man was dressed in all black, selling his one treasure from the darkest corner along the shadowy curb. I asked him to confirm my suspicion. He growled a yes to my "harimau?" and picked up the little thing with one hand like so many childhood cat shows and then I was holding him, I was cradling him, I was cuddling up close to his slanted cat eyes that blinked sad and bright green right back up at me.
Granted, he was no Bengal. His captor explained that he's a forest tiger, almost more of a panther, and that he'll "only" grow to about half the weight and size of India's version. I didn't care. He is orange and black stripes and big, padded, clumsy paws and I have never in my life been more tempted to spend 50 bucks than when I was right then and there.
But that's extravagant on a missionary budget, and also Verboten (White Handbook, page 46, though I doubt they had large wild cats in mind). So instead I just held him for a very long time and cursed the day I'd left my camera home to charge and then finally, heart-wrenchingly, had to say goodbye. The next vendor tried to sell me a three-week-old kus-kus (sp?) (a strange, owl-eyed creature that fit snugly in my open palm with long primate toes wrapped around my fingers) and the guy after that wanted me to take a Kalimantan squirrel for keeps (one fell asleep in my skirt pocket while the other curled up in the crook of my arm) but it just wasn't the same. A tiger! I held a baby tiger.
I feel like maybe he was my own little omen, a physical manifestation of the Chinese New Year. What could begin a more prosperous Year of the Tiger than an actual tiger itself? Nothing, that's what.
Unfortunately that's the only real substantial story of my week, aside from what I've already written in a letter home that I posted yesterday. The rest is just a quick list, so in other news of note:
::We are poor. I don't really know how this happened, seeing as we are only half way through the month and usually we finish out with money left over, but while grocery shopping today we had to debate whether or not we could afford milk, or if it was really necessary to buy 5 packages of Mie instead of just 3, and it was really pathetic while also being really hilarious. We are literally saving spare pennies in jars.
::Also, 2 of the 3 umbrellas in our trio broke irreparably on the same day within the same hour during the same torrential rainstorm. Mine was such a pathetic skeleton of cloth and wire that a grown man passing by actually pointed a finger and laughed out loud. And we're poor, so we can't buy a new one (you would think, in a country that drowns for six months out of every year, they'd find a way to mass-produce umbrellas to allow for cheaper price tags), so last night we were three people to one umbrella, which was also hilarious. Sometimes struggle is really fun.
::When the squirrel guy kept insisting I buy one of his little friends, I posed the customs question and he said "Just put them in your coat pocket and walk through security. That's what I did with these guys in Jakarta." Again. Illegal. So illegal.
::Gilang is M.I.A., which I fear has something to do with his (albeit) ex-girlfriend. We haven't been able to reach him all week, and finally took an angkot out to Cimahi in search of his address, which he'd written down that first day we met him on the bus. It was raining (of course) and wet, and cold, and confusing, but we finally found the apartment and then he wasn't home. But I met his landlady, who is 89 years old with bright white hair that curls to her shoulders and a tall, thin frame she dresses in floral blouses and thin solid sweaters. She was born to a Javanese mother with a French Officer father back in the (not too long ago) colonial reign and speaks Indo, Sunda, French, and Dutch. Her house is made of whitewashed, woven bamboo and I loved her.
::I think my taste buds are changing, which is weird and is that possible? I mean, I know that's a kid to adult thing, seeing as I've learned to like asparagus, rosemary, and (sorry, dad) tomatoes, but since when did I crave rice or ginger?
::I'm also pretty sure my internal thermometer's broken, because I've been wearing a sweater all week in weather that wouldn't even qualify more than a t-shirt back in Utah.
::Roshen (Branch Mission Leader, Dev Patel boy) is the Colonel Brandon of Indonesia. He was contributing to our Gospel Principles class last Sunday and I literally have NO idea what he was mumbling about except that it was good and helped answer Buldan's (Marno's investigator) question.
We taught The Fall of Adam and Eve for Sunday's lesson, and then again yesterday when we went to visit Brother Bambang (since he can't come to Church, we bring church to him). And I was again and again struck by our unique understanding of the story and how I really can't understand it any other way. Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy. How would that not ring true to every soul? So many people think this life is punishment, a direct result of Eve's "folly" and our price to pay. From things I've seen here, I can almost understand how people have come to that conclusion even without the philosophies of men mingled with scripture. The punishment theory fits in very well with the kind of burdens they're called to bear---and yet it completely discounts my understanding of God, too. Basically, Dad, you are so right. People don't understand God. I remember Anne Lamott's notes in Traveling Mercies, how growing up she couldn't reconcile the Catholic God in His stained-glass glory and fickle tempers, or the Jewish God that allowed a Holocaust to happen, or her own atheistic belief accompanied by the constant pull of there being something more. I remember born-again rallies with my Girl's College friends in NZ, where God meant pulling a semi-truck from a rope between your teeth or being at one with a drum beat to a rock-and-roll hymn. I see the world around me here, an Islamic nation in constant supplication to a God they don't believe has provided a Christ. The religious confusion goes so beyond crosses atop steeples or Darwin fish slapped across Subarus. The world's swaying from sky-high, air-thin branches because they've lost the root of it all. They do not know who God is.
Now, I am not saying that I do. I am nowhere near such revelation, but I am closer to it because of what I know through the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. And I have been flipping between Words of Mormon 1:8 and 2 Nephi 27:25-26 almost every morning this past week, because the connection makes so much sense in that full soul, pierced heart sort of way and also because Dad's thoughts in last week's email collected together a lot of my own (lest you have any remaining doubt to your calling as Bishop or the recipient of revelation as my father, Dad, your weekly emails have been almost word for word the very answers I've been looking for). He said (hope you don't mind the quoting): "The gospel was restored because God wants to be known. He desires above all things, as our Father, that we love Him as He is and understand Him as He so much wants to be understood. Moses 1:38--He wants us to return to Him, and we have to know Him to live with Him eternally. And how do we do that? By the second half of Words of Mormon 1:8: "...that they may once again come to the knowledge of God, yea, the redemption of Christ." The key to the knowledge of the Father is found in the redemption of Christ."
And that is what we, as missionaries, are trying to tell the world. To publish peace, to speak the words of Christ, to read upon the housetops the glorious news of a Full and Everlasting Gospel. Sometimes the most we can do is tell someone that they are children of God, a Heavenly Father who loves them. Occasionally we are given the incredible opportunity to tell them even more, that God loves them so much that He sent His Son, who came to do His Will---and what that Atonement really means. An Atonement we better understand because of the Book of Mormon, which we have because of the Restoration, which is a marvelous work and a wonder intended for us to know God.
I love the Book of Mormon. It testifies of my Redeemer and tells me what I must do to gain peace in this life and eternal salvation in the life to come. I love God, and am learning to know Him, which in turn allows me to love even more. This is His Church, and it is true.
I love you.
Sister E.
Another bullet point to add to the list of Indo is the 1800s/1900s (albeit this is like the one Kenneth Grahame imagined and Walt Disney exaggerated): angkots are like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. For the most part they are to be completely trusted (and really, Indonesia wins the Defensive Driving award) but you never really ever know what's coming next---today the Ledeng-Kelapa took a sharp turn into an empty parking lot and up through an off-road neighborhood before screaming back into streamline traffic and a series of whiplash stops and starts. Occasionally your journey is interrupted for a gas station detour, where all 2--17 passengers will idle in the back while the driver hops out to top up the tank and chat a minute with a cigarette before getting back on route. If you ride at night, after the sun's set and the roads are clear of too much traffic, they speed. I don't know exactly how fast, because I'm not really motor-smart or possessed of any inner speedometer, but sometimes I feel like we're flying. I push the windows open and stretch out my legs (because no one else is in the angkot, not this late at night) and Sister Atmi does the same, while silently praying "belum menikah, Tuhan. Belum menikah" (I'm not married yet, Lord!). The angkot that just got me here covered 10 minutes in 5, plus threw me a good foot along the bench when it lurched to a second's standstill to dump me out at the curb. Yes. It is a daily wild ride (though I still think the Disneyland version is even scarier).
Anyway. That is not how I intended this email to start but there wasn't going to be any dignified way to segue into it anyway because
I HELD A BABY TIGER
( !!!!!!! )
I know. I'll give you a minute to squeal/dance/sing/applaud, because I needed some recovery time, too. It was all just very unexpected, you know? Because usually there aren't baby tigers sitting at the side of a city road, and even if there were I don't think anyone would be well advised to pick it up and cuddle with it. But this is Indonesia, and sometimes that means we have entered an entirely different dimension.
It was all completely illegal, if you haven't already guessed that. They sell pets along the street outside of Bandung Indah Plaza, normal pets like Persian cats or golden retrievers and the requisite handful of hamsters and mice. Except that this week . . . could it be? The man was dressed in all black, selling his one treasure from the darkest corner along the shadowy curb. I asked him to confirm my suspicion. He growled a yes to my "harimau?" and picked up the little thing with one hand like so many childhood cat shows and then I was holding him, I was cradling him, I was cuddling up close to his slanted cat eyes that blinked sad and bright green right back up at me.
Granted, he was no Bengal. His captor explained that he's a forest tiger, almost more of a panther, and that he'll "only" grow to about half the weight and size of India's version. I didn't care. He is orange and black stripes and big, padded, clumsy paws and I have never in my life been more tempted to spend 50 bucks than when I was right then and there.
But that's extravagant on a missionary budget, and also Verboten (White Handbook, page 46, though I doubt they had large wild cats in mind). So instead I just held him for a very long time and cursed the day I'd left my camera home to charge and then finally, heart-wrenchingly, had to say goodbye. The next vendor tried to sell me a three-week-old kus-kus (sp?) (a strange, owl-eyed creature that fit snugly in my open palm with long primate toes wrapped around my fingers) and the guy after that wanted me to take a Kalimantan squirrel for keeps (one fell asleep in my skirt pocket while the other curled up in the crook of my arm) but it just wasn't the same. A tiger! I held a baby tiger.
I feel like maybe he was my own little omen, a physical manifestation of the Chinese New Year. What could begin a more prosperous Year of the Tiger than an actual tiger itself? Nothing, that's what.
Unfortunately that's the only real substantial story of my week, aside from what I've already written in a letter home that I posted yesterday. The rest is just a quick list, so in other news of note:
::We are poor. I don't really know how this happened, seeing as we are only half way through the month and usually we finish out with money left over, but while grocery shopping today we had to debate whether or not we could afford milk, or if it was really necessary to buy 5 packages of Mie instead of just 3, and it was really pathetic while also being really hilarious. We are literally saving spare pennies in jars.
::Also, 2 of the 3 umbrellas in our trio broke irreparably on the same day within the same hour during the same torrential rainstorm. Mine was such a pathetic skeleton of cloth and wire that a grown man passing by actually pointed a finger and laughed out loud. And we're poor, so we can't buy a new one (you would think, in a country that drowns for six months out of every year, they'd find a way to mass-produce umbrellas to allow for cheaper price tags), so last night we were three people to one umbrella, which was also hilarious. Sometimes struggle is really fun.
::When the squirrel guy kept insisting I buy one of his little friends, I posed the customs question and he said "Just put them in your coat pocket and walk through security. That's what I did with these guys in Jakarta." Again. Illegal. So illegal.
::Gilang is M.I.A., which I fear has something to do with his (albeit) ex-girlfriend. We haven't been able to reach him all week, and finally took an angkot out to Cimahi in search of his address, which he'd written down that first day we met him on the bus. It was raining (of course) and wet, and cold, and confusing, but we finally found the apartment and then he wasn't home. But I met his landlady, who is 89 years old with bright white hair that curls to her shoulders and a tall, thin frame she dresses in floral blouses and thin solid sweaters. She was born to a Javanese mother with a French Officer father back in the (not too long ago) colonial reign and speaks Indo, Sunda, French, and Dutch. Her house is made of whitewashed, woven bamboo and I loved her.
::I think my taste buds are changing, which is weird and is that possible? I mean, I know that's a kid to adult thing, seeing as I've learned to like asparagus, rosemary, and (sorry, dad) tomatoes, but since when did I crave rice or ginger?
::I'm also pretty sure my internal thermometer's broken, because I've been wearing a sweater all week in weather that wouldn't even qualify more than a t-shirt back in Utah.
::Roshen (Branch Mission Leader, Dev Patel boy) is the Colonel Brandon of Indonesia. He was contributing to our Gospel Principles class last Sunday and I literally have NO idea what he was mumbling about except that it was good and helped answer Buldan's (Marno's investigator) question.
We taught The Fall of Adam and Eve for Sunday's lesson, and then again yesterday when we went to visit Brother Bambang (since he can't come to Church, we bring church to him). And I was again and again struck by our unique understanding of the story and how I really can't understand it any other way. Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy. How would that not ring true to every soul? So many people think this life is punishment, a direct result of Eve's "folly" and our price to pay. From things I've seen here, I can almost understand how people have come to that conclusion even without the philosophies of men mingled with scripture. The punishment theory fits in very well with the kind of burdens they're called to bear---and yet it completely discounts my understanding of God, too. Basically, Dad, you are so right. People don't understand God. I remember Anne Lamott's notes in Traveling Mercies, how growing up she couldn't reconcile the Catholic God in His stained-glass glory and fickle tempers, or the Jewish God that allowed a Holocaust to happen, or her own atheistic belief accompanied by the constant pull of there being something more. I remember born-again rallies with my Girl's College friends in NZ, where God meant pulling a semi-truck from a rope between your teeth or being at one with a drum beat to a rock-and-roll hymn. I see the world around me here, an Islamic nation in constant supplication to a God they don't believe has provided a Christ. The religious confusion goes so beyond crosses atop steeples or Darwin fish slapped across Subarus. The world's swaying from sky-high, air-thin branches because they've lost the root of it all. They do not know who God is.
Now, I am not saying that I do. I am nowhere near such revelation, but I am closer to it because of what I know through the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. And I have been flipping between Words of Mormon 1:8 and 2 Nephi 27:25-26 almost every morning this past week, because the connection makes so much sense in that full soul, pierced heart sort of way and also because Dad's thoughts in last week's email collected together a lot of my own (lest you have any remaining doubt to your calling as Bishop or the recipient of revelation as my father, Dad, your weekly emails have been almost word for word the very answers I've been looking for). He said (hope you don't mind the quoting): "The gospel was restored because God wants to be known. He desires above all things, as our Father, that we love Him as He is and understand Him as He so much wants to be understood. Moses 1:38--He wants us to return to Him, and we have to know Him to live with Him eternally. And how do we do that? By the second half of Words of Mormon 1:8: "...that they may once again come to the knowledge of God, yea, the redemption of Christ." The key to the knowledge of the Father is found in the redemption of Christ."
And that is what we, as missionaries, are trying to tell the world. To publish peace, to speak the words of Christ, to read upon the housetops the glorious news of a Full and Everlasting Gospel. Sometimes the most we can do is tell someone that they are children of God, a Heavenly Father who loves them. Occasionally we are given the incredible opportunity to tell them even more, that God loves them so much that He sent His Son, who came to do His Will---and what that Atonement really means. An Atonement we better understand because of the Book of Mormon, which we have because of the Restoration, which is a marvelous work and a wonder intended for us to know God.
I love the Book of Mormon. It testifies of my Redeemer and tells me what I must do to gain peace in this life and eternal salvation in the life to come. I love God, and am learning to know Him, which in turn allows me to love even more. This is His Church, and it is true.
I love you.
Sister E.
1 comment:
I can't believe you held a baby tiger! And holding a tiger for the Year of the Tiger? All too lucky. Your stories are hilarious. You need to write a book one day. And I couldn't agree more about the gospel. Amen.
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