29 December 2006 – Friday

We have now been in Indonesia for a week. We have managed to stay well, to learn a few things, and we have not been involved in a traffic accident.

I feel great – I slept from about 9:30 to 4:30 which is a step in the right direction. Now if I can just make that from 10:30 to 5:30 it will be almost normal. I tried to study Indonesian this morning but could not really get into it. I find that once again the vocabulary seems to go in one eye and out the other. Nothing much sticks in my mind so I read the same paragraph over and over and do not remember much more than from the first time I read it. But I am not going to give up. We need to speak it around the apartment so that we are just use to speaking and hearing the language.

I am already encouraged by what I have been doing at the gym each morning. Today I put in something over 40 minutes on the treadmill with the speed pushing 4 mph. I also do some sit-ups – not many yet – and a couple of other exercises. Today while on the treadmill I sang songs and studied Indonesian. I found that I could read 90% of the sample testimony that is in the grammar book. I also studied some vocabulary. Now if I could just remember it for more than 10 minutes it would be good.

Back to the apartment for a nice long shower, a little more studying and then breakfast. I am not eating a lot of anything and between that and the exercising I am starting to lose some weight – about two pounds in the last few days. Hopefully this will keep up and I will easily hit my target weight before my birthday. Maybe this time without the Holidays to tempt me in 12 months I will be able to actually keep it off.

Mary showed me her bruise from when she fell down earlier this week – it must be the size of a large dinner plate and the color of beets. Speaking of beets – Elder Roper was really excited about getting to eat dog tonight…it seems a member or investigator promised to prepare it for dinner. I love Elder Roper but he is rather strange at times.

On the way to the gym this morning I once again ran into Elder Leishman and we talked a little about what we might do today. He said maybe Mary and I could go out to the district meeting while he and his wife took care of the office. I would like that much more than being in the office. We could take the Elders to lunch and then perhaps do some shopping.

Yesterday was more like what I expected to do on our mission. Many more ideas are going through my head – but I am sure that there is still a lot to learn before making any major decisions.

We went to the office and then went to the mission home to meet with another district of missionaries. What a difference and I think it has a lot to do with the district leader. I forgot to write down the missionaries name but there are four of them in the district and they are on fire. The district leader, Elder Mateer, served on Sumatra which turns out to have the highest concentration of Christians. So while in Jakarta he looks for people who have the darker skin of Sumatra and approaches them. Since they are already likely to be Christian, the gospel message is easier for them to accept. They are averaging over 3 baptisms a month from the district. So many that the branch president asked them to not have so many. It seems it is a well to do branch and they do not want to spend each Sunday afternoon going to baptisms. At least that has been their feeling in the past but it seems that in the last couple of weeks there has been a break through and the Elders are excited.

After district meeting we went to SoGo market which is an upscale store that seems to cater to Americans and wealthy people. They have just about anything you might want including some American brands. But the cost is high on some items. Meat is especially expensive and since I really do not care about what I am eating – I have not been real hungry since we got here – I do not think we will be buying much.

Sam – the Leishmans and soon our driver – is a lot of help. I think we will get alone well with Sam as we want to learn the language.

We will not go there often and the reason is that they have both Krispy Kreme donuts and a bakery to die for. More calories per square foot than anywhere except a candy store. They are constantly baking and putting out  fresh breads and baked goods.  As soon as we got back to the office the Leishmans were ready to take us home so they could do some errands.

As far as I am concerned our total missionary hours for today were 2 and that is stretching it. We will do nothing tomorrow, go to church on Sunday, and then have Monday off. There is little we can do about this lack of work until the Leishmans leave. But I suspect that there will be few Saturdays that we will be home and we will need to find something to do on Sunday afternoon.

Mary and I have just spent about an hour working on Indonesian grammar. We are trying to understand the use of ‘kan’ as a suffix. Unfortunately after an hour we are just as clueless as we started. Sister Tippets also taught us this lesson for the better part of an hour and obviously it did not sink in then either. So I guess the only way we are going to ever learn how to use ‘kan’ is just to read and listen…and perhaps try reading the section one or two more times.

Mary continues to plug away at reading the Liahona in Indonesian. She pointed out to me that it seems they use words without any prefixes or suffixes. Yet in newspapers and in the scriptures they are careful to always use the correct and full spellings.

For dinner I had some papaya and some instant noodles. I figure it set me back about 40 cents. Mary had some bread pudding she got at the store this afternoon. I would have a great day for eating if it was not for the two donuts and some ice cream I decided to have for a late snack.

We spent the rest of the night watching TV – something we would not have done at home. As soon as we get our own apartment, I am going to probably buy an inexpensive new computer so we can set up a real office. I can then do mission work at home. I can imagine sending lots of e-mails, calling couples, etc. from home on the evenings we are not out doing work. Also on Sunday afternoon and part of Monday.
Now I am going to try to get ‘berjanji’ into my mind once and for all. But if not then “Saya berjanji saya akan besok.”

30 December 2006 – Saturday

I just realized that if we had not changed our tickets, we would have been arriving sometime today. Although we have not done much in the way of missionary work in the last 9 days, at least we have gotten a number of administrative things out of the way, met with a couple of districts, and have managed to get over most of the jet lag symptoms.

I say most because I still woke up just after 4 am to the sound of the call to prayer. I really believe they are louder now than when we first got here. I hope it has something to do with it being holy days.

I forgot to mention in yesterday’s journal that we got back our passports. Unfortunately they did not give us a year’s visa so we will have to go back before the end of March and go through all the mess again. At least by then we will be old hands at the traffic and other time wasting things about Jakarta.

I got to the gym just after they opened. Since there clock is 11 minutes fast it was about 10 to 6. I put a good 40 minutes on the treadmill. During that time I went through a page of Indonesian. I read and translated the paragraph. Then I looked at the English version and translated that back to Indonesian. I also worked on vocabulary – I may have finally got berjanji – to promise – into my head. Also Mengatahui – to follow seems to be getting there. But Terus just slips away. I also did a couple of sets of sit-ups, a few minutes on the horizontal bike, and a few chest exercises. It all seems to be getting easier but I still pour sweat.

On the way back to the apartment I ran into Elder Leishman and we talked some about what they did yesterday afternoon. They are shopping for gifts to take back. He also told me that when they could not stand the office any more they would go shopping or take a trip to Bogor.  I am sure that we will do some of that also, but I imagine we will spend more time trying to help with employment and PEF. When we leave I want to have a strong program in place and hopefully we will be able to train our replacements so whatever we set up continues.

I took my regular shower and after about 30 minutes I am finally cooling off.

We spent most of the morning watching what I think were Japanese made cartoons with the characters speaking English and with Indonesian sub-titles. We turned off the sound so we could concentrate on trying to read the sub-titles. We probably read one or two words out of 10 but we were not frustrated because it seems to be getting easier to do. We also would choose some word we did not know and look it up. So we have a new list of words that we need to learn.

I think the more we do things like that and the more we listen to Indonesian channels so we can learn to hear the words, the sooner we will get to a point where we can converse in Indonesian. Mary and I really need to start using it in the apartment and when we are with Sam. But it is hard so we do not do it often.

We also went to the mini-mart to get some flip-flops for Mary. It is a nice little store and the prices are not that much more than going to the big stores in the mall. I picked up some more different types of instant noodles to try.

A funny thing happened this morning. We did another load of clothes and never thought about what we put in because everything is done in cold water. Big mistake because one of Mary’s purple dresses had never been washed. So we ended up with a nice batch of very pink garments. We immediately washed them again with lots of bleach. I just looked and they are now just kind of pinkish. I decided to wash them one more time and see if we can get them back to white.

Without a car and driver there is not much to do, so we took a nap. I slept for about an hour and Mary seems to be doing even better. I am not sure what we will do for the next 10 hours. I guess we could go to the mall, get some of the new movies on DVD and watch them on this computer.

The day moves on – slowly at times. We have spent the last three hours working on Indonesian, watching a condensed version of the 2002 British Open, eating lunch – I am becoming a real fan of instant noodles – and reviewing the DVDs that came from the Elder Bullpit. There was nothing new about the PEF that we had not already while being trained. However the December 2006 training package was much more extensive in some ways.

I decided that to use up some of the time, I would go back to the gym for about 30 minutes. Because of the long workout this morning, I thought I might not be able to really do much. However I found that the only problem was that I got bored rather quickly so the time seemed to drag on. I put in about 35 minutes on the treadmill and then did some sit-ups. I think if I keep this up I will quickly get back in condition. As I left I got on the scales and with clothes I hit 86.2 kg.

Back at the apartment I found Mary still plugging away on Elder Bednar’s talk on less actives. She is determined to make it all the way through. Before I went to gym we did about two paragraphs and that exhausted my patience. I am married to a very determined and very talented lady.

I am afraid that I need to go get my ears tested. It seems that I have problem with letters that sound the same. It is fine with English because I usually can figure out the word from the context but I will never figure out Indonesian unless I hear clearly. I hope there is someone good to go to hear in Jakarta.

This is getting much too long – but I need to fill my time doing something and this is at least somewhat useful.

Mary fixed delicious omelets for dinner – the first meal we have cooked in Indonesia. I cleaned up and washed the dishes. The rest of the evening was spent watching different things on TV. Some were with Indonesian subtitles and some were just plain pleasure watching. We could have just as well been at home.

It is now approaching 9 pm and the mosques continue to broadcast across the city. I believe it must be some special day because usually by now they are all quiet. Hopefully they will stop so I can go to sleep. But first I need to do some more studying.

31 December 2006 – Sunday

It is 4:30 in the morning and I can not go back to sleep because the mosques are all continually putting out prayers. It would not be bad if there was only one or if all were on the same page, but there are many and no two seem to be in agreement. So there is this constant drone of strange sounds – sometimes rather quiet but then the sound jumps in volume. I would think I could tune it all out long enough to go back to sleep but it is much like a dripping faucet or someone snoring. I lie here anticipating the next wave of sound.  Like right now – the volume has fallen way down but I search for the one in a distance that is still wailing away.

I wrote yesterday that if we had stuck to the original schedule we would have just been arriving. But that is not true – it would have been today.

To try and go back to sleep this morning I read King Benjamin’s talk in Mosiah. I was especially struck by the part where those who had wealth was told that they must impart their goods to the poor among them and judge them not.

On Friday when we met with the Elders they mentioned that they had taught and baptized a man who was very poor. So poor he did not own a shirt and tie. After he was baptized the branch president would not confirm him because he was not properly dressed. In fact he took him aside and accused him of joining the church just to get a handout. As I read Benjamin’s words I thought how that branch president should have given the man his shirt and tie instead of a tongue lashing. As Benjamin points out we are all beggars before God.

The Elders did mention that the branch president may have changed his attitude. He invited the elders to his home and to take part in correlation meeting. I understand this is the first time that this has happened in the branch.

Somehow I managed to get some sleep between 2 and 5:30 but I am not sure how much. Since then – it is now 7:30 – I got dressed – after ironing my shirt – and had breakfast. I then started in on reading the Kitab Mormon and have actually made it through 4 verses. I see some progress but not much. The start of 1st Nephi is easier because I know the story.

Out of the corner of my mind I am hearing the mosques continued broadcasting. I hope that this is something that only happens a few times a year because if it goes on very long it is going to drive me crazy.

We went to one of the branches we will be responsible for and met a few people. It will take some time for us to be accepted but we are determined to become part of their family and to learn the language. One of the elders started to translate for us but I asked him to stop because I wanted to hear the language. I did not understand much of what was said but the spirit of the gospel and the joy it brings to lives was there. They only had two meetings – sacrament and Sunday school – because of the holidays and many families are out of town.

After the meeting we came back to the apartment. We had only been gone for 3 ½ hours so our total commitment to missionary work for Saturday to Monday will be less than 4 hours.  We will just have to bear this until the Leishmans leave. But I did not come 10K miles to spend less than 60% of my time doing the Lord’s work.

I had 10 cents worth of noodles for lunch…I am not sure Mary had anything. We then watched a movie about the Carpenters – with Indonesian sub-titles. We tell ourselves that we are at least learning some Indonesian and I think that is true. I find that I can read more and more of the words. That is I can if they stay on the screen long enough. We comment on the fact that it is too bad we do not have Tivo so we can stop the picture and read the titles. I think I will check to see if there is something like that here in Indonesia.

It seems that either I lost the electronic translator or perhaps Sam found it in the backseat and took it home to keep it safe. The only other place it could be is at the branch we visited this morning. If we do not find it I will have to buy another one because we have come to find it very useful.

We spent the day doing very little except taking naps, working a little on Indonesian and watching TV. It is really very boring and I am afraid that tomorrow will be much the same.

It is New Years Eve and we are going to bed before 9 pm.  Of course we always tend to go to bed before midnight but this is earlier than usual. Not being able to drive is a real bummer but even if we could drive I am not sure what we would do.