Selemat Tahun Barru

Hello from Indonesia!!! I'm can't believe that I'm actually emailing y'all from the other side of the world. This past week was probably the hardest week of my life.  First off I've been sick the whole time, and haven't eaten much.  It's been so hard because I feel so weak and I know that I need food but I just haven't been able to keep much down. The food is interesting, to say the least. I like how it tastes, but the thought that it sits out all day in the food cards kind of makes me sick. I really like something called tempe, which is fermented soy beans, its very tastey.  I also really like tahu or tofu.  They fry everything here, and pretty much everything that we eat is from street venders. But they do sell peanut butter and jam and the bread is good, so thats what I've mainly survived off of the last couple of days.

I'm in the city of Bogor, it's about an hour or hour and a half from Jakarta.  It's up in the mountains and rains every day.  They say its cooler here, but I'm still hot all of the time.  Our house is ok, we have toilets, but still no TP so I've had to get used to that, but it reallly is ok!  We only have AC in one room which is the bedroom, thank goodness cause I know I wouldn't sleep without it.  Our city is very Muslim, but the church is strong here, they recently split the wards to make 2.  The church building is very nice, and I'll send a picture of it next week.  But yeah, its great here!  We get around on somthing called an angkot, which it like a hippie van, they are sooooooo hot. The driving here is so weird, they honestly follow no traffic rules here, and everyone drives a scooter, its very slow getting around town.  The malls here are so nice, and everything is honestly soooo cheap.  Like they have a polo store here and everything is like 200.000 rupiah which is expensive for them, but when you think of american dollars its way cheap.
 

My companion is Elder Bills, his dad works for the US embassy so he lived here before the mission.  He knows the language very well, and he's been in Bogor for like 4 months so he knows where everything is. My first couple of days I didn't understand anything, but everyday I understand more and more.  Yesterday I said the opening prayer in sacrament meeting, and had to introduce myself and bear my testimony, which was so scary but, I got through it, and then last night I had to teach a portion of the a lesson, but it all went well.
 

I kind of feel like a celebrity because everyone wants to take a pic with me, and they take pictures of my walking.  And when we're walking in the streets there is always a little group of kids following us calling me big, and practicing their English.
 

Other than that, I'm starting to learn to love Indonesia.  It is very hot and hard to understand people, but I know that if I have enough faith heavenly father will help me with anything I need.