Stake Conference

a few sundays ago, we were happy to go to stake conference. it started at 10am, and we got to the hotel where it was happening around 9:45. we wondered, since we weren't seeing lots of people going into the hotel if we had misremembered the location. but upon entering the lobby, we saw sister budi, and we knew we hadn't misremembered: we were at the right location. we followed her upstairs to the bill meeting room and found that everyone was just already there, seated, waiting for the meeting to start. 

we were ushered up to the front of the room where we could sit with headsets and hear the meeting translated into english. brian didn't listen to any of the meeting in english. i listened to about 1/2 in english and 1/2 in indonesian. the kids and the senior missionaries enjoyed being able to understand what was being said. it's a bit odd to go to church and understand everything that's said. it feels pretty normal now to understand only a fraction of what's said and just catch the main ideas.

 there were a lot of members at the meeting. the solo stake takes in several solo wards, jogja, semarang, surabaya, and malang.

 the missionaries were the last ones to come in since they had been shaking people's hands as they entered the room.

 here, some of the missionaries.

 there was a wonderful choir from jogja that sang several songs during the meeting. the women were dressed in traditional javanese attire--batik skirts and the brightly-colored blouse tops. they even had their hair done in the traditional way. 

 the stake president and mission presidents sat in the front by the podium.

 as you can tell (and will continue to tell), i greatly admired the women in the choir.

 here, the translators for the meeting. two elders (one who serves here in solo but not in our ward) and our friend sonia who will soon marry a guy from utah. 

 they took turns translating. and they did a good job. translating is tough as i know and as sonia affirmed after the meeting ended.

 the woman in the orange blouse was the choir conductor. she did an amazing job leading the music. she put her whole self into it--moving her body and swaying to the music as she led the choir.

 there were some missionaries in the choir too. 

one of the highlights of the meeting that i didn't capture with the camera was william falling asleep on the senior missionary's shoulder who he was sitting by. he was a kind, grandfatherly-type man, and he didn't mind having william rest his head on him.