Saying Goodbye....And Hello
The hardest part of the mission was leaving all these cute people--our wonderful family!
And Hello... to little Jade Eliza Rowley who was born June 2, 2016 just a few days after the above picture. Darling daughter of Dave and Candace Rowley. So thankful we were able to meet her before we left.
Wonderful Setting Apart--June 21, 2016. Elder Oaks set President apart and gave him a beautiful blessing. Elder Gerrit Gong set me apart and also gave me a wonderful blessing.
We entered the Mission Training Center on Wednesday, June 22, 2016.
Every day we were immersed in incredible spiritual experiences. We saw and heard from every member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, saw a video talk from President Monson and in-person addresses from President Eyring and President Uchtdorf. The Mission President's Seminar gave us hope that we can do this...so uplifting!
I didn't take pictures to document these occasions, but during separate meals and at tables seating eight people we ate with Elder Holland, Elder Gong, Elder and Sister Ballard, Elder and Sister Evans, Elder and Sister Bob Gay, Elder and Sister Teh. We shook hands and spoke with almost all of the Twelve as well as meeting with Sisters Burton, McConkie, Marriott, Oscarson and many of the General Authority Seventies. (As a side note--the food was excellent--not the regular MTC food and the flower arrangements were gorgeous!)
So after meeting these incredible servants of our Heavenly Father and His Son--what did I learn? We are all here to serve and be served and the General Authorities and Officers of the church are normal but incredible people with divine callings. Their inspired messages buoy me up when the calling seems overwhelming. Such a blessing to feel their spirits and to learn from them. We will share their messages with our missionaries to motivate them and teach them to work and love as the Savior would have us work and love his children in Indonesia.
We found Sister Duncan!
We arrived in Jakarta on Wednesday, June 29, 2016. It took us over 30 hours to get here.
After a tearful goodbye with our Utah kids we flew from Salt Lake to Los Angeles, where we roamed the International Airport which was more like a giant mall.
Five hours later we took off for Hong Kong and tried to sleep through the 15 hour flight. Out of the Hong Kong Airport windows you can see a harbor with big ships. It was a crazy, crowded terminal and it seemed like a thousand people were on our flight to Jakarta.
Once we landed in Jakarta, we went through a short immigration line and waited for over an hour for our bags to appear. I was worried about going through customs. They just ran our carry ons through an x-ray machine and let us through. Maybe our four big suitcases were screened through x-ray as well. At any rate we made it through and met President and Sister Donald and Ari outside the terminal. It felt so great to finally be outside and on the ground in Jakarta!
The ride to the mission home introduced us to the unnerving Jakarta traffic--traffic lanes are ignored--it's just crowd as close as you can to the next car and all of the motorcycles whizz by in any remaining space. The only saving factor is that there are so many vehicles that nobody moves very fast--only a crawl so there's time to twist and turn without hitting anyone. The mission driver, Ari, is very accomplished at all this but sometimes I just closed my eyes!
President and Sister Donald were so wonderful to show us around the office, mission home and our apartment. We appreciate all of their help for the last few months in getting us ready for the mission. They are incredible people and they will be missed so much here.
Jet lag is real and it hit me pretty hard...even after a week I was still waking up at 4 am and feeling pretty dragged out by 7 pm. But every day is getting better! President Rowley is still the Energizer bunny and is his usual healthy, happy and terrific self!
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