Final Mission Post

 

The picture on the left is our last day in the Jakarta office and in the picture on the right some of the young missionaries stopped by our apartment to say goodbye in the evening before our flight. We left our apartment at 3:00 am on Thursday and arrived at the Salt Lake City International airport 26 hours later at 4:00 pm of the same day. By 7:00 pm we had been released from our full-time missionary service as communication missionaries in the Indonesia Jakarta Mission. People sometimes asked us, "What is the hardest thing you face on your mission?" A mission is hard. We often miss that point when the talk about our missions because we tend to hang on to the sweet memories and not dwell on the challenges. This blog, for example, is written mostly about happy times and uplifting experiences. I will not go into all of the challenges we faced except to say that, for us, the hardest part was being far away from our family for so long; our 5 children, 2 daughters-in-law, 2 sons-in-law and 13 grandchildren. That is the only thing that we felt was a real sacrifice. People also ask, "What is the best part about serving a mission?" You can see in this blog that we had a fair number of happy adventures and experiences that were quite positive. We were able to travel to a lot of new places and meet many wonderful people. I was reflecting on the plane about the number of places we visited. Our duties took us to 10 different islands and the Malay Peninsula. The islands of Java, Sumatera, Sulawesi, Bali, Lombok, Borneo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Alor and Timor where we visited many different cities, wards and branches. Our travels were often quite tiring with some long hours in the tropical heat. It was not easy on these old bodies but we would not trade a minute of it. These experiences have enriched our lives and we hope that our service has blessed the lives of our brothers and sisters. The one thing that stands out above all from our mission experience is the great love that we felt. The love of our fellow missionaries and mission leaders, the love of the members and the love and appreciation of the people we interviewed who were recipients of The Church's Humanitarian work. The love we felt on our mission was sweet and pure and brought us closer to the Lord who is the God of love. That love is the thing that we will miss the most.
I didn't get a picture of everyone who met us at the airport in one shot. On the left is the family of Sam and Liz and on the right is Cheri with three of her sisters. 
After we got home to Alpine we were treated to a suprize visit from our youngest daughter, Sydney, who flew out from Atlanta Georgia to be with us. We spent the evening at our house feasting on real american pizza and enjoying the company of family. 
Just before we came home we attended a special conference of all of the senior missionary couples who are currently serving in Indonesia. The conference was held on the beautiful island of Bali where we have a small branch of the Church and where the Humanitarian missionaries are overseeing a number of projects for the people of Bali and nearby islands. Here are a couple of pictures of the senior couples who attended with us.
We are on the left, the next couple to the right are the Snows. Elder Snow is the mission medical advisor and Sister Snow is working on missionary housing and teaching English classes to the missionaries with Sister Furgo. The Furgos, on the far right, are both serving in the office in Jakarta doing various functions that are necessary to keep the mission running smoothly. These are wonderful dedicated volunteers.
Here is the entire group of 12 senior missionaries (minus one) that currently serve in Indonesia. On the right side closest to the camera are the Lallatins and just behind them are the Hastriters. These two couples are both serving humanitarian missions. Behind brother Hastriter, back on the right corner, is Elder Wallwork. Sister Wallwork came with but stayed back in the hotel this particular evening because she was not feeling well. The Wallworks are serving as member and leader support missionaries and at this time they are assigned to Bali but they rotate to other places over time as assigned by the mission president.

This is the final entry. Thank you for your prayers and kind expressions of support and encouragement. We hope you enjoyed reading our blog.









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