Sister Simon

Sister Simon is our special sister missionary from Indonesia.  She joined the church 3 years ago.  You don't know what a hug is until you are hugged by Sister Simon.  She loves the Gospel and loves being a missionary.  She came into the mission field at the beginning of summer and we have been very fortunate to have her in Kuching until February 25th and now she going to serve in Singapore.  She is so strong and loves the members.  She speaks Indo, Malay, Chinese, and has learned English on her mission.  She is becoming a powerful missionary.  Her beautiful black hair falls to the middle of her back.  In this picture she is trying on Elder Boyter's cowboy hat and having a good time with us.

There is some friction between Malaysia and Indonesia so she has had to leave Malaysia every 30 days  to have her passport stamped.  We have to leave every 90 days.  Sometimes she has been detained in customs where is she questioned but she has been able to  make it through and return to Kuching.

It was hard for us to let her go this transfer.  She has become such an important part of our mission experience.  We get very close to our missionaries especially the sisters.  Some of our special sisters that left this time is Sister Hillier (England) and Sister Ramahefarivo (Madagascar). 

We took these three sisters to the airport.  Sister Simon and Sister Hillier are going to serve in Singapore and Sister Ramahefarivo is going to serve in KL.  By the way Sister Ramahefarivo lets us call her Sister Rama.  She says her name is one of the shorter names in Madagascar.  Sister Hillier trained Sister Rama.  They were English speaking missionaries.  Sister Simon is Malay missionary.

Sister Hillier and Sister Rama made it through the check in counter fine.  When Sister Simon came up to the counter she was told that she could not go because she did not have a return flight.  The first two sisters made it through without a return flight but she had gone to a different line and maybe because she is from Indonesia they were not going to let her leave the country.  The first thing I thought was good, we get to keep her.  It just seemed strange. They don't want Indonesians in Malaysia and now they were not going to let her leave.  Sister Hillier came up to me and whispered that all Sister Simon needed to do was sign a waiver to not hold Malaysian Air liable.  So I mentioned about signing the waver to the woman at the check in.  At first she acted like she didn't know what I was talking about.  Then she finally left and was gone for about 15 minutes. When she returned, Sister Simon signed the waiver and we were on our way.  

We have heard some horror stories of missionaries stuck in the no man land in the airport. Can't stay in the country and can't fly out.  Sister Simon has had concerns about that happening to her in the past. But as she cuddled in my arms as we waited, I felt the reassurance of the spirit that she would be fine.  We laughed and remembered her special missionary companions as we talked.  It didn't even occur to me that things would not be resolved and she would be on her way.  It wasn't until now, as I write this, that she could have been one of those missionaries in the airport "no man land".

Sister Simon (Indonesia), Sister Bourgeois (convert from Utah), Sister Rama (Madagascar)

Sister Hillier (England) and Sister Boyter(USA)  Sister Bourgeois just arrived six weeks ago.  Kuching is where she is being trained. She will be staying in Kuching. Yeah!  We like her very much.