What's the news?

The news is . . .

I have been assigned to Surabaya, Indonesia!

Indonesian Flag

Surabaya symbol:

A shark and an alligator battling for dominion

I will move next year, at the end of summer, and will do training of various kinds until that time, including learning Indonesian.

This was one of several places on my list I thought would be good to go to. It will be good. The school is good, the assignment is good, I learn a new language. Indonesia is the 4th most populous country in the world, behind China, India, and the United States of America. Surabaya is the second largest city in Indonesia, after the capitol of Jakarta, and has many more people than in my whole home state of Utah! It also has a couple of branches of the Church and is part of the Indonesia Jakarta mission. When they gave out the assignments on Friday afternoon, my assignment was announced second-to-last! As assignments were announced for others I was trying to remember what was left. It was intense. This is the right one for us.

In other news this week: I had a lot going on at work. I received my Russian score, which was about what I expected and good enough to not need any additional training in that language if I get a future assignment that requires it. (Wahoo!) I also got back results of a test that supposedly assesses my ability to learn a language, not counting the all-important factor of motivation, and apparently I should be able to learn languages really well. Great. This week I also had some pretty intense practical exercises like answering tough questions on the spot and giving a speech. It was also intense waiting until Friday afternoon to find out my assignment.

We went out to eat to celebrate on Friday night and visited a couple of fun sights on Saturday, including Madame Tussaud's, which is where I got the first picture in this post.