Indonesian has no past tense, and sudah only says something is complete. A story is held together by time words and by the order you say things in.
Anchor the time once
Say when, at the start, and then stop marking it.
Kemarin saya pergi ke pasar. ‘Yesterday I went to the market.’
Saya beli buah, terus pulang. ‘I bought fruit, then went home.’
The second sentence has no time marker at all and is unmistakably past, because the first sentence set the scene. English repeats the tense on every verb; Indonesian sets it once and trusts you.
The sequence words
terus ‘then’, the everyday one
lalu and kemudian ‘then’, more written
setelah itu ‘after that’
akhirnya ‘finally, in the end’
Saya bangun jam enam, terus mandi, terus sarapan. Akhirnya berangkat jam tujuh. ‘I got up at six, then showered, then had breakfast. In the end I left at seven.’
Repeating terus is normal and not considered clumsy.
Waktu, for when I was
Waktu kecil, saya tinggal di Prancis. ‘When I was small, I lived in France.’
Waktu itu belum ada internet. ‘Back then there was no internet.’
Waktu also means time and hour. Here it opens a past frame.
Ternyata, the turn in the story
Ternyata means ‘it turned out’, and Indonesian stories lean on it heavily.
Saya cari kunci. Ternyata ada di kantong. ‘I looked for my keys. Turned out they were in my pocket.’
Learning this one word makes your anecdotes sound structured rather than listed.
Sempat and sudah sempat
Sempat means to have had the chance to.
Saya sempat ke Ubud. ‘I managed to get to Ubud.’
Belum sempat. ‘I haven’t had the chance yet.’
That second one is one of the most useful excuses in the language.
What you’ll actually hear
What the book says: Kemarin saya pergi ke pasar, kemudian saya kembali ke rumah.
What you’ll hear: Kemarin ke pasar, terus pulang.
Subject dropped, second time marker dropped, formal conjunction replaced. The story survives intact.